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Title: Through the Postern Gate
A Romance in Seven Days
Author: Florence L. Barclay
Release Date: July 31, 2010 [EBook #33309]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE ***
Produced by Al Haines
Through the Postern Gate
_A ROMANCE IN SEVEN DAYS_
By
Florence L. Barclay
Author of
"The Rosary," "The Mistress of Shenstone,"
"The Following of the Star," etc
London and New York
G. P. Putnam's Sons
1912
146_th Thousand_
_Made and Printed in Great Britain by
The Camelot Press Limited,
Southampton._
TO
MY MOTHER
Contents
THE FIRST DAY
THE STORY OF LITTLE BOY BLUE
THE SECOND DAY
MISS CHARTERIS TAKES CONTROL
THE THIRD DAY
THE BOY INVADES THE KITCHEN
THE FOURTH DAY
CHRISTOBEL SIGNS HER NAME
THE FIFTH DAY
GUY CHELSEA TAKES CONTROL
THE SIXTH DAY
MISS ANN HAS "_MUCH_ TO SAY"
AN INTERLUDE
"AS A DREAM, WHEN ONE AWAKETH"
THE SEVENTH DAY
THE STONE IS ROLLED AWAY
THE FIRST DAY
THE STORY OF LITTLE BOY BUTE
"But it was not your niece! It was always you I wanted," said the Boy.
He lay back, in a deep wicker chair, under the old mulberry-tree. He
had taken the precaution of depositing his cup and saucer on the soft
turf beneath his chair, because he knew that, under the stress of
sudden emotion, china--especially the _best_ china--had a way of flying
off his knee. And there was no question as to the exquisite quality of
the china on the dainty tea-table over which Miss Christobel Charteris
presided.
The Boy had watched her pouring the tea into those pretty rose-leaf
cups, nearly every afternoon during the golden two weeks just over. He
knew every movement of those firm white hands, so soft, yet so strong
and capable.
The Boy used to stand beside her, ready to hand Mollie's cup, as
punctiliously as if a dozen girls had been sitting in the old garden,
waiting to be quickly served by the only man.
The Boy enjoyed being the only man. Also he had quite charming
manners. He never allowed the passing of bread-and-butter to interfere
with the flow of conversation; yet the bread-and-butter was always
within reach at the precise moment you wanted it, though the Boy's
bright eyes were fixed just then in keenest interest on the person who
happened to be speaking, and not a point of the story, or a word of the
remark, was missed either by him or by you.
He used to watch the Aunt's beautiful hands very closely; and at last,
every time he looked at them, his brown eyes kissed them. The Boy
thought this was a delightful secret known only to himself. But one
day, when he was bending over her, holding his own cup while she filled
it, the Aunt suddenly said: "Don't!" It was so startling and
unexpected, that the cup almost flew out of his hand. The Boy might
have said: "Don't _what_?" which would have put the Aunt in a
difficulty, because it would have been so very impossible to explain.
But he was too honest. He at once _didn't_, and felt a little shy for
five minutes; then recovered, and hugged himself with a fearful joy at
the thought that she had _known_ his eyes had kissed her dear beautiful
hands; then stole a look at her calm face, so completely unmoved in its
classic beauty, and thought he must have been mistaken; only--what on
earth else could she have said "Don't!" about, at that moment?
But Mollie was there, then; so no explanations were possible. Now at
last, thank goodness, Mollie had gone, and his own seven days had
begun. This was the first day; and he was going to tell her
everything. There was absolutely nothing he would not be able to tell
her. The delight of this fairly swept the Boy off his feet. He had
kept on the curb so long; and he was not used to curbs of any kind.
He lay back, his hands behind his head, and watched the Aunt's kind
face, through half-closed lids. His brown eyes were shining, but very
soft. When the Aunt looked at them, she quickly looked away.
"How could you think the attraction would be gone?" he said. "It was
always you, I wanted, not your niece. Good heavens! How can you have
thought it was Mollie, when it was _you_--YOU, just only you, all the
time?"
The Aunt raised her beautiful eyebrows and looked him straight in the
face.
"Is this a proposal?" she asked, quietly.
"Of course it is," said the Boy; "and jolly hard it has been, having to
wait two whole weeks to make it. I want you to marry me, Christobel.
I dare say you think me a cheeky young beggar to suggest it, point
blank. But I want you to give me seven days; and, in those seven days,
I am going to win you. Then it will seem to you, as it does to me, the
only possible thing to do."
His brown eyes were wide open now; and the glory of the love shining
out from them dazzled her. She looked away.
Then the swift colour swept over the face which all Cambridge
considered classic in its stern strong beauty, and she laughed; but
rather breathlessly.
"You amazing boy!" she said. "Do you consider it right to take away a
person's breath, in this fashion? Or are you trying to be funny?"
"I have no designs on your breath," said the Boy; "and it is my
misfortune, but not my fault, if I seem funny." Then he sat forward in
his chair, his elbows on his knees, and both brown hands held out
towards her. "I want you to understand, dear," he continued,
earnestly, "that I have said only a very little of all I have to say.
But I hope that little is to the point; and I jolly well mean it."
The Aunt laughed again, and swung the toe of her neat brown shoe; a
habit she had, when trying to appear more at ease than she felt.
"It is certainly to the point," she said. "There can be no possible
doubt about that. But are you aware, dear boy, that I have been
assiduously chaperoning you and my niece, during the past two weeks;
and watching, with the affectionate interest of a middle-aged relative,
the course of true love running with satisfactory and unusual
smoothness?"
The Boy ignored the adjectives and innuendoes, and went straight to the
point. He always had a way of ignoring all side issues or carefully
introduced irrelevancy. It made him a difficult person to deal with,
if the principal weapon in your armoury was elaborate argument.
"Why did you say 'Don't'?" asked the Boy.
The Aunt fell at once into the unintentional trap. She dropped her
calmly amused manner and answered hurriedly, while again the swift
colour flooded her face: "Boy dear, I hardly know. It was something
you did, which, for a moment, I could not quite bear. Something passed
from you to me, too intimate, too sweet, to be quite right. I said
'Don't,' as involuntarily as one would say 'Don't' to a threatened
blow."
"It wasn't a blow," said the Boy, tenderly. "It was a kiss. Every
time I looked at your dear beautiful hand, lifting the silver teapot, I
kissed it. Didn't you feel it was a kiss?"
"No; I only felt it was unusual; something I could not understand; and
I did not like it. Therefore I said 'Don't.'"
"But you admit it was sweet?" persisted the Boy.
"Exactly," replied the Aunt; "quite incomprehensibly sweet. And I do
not like things I cannot comprehend; especially with amazing boys
about!"
"Didn't you know it was love?" asked the Boy, softly.
"No," replied the Aunt, emphatically; "most certainly, I did not."
The Boy got up, and came and knelt beside the arm of her chair.
"It was love," he said, his lips very close to the soft waves of her
hair.
"Go back to your seat at once," said the Aunt, sternly.
The Boy went.
"And where does poor Mollie come in, in all this?" inquired the Aunt,
with some asperity.
"Mollie?" said the Boy, complacently. "Oh, Mollie understood all
right. She loves Phil, you know; intends to stick to him, and knows
you will back her. The last part of the time, I brought her notes from
Phil, every day. Don't be angry, dear. You would have done it
yourself, if Mollie and Phil had got hold of you, and implored you to
be a go-between. You remember the day we invaded the kitchen to see
how Martha made those little puffy buns--you know--the explosives? You
pinch them in the middle, and they burst into hundreds and thousands of
little pieces. Jolly things for a stiff
stand-up-in-a-crowd-and-all-hold-your-own-cups kind of drawing-room
party; what we used to call 'a Perpendicular' in my Cambridge days. I
suppose they still keep up the name. Fancy those little buns exploding
all over the place; and when you try to pick up the fragments, they go
into simply millions of crumbs, between your agitated fingers and
anxious thumb!"
The Boy slapped his knee in intense enjoyment, and momentarily lost the
thread of the conversation. The Aunt's mind was not sufficiently
detached to feel equal to a digression into peals of laughter over this
vision of the explosive buns. She wanted to find out how much Mollie
knew. When the Boy had finished rocking backwards and forwards in his
chair, she suggested, tentatively: "You went to the kitchen--?"
"Oh, yes," said the Boy, recovering. "We went to the kitchen to watch
Martha make them, and to get the recipe. You see Mollie wanted them
for her father's clerical 'at homes.' Oh, I say--fancy! The
archdeacons and curates, the rectors and vicars, all standing in a
solemn crowd on the Bishop's best velvet-pile carpet; then Mollie, so
demure, handing round the innocent-looking little buns; and, hey
presto! the pinching begins, and the explosions, and the hopeless
attempts to gather up the fragments!"
The Boy nearly went off again; but he suddenly realized that the Aunt
was not amused, and pulled himself together.
"Well, we stopped on the way to the kitchen for mutual confidences. It
was not easy, bounded as we were by you on the one side, and Martha on
the other. We had to whisper. I dare say you thought we were kissing
behind the door, but we jolly well weren't! She told me about Phil;
and I told her--oh, I told her _something_ of what I am trying to tell
you. Just enough to make her understand; so that we could go ahead,
and play the game fair, all round. She was awfully glad, because she
said: 'I have long feared my dear beautiful Aunt would marry an
ichthyosaurus.' I asked her what the--what the--I mean, what on earth
the meaning of that was? And she said: 'An old fossil.'"
Again the swift flush swept over the calm face. But this time the Aunt
went off, intentionally, on a side issue.
"I have heard you say 'What the deuce' before now, Boy. But I am glad
you appear to realize, judging by your laboured efforts to suppress
them, that these expressions shock me."
She looked at him, quizzically, through half-closed lids; but the Boy
was wholly earnest.
"Well, you see," he said, "I am trying most awfully hard to be, in
every respect, just what you would wish the man who loves you should
be."
"Oh, you dear boy," said Christobel Charteris, a flood of sudden
feeling softening her face; "I must make you understand that I cannot
possibly take you seriously. I shall have to tell you a story no one
has ever heard before; a tender little story of a long-ago past. I
must tell you the story of my Little Boy Blue. Wait here a few
moments, while I go indoors and give orders that we are not to be
disturbed."
Rising, she passed up the lawn to the little white house. The Boy's
eyes followed her, noting with pride and delight the tall athletic
figure, fully developed, gracious in its ample lines, yet graceful in
the perfect swing of the well-poised walk. During all his college
years he had known that walk; admired that stately figure. He had been
in the set which called her "Juno" and "The Goddess"; which crowded to
the clubs if there was a chance of watching her play tennis. And now,
during two wonderful weeks, he had been admitted, a welcomed guest, to
this little old-world oasis, bounded by high red-brick walls, where she
dwelt and ruled. Quiet, sunny, happy hours he had spent in the hush of
the old garden, strolling up and down the long narrow velvet turf,
beneath the spreading trees, from the green postern gate in the
right-hand corner of the bottom wall, to the flight of stone steps
leading up to the garden-door of the little white house.
The Boy knew, by now, exactly what he wanted. He wanted to marry
Christobel Charteris.
He must have been rather a brave boy. He looked very youthful and slim
as he lay back in his chair, watching the stately proportions of the
woman on whom he had set his young heart; very slight and boyish, in
his silver-grey suit, with lavender tie, and buttonhole of violas. The
Boy was very particular about his ties and buttonholes. They always
matched. This afternoon, for the first time, he had arrived without a
buttonhole. In the surprise and pleasure of his unexpected appearance,
the Aunt had moved quickly down the sunlit lawn to meet and greet him.
Mollie had departed, early that morning. Her final words at the
railway station, as her impish little face smiled farewell from the
window of her compartment, had been: "Mind, Auntie dear, no mistake
about Guy Chelsea! He's a charming fellow; and thank you ever so much
for giving me such a good time with him. But you can report to Papa,
that Guy Chelsea, _and_ his beautiful properties, _and_ his prospective
peerage, _and_ his fifty thousand a year, _and_ his motor-cars, _and_
his flying-machines, are absolutely powerless to tempt me away from my
allegiance to Phil. Beside, it so happens, Guy himself is altogether
in love with SOME ONE ELSE."
The train having begun to move at the words "You can report to Papa,"
Mollie finished the remainder of the sentence in a screaming crescendo,
holding on to her hat with one hand, and waving a tiny lace
pocket-handkerchief, emphatically, with the other. Even then, the Aunt
lost most of the sentence, and disbelieved the rest. The atmosphere of
love had been so unmistakable during those two weeks; the superabundant
overflow had even reached herself more than once, with an almost
startling thrill of emotion.
The Boy had been so full of vivid, glowing _joie-de-vivre_, radiating
fun and gaiety around him.
In their sets of tennis, played on her own court across the lane at the
bottom of the garden, when she could beat him easily were he
handicapped by partnership with Mollie; but in genuine singles, when
Mollie had tactfully collapsed on to a seat and declared herself
exhausted, his swift agility counterbalanced her magnificent service,
and they were so evenly matched that each game proved a keen delight----
In the quiet teas beneath the mulberry tree, where the incomprehensible
atmosphere of unspoken tenderness gilded the light words and laughter,
as sunlight touches leaf and flower to gold----
At the cosy dinners, to which they sometimes asked him, sitting in the
garden afterwards in the moonlight; when he would tell them thrilling
tales of aviation, describing his initial flights, hairbreadth escapes;
the joys of rapid soaring; the dangers of cross-currents, broken
propellers, or twisted steering-gear----
On all these occasions, the Boy--with his enthusiasm, his fun, and his
fire--had been the life of the happy trio.
During those evenings, in the moonlight, when he started off on
airships, one heart stood still very often while the Boy talked; but it
stood still, silently. It was Mollie who clasped her hands and
implored him never to fly again; then, in the next breath, begged him
to take her as a passenger, on the first possible occasion.
Happy days! But Mollie was the attraction; therefore, with Mollie's
departure, they would naturally come to an end.
The Boy had not asked if he might come again; and, for the moment, she
forgot that the Boy rarely asked for what he wanted. He usually took
it.
She had a lonely luncheon; spent the afternoon over letters and
accounts, picking up the dull threads of things laid aside during the
gay holiday time.
It was not the Professor's day for calling. She was alone until four.
Then she went out and sat under the mulberry. The garden was very
quiet. The birds' hour of silence was barely over.
Jenkins, the butler, had been sent into the town, so Martha brought out
tea; as ample, as carefully arranged, as ever; and--cups for two!
"Why two cups, Martha?" queried Miss Charteris, languidly.
"Maybe there'll be a visitor," said Martha in grim prophetic tones.
Then her hard old face relaxed and creased into an unaccustomed smile.
"Maybe there is a visitor," she added, softly; for at that moment the
postern gate banged, and they saw the Boy coming up the garden, in a
shaft of sunlight.
The Aunt walked quickly to meet him. His arrival was so unexpected;
and she had been so lonely, and so dull.
"How nice of you," she said; "with the Attraction gone. But Martha
seems to have had a premonition of your coming. She has just brought
out tea, most suggestively arranged for two. How festive you are, Boy!
Why this wedding attire? Are you coming from, or going to, a function?
No? Then don't you want tennis after tea--a few good hard sets; just
we two, unhandicapped by our dear little Mollie?"
"No," said the Boy; "talk, please, to-day; just we two, unhandicapped
by our dear little Mollie. Talk please; not tennis."
He paused beside the border, full of mauve and purple flowers. "How
jolly those little what-d'-you-call-'ems look, in the sunshine," he
said.
Then the Aunt noticed that he wore no buttonhole, and that his tie was
lavender. She picked four of her little violas, and pinned them into
his coat.
"Boy dear," she said, "you are a dandy in the matter of ties and
buttonholes; only it is so essentially _you_, that one rather enjoys
it. But this is the first day I have known you to arrive without one,
and have need to fall back upon my garden."
"It _is_ a first day," said the Boy, dropping into step with her, as
she moved toward the mulberry tree. "It starts a new régime, in the
matter of buttonholes, and--other things. I am going to have seven
days, and this is the first."
"Really?" smiled the Aunt, amused at the Boy's intense seriousness. "I
am flattered that you should spend a portion of 'the first day' with
me. Let us have tea, and then you shall tell me why seven days; and
where you mean to pass them."
The Boy was rather silent during tea. The Aunt, trying to read his
mind, thought at first that he regretted his flannels, and the chance
of tennis; then that he was missing Mollie. Whereupon the Aunt
repeated her remark that it was nice of him to come, now the Attraction
was no longer there.
This gave him the cue for which he waited. His cup was empty, and
safely on the grass. The floodgates of the Boy's pent-up love and
longing burst open; the unforgettable words, "It was always you I
wanted," were spoken; and now he waited for her, under the mulberry
tree. She had something to tell him; but, whatever it might be, it
could not seriously affect the situation. _He_ had told _her_--that
was the great essential. He would win her in seven days. Already she
knew just what he wanted--a big step for the first day. He looked up,
and saw her coming.
She had regained her usual calm. Her eyes were very kind. She smiled
at the Boy, gently.
She took her seat in a low basket-work chair. He had leapt to his
feet. She motioned him to another, just opposite hers. She was
feeling rather queenly. Unconsciously her manner became somewhat
regal. The Boy enjoyed it. He knew he was bent upon winning a queen
among women.
"I am going to tell you a story," she said.
"Yes?" said the Boy.
"It is about my Little Boy Blue."
"Yes?"
"_You_ were my Little Boy Blue."
"I?"
"Yes; twenty years ago."
"Then I was six," said the Boy, quite unperturbed.
"We were staying at Dovercourt, on the east coast. Our respective
families had known each other. I used to watch you playing on the
shore. You were a very tiny little boy."
"I dare say I was quite a nice little boy," said the Boy, complacently.
"Indeed you were; quite sweet. You wore white flannel knickers, and a
little blue coat."
"I dare say it was quite a nice little coat," said the Boy, "and I hope
my womenfolk had the tact to call it a 'blazer.'"
"It was a dear little coat--I should say 'blazer,'" said the Aunt; "and
I called you my 'Little Boy Blue.' You also had a blue flannel cap,
which you wore stuck on the back of your curls. I spoke to you twice,
Little Boy Blue."
"Did you?" he said, and his brown eyes were tender. "Then no wonder I
feel I have loved you all my life."
"Ah, but wait until you hear my story! The first time I spoke to you,
it happened thus. Your nurse sat high up on the beach, in the long
line of nurses, gossiping and doing needlework. You took your little
spade and bucket, and marched away, all by yourself, to a breakwater;
and there you built a splendid sand castle. I sat on the breakwater,
higher up, and watched you. You took immense pains; you overcame
stupendous difficulties; and every time your little cap fell off, you
picked it up, dusted off the sand with the sleeve of your little blue
coat, and stuck it on the back of your curly head again. You were very
sweet, Little Boy Blue. I can see you now."
The Aunt paused, and let her eyes dwell upon the Boy in appreciative
retrospection. If he felt this something of an ordeal, he certainly
showed no signs of it. Not for a moment did his face lose its
expression of delighted interest.
"Presently," continued the Aunt, "your castle and courtyard finished,
you made a little cannon in the centre of the courtyard, for defence.
Then you looked around for a cannon-ball. This was evidently a weighty
matter, and indeed it turned out to be such. You stood your spade
against the breakwater; placed your bucket beside it; readjusted your
little cap, and trotted off almost to the water's edge. Your
conception of the size of your castle and cannon must have become
magnified with every step of those small sturdy feet, for, arrived at
the water, you found a huge round stone nearly as large as your own
little head. This satisfied you completely, but you soon found you
could not carry it in your hands. You spent a moment in anxious
consideration. Then you took off your little blue coat, spread it upon
the sand, rolled the cannon-ball upon it, tied the sleeves around it,
picked up the hem and the collar, hoisted the heavy stone, and
proceeded slowly and with difficulty up the shore. Every moment it
seemed as if the stone must fall, and crush the bare toes of my Little
Boy Blue. So I flew to the rescue.
"'Little Boy Blue,' I said, 'may I help you to carry your stone?'
"You paused, and looked up at me. I doubt if you had breath to answer
while you were walking. Your little face was flushed and damp with
exertion; the blue cap was almost off; you had sand on your eyebrows,
and sand on your little straight nose. But you looked at me with an
expression of indomitable courage and pride, and you said: 'Fanks; but
I always does my own cawwying.' With that you started on, and I fell
behind--rebuffed!"
"Surly little beast!" ejaculated the Boy.
"Not at all," said the Aunt. "I won't have my Little Boy Blue called
names! He showed a fine independence of spirit. Now hear what
happened next.
"Little Boy Blue had almost reached his castle, with his somewhat
large, but otherwise suitable, cannon-ball, when his nurse, glancing up
from her needlework, perceived him staggering along in his
shirt-sleeves, and also saw the use to which he was putting his flannel
coat. She threw aside the blue over-all she was making, rushed down
the shore, calling my Little Boy Blue every uncomplimentary compound
noun and adjective which entered her irate and flurried mind; seized
the precious stone, unwound the little jacket, flung the stone away,
shook out the sand and seaweed, and straightened the twisted sleeves.
Then she proceeded to shake the breath out of my Little Boy Blue's
already rather breathless little body; put on the coat, jerked him up
the shore, and plumped him down with his back to the sea and his
castle, to sit in disgrace and listen, while she told the assembled
nurses what a 'born _h_imp of _h_evil' he was! I could have slain that
woman! And I knew my little Boy Blue had no dear mother of his own. I
wanted to take him in my arms, smooth his tumbled curls, and comfort
him. And all this time he had not uttered a sound. He had just
explained to me that he always did his own carrying, and evidently he
had learned to bear his childish sorrows in silence. I watched the
little disconsolate blue back, usually so gaily erect, now round with
shame and woe. Then I bethought me of something I could do. I made
quite sure he was not peeping round. Then I went and found the chosen
stone, and it was heavy indeed! I carried it to the breakwater, and
deposited it carefully within the courtyard of the castle. Then I sat
down behind the breakwater, on the other side, and waited. I felt sure
Little Boy Blue would come back for his spade and bucket.
"Presently the nurses grew tired of bullying him. The strength of his
quiet non-resistance proved greater than their superior numbers and
brute force. Also his intelligent little presence was, undoubtedly, a
check upon their gossip. So he was told he might go; I conclude, on
the understanding that he should 'be a good boy' and carry no more
'nasty heavy stones.' I saw him rise and shake the dust of the nurses'
circle off his little feet! Then he pushed back his curls, and,
without looking to the right or to the left, trotted straight to his
castle. I wondered he did not glance, however hopelessly, in the
supposed direction of the desired stone. But, no! He came gaily on;
and the light of a great expectation shone in his brown eyes.
"When he reached the breakwater, and found his castle, there--safely in
the courtyard--reposed the mighty cannon-ball. He stood still a
moment, looking at it; and his cheeks went very pink. Then he pulled
off his little cap, and turned his radiant face up to the blue sky,
flecked with fleeting white clouds. And--'Fank de Lord,' said my
Little Boy Blue."
There were unconcealed tears in the Aunt's kind eyes, and she
controlled her quiet voice with difficulty. But the glory of a great
gladness had come over the Boy. Without as yet explaining itself in
words, it rang in his voice and laughter.
"I remember," he said. "Why, of course I remember! Not you, worse
luck; but being lugged up the shore, and fearing I had lost my
cannon-ball. And, you know, as quite a tiny chap, I had formed a habit
of praying about all my little wants and woes. I sometimes think, how
amused the angels must have been when my small petitions arrived.
There was a scarecrow, in a field, I prayed for, regularly, every
night, for weeks. I had been struck by the fact that it looked lonely.
Then I seriously upset the theology of the nursery, by passing through
a course of persistent and fervent prayer for Satan. It appeared as an
obvious logical conclusion to my infant mind: that if the person
who--according to nurse--spent all his time in going about making
everybody naughty, could himself become good, all naughtiness would
cease. Also, that anybody must be considered as 'past praying for,'
was an idea which nearly broke my small heart With rage and misery,
when it was first crudely forced upon me. I think the arch-fiend must
have turned away, silent and nonplussed, if he ever chanced to pass by,
while a very tiny boy was kneeling up in his crib, pleading with
tearful earnestness: 'Please God, bless poor old Satan; make him good
an' happy; an' take him back to heaven.' But it used to annoy nurse
considerably, when she came into the same prayer, with barely a comma
between."
"Oh, my Little Boy Blue!" cried the Aunt. "Why was I not your mother!"
"Thank goodness, you were not!" said the Boy, imperturbably. "I don't
want you for a mother, dear. I want you for my wife."
"So you had prayed about the stone?" remarked the Aunt, hurriedly.
"Yes. While seated there in disgrace, I said: 'Please God, let an
angel find my cannon-ball, which howwid old nurse fwowed away. An' let
the angel cawwy it safe to the courtyard of my castle.' And I was not
at all surprised to find it there; merely very glad. So you see,
Christobel, you were my guardian angel twenty years ago. No wonder I
feel I have known and loved you, all my life."
"Wait until you hear the rest of my story, Little Boy Blue. But I can
testify that you were not surprised. Your brown eyes were simply
shining with faith and expectation, as you trotted down the shore.
But--who said you might call me 'Christobel'?"
"No one," replied the Boy. "I thought of it myself. It seemed so
perfect to be able to say it on the first of my seven days. And, if
you consider, I have never called you 'Miss Charteris.' You always
seemed to me much too splendid to be 'Miss' anything. One might as
well say 'Miss Joan of Arc' or 'Miss Diana of the Ephesians.' But of
course I won't call you 'Christobel' if you would rather not."
"You quite absurd boy!" said the Aunt, laughing. "Call me anything you
like--just for your seven days. But you have not yet told me the
meaning or significance of these seven days."
The Boy sat forward, eagerly.
"It's like this," he said. "I have always loved the story of how the
army of Israel marched round Jericho during seven days. It appeals to
me. The well-garrisoned, invincible city, with its high walls and
barred gates. The silent, determined army, marching round it, once
every day. Apparently nothing was happening; but, in reality, their
faith, enthusiasm, and will-power were undermining those mighty walls.
And on the seventh day, when they marched round seven times to the
blast of the priestly trumpets; at the seventh time, the ordeal of
silence was over; leave was given to the great silent host to shout.
So the rams' horns sounded a louder blast than ever; and then, with all
the pent-up enthusiasm born of those seven days of silent marching, the
people shouted! Down fell the walls of Jericho, and up the conquerors
went, right into the heart of the citadel.... _I_ am prepared to march
round in silence, during seven days; but on the seventh day, Jericho
will be taken."
"_I_ being Jericho, I conclude," remarked the Aunt, dryly. "I cannot
say I have particularly noticed the silence. But that part of the
programme would be decidedly dull; so we will omit it, and say, from
the first: 'little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn!'"
"I shall blow it all right, on the seventh day," said the Boy, "and
when I do, you will hear it."
He got up, came across, and knelt by the arm of her chair.
"I shall walk right up into the heart of the citadel," he said, "when
the gates fly open, and the walls fall down; and there I shall find
you, my Queen; and together we shall 'inherit the kingdom.' O dear
unconquered Citadel! O beautiful, golden kingdom! Don't you wish it
was the seventh day _now_, Christobel?"
His mouth looked so sweet, as he bent over her and said "Christo_bel_,"
with a queer little accent on the final syllable, that the Aunt felt
momentarily dizzy.
"Go back to your chair, at once, Boy," she whispered.
And he went.
Neither spoke a word, for some minutes. The Boy lay back, watching the
mysterious moving of the mulberry leaves. The triumphant happiness in
his face was a rather breathless thing to see. It made you want to
hear a great orchestra burst into the Hallelujah Chorus.
The Aunt watched the Boy, and wondered whether she must tell him about
the Professor, before the seventh day; and what he would say, when she
did tell him; and how Jericho would feel when the army of Israel, with
silent trumpets and banners drooping, marched disconsolate away,
leaving its walls still standing; its gates still barred. Poor walls,
supposed to be so mighty! Already they were trembling. If the Boy had
not been so chivalrously obedient, he could have broken into the
citadel, five minutes ago. Did he know? .... She looked at his
radiant face.... Yes; he knew. There were not many things the Boy did
not know. She must not allow the seven days, even though she could
absolutely trust his obedience and his chivalry. She must tell him the
rest of the story, and send him away to-day. Poor invading army, shorn
of its glad triumph! Poor Jericho, left desolate! It was decidedly
unusual to be compared to Jericho, and Diana of the Ephesians, and Joan
of Arc, all in the same conversation; and it was rather funny to enjoy
it. But then most things which happened by reason of the Boy _were_
funny and unusual. He would always come marching 'as an army with
banners.' The Professor would drive up to Jericho in a fly, and knock
a decorous rat-tat on the gate. Would the walls tremble at that knock?
Alas, alas! They had never trembled yet. Would they ever tremble
again, save for the march-past of the Boy? Would the gates ever really
fly open, except to the horn-blast of little Boy Blue? ... The Aunt
dared not think any longer. She felt she must take refuge in immediate
action.
"Boy dear," she said, in her most maternal voice, "come down from the
clouds, and listen to me. I want to tell you the rest of the story of
my Little Boy Blue."
He sprang up, and came and sat on the grass at her feet. All the Boy's
movements were so bewilderingly sudden. They were over and done,
before you had time to consider whether or no you intended to allow
them. But this new move was quite satisfactory. He looked less big
and manly, down on the grass; and she _really_ felt maternal, with his
curly head so close to her knee. She even ventured to put out a cool
motherly hand and smooth the hair back from his forehead, as she began
to speak. She had intended to touch it only once--just to accentuate
the fact of her motherliness--but it was the sort of soft thick hair
which seemed meant for the gentle passing through it of a woman's
fingers. And the Boy seemed to like it, for he gave one long sigh of
content, and leaned his head against her knee.
"Now I must tell you," said the Aunt, "of the only other time when I
ventured to speak to my Little Boy Blue. He had come to his favourite
place beside the breakwater. The tide had long ago swept away castle,
courtyard, and cannon; but the cannon-ball was still there. It partook
of the nature of 'things that remain.' Heavy stones usually do! When I
peeped over the breakwater, Little Boy Blue was sitting on the sand.
His sturdy legs were spread wide. His bare toes looked like ten little
pink sea-shells. Between his small brown knees, he had planted his
bucket. His right hand wielded a wooden spade, on the handle of which
was writ large, in blue pencil: _Master Guy Chelsea_. He was bent upon
filling his bucket with sand. But the spade being long, and the bucket
too close to him--(Boy, leave my shoe alone! It does not require
attention)--most of the sand missed the bucket, and went over himself.
I heard him sigh rather wearily, and say 'Blow!' in a tired little
voice. I leaned over the breakwater. 'Little Boy Blue,' I said, 'may
I play with you, and help you to fill your bucket with sand?'
"Little Boy Blue looked up. His curls, his eyebrows, his long dark
eyelashes were full of sand. There was sand on his little straight
nose. But no amount of sand could detract from the dignity of his
little face, or weaken its stern decision. He laid down his spade, put
up a damp little hand, and, lifting his blue cap to me, said: 'Fanks;
but I don't like girls.' Oh, Master Guy Chelsea, how you snubbed me!"
The Boy's broad shoulders shook with laughter, but he captured the hand
still smoothing his hair; and, drawing it down to his lips, kissed it
gently, back and palm, and then each finger.
"Poor kind-hearted, well-meaning little girl," he said. "But she must
admit, little girls of seven are not always attractive to small boys of
six."
"I was not seven," said the Aunt, with portentous emphasis. "Leave go
of my hand, Boy, and listen. _When you were six, I was sixteen_."
This bomb of the Aunt's was received with a moment's respectful
silence, as befitted the discharge of her principal field-piece. Then
the Boy's gay voice said:
"And what of that, dear? When I was six, you were sixteen. When I was
twenty, you were twenty-nine----"
"Thirty, Boy; thirty! Be accurate. And now--you are twenty-six, and I
am getting on towards forty----"
"Thirty-six, dear, thirty-six! Be accurate!" pleaded the Boy.
"And when you are forty, I shall be fifty; and when you are fifty,
Boy--only fifty; a man is in his prime at fifty--I shall be sixty."
"And when I am eighty," said the Boy, "you will be ninety--an old lady
is in her prime at ninety. What a charming old couple we shall be! I
wonder if we shall still play tennis. I think quite the jolliest thing
to do, when we are very _very_ old--quite decrepit, you know--will be
to stay at Folkestone, and hire two bath-chairs, with nice active old
men to draw them; ancient, of course, but they would seem young
compared to us; and then make them race on the Leas, a five-pound note
to the winner, to insure them really galloping. We would start at the
most crowded time, when the band was playing, and race in and out among
lots of other bath-chairs going slowly, and simply terrified at us.
Let's be sure and remember to do it, Christobel, sixty years from
to-day. Have you a pocket-book? I shall be a gay young person of
eighty-six, and you----"
"Boy dear," she said, bending over him, with a catch in her voice; "you
_must_ be serious and listen. When I have said that which I must say,
you will understand directly that it is no use having your seven days.
It will be better and wiser to raise the siege at once, and march away.
Listen! ... Hush, stay perfectly still. No; I can say what I am going
to say more easily if you don't look at me.... Please, Boy;
_please_.... I told you my 'Little Boy Blue stories' to make you
realize how very much older I am than you. I was practically grown up,
when you were still a dear delightful baby. I could have picked you up
in my arms and carried you about. Oh, _cannot_ you see that, however
much I loved him--perhaps I should rather say: just _because_ I love
him, because I have always wanted to help him carry his heavy stones;
make the best of his life, and accomplish manfully the tasks he sets
himself to do--I could not possibly marry my Little Boy Blue? I could
not, oh I _could_ not, let him tie his youth and brightness to a woman,
staid and middle-aged, who might almost be his mother!"
The earnest, anxious voice, eager in its determined insistence, ceased.
The Boy sat very still, his head bent forward, his brown hands clasping
his knees. Then suddenly he knelt up beside her, leaned over the arm
of her chair, and looked into her eyes. There was in his face such a
tender reverence of adoration, that the Aunt knew she need not be
afraid to have him so near. This was holy ground. She put from off
her feet the shoes of doubt and distrust; waiting, in perfect calmness,
to hear what he had to say.
"Dear," murmured the Boy, tenderly, "your little stories might possibly
have had the effect you intended--specially the place where you paused
and gazed at me as if you saw me still with sand upon my nose, and ten
pink toes like sea-shells! That was calculated to make any chap feel
youngish, and a bit shy. Wasn't it? Yes; they might have told the way
you meant, were it not for one dear sentence which overshadows all the
rest. You said just now: 'I knew my little Boy Blue had no mother. I
wanted to take him in my arms, smooth his curls, and comfort him.'
Christobel, that dear wish of yours was a gift you then gave to your
Little Boy Blue. You can't take it away now, because he has grown
bigger. He still has no mother, no sisters, no near relations in the
world. That all holds good. Can you refuse him the haven, the help,
the comfort you would have given him then, now--when at last he is old
enough to know and understand; to turn to them, in grateful worship and
wonder? Would you have me marry a girl as feather-brained, as
harum-scarum, as silly as I often am myself? You suggest Mollie; but
the Boy Blue of to-day agrees with his small wise self of twenty years
ago and says: 'Fanks, but I don't like girls!' Oh, Christobel, I want
a woman's love, a woman's arms, a woman's understanding tenderness!
You said, just now, you wished you had been my mother. Does not the
love of the sort of wife a fellow really wants, have a lot of the
mother in it too? I've been filled with such a glory, Christobel,
since you admitted what you felt for your Little Boy Blue because I
seemed to know, somehow, that having once felt it, though the feeling
may have gone to sleep, you could never put it quite away. But, if
your Little Boy Blue came back, from the other end of the world, and
wanted you----"
The Boy stopped suddenly, struck dumb by the look on the beautiful face
beneath his. He saw it pale to absolute whiteness, while the dear firm
lips faltered and trembled. He saw the startled pain leap into the
eyes. He did not understand the cause of her emotion, or know that he
had wakened in that strongly repressed nature the desperate hunger for
motherhood, possible only to woman at the finest and best.
She realized now why she had never forgotten her Little Boy Blue of the
Dovercourt sands. He, in his baby beauty and sweetness, had wakened
the embryo mother in the warm-hearted girl of sixteen. And now he had
come back, in the full strength of his young manhood, overflowing with
passionate ideality and romance, to teach the lonely woman of
thirty-six the true sweet meaning of love and of wifehood.
Her heart seemed to turn to marble and cease beating. She felt
helpless in her pain. Only the touch of her Little Boy Blue, or of
baby Boy Blues so like him, that they must have come trotting down the
sands of life straight from the heaven of his love and hers, could ever
still this ache at her bosom.
She looked helplessly up into his longing, glowing, boyish face--so
sweet, so young, so beautiful.
Should she put up her arms and draw it to her breast?
She had given no actual promise to the Professor. She had not
mentioned him to the Boy.
Ah, dear God! If one had waited twelve long years for a thing which
was to prove but an empty husk after all! In order not to fail the
possible expectations of another, had she any right to lay such a heavy
burden of disappointment upon her little Boy Blue? And, if she _must_
do so, how could she best help him to bear it?
"Fanks," came a brave little voice, with almost startling distinctness,
across the shore of memory; "Fanks, but I always does my own cawwying."
At last she found her voice.
"Boy dear," she said, gently; "please go now. I am tired."
Then she shut her eyes.
In a few seconds she heard the gate close, and knew the garden was
empty.
Tears slipped from between the closed lids, and coursed slowly down her
cheeks. The only right way is apt to be a way of such pain at the
moment, that even those souls possessing clearest vision and endowed
with strongest faith, are unable to hear the golden clarion-call,
sounding amid the din of present conflict: "Through much tribulation,
enter into the kingdom."
Thus hopeless tears fell in the old garden.
* * * * *
And Martha, the elderly housekeeper, faithful but curious, let fall the
lath of the green Venetian blind covering the storeroom window, through
which she had permitted herself to peep. As the postern gate closed on
the erect figure of the Boy, she dropped the blind and turned away, an
unwonted tear running down the furrows of her hard old face.
"Lord love 'im!" she said. "He'll get what he wants in time. There's
not a woman walks this earth as couldn't never refuse _'im_ nothing."
With which startling array of negatives, old Martha compiled one
supreme positive in favour of the Boy, leaving altogether out of
account--alas!--the Professor.
Then she wiped her eyes with her apron, and chid her nose harshly for
an unexpected display of sentiment.
* * * * *
And the Boy tramped back to his hotel with his soul full of glory,
knowing his first march round had been to some purpose. The walls of
the belovèd Citadel had trembled indeed.
* * * * *
"_And the evening and the morning were the first day._"
* * * * *
THE SECOND DAY
MISS CHARTERIS TAKES CONTROL
The Boy arrived in flannels, his racket under his arm. He came in, as
usual, through the little green gate in the red-brick fruit-wall at the
bottom of the garden. From the first, he had taken this privilege,
which as a matter of fact had never been accorded to anybody.
The Professor always entered by the front door, placed his umbrella in
the stand, wet or shine; left his goloshes on the mat: hung up his cap
and gown, and followed Jenkins into the drawing-room. Though he had
called regularly, twice a week, during the last dozen years--first on
his old friend and tutor, Professor Charteris; after his death, on his
widow and daughter; and, when Miss Charteris was left alone, on herself
only--he never failed to knock and ring; nor did he ever enter
unannounced.
The Boy had dashed in at the garden gate on the occasion of his second
visit, and appeared to consider that he had thus created a precedent
which should always be followed.
Once, and once only--on her thirtieth birthday--the Professor had
brought Miss Charteris a bouquet; but, being very absent-minded, he
deposited the bouquet on the mat, and advanced into the drawing-room
carrying his goloshes in his left hand. Having shaken hands with his
right, he vaguely presented the goloshes. Miss Charteris, never at a
loss where her friends were concerned, took the Professor's goloshes
from his hand, carried them out into the hall, found the bouquet on the
mat, and saved the situation by putting the flowers in water, and
thanking the Professor with somewhat more hilarity than the ordinary
presentation of a bouquet would have called forth.
But to return to the second day. The Boy arrived in flannels, and tea
was a merry meal. The Boy wanted particulars concerning the marriage,
which had taken place a year or so before, between Martha--maid of
thirty years' standing, now acting as cook-housekeeper to Miss
Charteris--and Jenkins, the butler. The Boy wanted to know which
proposed, Jenkins or Martha; in what terms they announced the fact of
their engagement, to Miss Charteris; whether Jenkins ever "bucked up
and looked like a bridegroom," and whether Martha wore orange-blossom
and a wedding veil. He extorted the admission that Christobel had been
present at the wedding, and insisted on a detailed account; over which,
when given at last, he slapped his knee so often, and went into such
peals of laughter, that Miss Charteris glanced anxiously towards the
kitchen and pantry windows, which unfortunately looked out on the
garden.
The Boy expatiated on his enthusiastic admiration for Martha; but at
the same time was jolly well certain he would have bolted when it came
to "I, Martha, take thee, Jenkins," had he stood in the latter's shoes.
Miss Charteris did not dare admit, that as a matter of fact the
sentence had been: "I, Martha, take thee, Noah." That the meek Jenkins
should possess so historical and patriarchal a name, would completely
have finished the Boy, who was already taking considerable risks by
combining much laughter with an unusually large number of explosive
buns.
The Boy would have it, that, excepting in the rôle of bride and
subsequent conjugal owner and disciplinarian, Martha was perfect.
Miss Charteris admitted Martha's unrivalled excellence as a cook, her
economy in management, and fidelity of heart. But Martha had a temper.
Also, though undoubtedly a superficial fault, yet trying to the
artistic eye of Miss Charteris, Martha's hair was apt to be dishevelled
and untidy.
"It _is_ a bit wispy," admitted the Boy, reluctantly. "Why don't you
tell her so?"
Miss Charteris smiled. "Boy dear, I daren't! It would be as much as
my place is worth, to make a personal observation to Martha!"
"I'll tell her for you, if you like," said the Boy, coolly.
"If you do," warned Miss Charteris, "it will be the very last remark
you will ever make in Martha's kitchen, Boy."
"Oh, there are _ways of telling_," said the Boy, airily; and pinched an
explosive bun.
After tea they took their rackets and strolled down the lawn, pausing a
moment while she chose him a buttonhole. The tie was orange on this
second day, and she gathered the opening bud of a William Allen
Richardson rose. She smiled into its golden heart as she pinned it in
his white flannel coat. Somehow it brought a flash of remembrance of
the golden heart of Little Boy Blue, who could not bear that any one
should be past praying for, or that even a scarecrow should seem lonely.
They crossed the lane and entered the paddock; tightened the net on the
tennis-court; chose out half a dozen brand-new balls, and settled down
to fast and furious singles.
Miss Charteris played as well as she had ever played in her life; but
the Boy was off his service, and she beat him six to four. Next time,
he pulled off 'games all,' but lost the set; then was beaten, three to
six.
Miss Charteris was glowing with the exercise, and the consciousness of
being in great form.
"Boy dear!" she called, as she played the winning stroke of the third
set, "I'm afraid you're lazy to-day!"
The Boy walked up to the net, and looked at her through his racket.
"I'm not lazy," he said; "but I'm on the wrong side of Jordan. This
sort of thing is waste of time. I want to go over, and start marching."
"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, amusement 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 noble 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 classics 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 Goddess,' 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 anticipation. 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
peacocks. 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 passed 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 button-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._"
* * * * *
THE THIRD DAY
THE BOY INVADES THE KITCHEN
The Boy sat on a corner of the kitchen table, swinging a loose leg, and
watching Martha make hot buttered-toast.
He had arrived early, and, finding no one in the garden, had entered
the house by the garden-door, to pursue investigations upstairs.
On the mat in the hall he saw a pair of goloshes; in the
umbrella-stand, a very large, badly-rolled umbrella; hanging on a peg
near by, a professor's cap and gown.
The Boy stood stock still in the middle of the little hall, and looked
at the goloshes.
Then from the drawing-room, through the closed door, came the voice of
Miss Charteris--full, clear, measured, melodious--reading Greek tragedy.
_érrois anaidés, én táchei neanía_
declaimed Miss Charteris; and the Boy fled.
Arrived in the kitchen, he persuaded Martha that cigarette smoke was
fatal to black-beetles. He went about, blowing fragrant clouds into
every possible crack and cranny. Martha watched him, out of the corner
of her eye, crawling along under the dresser in his immaculate white
flannels, and Martha blessed her stars that her kitchen floor was so
spotlessly clean. Only this morning she had remarked to Jenkins that
he could very well eat his dinner off the boards. Mercifully,
Jenkins--tiresome man though he usually was--had not taken this
literally; or he might have made the floor less fit for the Boy's
perambulations.
Having taken all this trouble in order to establish his unquestioned
right to smoke in Martha's kitchen, and to pose as a public benefactor
while so doing, the Boy seated himself on the edge of the table,
exactly behind Martha; lighted a fresh "Zenith," and prepared to enjoy
himself.
Martha glanced nervously at the smoke, issuing from cracks and holes on
all sides. It gave her a feeling that the house was on fire. Of
course she knew it was not; but to _feel_ the house is on fire, is only
one degree less alarming than to _know_ it is. However, beetles are
nasty things; and the condescending kindness and regard for Martha's
personal comfort, which crawled about after them in white flannels, was
gratifying to a degree.
So Martha turned and gave the Boy one of her unusual smiles. He was
very intently blowing rings--"bubbles" Martha called them afterwards,
when explaining them to Jenkins; but that was Martha's mistake. They
were smoke rings. It was one of the Boy's special accomplishments. He
was an expert at blowing rings.
Presently:--"Martha, my duck--" he said suddenly.
Martha jumped. "Bless us, Mr. Guy! What a name!"
"What's the matter with it?" inquired the Boy, innocently. "I consider
it a very nice name, and scriptural."
"Oh, I didn't mean m' own name," explained Martha, more flushed than
the warmth of the fire warranted. "Not but what m' godfathers and
godmothers might well 'ave chosen me a better."
"Oh, don't blame them, overmuch, Martha," said the Boy, earnestly.
"You see their choice was limited. If you study your catechism you
will find that it had to be 'N' or 'M'--'Naomi' or 'Martha.' Even at
that early age, they thought you favoured 'Martha' rather than 'Naomi';
so they named you 'Martha.'"
"Well I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Jenkins. "'N' or 'M'! So it is! Now I
never noticed _that_ before. We live and learn! And Jenkins--silly
man--'as always bin annoyed that they named 'im 'Noah.' But how about
when _you_ was christened, Mr. Guy?"
"Oh," explained the Boy, with a wave of his cigarette, "I was
christened a bit later than you, Martha; and, by that time, Parliament
had sat in solemn convocation, and had brought in a Bill to the effect
that all needless and vexatious limitations and restrictions in the
Prayer Book might for the future be disregarded. The first to go was
'N' or 'M.'"
"Well, I never!" said Martha. "I wish they'd ha' done it afore _my_
time."
"You see," expounded the Boy, who was enjoying himself vastly, and
getting the conjunction of the goloshes and the Greek play off his
mind; "you see, Martha, those progressive Bills, intimately affecting
the whole community, of vital importance to the nation at large, are
always blocked by the House of Lords. If the Commons could have had
their own way, you might have been named 'Lucy' or 'Clara.'"
"I don't incline to 'Lucy' or 'Clara,' sir," said Mrs. Jenkins,
decidedly; "being, as they always strikes me, sickly story-book sort of
names; but I _do_ like justice and a free country! I always have felt
doubtful o' them Lords, since I listened to my married niece's husband,
a very respectable journeyman tailor but mostly out of work; and if
it's _their_ doing that I'm 'Martha,' well, _I_ shall know what to do
with Jenkins's vote--that's all!"
The Boy slapped his leg and rocked. "Martha, you ought to be put up to
speak at political meetings. That's the whole thing in a nutshell:
cause, effect, results, arguments, everything! Oh, my wig!--Yes, they
are a lot of old stick-in-the-muds in the Upper House, aren't they?"
pursued the Boy--who had had a long line of dignified ancestors in that
much abused place; had an uncle there at the present moment, and was
more than likely eventually to have to sit there himself--"a rotten lot
of old stick-in-the-muds, Martha; but I think they did well by you.
I'd give them the benefit of Jenkins's vote. I really would. I am
glad they chose 'M,' not 'N.' Naomi was a widow and dismal. She never
made the smallest effort to buck up. But Martha was a nice person; a
bit flurried perhaps, and hot-tempered; but well up in cooking, and
keen on it. I like Martha."
The Boy sat and meditated. Why did she read Greek plays with a person
who left goloshes on the mat, and brought out an ancient umbrella with
a waist, on an absolutely cloudless day?
"It wasn't m' own name surprised me, Mr. Guy, sir," remarked Martha,
coyly; "it was the name you was pleased to _h_add."
The Boy pulled himself together. "Eh, what? Oh, 'Martha, my duck'? I
see. I hope you don't mind, Martha. It seemed to me rather a suitable
and pretty addition to 'Martha.' You see, yours is a name which cannot
be shortened when one feels affectionate. 'Sarah' can be 'Sally';
'Amelia' can be 'Milly'; 'Caroline' can be 'Carrie'; but 'Martha'
remains 'Martha' however loving people feel. What does Jenkins call
you when he feels affectionate?"
Martha snorted. "Jenkins knows 'is place," she said, jerking the round
lid off the stove, and putting on the kettle.
"Jenkins is a model," smiled the Boy.
Then Martha looked round, her feminine curiosity, and perhaps a touch
of jealousy, getting the better of her respectful discretion. She had
seen so much, and heard so little; and she was a very old family
servant.
"What do you call _her_, Mr. Guy?" she asked, in a confidential
whisper, with a jerk of the head toward the mulberry-tree.
"Her?" repeated the Boy, surprised. Then his whole tone softened. It
was so sweet to speak her name to some one. "I call her 'Christobel,'"
he said, gently.
But Martha wanted to know more. Martha was woman enough to desire an
unshared possession of her own. She bent over the fire, stirring it
through the bars.
"Mr. Guy, sir, I suppose you don't--I suppose you do--that is to say,
sir--Do you call _her_ what you've been pleased to call me?"
"Eh, what?" said the Boy, vaguely.
"Oh, I see. 'Christobel, my----' Oh, no, Martha. No, I don't! Not
even when I feel most affectionate." Here the Boy was seized with
sudden convulsions, slapped his knee noiselessly, and rocked on the
kitchen table. He whispered it, in an ecstasy of enjoyment.
"'Christobel, my duck!' Oh, lor! 'Christobel, my duck!' I hope I
shall be able to resist telling her. I should have to own I had called
Martha so. 'Christobel, my----'"
Martha, wondering at the silence, looked round suddenly. But the Boy
had that instant recovered, and was sitting gravely on the corner of
the table.
"Martha, my duck," he said, "to return to the original opening of this
conversation: has Jenkins ever told you what a nice little wisp of hair
you have, behind your left ear?"
"Get along, sir!" retorted Martha, fairly blushing. "You're making
game of me."
"Indeed, I'm not," said the Boy, seriously. "If you made it into a
curl, Martha, and fastened it with an invisible pin, it would be quite
too fascinating. You ask Jenkins. I say, Martha? What's a placket?"
"A placket, sir," said Martha, on her way to fetch something from a
shelf near which hung the kitchen mirror; "a placket, sir, is a thing
which shows when it shouldn't."
"I see," said the Boy. "Then you couldn't exactly go about in one.
Martha, whose goloshes are those, sitting on the mat in the hall?"
Martha snorted. "An old woman's," she said, wrathfully.
The Boy considered this. "And does the umbrella with the waist belong
to the same old woman?"
Martha nodded.
"And the Professor's cap and gown, hanging near by?"
Martha hesitated. "'Tain't always petticoats makes an old woman," she
said, sententiously.
"Martha, you are _pro_-foundly right," said the Boy. "Does the
Professor stay to tea?"
"Thank goodness no, sir. We draw the line at that, 'cept when Miss
_H_ann comes too."
"Who is Miss _H_ann?"
"She's the Professor's sister." Martha hesitated; poured hot water
into the silver teapot; then turned to whisper confidentially, with
concentrated dislike: "She's always a-_h_egging of 'em on!"
"What a curious occupation," remarked the Boy, blowing a smoke-ring.
"Does Miss _H_ann come often?"
"No, Mr. Guy. Thanks be, she's a _h_invalid."
"Poor Miss _H_ann. What's the matter with her?"
Martha snorted. "Fancies herself too much."
"What a curious complaint. What are the symptoms?"
"Fancies herself in a bath-chair," said Martha, scornfully.
"I see," said the Boy. "Oh, poor Miss _H_ann! I should feel very sick
if I fancied myself in a bath-chair. I wish I could meet Miss _H_ann.
I should like to talk to her about the _h_egging-on business."
"_You'd_ make her sit up," said Martha, with spiteful enjoyment.
"Oh no, I shouldn't," said the Boy. "That would not be kind to an
invalid. I should see that she reclined, comfortably; and then I
should jolly well flatten her out."
At that moment a shadow fell across the sunny window. Miss Charteris,
her guest having departed, passed down the garden steps, and moved
across the lawn.
The Boy sprang to his feet. At sight of her, his conscience smote him
that he should have thus gossiped and chaffed with old Martha. He
suddenly remembered why he had originally found his way to the kitchen.
"Martha," he said; "I want you to let me carry out the tea-tray this
afternoon. She doesn't know I am here. She will think it is you or
Jenkins, till she looks round. Let me carry it out, Martha, there's a
duck!"
"As you please, sir," said Martha; "but if you want her to think it's
Jenkins, you must put it down with a clatter. It takes a man to be
clumsy."
The Boy walked over to the window. The mulberry-tree was not visible
from the kitchen table.
"Don't go there, Mr. Guy!" cried Martha. "Miss Christobel will see
you, sir. This window, and the pantry, show from the garden. If you
want to 'ave a look at her, go through that door into the storeroom.
The Venetian blind is always down in there. There is one crack through
which I----"
Martha stopped short, disconcerted.
"One crack through which you think I could see? Thank you, Martha,"
said the Boy, readily. "Hurry up with the tray."
He went into the store-room; found Martha's chink, and realized exactly
what had been the extent of Martha's view, during the last two days.
Then he bent his hungry young eyes on Christobel.
She was seated in a garden chair, her back to the house, her face
towards the postern gate in the old red wall at the bottom of the
garden. The rustic table, upon which he would soon deposit the
tea-tray, was slightly behind and to the left of her. The sun shone
through the mulberry leaves, glinting on the pure whiteness of her
gown. She leaned her beautiful head back wearily. Her whole attitude
betokened fatigue. He could not see her face; but he felt sure her
eyes were open; and he knew her eyes were on the gate.
The Boy's lips moved. "Christobel," he whispered.
"Christobel--belovèd?"
She was waiting; and he knew she was waiting for him.
Presently he dropped the lath of the Venetian blind, and turned to go.
But first he took out his pocket-book and fastened the lath which
lifted most easily, to those above and below it, with halfpenny stamps.
He knew old Martha would take a hint from him. There must be no eyes
on the mulberry-tree to-day.
In the kitchen the tray was ready; tea freshly made, thin
bread-and-butter, cucumber sandwiches; hot buttered-toast in
perfection; cornflour buns, warranted to explode; all the things he
liked most; and, best of all, cups for two. He grasped the tray firmly
with both hands.
"Martha," he said, "you are a jewel! I give you leave to watch me down
the lawn from the kitchen window. But when I have safely arrived, turn
your attention to your own tea, or I shall look up and shake my fist at
your dear nice old face. And, I say, Martha, do you ever write
postcards? Because, if you want any ha'penny stamps, you will find
some on the storeroom blind. Only, _don't want them_, Martha, till
this week is over, and I am gone."
Whereupon the Boy lifted the tray, and made for the door.
Down the lawn he bore it, and set it safely on the rustic table. He
was very deft of movement, was the Boy; yet, remembering his
instructions, he contrived to set it down with something of a clatter.
Miss Charteris did not turn her head Her eyes, half closed beneath the
long lashes, were on the postern gate.
"Jenkins?" she said.
"Yes, ma'am," replied the Boy, in excellent imitation of the meek tones
of Jenkins.
"Should any one call this afternoon, Jenkins, please remember that I am
not 'at home.'"
"Hip, hip, hurrah!" said the Boy.
Then she turned--and her face was all, and more than all, he had hoped
it might be.
"Oh, Boy," she said. "Oh, Boy dear!"
* * * * *
After that, it was a very happy tea. Neither had been quite natural,
nor had they been really true to themselves, the day before; so the
delight of meeting seemed to follow a longer parting than the actual
twenty-four hours. The Boy's brown eyes rested in tenderness on the
hand that filled his cup, and she did not say "Don't"; she merely
smiled indulgently, and added the cream and sugar slowly, as if to let
him do what he willed.
The hum of bees was in the garden; a sense of youth was in the air.
The sunbeams danced among the mulberry leaves.
The Boy insisted upon carrying back the tray, to do away at once with
the possibility of interruption from Jenkins. Then he drew their
chairs into the deeper shade of the mulberry-tree, a corner invisible
from all windows. The Boy had learned a lesson while looking through
the storeroom blind.
There they sat and talked, in calm content. It did not seem to matter
much of what they spoke, so long as they could lie back facing one
another; each listening to the voice which held so much more of meaning
in it than the mere words it uttered; each looking into the eyes which
had now become clear windows through which shone the soul.
Suddenly the Boy said: "How silly we were, the other day, to talk of
the relative ages of our bodies. What do they matter? Our souls are
the real you and I. And our souls are always the same age. Some souls
are old--old from the first. I have seen an old soul look out of the
eyes of a little child; and I have seen a young soul dance in the eyes
of an old, old woman. You and I, thank God, have young souls,
Christobel, and we shall be eternally young."
He stretched his arms over his head, in utter joyful content with life.
"Go on, Boy dear," said Christobel. "I am not sure that I agree with
you; but I like to hear you talk."
"At first," he said, "our bodies are so babyish that our souls do not
find them an adequate medium of expression. But by and by our bodies
grow and develop; after which come the beautiful years of perfection,
ten, twenty, thirty of them, when the young soul goes strong and gay
through life, clad in the strong gay young body. Then--gradually,
gradually, the strong young soul, in its unwearied, immortal youth,
wears out the body. The body grows old, but not the soul. Nothing can
age that; and when at last the body quite wears out, the young soul
breaks free, and begins again. Youthful souls wear out their bodies
quicker than old ones; just as a strong young boy romps through a suit
of clothes sooner than a weakly old man. But there is always life more
abundant, and a fuller life farther on. So the mating of souls is the
all-important thing; and when young souls meet and mate, what does it
matter if there be a few years' difference in the ages of their bodies?
Their essential youthfulness will surmount all that."
Christobel looked at him, and truly for a moment the young soul in her
leapt out to his, in glad response. Then the other side of the
question rose before her.
"Ah, but, Boy dear," she said, "the souls express themselves--their
needs, their delights, their activities--through the bodies. And
suppose one body, in the soul-union, is wearing out sooner than the
other; that is hard on the other--hard on both. Boy--my Little Boy
Blue--shall I tell you an awful secret? I suppose I sat too closely
over my books at Girton; I suppose I was not sufficiently careful about
good print, or good light. Anyway--Boy dear--I have to use glasses
when I read." She looked wistfully into his bright eyes. "You see?
Already I am beginning to grow old." Her sweet lips trembled.
In a moment he was kneeling by the arm of her chair, bending over her,
as he did on the first day; but as he did not do yesterday. Suddenly
she realized why she had felt so flat yesterday, after he was gone.
He lifted her hand and kissed it gently, back and palm. Then he parted
the third finger from the rest, with his own brown ones, and held that
against his warm young lips.
She drew her hand slowly away; passed it over his hair; then let it
fall upon her lap. She could not speak; she could not move; she could
not send him away. She wanted him so--her little Boy Blue, of long ago.
"Old, my Belovèd?" he said. "You--old! Never! Always
perfect--perfect to me. And why not wear glasses? Heaps of mere kids
wear glasses, and wear them all the time. Only--how alarmingly clever
you must look in spectacles, Christobel. It would terrify me now; but
by and by it will make me feel proud. I think one would expect glasses
to go with those awe-inspiring classical honours. With my barely
respectable B.A., I daren't lay claim to any outward marks of
erudition." Then, as she did not smile, but still gazed up at him,
wistfully, his look softened to still deeper tenderness: "Dear eyes,"
he murmured, "oh dear, dear eyes," and gently laid his lips on each in
turn.
"Don't," she said, with a half sob. "Ah, Boy, don't! You know you
must not kiss me."
"Kiss you!" he said, still bending over her. "Do you call that
kissing?" Then he laughed; and the joyous love in his laughter wrung
her heart. "Christobel, on the seventh day, when the gates fly open,
and the walls fall down; when the citadel surrenders; when you admit
you are my own--_then_ I shall kiss you; _then_ you will know what
kissing really means."
He bent above her. His lips were very near to hers. She closed her
eyes and waited. Her own lips trembled. She knew how fearfully it
tempted the Boy that her lips should tremble because his were near; yet
she let them tremble. She forgot to remember the past; she forgot to
consider the future. She was conscious of only one thing: that she
wanted her Little Boy Blue to teach her what kissing really meant. So
she closed her eyes and waited.
She did not hear him go; but presently she knew he was no longer there.
She opened her eyes.
The Boy had walked across the lawn, and stood looking into the golden
heart of an opening yellow rose. His back appeared very
uncompromising; very determined; very erect.
She rose and walked over to him. As she moved forward, with the
graceful dignity of motion which was always hers, her mental balance
returned.
She slipped her hand beneath his arm. "Come, Boy," she said; "let us
walk up and down, and talk. It is enervating to sit too long in the
sunshine."
He turned at once, suiting his step to hers, and they paced the lawn in
silence.
When they reached the postern gate the Boy stood still. Something in
his look suddenly recalled her Little Boy Blue, when the sand on his
small nose could not detract from the dignity of his little face, nor
weaken its stern decision.
He took both her hands in his, and looked into her eyes.
"Christobel," he said, "I must go. I must go, because I dare not stay.
You are so wonderful this afternoon; so dear beyond expression. I know
you trust me absolutely; but this is only the third day; and I cannot
trust myself, dear. So I'm off!"
He lifted both her hands to his lips.
"May I go, my Queen?" he said.
"Yes, Boy," she answered. "Go."
And he went.
It was hard to hear the thud of the closing door. For some time she
stood waiting, just on the inside. She thought he would come back, and
she wished him to find her there, the moment he opened the door.
But the Boy--being the Boy--did not come back.
Presently she returned to her chair, in the shade of the mulberry-tree.
She lay, with closed eyes, and lived again through the afternoon, from
the moment when the Boy had said: "Hip, hip, hurrah!" There came a
time when she turned very pale, and her lips trembled, as they had done
before.
At length she rose and paced slowly up the lawn. On her face was the
quiet calm of an irrevocable decision.
"To-morrow," she said, "I must tell the Boy about the Professor."
* * * * *
In the middle of the night, Martha, being wakeful, became haunted by
the remembrance of the smoke, as it had curled from cracks and keyholes
in the kitchen. She felt constrained to put on a wonderful pink
wrapper, and go creaking slowly down the stairs to make sure the house
was not on fire. Martha's wakefulness was partly caused by the unusual
fact of a large and hard curl-paper, behind her left ear.
Miss Charteris was also awake. She was not worried by memories of
smoke, or visions of fire; and her soft hair was completely innocent of
curl-papers. But she was considering how she should tell the boy about
the Professor; and that consideration was not conducive to calm
slumber. She heard Martha go creaking down the stairs; and, as Martha
came creaking up again, she opened her door, and confronted her.
"What are you doing, Martha?" she said.
Martha, intensely conscious of her curl-paper, was about to answer with
more than her usual respectful irritability, when the eyes of the two
women--mistress and maid--met, in the light of their respective
candles, and a sudden sense of fellowship in the cause of their night
vigil passed between them.
Martha smiled--a crooked smile, half ashamed to be seen smiling. When
she spoke, her aspirates fell away from her more completely than in the
daytime.
"'E went crawlin' about the kitchen," she said, in a muffled midnight
whisper; "all in 'is white flannels, puffin' smoke in every crack an'
'ole to kill the beetles. So kind 'e meant it; but I couldn't sleep
for wonderin' if the place was smokin' still. I 'ad to go down an'
see. 'Ow came you to be awake, Miss Christobel?"
"Things he said in the garden, Martha, have given me food for thought.
I began thinking them over; and sleep went."
Martha smiled again--and this time the smile came more easily. "'E
_'as_ a way of keepin' one on the go," she said; "but we'd best be
gittin' to sleep now, miss. 'E'll be at it again to-morrow, bless 'is
'eart!" And Martha, in her pink wrapper, lumbered upwards.
But the Boy, who had this disturbing effect on the women who loved him,
slept soundly himself, one arm flung high above his tumbled head. And
if the sweet mother, who perforce had had to let her dying arms slip
from about her baby-boy, almost before his little feet could carry him
across a room, saw from above the pure radiance on his lips and brow as
he slept, she must have turned to the Emerald Throne with glad
thanksgiving for the answer vouchsafed to a dead mother's prayers.
* * * * *
"_And the evening and the morning were the third day._"
* * * * *
THE FOURTH DAY
CHRISTOBEL SIGNS HER NAME
"I am exhausted," said the Boy, reaching out a long arm, and securing
his third piece of hot buttered-toast. "I am ruffled. My usual calm
mental poise is overthrown--and on the Sabbath, of all days! Every
feather I possess has been rubbed up the wrong way." He lay back in
the depths of his chair, stretched out his legs, and looked dejectedly
at Christobel.
Her quiet smile enveloped him. Her look was as a cool touch on a hot
forehead.
"Poor Little Boy Blue! I thought something was wrong. I should feel a
keener anxiety, were the hot buttered-toast less obviously consoling."
"I'll jolly well never go again," said the Boy, with indignation. "Not
me!"
"Before you were born, Boy; when I went to school," said Miss
Charteris, "we were taught to say 'Not _I_.' And if you were to tell
me where you have been, on this Sabbath afternoon, I might be able to
give you more intelligent sympathy."
"I've been to a drawing-room meeting," said the Boy, "and I've heard a
woman hold forth. For an hour and a quarter, I've sat stuffed up,
breathing the atmosphere of other people's go-to-meeting clothes, and
heard a good lady go meandering on, while I had no room for my legs."
"I thought you seemed finding them extra long, Boy. Why did you go to
a drawing-room meeting?"
"I went," said the Boy, "because the dear old thing in whose house it
was held asked me to go. She used to know my mother. When I was at
Trinity she looked me up, often invited me to her charming home, gave
me excellent little dinners, followed by the kindest, nicest, most
nervous little preachments. Don't look amused, dear. I never failed
to profit. I respected her for it. She is as good and genuine as they
make 'em; and if _she_ had stood up this afternoon, with her friendly
smile, and dear shaky old voice, and given us an exposition of the
twenty-third Psalm, we should have all come away quite 'good and
happy.' Instead of which--oh, my wig!"
The Boy took an explosive bun, and put it whole into his mouth. "The
only way to manage them on Sunday," he explained, as soon as speech was
possible, "when sweeping is not the right thing. But let us hope
Mollie's papa's 'clerical brethren' won't find it out. There would
certainly be less conversation and fewer crumbs, but no fun at all."
"I don't think you need be afraid, Boy dear. Even should such a way
out of the difficulty occur to them, I am inclined to think they would
prefer the explosion, to the whole bun at a mouthful. It has a rather
startling effect, you know, until one gets used to seeing it done. I
can't quite imagine an archdeacon doing it, while standing on the
hearthrug in conversation with my brother. Now tell me what the good
lady said, which you found so trying."
"Oh, she meandered on," grumbled the Boy. "She told us all we should
have been, if we had not been what we were; and all we might be, if we
were not what we are; and all we shall be, when we are not what we are!
She implored us to consider, and weigh well, _where_ we should go, if,
by a sudden and unexpected dispensation of Providence, we ceased to be
where we then were. I jolly well knew the answer to _that_; for if
Providence had suddenly dispensated--which it didn't, for a good
three-quarters of an hour--I should have been here, _here_, HERE, as
fast as my best Sunday boots could carry me!" His brown eyes softened.
"Ah, think what '_here_' means," he said. "Think! 'Here' means _You_!"
But Miss Charteris did not wish the conversation to become too
meltingly personal.
"What else did she say, Boy?"
He consulted the mulberry leaves, then bounded in his chair. "Ha, I
have it! I kept this tit-bit for you. She used an astronomical
illustration, I haven't the least idea apropos of what, but she told us
exactly how many millions of miles the sun is from the earth; and then
she smiled upon us blandly, and said: 'Or is it billions?' Think of
that! She said: '_Or is it billions?_' in exactly the same tone of
voice as she might have said of the bonnet she had on: 'I bought it, at
a sale, for elevenpence three farthings, _or was it a shilling_?'"
"Oh, Boy, you really _are_ naughty! I never connected you with
personal sarcasm."
"Yes, but that sort of woman shouldn't," complained the Boy. "And with
half Cambridge sitting listening. 'Millions, or is it billions?' Oh
lor!"
"Poor thing!" remarked Miss Charteris. "She could not have known that
she had in the audience a person who had only just avoided the drawback
to future enterprise, of being Senior Wrangler. Had she realized that,
she would have been more careful with her figures."
"Tease away!" said the Boy. "I don't care, now I am safe here. Only I
shan't tell you any more."
"I don't want to hear any more, Boy. I always enjoy appreciations,
even of things I do not myself appreciate. But non-appreciations do
not appeal to me. If a person has meant to be effective and proved
inadequate, or tried to do good and done harm, I would rather not know
it, unless I can help to put matters right. Have some more tea, Boy;
and then I want to talk to you myself. I have something rather special
to tell you."
The Boy stood up and brought his cup to the little table. When she had
filled it, he knelt on one knee beside her, his elbow on the arm of her
chair, and drank his tea there.
"I am sorry, dear," he said, presently. "I won't do it again. Perhaps
I listened wrong, because I was bored at being there at all. I say,
Christobel--it has just occurred to me--did you know my mother?"
The old garden was very still. A hush, as of the Paradise of God,
seemed suddenly to fall upon it. As the Boy asked his quiet question,
a spirit seemed to hover, between them and the green dome of mulberry
leaves above them, smoothing the Boy's tumbled hair, and touching the
noble brow of the woman the Boy loved; a gentle, watching, thankful
spirit--eternally remembering, and tenderly glad to be remembered. For
a few moments the silence was a silence which could not be broken. The
Boy lifted wondering eyes to the moving leaves. Christobel laid her
hand upon his, as it gripped her chair. An unseen voice seemed to
whisper to the Boy--not in the stern tones of the Church, but as an
eager, anxious, question: "Wilt thou--have--this woman--to be thy
wedded wife?" And silently the Boy replied: "Please God, I will"; and,
bending, kissed the hand resting on his.
The spell lifted. Christobel spoke.
"Yes, Boy dear, I knew her. I have often wondered whether I might tell
you. She and my mother were dear friends. I was thirteen when she
died. You were three, poor Little Boy Blue! Two things I specially
remember about your mother: the peculiar radiance of her face--a light
from within, shining out; and the fact that when she was in a room the
whole atmosphere seemed rarefied, beautified, uplifted. I think she
lived very near heaven, Boy; and, like Enoch, she walked straight in
one day, and came back no more. She 'was not'; for God took her."
Another long holy silence. The mulberry leaves were still. Then the
Boy said, softly: "Some day, will you tell me heaps more--details--lots
of little things about her? No one ever has. But I seem almost to
begin to remember her, when you talk of her. Meanwhile, may I show you
this?"
He drew from the inner pocket of his coat, a small well-worn
pocket-Bible. Opening it at the fly-leaf, he passed it to Miss
Charteris.
"It was hers," he said.
She bent over it and read the inscription:
_M. A. Chelsea_
"_Through faith and patience inherit the promises._"
Below, in a delicate writing, traced by a hand that trembled:
_To my Baby Boy from his Mother_
"_I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not._"
She looked at it in silence. How much had this book meant during all
these years, to the "Baby Boy"? Had the book in his pocket, and the
prayers hovering about him, something to do with the fact that he was
still--just Little Boy Blue?
The Boy had taken a fountain pen from his pocket, and was shaking it
vigorously over the grass.
Now he passed it to her.
"Write your dear name beneath," he said.
Infinitely touched, she made no comment, raised no question. She took
the pen, and wrote just "_Christobel_."
* * * * *
"_And the evening and the morning were the fourth day._"
* * * * *
THE FIFTH DAY
GUY CHELSEA TAKES CONTROL
"Now, Sir Boy," said Miss Charteris with decision, "this is your fifth
day. Our time is nearly over. You have done most of the talking. You
have had things entirely your own way. What? ... Oh, well, _almost_
entirely your own way. I have allowed you to play your Old Testament
game to your heart's content. With commendable adaptability, _I_ have
been Jericho, and _you_ have marched round. I have been Jericho in my
own garden, and have refreshed the invading army with hot
buttered-toast and explosive buns. Now it is my turn to take the
initiative. Jenkins having removed the tea, and it being too hot for
tennis, I am going to ask you to sit still, while I explain to you
quite clearly why I must send you away at the close of the seventh day."
She tried to hide her extreme trepidation beneath a tone of gay banter.
She hoped it did not sound as forced to him as it did to herself. The
Boy's clear eyes were fixed upon her. Had he noticed the trembling of
her hands, before she steadied them by laying hold of the arms of her
chair?
"So now for a serious talk, if you please, Sir Boy."
"Excuse me, dear," said the Boy, "the Israelites were not allowed to
parley."
"You need not parley," said Miss Charteris; "you are requested merely
to listen. You may smoke if you like. I understand cigarette smoke is
fatal to black-beetles. Possibly it has the same effect on garden
insects. Russell tells me we are overrun by snails. Smoke, Boy, if
you like."
"Dear," said the Boy, his head thrown back, his hands thrust deep into
his coat pockets, "I never have the smallest desire to smoke in your
presence. I should feel as if I were smoking in church."
"Oh, you dear amazing altogether absurd boy! Don't look at me like
that. And don't say such unexpected things, or I shall be unable to
parley satisfactorily."
"When _I_ went to school," remarked the Boy, "and you were an engaging
little girl in a pigtail, I was taught to say: 'Do not look at me
_thus_'; at least, masters frequently appeared to think it necessary to
make that remark to me. I can't imagine why; because they were not
specially worth looking at; excepting that a very large person, in a
very angry condition, always presented a spectacle of extreme interest
to my juvenile mind. It was so fascinating to watch and see what they
would do next. They were like those wooden monkeys and bears you buy
in Swiss shops, don't you know? You pull a hanging string, and their
legs and arms jump about unexpectedly. One always felt a really angry
grown-up was a mere puppet. Unseen fingers were pulling the string;
and it was funny to watch. There was an exciting element of danger,
too; because sometimes a hand jerked up and boxed your ears."
"Little Boy Blue," she said, "it must have been quite impossible ever
to be _mildly_ angry with you. Either one would have waxed impotently
furious; or one would have wanted to--to hug you!"
The Boy leapt up.
"Sit down," said Miss Charteris, "or I shall send you away. And I do
not wish to do that; because I have quite made up my mind to tell you
to-day, a thing which I suppose I ought to have told you long ago; and
I tried to do so, Boy; but somehow you always made it impossible. I
want to--to tell you about--the Professor." She paused.
It was so very difficult. It was like rolling a heavy stone up a steep
hill. And the Boy made no attempt to help her. He lay back with an
exaggerated display of resignation. He looked at her with sleepy,
amused eyes. And he asked no questions. The army of Israel obviously
declined to parley.
"I have long felt I ought to tell you about the Professor," continued
Miss Charteris.
The Boy sighed. "I think I jolly well know all there is to know about
professors," he said.
"Not about this one," explained Miss Charteris. "He is _my_ Professor."
"Oh, if he's _your_ Professor," said the Boy, sitting up, "of course I
am interested. But I am not sure that I approve of you having a tame
Professor; especially when it arrives in goloshes, and leaves them in
the hall."
"I am afraid nobody will ask whether you approve or not, Little Boy
Blue. The Professor has been a great friend of mine during nearly
twelve years; and I think I am possibly--in fact, very probably--going
to marry the Professor."
"Really?" said the Boy. "May I ask when he proposed?"
"He has not proposed, Boy."
The Boy produced his pocket-book, took out a calendar, and studied it
attentively.
"Then I'm afraid you will have some time to wait," he said. "It will
not be leap year again until 1912."
This sounded impertinent; but the Boy could no more have been guilty of
intentional impertinence toward her, than he could have picked her
pocket; and Miss Charteris knew it. There was one thing of which those
who had dealings with Christobel Charteris could always be
sure--absolute justice. She had seen the Boy's face whiten suddenly,
to a terrible pallor, beneath his tan. She knew he was making a
desperate fight for self-control. How best could she help? Her own
part seemed almost more than she could manage.
"Come here, Boy dear," she said, holding out her hand.
He hesitated one instant; then rose unsteadily to his feet, and
came--not to his usual place at the side, bending over her; but in
front of her, on one knee, silently waiting.
She bent forward. "Take my hand, Boy."
He took it, in a firm unhesitating clasp. They held each other so, in
silence. The colour came back into the Boy's face. The dumb horror
died out of his eyes. They smiled into hers again.
"Now promise me, Boy dear, that you will let me tell you all; and that
you will try not to misunderstand."
"My dearest," said the Boy, "I promise. But I do not need to say I
will try not to misunderstand. I could not misunderstand you, if I
tried."
"Then go back to your chair, Boy."
He went. His eyes were bright again.
"Boy, please to understand that I am not engaged to the Professor. Of
course, had that been the case, I should have told you, long ago. He
has never said one word to me of love or marriage. But he has been a
great friend--an intimate friend, intellectually; and I have reason to
know that he wishes--has wished for years--a good deal more than he has
ever expressed to me. He has waited, Boy; and when anybody has waited
nearly twelve years, could one fail them?"
"Why, of course!" cried the Boy, eagerly. "If a man could wait twelve
years--good heavens, why shouldn't he wait twenty! A man has no
business to wait; or to be able to wait; or to keep a woman waiting.
Twelve years? Oh, I say! I didn't wait twelve days. Now, did I?"
She smiled. "You break all speed records, Boy, always. But cannot you
understand that all men have not fifty thousand a year, and the world
at their feet? Had you been penniless, Boy, you--even you--would have
had to wait."
"Not a bit!" said the Boy, stoutly. "I would drive a cab, I would
sweep a crossing, I would _do_ anything, or _be_ anything; but I
wouldn't wait for the woman I loved; nor would I"--his voice dropped
almost to a whisper--"keep the woman who loved me, waiting."
"But suppose she had a comfortable little income of her own; and you
had less--much less--to offer her? Surely, Boy, proper pride would
keep you from asking her to marry you, until your income at least
equalled hers?"
"Not a bit!" said the Boy. "That sort of rot isn't proper pride. It's
just selfish false pride. However much a woman had, when a man--a
_man_, mind you, not an old woman, or a _thing_ with no pluck or
vertebra--when a man gives a woman his whole love, his whole life, the
worship of his whole body, heart, and soul, he has given her that which
no money could buy; and were she a millionairess she would still be
poor if, from false pride, he robbed her of that gift which was his to
give her--and perhaps his alone."
"Boy dear," she said, gently; "it sounds very plausible. But it is so
easy to be plausible with fifty thousand a year in the background. Let
me tell you about the Professor. He has, of course, his fellowship,
and is quite comfortably off now, living as a bachelor, in rooms. But
he practically supports his unmarried sister, considerably older than
himself, who lives in a tiny little villa, and keeps one maid. The
Professor could not afford to marry, and set up a larger establishment,
on his present income; at least he apparently thinks he could not. And
your theory of robbing the woman who--the woman he loves, does not
appear to have occurred to him. But, during all these years he has
been compiling an Encyclopedia--I don't suppose you know what an
Encyclopedia is, Boy."
"Oh, don't I?" said the Boy. "It's a thing you pile up on the floor to
stand upon when you want to fix a new pipe-rack."
Miss Charteris ignored this trying definition of an Encyclopedia.
"The Professor is compiling a wonderful book," she said, with dignity;
"and, when it is completed and published, he will be in a position to
marry."
"Has he told you so?" inquired the Boy.
"No, Boy. He has never mentioned the subject of marriage to me. But
he has told his sister; and she has told me."
"Ha!" said the Boy. "Miss _H_ann, I suppose. I must say, I distrust
Miss _H_ann."
"What do _you_ know of Miss Ann?" inquired Christobel, astonished.
"Only that she's always a-_h_egging of 'em on," said the Boy, calmly.
The indignant blood rushed into the fair proud face.
"Boy! You've been gossiping with Martha."
"I have, dear; I admit it. You see, I arrived early, on the third day;
found the garden empty; went gaily into the house to look for you. Ran
up into the hall; when up got a pair of old goloshes--eh, what? Oh,
sorry--up got a pair of _new_ goloshes, and hit me in the eye! A
professor's cap and gown hung up, as if at home; and while I meditated
upon these things, the voice of my Belovèd was uplifted in loud and
sonorous Greek, exclaiming: 'Avaunt, rash youth! Thou impudent
intruder!' Can you wonder that I avaunted--to Martha?"
"You will please tell me at once all Martha said to you."
"Of course I will, dear. Don't be vexed. I always meant to tell you,
some time or other. I asked her whose were the goloshes; the umbrella
with the--er--decided figure; the suspended cap and gown. Martha said
they were the Professor's. I inquired whether the Professor stayed to
tea. You really can't blame me for asking that; because I had gone to
the kitchen for the express purpose of carrying out the tea-tray, yours
and mine; but _not_ the Professor's. No possible pleasure could have
resulted, either to you, or to me, or to the Professor, from my
unexpected appearance with the tea-tray, if the Professor had been
there. Now could it? I think it would be nice of you, dear, and only
fair, if, remembering the peculiar circumstances of that afternoon, you
just said: 'No; it couldn't.'
"Well, I asked Martha whether the Professor stayed to tea, and heard
that 'Thank goodness, no!' we drew the line at that, except when Miss
_H_ann came too. With the awful possibility of Miss _H_ann 'coming
too,' on one of my priceless days, I naturally desired a little light
thrown on Miss _H_ann. I was considerably relieved to learn that Miss
_H_ann suffers from the peculiar complaint--mental, I gather--of
'fancying herself in a bath-chair.' This might be no hindrance to the
'_h_egging on' propensities, but it certainly diminished the chances of
the 'coming too.' That was all, dear."
"Boy, you ought to have been ashamed of yourself!"
"So I was, the moment I saw you walk down the lawn. But you really
needn't look so indignant. I was working for you, at the same time."
"Working for me?"
"Yes, dear. I told Martha her wisps would look nicer if she curled
them. I also suggested 'invisible pins.' If you like I will tell you
how I came to know about 'invisible pins'; but it is a very long story,
and not _specially_ interesting, for the lady in the case was my
great-aunt."
"Oh, Boy," said Miss Charteris, laughing in spite of herself; "I wish
you were the size of my Little Boy Blue on the sands at Dovercourt. I
would dearly like to shake you."
"Well," he said, "you did more than shake me, just now. You gave me
about the worst five minutes I ever had in my life. Christobel? You
don't really care about the Professor?"
"Boy, dear, I really do. I have cared about him very much, for years."
"Yes, as a woman loves a book; but not as a woman loves a man."
"Explain your meaning, please."
"Oh, hang it all!" exclaimed the Boy, violently. "Do you love his
mouth, his eyes, his hair----?" The Boy choked, and stopped short.
Miss Charteris considered, and replied with careful deliberation. "I
do not know that I have ever seen his mouth; he wears a beard. His
eyes are not strong, but they look very kind through his glasses. His
hair? Well, really, he has not much to speak of. But all these things
matter very little. His _mind_ is great and beautiful; his thoughts
appeal to me. I understand his way of viewing things: he understands
mine. It would be a wonderful privilege to be able to make life easy
and happy for one for whom I have so profound a respect and esteem. I
have looked upon it, during the last few years, as a privilege which
is, eventually, to be mine."
"Christobel," cried the Boy, "it is wrong, it is terrible! It is not
the highest. I can't stand it, and I won't. I will not let you give
yourself to a wizened old bookworm----"
"Be quiet, Boy," she said, sharply. "Do you wish to make me really
angry? The Professor is not old. He is only fourteen years my senior.
To your extreme youth, fifty may seem old. The Professor is in his
prime. I am afraid we have nothing to gain, Boy, by prolonging this
discussion."
"But we can't leave it at this," said the Boy, desperately. "Where do
I come in?"
"My Little Boy Blue, I am afraid you don't come in at all, excepting as
a very sweet idyll which, all through the years to come, I shall never
forget. You begged for your seven days, and I gave them. But I never
led you to assume I could say 'Yes.' Now listen, Boy, and I will tell
you the honest truth. I do not know that I am ever going to marry the
Professor. I only feel pledged to him from the vague belief that we
each consider the other is waiting. Don't break your heart over it,
Boy; because it is more than likely it will never come to pass.
But--even were there no Professor--oh, Boy dear, I could not marry you.
I love my Little Boy Blue more tenderly and deeply than I have ever
before loved anything or any one on this earth. But I could not marry
a boy, however dearly I loved him; however sweet was his love to me. I
am a woman grown, and I could surrender myself wholly, only to a man
who would wholly be my mate and master. I cannot pretend to call my
Little Boy Blue 'the _man_ I love,' because he is really dearest to me
when I think of him, with expectation in his baby-eyes, trotting down
the sands to find his cannon-ball.... Oh, Boy, I am hurting you! I
hate to hurt you, Boy. Your love is so beautiful. Nothing as perfect
will ever touch my life again. Yet I cannot, honestly, give what you
ask.... Boy dear, ought I to have told you, quite plainly, sooner? If
so, you must forgive me."
The Boy had risen, and stood before her. "You always do the right
thing," he said, "and never, under any circumstances, could there be
anything for me to forgive you. I have been an egregious young ass. I
have taken things for granted, all along the line. What must you think
of me! Why should you care? _You_, with your intellectual
attainments, your honours, your high standing in the world of books?
_Why_ should you care, Christobel? Why _should_ you care?"
He stood before her, straight and tall and desperately implacable. The
exuberant youth had died out of his face. For the first time, she
could not see in him her Little Boy Blue.
"Why should you care?" he said again.
She rose and faced him. "But I _do_ care, Boy," she said. "How dare
you pretend to think I don't? I care very tenderly and deeply."
"Pooh!" said the Boy. "Do you suppose I wished you to marry a
bare-toed baby, with sand on its nose?" He laughed wildly; paused and
looked at her, then laughed again. "A silly little ass that said it
didn't like girls? Oh, I say! I think it's about time I was off.
Will you walk down to the gate? ... Thanks. You are always most
awfully good to me. I say, Miss Charteris, may I ask the Professor's
name?"
"Harvey," she said, quietly. "Kenrick Harvey." The dull anguish at
her heart seemed almost more than she could bear. Yet what could she
say or do? He was merely accepting her own decision.
"Harvey?" he said. "Why of course I know him. He's not much to look
at, is he? But we always thought him an awfully good sort, and kind as
they make 'em. We considered him a confirmed bachelor; but--well, we
didn't know he was waiting."
They had reached the postern gate. Oh, would he see the growing pain
in her eyes? What was she losing? What had she lost? Why did her
whole life seem passing out through that green gate?
"Good-bye," he said, "and please forget all the rot I talked about
Jericho. It goes with the spade and bucket, and all the rest. You
have been most awfully kind to me, all along. But the very kindest
thing you can do now, is to forget all the impossible things I thought
and said... Allow me.... I'll shut the door."
He put up his hand, to lift his cap; but he was bareheaded. He laughed
again; turned, and passed out.
"Boy! Boy! Come back," said Christobel. But the door had closed on
the first word.
She stood alone.
This time she did not wait. Where was the good of waiting?
She turned and walked slowly up the lawn, pausing to look at the
flowers in the border. The yellow roses still looked golden. The
jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" lifted pale purple faces to the
sky.
But the Boy was gone.
She reached her chair, where he had placed it, deep in the shade of the
mulberry-tree. She felt tired; worn-out; old.
The Boy was gone.
She leaned back with closed eyes. She had hurt him so. She remembered
all the glad, sweet confident things he had said each day. Now she had
hurt him so.... What radiant faith, in love and in life, had been his.
But she had spoiled that faith, and dimmed that brightness.
Suddenly she remembered his dead mother's prayer for him. "_I have
prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not_." And under those words she
had written "_Christobel_." Would he want to obliterate that name?
No, she knew he would not. Nothing approaching a hard or a bitter
thought could ever find a place in his heart. It would always be the
golden heart of her little Boy Blue.
Tears forced their way beneath her closed lashes, and rolled slowly
down her cheeks.
"Oh, Boy dear," she said aloud, "I love you so--I love you so!"
"I know you do, dear," he said. "It's almost unbelievable--yet I know
you do."
She opened her eyes. The Boy had come back. She had not heard his
light step, on the springy turf. He knelt in his favourite place, on
the left of her chair, and bent over her. Once more his face was
radiant. His faith had not failed.
She looked up into his shining eyes, and the joy in her own heart made
her dizzy.
"Boy dear," she whispered, "not my lips, because--I am not altogether
yours--I may have to--you know?--the Professor. But, oh Boy, I can't
help it! I'm afraid I care terribly."
He was quite silent; yet it seemed to her that he had shouted. A burst
of trumpet-triumph seemed to fill the air.
He bent lower. "Of course I wouldn't, Christobel," he said; "not
before the seventh day. But there's a lot beside lips, and it's all so
dear."
Then she felt the Boy's kisses on her hair, on her brow, on her eyes.
"Dear eyes," he said, "shedding tears for my pain. Ah, dear eyes!"
And he kissed them again.
She put up her hand, to push him gently away. He captured it, and held
it to his lips.
"Stop, Boy dear," she said. "Be good now, and sit down."
He slipped to the grass at her feet, and rested his head against her
knee.
She stroked his hair, with gentle, tender touch. Her Little Boy Blue
had come back to her. Oh, bliss unutterable! Why worry about the
future?
"How silly we were, dear!" he said. "How silly to suppose we could
part like that--you and I!" Then his sudden merry laugh rang out--oh,
such music! such sweet music! "I say, Christobel," he said, "it is all
very well _now_ to say 'Stop, and be good.' But on the seventh day,
when the walls fall down, and I march up into the citadel, I shall give
you millions of kisses--or will it be _billions_?"
"Judging from my knowledge of you, Boy dear," she said, "I rather
_think_ it would be billions."
Later, as they stood once more by the postern gate, he turned, framed
in the doorway, smiling a last gay good-bye.
It was their second parting that day, and how different from the first.
There was to be a third, unlike either, before the day was over; but
its approach was, as yet, unsuspected.
But as he stood in the doorway, full in a shaft of sunlight, the glad
certainty in his eyes smote her with sudden apprehension.
"Oh, Boy dear," she said, "take care! You are building castles again.
They will tumble about our ears. I haven't promised you anything,
Little Boy Blue of mine; and I am afraid I shall _have_ to marry the
Professor."
"If you do, dear," he said, "I shall have to give him a new umbrella as
a wedding present!" And the Boy went whistling down the lane.
But, out of sight of the postern gate and of the woman who, leaning
against it, watched him to the turning, he dropped his bounding step
and jaunty bearing. His face grew set and anxious; his walk, perplexed.
"Oh, God," said the Boy, as he walked, "don't let me lose her!"
A few minutes later, a telegram was put into his hand from the friend
left on the coast, in charge of his newest aeroplane.
"_Arrange Channel flight, if possible, day after to-morrow_."
"Not I," said the Boy, crumpling the message into his pocket. "The day
after to-morrow is the seventh day."
* * * * *
He was dining with friends, but an unaccountable restlessness seized
him during the evening. He made his excuses, and returned to the Bull
Hotel soon after nine o'clock. The hall-porter at once handed him a
note, left by special messenger, ten minutes earlier. It was marked
"urgent." The handwriting was Christobel's.
The Boy flung away his cigarette, tore the note open, and turned to a
light. It was very short and clear.
"_Boy dear,--I must see you at once. You will find me in the garden._
"_Christobel._"
* * * * *
When the Boy had turned the corner and disappeared, Miss Charteris
passed through the little postern gate, and moved slowly up the lawn.
Ah, how different to her sad return from that gate an hour before!
The William Allen Richardsons still opened their golden hearts to the
sunset. The jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" still lifted their
purple faces to the sky. But instead of stabbing her with agony, they
sang a fragrant psalm of love.
Ah, why was the Boy so dear? Why was the Boy so near? She had watched
him go striding down the lane, yet he still walked beside her; his gay
young laugh of glad content was in her ears; his pure young kisses on
her brow and eyes; his head against her knee.
Just as she reached the mulberry, Jenkins hastened from the house. The
note he brought, in a familiar handwriting, thin and pointed, was
marked "urgent" in one corner, and "immediate" in the other; but Miss
Ann's notes usually were one or other. This happened to be both.
"You need not wait, Jenkins," she said.
She stood close to a spreading branch of the mulberry. Her tall head
was up among the moving leaves. Whispering, they caressed her.
Something withheld her from entering the soft shade, sacred to herself
and the Boy. She stood, to read Ann Harvey's letter.
As she read, every vestige of colour left her face. Bending over the
letter, she might have been a sorely troubled and perplexed replica of
the noble Venus of Milo.
Folding the letter, she went slowly up the lawn, still wearing that
white look of cold dismay. She spoke to Martha through the open
window, keeping her face out of sight.
"Martha," she said, "I am obliged to go immediately to Miss Ann. If I
am not back by eight o'clock, I shall be remaining with her for
dinner." She passed on, and Martha turned to Jenkins.
By the way, Jenkins was having an unusually festive time. During the
last twenty-four hours, Martha had been kinder to him than he had ever
known her to be. He was now comfortably ensconced in the Windsor
armchair in a corner of the kitchen, reading yesterday's daily paper,
and enjoying his pipe. Never before had his pipe been allowed in the
kitchen; but he had just been graciously told he might bring it in, if
he wouldn't be "messy with the _h_ashes"; Mrs. Jenkins volunteering the
additional remarkable information, that it was "good for the beetles."
Jenkins was doubtful as to whether this meant that his pipe gave
pleasure to the beetles, or the reverse; but experience had taught him
that a condition of peaceful uncertainty in his own mind was to be
preferred to a torrent of vituperative explanation from Martha. He
therefore also received in silence the apparently unnecessary
injunction not to go "crawlin' about all over the floor"; it took "a
figure to do that!"
Eight o'clock came, and Miss Charteris had not returned.
"Remaining with 'er for dinner," pronounced Martha, flinging open the
oven, and wrathfully relegating to the larder the chicken she had been
roasting with extreme care; "an' a precious poor dinner it'll be!
Jenkins, _you_ may 'ave this sparrow-grass. _I_ 'aven't the 'eart.
An' me 'oping she'd 'ave 'ad the sense to keep _'im_ to dinner; knowing
as there was a chicking an' 'grass for two. Now what's took Miss
_H_ann 'urgent and immediate,' I'd like to know!" continued Martha,
deriving considerable comfort from banging the plates and tumblers on
to the kitchen table, with just as much violence as was consistent with
their personal safety, as she walked round it, laying the table for
supper. "Ate a biscuit, I should think, an' flown to 'er cheat. I've
no patience; no, _that_ I 'aven't!" And Martha attacked the loaf, with
fury.
At a quarter before nine, Miss Charteris returned. In a few moments
the bell summoned Jenkins. The note he was to take was also marked
"Immediate." He left it on the kitchen table, and, while he changed
his coat, Martha fetched her glasses. Then she followed him to the
pantry.
"'Ere, run man!" she said, "run! Never mind your muffler. Who wants a
muffler in June? _'E_'s in it! It's something more than a biscuit.
Drat that woman!"
* * * * *
A quarter of an hour later, a tall white figure moved noiselessly down
the lawn, to the seats beneath the mulberry. The full moon was just
rising above the high red wall, gliding up among the trees, huge and
golden through their branches. Christobel Charteris waited in the
garden for the Boy.
He came.
By then, the lawn was bathed in moonlight. She saw him, tall and slim,
in the conventional black and white of a man's evening dress, pass
silently through the postern gate. She noted that he did not bang it.
He came up the lawn slowly--for him. He wore no hat, and every
clear-cut feature of the clean-shaven young face showed up in the
moonlight.
At the mulberry, he paused, uncertain; peering into the dark shadow.
"Christo_bel_?" he said, softly.
"Boy dear; I am here. Come."
He came; feeling his way among the chairs, and moving aside a table,
which stood between.
He found her, sitting where he had found her, on his return, three
hours before. A single ray of moonlight pierced the thick foliage of
the mulberry, and fell across her face. He marked its unusual pallor.
He stood before her, put one hand on each arm of her chair, and bent
over her.
"What is it?" he said, softly. "What is it, dear heart? It is so
wonderful to be wanted, and sent for. But let me know quickly that you
are not in any trouble."
She looked up at him dumbly, during five, ten, twenty seconds. Then
she said: "Boy, I have something to tell you. Will you help me to tell
it?"
"Of course I will," he said. "How can I help best?"
"I don't know," she answered. "Oh, I _don't_ know!"
He considered a moment. Then he sat down on the grass at her feet, and
leaned his head against her knees. She passed her fingers softly
through his hair.
"What happened after I had gone?" asked the Boy.
"Jenkins brought me a note from Miss Harvey, asking me to come to her
at once, to hear some very wonderful news, intimately affecting
herself, and the Professor, and--and me. She wrote very ecstatically
and excitedly, poor dear. She always does. Of course, I went."
"Well?" said the Boy, gently. The pause was so very long, that it
seemed to require supplementing. He felt for the other hand, which had
been holding the lace at her breast, and drew it to his lips. It was
wet with tears.
The Boy started. He sat up; turned, resting his arm upon her lap, and
tried to see her face.
"Go on, dear," he said. "Get it over."
"Boy," said Miss Charteris, "a rich old uncle of the Harveys has died,
leaving the Professor a very considerable legacy, sufficient to make
him quite independent of his fellowship, and of the production of the
Encyclopedia."
"Well?"
"They are very happy about it, naturally. Poor Ann is happier than I
have ever seen her. And the chief cause of their joy appears to be
that now the Professor is, at last, in a position to marry."
"Well?"
"I have not seen him yet, but Miss Ann is full of it. She told me a
good many very touching things. I had no idea it had meant so much--to
him--all these years.--Boy dear?"
"Yes."
"I shall have to marry the Professor."
No answer.
"I don't know how to make you understand why I feel so bound to them.
They were very old friends of my father and mother. They were so good
to me through all the days of sorrow, when I was left alone. Miss Ann
is a great invalid, and very dependent upon love and care, and upon not
being thwarted in her little hopes and plans. She expects to come and
live in--in her brother's home. She knows I should love to have her.
And he has done so much for me, intellectually; so patiently kept my
mind alive, when it was inclined to stagnate; and working, when it
would have grown slack. He has given up hours of his valuable time to
me, every week, for years."
No answer.
Suddenly the moonlight, through an opening in the mulberry leaves, fell
upon his upturned face. She saw the anguish in his eyes. She turned
his head away, resting it against her knee, and clasped her hands upon
it.
"Boy dear; it is terribly hard for us, I know. In a most extraordinary
way--in a way I cannot understand--you have won my body. It yearns to
be with you; it aches if you suffer; it lives in your gladness; it
grows young in your youth. Nobody else has ever made me feel this; I
do not suppose anybody else ever will. But--oh Boy--bodies are not
everything. Bodies are the least of all. And I think--I _think_ the
Professor holds my mind. He won it long ago. I have grown much older
since then, and very tired of waiting. But I can look back to the time
when I used to think the greatest privilege in the world would be, to
be the--to marry the Professor."
She paused, and waited.
"Bodies count," said the Boy, in a low voice. "You'll jolly well find,
that bodies count."
It was such a relief to hear him speak at last.
"Oh, I know, Boy dear," she said. "But more between some, than others.
The Professor and I are united, primarily, on the mental and spiritual
plane. Being so sure of this, realizing the difference, makes it less
hard, in a way, to--to give up my Little Boy Blue. Boy dear, you must
help me; because I love you as I have never loved anybody else in this
world before; as I know I never shall love again. But I am bound in
honour not to disappoint the man who _knows_ I have waited for him.
Miss Ann admitted to me to-night that she has told him. She said, in
the first moments of joy she _had_ to tell him; he was so anxious; and
so diffident. Boy dear, had it not been for that, I think I should
have begged off. But--as he knows--as they have trusted me--dear, we
must say 'good-bye' to-night. He is going to write to me to-morrow,
asking if he may come. I shall say: 'Yes.' ... Boy dear? Is it very
hard? ... Oh, can't you see where duty comes in? There can be no true
happiness if one has failed to be true to what one knows is just and
right.... Can't you realize, Boy, that _they_ have been everything to
me for seven _years_? _You_ have come in, for seven _days_."
"Time is nothing," said the Boy, suddenly. "You and I are one,
Christobel; eternally, indissolubly _one_. You will find it out, when
it is too late. Age is nothing! Time is nothing! Love is all!"
She hesitated. The Boy's theories were so vital, so vigorous, so
assured. Was she making a mistake? There was no question as to the
pain involved by her decision; but was that pain to result as she
believed, in higher good to all; or was it to mean irreparable loss?
The very knowledge that her body so yearned for him, led her to
emphasize the fact that the Boy could not--oh surely could not--be a
fit mate for her mind. Yet he was so confident, so sure of himself, in
regard to her, on every point; so unhesitatingly certain that they were
meant for each other.
And then she saw Ann Harvey, with clasped hands, saying: "_Darling_
child, forgive me, but I _had_ to tell Kenrick! He is so _humble_--he
was so _diffident_, so doubtful of his own powers of attraction. I
_had_ to tell him that I knew you had been very fond of him for
_years_. I did not say much, sweet child; but just enough to give dear
Kenrick _hope_ and _confidence_."
She could see Miss Ann's delicate wrinkled face; the tearful eyes; the
lavender ribbons on her lace cap; the mysterious hair-brooch, fastening
the old lace at her neck. The scene was photographed upon her memory;
for, in that moment, Hope--the young Hope, born of the youthful Boy and
his desires--had died. Christobel Charteris had taken up the burden of
life; a life apart from the seven days' romance, created by the amazing
over-confidence of her Little Boy Blue.
The masterful man attracts; but, in the end, it is usually the
diffident man who wins. The innate unselfishness of the noblest type
of woman, causes her to yield more readily to the insistence of her
pity than to the force of her desire. In these cases, marriage and
martyrdom are really--though unconsciously--synonymous; and the same
pure, holy courage which went smiling to the stake, goes smiling to the
altar. Does a martyr's crown await it, in another world? Possibly.
The only perplexing question, in these cases, being: What awaits the
wrecked life of "the other man"?
Christobel Charteris had put her hand to the plough; she would not look
back.
"Little Boy Blue," she said, "you must say 'good-bye' and go. I am
going to marry the Professor quite soon, and I must not see you again.
Say 'good-bye,' Boy dear."
Then the Boy's anguish broke through all bounds. He flung his arms
around her, and hid his face in her lap. A sudden throb of speechless
agony seemed to overwhelm them both, submerging all arguments, all
casuistry, all obligations to others, in a molten ocean of love and
pain.
Then she heard the Boy pray: "O God, give her to me! Give her to me!
O God, give her to me!"
"Hush, Boy," she said; "oh, hush!"
He was silent at once.
Then bending, she gathered him to her, holding his face against her
breast; sheltering him in the tenderness of her arms. He had never
seemed so completely her own Little Boy Blue as in that moment, when
she listened to his hopeless prayer: "O God, give her to me!" This was
the Little Boy Blue who tried to carry cannon-balls; who faced the
world, with sand upon his nose; cloudless faith in his bright eyes;
indomitable courage in his heart. She forgot the man's estate to which
he had attained; she forgot the man's request to which she had given a
final denial. She held him as she had first longed to do, when his
nurse, in unreasonable wrath, shook him on the sands; she rocked him
gently to and fro, as his dead mother might have done, long years ago.
"Oh, my Little Boy Blue, my Little Boy Blue!" she said.
Suddenly she felt the Boy's hot tears upon her neck.
Then, in undreamed of pain, her heart stood still. Then the full
passion of her tenderness awoke, and found voice in an exceeding bitter
cry.
"Oh, I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it! Boy dear, oh, Boy dear, you
shall have all you wish--all--all! ... Do you hear, my Little Boy Blue?
It shall all be for you, darling; all for you! Nobody else matters.
You shall have all you want--all--all--all!"
Silence under the mulberry-tree; the silence of a great decision.
Then he drew himself gently but firmly from her arms.
He stood before her, tall, erect, unbending. The moonlight fell upon
his face. It had lost its look of youth, taking on a new power. It
was the face of a man; and of a man who, having come to a decision,
intended, at all costs, to abide by it.
"No, Christobel," he said. "No, my Belovèd. I could not accept
happiness--even _such_ happiness--at so great a cost to you. There
could be no bliss for you, no peace, no satisfaction, even in our great
love, if you had gone against your supreme sense of duty; your own high
conception of right and wrong. Also, Christobel, dearest--you must not
give yourself in a rush of emotion. You must give yourself
deliberately where your mind has chosen, and where your great soul is
content. That being so, I must be off, Christobel; and don't you worry
about me. You've been heavenly good to me, dear; and I've put you
through so much. I will go up to town to-night. I shall not come
back, unless you send for me. But when you want me and send--why, my
Love, I will come from the other end of the world."
He stooped and took both her hands in his; lifted them reverently,
tenderly, to his lips; held them there one moment, then laid them back
upon her lap, and turned away.
She saw him walk down the moonlit lawn, tall and erect. She saw him
pass through the gate, without looking back. She heard it close
quietly--not with the old boyish bang--yet close irrevocably,
decisively.
Then she shut her eyes, and began again to rock gently to and fro.
Little Boy Blue was still in her arms; it comforted her to rock him
there. But the man who had arisen and left her, when he might, taking
advantage of her weakness, have won her against her own conscience and
will; the man who, mastering his own agony, had thus been brave and
strong for her--had carried her whole heart with him, when he went out
through the postern gate.
In rising, he left the Boy in her arms. Through the long hard years to
come, she prayed she might keep him there--her own Little Boy Blue.
But he who went out alone, for her sake to face life without her, was
_the man she loved_.
She knew it, at last.
* * * * *
"_And the evening and the morning were the fifth day_."
* * * * *
THE SIXTH DAY
MISS ANN HAS "MUCH TO SAY"
On the afternoon of the sixth day, at the hour which had hitherto been
kept for the Boy, Christobel Charteris, in response to another urgent
and immediate summons, went to take tea with Miss Ann.
It had been a long, dull, uneventful day, holding at first a certain
amount of restless uncertainty as to whether the Boy was really gone;
mingled with apprehensive anticipation of a call from the Professor.
But before noon a reply-paid telegram arrived from the Boy, sent off at
Charing Cross.
"_Good morning. All's well. Just off for Folkestone. Please tell me
how you are._"
To which, while Jenkins and the telegraph-boy waited, Miss Charteris
replied:
"_Quite well, thank you. Do be careful at Folkestone._"
and afterwards thought of many other messages which she might have
sent, holding more, and better expressed. But that precious moment in
touch with the Boy passed so quickly; and it seemed so impossible to
think of anything but commonplace words, while Jenkins stood at
attention near the table; and the telegraph-boy kept ringing his
bicycle-bell outside, as a reminder that he waited.
Yet her heart felt warmed and comforted by this momentary contact with
the Boy. He still cared to know how she was. And it was so like him
to put: "All's well." He wished her to know he had not gone down
beneath his trouble. "Fanks, but I always does my own cawwying."
Brave Little Boy Blue, of long ago!
The expectation of the Professor's note or call remained, keeping her
anxious; until she heard from Ann Harvey, that her brother had been
obliged to go to London on business, and would not return until the
evening. "Come to tea with me, dear child," the note concluded; "we
have _much_ to say!"
It seemed to Christobel that there remained nothing which Miss Ann had
not already said, in every possible form and way. Nevertheless, she
put on her hat, and went. Miss Ann had succeeded in impressing all her
friends with the conviction that her wishes must never be thwarted.
Miss Ann had named her villa "Shiloh," undoubtedly a suitable name, so
far as she herself was concerned; her time being mostly spent upon a
comfortable sofa in her tiny drawing-room; or reclining on a wicker
lounge beneath the one tree in her small garden; or being carefully
wheeled out in a bath-chair.
But nobody else found Miss Ann's villa in any sense a "resting-place."
She had a way of keeping everybody about her--from jaded Emma to the
most casual caller--on the move, while she herself presented a delicate
picture of frail inactivity. Immediately upon their arrival, her
friends found an appointed task awaiting them; but it was always
something which Miss Ann would have given to somebody else to do, had
they not chanced at that moment to appear; and they were usually left
with the feeling that the particular somebody else--whose _privilege_
they, in their well-meant zeal, had usurped--would have accomplished it
better.
Directing them from the sofa, Miss Ann kept her entourage busy and
perpetually on the move. Yet she never felt she was asking much of
them; nor, however weary at the conclusion of the task, did they ever
feel much had been accomplished, owing to the judicious use of the word
"just."
"My dear," Miss Ann would say, "as you _are_ here, will you _just_
clean the canary?" Cleaning the canary meant a very thorough turning
out of an intricate little brass cage; several journeys up and down
stairs in quest of sand, seed, and brass polish, and an out-door
excursion to a neighbour's garden for groundsel. The canary's name was
"Sweetie-weet," and, however much annoyed Miss Ann's friends might be
feeling with the canary, they had to call him "Sweetie-weet" all the
time they "cleaned him," lest his flutterings should upset Miss Ann.
Now you cannot say "Sweetie-weet" in an angry voice. Try, and you will
see. Consequently Miss Ann's friends had no vent for their feelings
during the process of getting a rather large hand in and out of a very
small brass door with a spring, which always snapped to, at the wrong
moment, while the hand, which seemed to its possessor larger than it
had ever seemed before, was crooked round in an impossible position in
a strained attempt to fix Sweetie-weet's perches. If anything went
wrong during the cleaning process, Miss Ann, from her vantage-ground on
the sofa would sigh, and exclaim: "Poor patient little Sweetie-weet!"
Miss Ann was in full possession of all her faculties. Her hearing was
preternaturally sharp. It was no use saying "Fiend!" to Sweetie-weet,
in an emphatic whisper. He fluttered the more.
When the task was completed, the cage had to be brought to Miss Ann's
couch for inspection. She then usually discovered the perches to have
been put back before they were perfectly dry. Now _nothing_--as surely
you hardly ought to require to be told--was so prejudicial to
Sweetie-weet's delicate constitution as to have _damp_ wood beneath his
_precious_ little feet. Consequently all the perches had _just_ to be
taken out again, dried before the kitchen fire, and put back once more.
When this mandate went forth, the glee in the bright black eyes in
Sweetie-weet's yellow head was unmistakable. He shared Miss Ann's
mania for keeping people busy.
When, at last, the second installation of perches was over, and the
cage was suspended from the brass chain in the sunny window,
Sweetie-weet poured forth a shrill crescendo of ear-piercing
sarcasm--"a little song of praise" Miss Ann called it--directed full at
the hot and exhausted friend, who was applying a pocket-handkerchief to
the wire scratches on the back of her hand, and trying to smile at Miss
Ann's recital of all Emma would say, when she found that her special
privilege and delight--the cleaning of Sweetie-weet--had been wrested
from her by the over-zealous friend. As a matter of fact, jaded Emma's
personal remarks about Sweetie-weet, during the perch-drying process in
the kitchen, had been of a nature which would not bear repeating in
Sweetie-weet's presence, and had provided the only amusement the friend
had got out of the whole performance.
When Christobel Charteris arrived at Shiloh, she found Miss Ann on the
green velvet sofa, looking very frail and ethereal; a Shetland shawl
about her shoulders, fastened by the largest and most mysterious of her
hair-brooches--a gold-mounted oval brooch, in which a weeping willow of
fair hair drooped over a sarcophagus of dark hair; while a crescent
moon of grey hair kept watch over both. This funereal collection of
family hair always possessed a weird fascination for small children,
brought by their parents to call upon Miss Ann. The most
undemonstrative became affectionate, and hastened with ready docility
to the sofa to kiss Miss Ann, in order to obtain a closer view, and to
settle the much disputed point as to the significance of a small round
object in the left-hand corner at the bottom. In fact, to the
undisguised dismay of his mother, a sturdy youngster once emerged from
Miss Ann's embrace, exclaiming eagerly to his little sister: "It's a
furze-bush, _not_ a hedgehog!" An unfortunate remark, which might have
been taken by Miss Ann to refer to even more personal matters than a
detail in her brooch.
Christobel herself was not altogether free from the spell of this
hirsute cemetery; chiefly because she knew it was worn on days when
deep emotion was to be felt and expressed. At sight of it, she was
quite prepared for the tearful smile with which Miss Ann signed to her
to close the door. Then extending her arms, "Sweet sister," she said,
with emotion, "let me take you to my heart."
It was somewhat startling to Christobel to be apostrophized as "sister"
by Miss Ann. The Boy had made her feel so young, and so completely his
contemporary, that if Miss Ann had called her "daughter," or even
"granddaughter," it would have seemed more appropriate. Also her
magnificent proportions constituted a somewhat large order for Miss
Ann's proposed embrace.
However, she knelt beside the sofa, and allowed herself to be taken to
Miss Ann's heart in sections. Then, having found and restored Miss
Ann's lace pocket-handkerchief, she seated herself in a low chair
beside the couch, hoping for enlightenment upon the immediate prospects
of her own future.
Miss Ann wept gently for a while. Christobel sat silent. Her recent
experience of tears, wrung from such deep anguish of soul, made it less
easy for her to feel sympathetic towards tears which flowed from no
apparent cause, and fell delicately into perfumed lace. So she waited
in silence, while Miss Ann wept.
The room was very still. The bang with which the Boy usually made his
entry anywhere, would have been terrific in its joyful suddenness. At
the mere thought of it, Christobel's heart stood still and listened.
But this was a place into which the Boy would never make an entry,
noisy or otherwise. Besides--the Boy was gone. Oh, silent, sober,
sorry world! The Boy was gone.
Sweetie-weet put his head on one side, and chirped interrogatively. In
his judgment, the silence had lasted sufficiently long.
Miss Ann dried her eyes, making an effort to control her emotion. Then
she spoke, in a voice which still trembled.
"Dearest child," she said, "I want you _just_ to cover this book for
me. Emma has offered to do it, several times, but I said: 'No, Emma.
We must keep it for Miss Christobel. I do not know _what_ she would
say to you, if you took to covering my books!' Emma is a good soul,
and willing; but has not the _mind_ and _method_ required to cover a
book properly. If you will _just_ run up to my room, dear child, you
will find a neat piece of whity-brown paper laid aside on purpose....
Hush, Sweetie-weet! Christobel knows you are pleased to see her....
It is either on the ottoman behind the screen, or in the top left-hand
drawer of the mahogany chest, between the window and the fireplace.
Ah, how much we have come through, during the last twenty-four hours!
The scissors, dear Love, are hanging by black tape from a nail in the
store-room. You require a large and _common_ pair for cutting brown
paper. How truly wonderful are the ways of Providence, dear
Christobel! The paste is in the little cupboard under the stairs."
When Miss Charteris had finished covering the book, having bent upon it
all the _mind_ and _method_ it required, she forestalled the setting of
another task, by saying firmly: "I want an important talk now, please.
Ann, are you sure you told your brother that I had cared for him for
years?"
"Darling, dear Kenrick was so _diffident_; so unable to realize his own
powers of _attraction_; so----"
"Do you think it was fair toward a woman, even if it were true, to tell
a man who had never asked her love, that that love has long been his?"
"Sweet child, how crudely you put it! I merely _hinted, whispered_;
gave the most _delicate_ indications of what I knew to be your feeling.
For you _do_ love my brother; do you not, dear Christobel?"
"I think," said Miss Charteris, slowly, weighing each word; "I think I
love the Professor as a woman loves a book."
There was a moment of tense silence in Miss Ann's drawing-room.
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 assures 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 circumstances, 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 God, 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-à-brac, ferns in painted pots, embroidery, photograph
frames--overseated with easy chairs, which, in their turn, were
overfilled with a varied assortment 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 pass
along the lane, and enter through the postern gate at the bottom of the
garden.
She opened it, and passed 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-assertion; 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, Christo_bel_?' 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--passed 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 passed
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 "Christo_bel_"? No, that would not be quite honest, knowing he
was there; and they were always absolutely honest with one another.
She passed, 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 passed 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.
_Reply paid_ was written on the envelope.
She stood quite still for a moment. Then she opened it slowly.
Telegrams from the Boy gave her a delicious memory of the way he used
to jump about. He would be out of his chair, and sitting at her feet,
before she knew he was going to move.
She opened it slowly, turned to a window, and read it.
"_How are you, dear? Please tell me. I am going to do my big fly
to-morrow. I jolly well mean to break the record. Wish me luck._"
She took up the reply-paid form and wrote:
"_Quite well. Good luck; but please be careful, Little Boy Blue._"
She hesitated a moment, before writing the playful name by which she so
often called him. But his telegram was so absolutely the Boy, all
over. It was best he should know nothing of "the man she loved," who
had gone out at the gate. It was best he should not know what she
would have called him, had he been under the mulberry just now. She
was--undoubtedly--going to marry the Professor. In which case she
would never call the Boy anything but "Little Boy Blue." So she put it
into her telegram, as a repartee to his audacious "dear." Then she
went out, and sent it off herself. It was comforting to have
something, however small, to do for him.
She came in again; dressed for the evening, and dined. She was
thoroughly tired; and one sentence beat itself incessantly against the
mirror of her reflection, like a frightened bird with a broken wing:
"_He is going to do a big fly to-morrow.... He is going to do a big
fly to-morrow! Little Boy Blue is going to fly and break the record._"
She sat in the stillness of her drawing-room, and tried to read. But
between her eyes and the printed page, burned in letters of fire: "_He
is going to fly to-morrow._"
She went down the garden to the chairs beneath the mulberry-tree. It
was cooler there; but the loneliness was too fierce an agony.
She walked up and down the lawn, now bathed in silvery moonlight. "_He
is going to do a big fly to-morrow. He jolly well means to break the
record._"
She passed in, and went to her bedroom. She lay in the darkness and
tried to sleep. She tried in vain. What if he got into
cross-currents? What if the propeller broke? What if the
steering-gear twisted? She began remembering every detail he had told
herself and Mollie; when she sat listening, thinking of him as Mollie's
lover, though all the while he had been her--Little Boy Blue.... "_Oh
of course then it is all U P.--But there must be pioneers!_"
At last she could bear it no longer. She lighted her candle, and rose.
She went to her medicine cupboard, and did a thing she had never done
before, in the whole of her healthy life. She took a sleeping draught.
The draught was one of Miss Ann's; left behind at the close of a recent
visit. She knew it contained chiefly bromide; harmless but effective.
She put out the light, and lay once more in darkness.
The bromide began to act.
The bird with the broken wing became less insistent.
The absent Boy drew near, and bent over, kneeling beside her.
She talked to him softly. Her voice sounded far away, and unlike her
own. "Be careful, Little Boy Blue," she said. "You may jolly
well--what an expression!--break the record if you like; but don't
break yourself; because, if you do, you will break my heart."
The bromide was acting strongly now. The bird with the broken wing had
gone. There was a strange rhythmical throbbing in her ears. It was
the Boy's aeroplane; but it had started without him. She knew sleep
was coming; merciful oblivion. Yet now she was too happy to wish to
sleep.
The Boy drew nearer.
"Oh, Boy dear, I love you so," she whispered into the throbbing
darkness; "I love you so."
"I know you do, dear," said the Boy. "It is almost unbelievable,
Christobel; but I know you do."
Then she put up her arms, and drew him to her breast.
Thus the Boy--though far away--marched round.
* * * * *
"_And the evening and the morning were the sixth day._"
* * * * *
AN INTERLUDE
"AS A DREAM, WHEN ONE AWAKETH"
When Miss Charteris opened her eyes, the sun was streaming into her
room. The sense of having slept heavily and unnaturally lay upon her.
She had not heard Martha's entry; but her blinds were up, and the tea
on the tray beside her bed was still fresh and hot.
She took a cup, and the after-effects of the bromide seemed to leave
her.
She dressed, and went downstairs.
On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, lay the Professor's letter.
When she had poured out her coffee and buttered her toast, she opened
and read it.
The letter was exactly such as she had always dreamed the Professor
would write, if he ever came to the point of making her a proposal. He
touched on their long friendship; on how much it had meant to them
both. He said he had often hoped for the possibility of a closer tie,
but had not felt justified in suggesting it, until he was in a position
to offer her a suitable home and income. This was now fortunately the
case; therefore he hastened to write and plead his cause, though keenly
conscious of how little there was in himself calculated to call forth
in a woman the affection which it was his earnest hope and desire to
win. She had trusted him as a friend, an intellectual guide and
comrade, during many years. If she could now bring herself to trust
him in a yet more intimate relation, he would endeavour never to
disappoint or fail her.
The letter was signed:
"_Yours in sincere devotion,_
"_KENRICK HARVEY._"
A postscript requested to be allowed to call, at the usual hour, that
afternoon, for a reply.
Miss Charteris wrote a brief note of thanks and appreciation, and gave
the Professor leave to call at three.
The Professor called at three.
He knocked and rang, and fumbled long over the umbrella-stand in the
hall. He seemed to be taking all the umbrellas out, and putting them
back again.
At last he appeared at the door of the drawing-room, where Miss
Charteris awaited him. He was very nervous. He repeated the substance
of his letter, only rather less well expressed. He alluded to Miss
Ann, and to the extreme happiness and pleasure to her of having
Christobel as a sister. But he completely ignored, both in the letter
and in conversation, Miss Ann's betrayal of Christobel's confidence.
For this she was grateful to him.
As soon as the Professor, having floundered through the unusual waters
of expressed sentiment, stepped out on to the high and dry path of an
actual question, Miss Charteris answered that question in the
affirmative, and accepted the Professor's offer.
He rose, and held her hand for a few moments, looking at her with great
affection through his glasses, which did not at all impede the warmth
of his regard; in fact, being powerful convex lenses, they magnified
it. Then he kissed her rather awkwardly on the brow, and hurried back
to his seat.
A somewhat strained silence would have followed, had not the Professor
had an inspiration.
Drawing a book from his pocket, he looked at her as you look at a child
for whom you have a delightful surprise in store.
"That--er--matter being satisfactorily settled, my dear Christobel," he
said, "should we not find it decidedly--er--refreshing to spend an hour
over our Persian translation?"
Miss Charteris agreed at once; but while the Professor read,
translated, and expounded, expatiating on the interest and beauty of
various passages, her mind wandered.
She found herself picturing the Boy under similar circumstances; how
the Boy would have behaved during the first hour of engagement; what
the Boy would have said; what the Boy would have done. She was not
quite sure what the Boy would have done; she had never experienced the
Boy with the curb completely off. But she suddenly remembered:
"Millions, or would it be billions?" and the recollection gave her a
shock of such vivid reaction, that she laughed aloud.
The Professor paused, and looked up in surprise. Then he smiled,
indulgently.
"My dear--er--Christobel, this passage is not intended to be humorous,"
he said.
"I know it is not," replied Miss Charteris. "I beg your pardon. I
laughed involuntarily."
The Professor resumed his reading.
No; she was not quite sure as to _all_ the Boy would have done; but she
knew quite well what he would have said.
And here the Boy, quite unexpectedly, took a First in classics; for
what the Boy would have said would certainly have been Greek to the
Professor.
* * * * *
After this, events followed one another so rapidly that the whole thing
became dream-like to Miss Charteris. She found herself helpless in the
grip of Miss Ann's iron will--up to now, carefully shrouded in Shetland
and lace. At last she understood why Emma's old mother had had to die
alone in a little cottage away in Northumberland; Emma, good soul,
being too devoted to her mistress to ask for the necessary week, in
order to go home and nurse her mother. Emma had seemed a broken woman,
ever since; and Christobel understood now the impossibility of any one
ever asking Miss Ann for a thing which Miss Ann had made up her mind
not to grant.
She and the Professor now became puppets in Miss Ann's delicate hands.
Miss Ann lay upon her couch, and pulled the wires. The Professor
danced, because he had not the discernment to know he was dancing; Miss
Charteris, because she had not the heart to resist. The Boy having
gone out of her life, nothing seemed to matter. It was her duty to
marry the Professor, and there is nothing to be gained by the
postponement of duty.
But it was Miss Ann who insisted on the wedding taking place within a
week. It was Miss Ann who reminded them that, the Long Vacation having
just commenced, the Professor could easily be away, and there were
researches connected with his Encyclopedia which it was of the utmost
importance he should immediately make in the museums and libraries of
Brussels. It was Miss Ann who insisted upon a special licence being
obtained, and who overruled Christobel's desire to be married by her
brother, the bishop. Miss Ann had become quite hysterical at the idea
of the bishop being brought back from a tour he was making in Ireland,
and Christobel yielded the more readily, because her brother's arrival
would undoubtedly have meant Mollie's; and Mollie's presence, even if
she refrained from protest and expostulation, would have brought such
poignant memories of the Boy.
So it came to pass, with a queer sense of the whole thing being
dream-like and unreal, that Miss Charteris--who should have had the
most crowded and most popular wedding in Cambridge--found herself
standing, as a bride, beside the Professor, in an ill-ventilated
church, at ten o'clock in the morning, being married by an old
clergyman she had never seen before, who seemed partially deaf, and
partially blind, and wholly inadequate to the solemn occasion; with
Miss Ann and her faithful Emma, sniffing in a pew on one side; while
Jenkins breathed rather heavily in a pew, on the other. Martha had
flatly refused to attend; and when Miss Charteris sent for her to bid
her good-bye, Martha had appeared, apparently in her worst and most
morose temper; then had suddenly broken down, and, exclaiming wildly:
"'Ow about _'im_?" had thrown her apron over her head, and left the
room, sobbing.
"_How about him? How about him?_"
Each turn of the wheels reiterated the question as she drove to Shiloh
to pick up Miss Ann; then on to the church where the Professor waited.
_How about him_? But _he_ had left her to do that which she felt to be
right, and she was doing it.
Nevertheless, Martha's wild outburst had brought the Boy very near; and
he seemed with her as she walked up the church.
Her mind wandered during the reading of the exhortation. In this
nightmare of a wedding she seemed to have no really important part to
play. The Boy would burst in, in a minute; and a shaft of light would
come with him. He would walk straight up the church to her, saying:
"We have jolly well had enough of this, Christobel!" Then they would
all wake up, and he would whirl her away in a motor and she would say:
"Boy dear; don't exceed the speed-limit."
But the Boy did not burst in; and the Professor's hands, looking
unusually large in a pair of white kid gloves, were twitching
nervously, for an emphatic question was being put to him by the old
clergyman, who had emerged from his hiding-place behind the
Prayer-book, as soon as the exhortation was over.
The Professor said: "I will," with considerable emotion; while Miss Ann
sobbed audibly into her lace pocket-handkerchief.
Christobel looked at the Professor. His outward appearance seemed
greatly improved. His beard had been trimmed; his hair--what there was
of it--cut. He had not once looked at her since she entered the church
and took her place at his side; but she knew, if he did look, his eyes
would be kind--kind, with a magnified kindness, behind the convex
lenses. The Boy had asked whether she loved the Professor's mouth,
eyes, and hair. What questions the amazing Boy used to ask! And she
had answered----
But here a silence in the church recalled her wandering thoughts. The
all-important question had been put to her. She had not heard one word
of it; yet the church awaited her "I will."
The silence became alarming. This was the exact psychological moment
in which the Boy should have dashed in to the rescue. But the Boy did
not dash in.
Then Christobel Charteris did a thing perhaps unique in the annals of
brides, but essentially characteristic of her extreme honesty.
"I am sorry," she said, in a low voice; "I did not hear the question.
Will you be good enough to repeat it?"
Miss Ann, in the pew behind, gasped audibly. The old clergyman peered
at her, in astonishment, over his glasses. His eyes were red-rimmed
and bloodshot.
Then he repeated the question slowly and deliberately, introducing a
tone of reproof, which made of it a menace. Miss Charteris listened
carefully to each clause and at the end she said: "I will."
Whereupon, with much fumbling, the Professor and the old clergyman
between them, succeeded in finding a ring, and in placing it upon the
third finger of her left hand. As they did so, her thoughts wandered
again. She was back in the garden with the Boy. He had caught her
left hand in both his, and kissed it; then, dividing the third finger
from the others, and holding it apart with his strong brown ones, he
had laid his lips upon it, with a touch of unspeakable reverence and
tenderness. She understood now, why the Boy had kissed that finger
separately. She looked down at it. The Professor's ring encircled it.
Then the old clergyman said: "Let us pray"; and, kneeling meekly upon
her knees, Christobel Charteris prayed, with all her heart, that she
might be a good wife to her old friend, the Professor.
* * * * *
From the church, they drove straight to the station, Miss Ann's plan
for them being, that they should lunch in London, reach Folkestone in
time for tea, and spend a day or two there, at a boarding-house kept by
an old cronie of Miss Ann's, before crossing to Boulogne, _en route_
for Brussels.
Christobel disliked the idea of the boarding-house, extremely. She had
never, in her life, stayed at a boarding-house; moreover it seemed to
her that a wedding journey called imperatively for hotels--and the best
of hotels. But Miss Ann had dismissed the question with an
authoritative wave of the hand, and a veiled insinuation that
hotels--particularly _Metropole_ hotels--were scarcely proper places.
Dear Miss Slinker's boarding-house would be so safe and nice, and the
company so congenial. But here the Professor had interposed, laying
his hand gently on Christobel's: "My dear Ann, we take our congenial
company with us."
This was the farthest excursion into the realm of sentiment, upon which
the Professor had as yet ventured. The sober, middle-aged side of Miss
Charteris had appreciated it, with a certain amount of grateful
emotion. But the youthful soul of Christobel had suddenly realized how
the Boy would slap his leg, and rock, over the recital of such a
sentence; and, between the two, she had been reduced to a condition
bordering on hysterics.
They travelled from Cambridge in a first-class compartment, had it to
themselves, and fell quite naturally into the style of conversation
which had always characterized their friendship; meeting each other's
minds, not over the happenings of a living present, but in a mutual
appreciation of the great intellects of a dead and gone past. Before
long, the Professor had whisked his favourite Persian poet from the
tail-pocket of his coat, Christobel had provided paper and pencil, and
they were deep in translation.
Arrived at Liverpool Street station, they entered a four-wheeler, and
trundled slowly off to Cannon Street. Christobel had imagined
four-wheelers to be obsolete; but the Professor dismissed her
suggestion of a taxi, as being "a needlessly rapid mode of progression,
indubitably fraught with perpetual danger," and proceeded to hail the
sleepy and astonished driver of a four-wheeled cab.
(Oh, Boy dear, what would you have said to that four-wheeler--you dear
record-breaking, speed-limit-exceeding, astonishingly rapid Boy? That
ancient four-wheeler, trundling past the Bank of England, the Royal
Exchange, the Mansion House, up King William Street, and round into
Cannon Street, endlessly blocked, continually pulling up; then starting
on, only to be stopped again; and your Belovèd inside it, Boy dear,
looking out of the ramshackle old window, in a vain endeavour to see
something of the London you had planned to show her in your own
delightful extravagant way. Oh, Boy dear, keep out of this! It is not
your show. This four-wheeler has been hailed and engaged by the
Professor. The lady within is the bride of the Professor. Hands off,
Boy!)
They drew up, for a few minutes, outside a bookseller's in New Broad
Street, on the left-hand side, just after they had trundled into it--a
delightful little place, crammed, lined, almost carpeted, with books.
The Professor plunged in, upsetting a pile of magazines in his hasty
entrance through the narrow doorway. Here he always found precisely
the book he happened to be requiring for his latest research. With an
incoherent remark to the proprietor, who advanced to meet him, the
Professor became immediately absorbed, in a far corner of the shop,
oblivious of his cab, his bride, and his train. Christobel had
followed him, and stood, a dignified, but somewhat lonely figure, just
within the doorway. She had been to this shop with her father, during
his lifetime, on several occasions, and had since often written for
books. The bookseller came forward. He was a man possessed of the
useful faculty of remembering faces and the names appertaining to them.
Also he had cultivated the habit of taking an intelligent interest in
his customers. But he did not connect this beautiful waiting figure,
with the absorbed back of the Professor.
"What can I do for you to-day, Miss Charteris?" he inquired, with ready
courtesy.
Christobel started. "Nothing to-day, thank you, Mr. Taylor. But I am
much obliged to you for so often supplying my requirements by return of
post. And, by the way, you have an excellent memory. It is many years
since I came here last, with my father."
"Professor Charteris was one of my best customers," said the
bookseller, in an undertone of deferential sympathy. "I never knew a
finer judge of a book than he. If I may be allowed to say so, I deeply
deplored his loss, Miss Charteris."
Christobel smiled, and gently unbent, allowing the kindly expression of
appreciation and regret to reach her with comfort in these moments of
dream-like isolation. A friendly hand seemed to have been outstretched
across the chasm which divides the passionately regretted past, from
the scarcely appreciated present. She could see her father's tall
scholarly figure, as he stood lovingly fingering a book, engaged in
earnest conversation with Mr. Taylor, regardless of the passing of
time; until she was obliged to lay her hand on his arm, and hurry him
through the crowded streets, down the steep incline, to the platform
from which the Cambridge express was on the point of starting. And
when safely seated, with barely a minute to spare, he would turn to
her, with a smile of gentle reproof, saying: "But, my dear child, we
had not concluded our conversation." And she would laugh and say: "But
we had to get home to-night, Papa." Whereupon he would lean back,
contentedly, replying: "Quite right, my dear. So we had."
Ah, happy those whose fathers and mothers still walk the earth beside
them. Youth remains, notwithstanding the passing of years, while there
is still a voice to say, in reproof or approbation: "My child."
But the bookseller, not yet connecting her with the Professor, still
waited her pleasure; and suddenly a thought struck Christobel. An
eager wish awoke within her.
"Mr. Taylor," she said, hurriedly; "can you supply me with the very
newest thing on the subject of aviation? I want to learn all there is
to know about propellers, steering-gear, cross-currents, and how to
avoid the dangers----"
She stopped short. The Professor had found what he wanted, and was
fumbling for his purse.
The bookseller turned quickly to a pile at his elbow, took up a
paper-covered book, and placed it in her hands. "The very latest," he
said. "Published yesterday. You will find in it all you want to
know." Then, as he handed the Professor his change, "Allow me to place
it to your account, Miss Charteris," he said.
Experiencing a quite unaccountable sense of elation and fresh interest
in life, Christobel, armed with her book on aviation, re-entered the
four-wheeler. The Professor, absorbed in his own purchase, had not
noticed her private transaction. He followed her into the cab, and
made three ineffectual attempts to close the door. Just as the driver
was slowly beginning to prepare to climb down, Mr. Taylor came across
the crowded pavement, to their rescue; released the Professor's
coat-tail, shut them in, and signed to the cabman to drive on. With a
good deal of "gee-up" and whip-flourishing, they re-commenced to
trundle. Mr. Taylor was not merely a provider of literature; he was
also a keen observer of life, and of human nature. As Christobel
leaned forward to acknowledge his help, and to smile her farewell, his
expression seemed to say: "A four-wheeler, Professor Harvey, and the
latest work on aviation! An unusual combination." "Very unusual," she
said to herself, and smiled again. Then it seemed to her that her
friend of the bookshop had said: "You will find what you want, on page
274." She knew he had not, as a matter of fact, mentioned any page;
but the figures came into her mind. She opened the book, and glanced
at page 274. It was headed: "Fine performances by Mr. Guy Chelsea."
She shut it quickly. There was no room for the actual presence of the
Boy in the Professor's four-wheeler.
They lunched at a depôt of the Aerated Bread Company, close to Cannon
Street station. While Christobel was struggling with a very large
plateful of cold tongue, she suddenly remembered that one of the Boy's
many plans had been to take her to lunch at his favourite restaurant in
Piccadilly; where she would be able to order any dish she fancied, and
find it better served than she had ever known it before; or to dine at
the Hotel Metropole, where Monsieur Delma's perfect orchestra would
play for her any mortal thing for which she chose to ask, and play it
better than she had ever heard it played.
These memories, and a really excellent cup of coffee, helped Christobel
in her struggles with the round of cold tongue; and she looked across
the little marble-topped table brightly at the Professor, and spoke
with a cheerful hopefulness which surprised herself.
But something, other than his own plate of cold tongue, seemed weighing
on the Professor. He had become preoccupied and distrait.
When they reached the Folkestone train, Christobel found out the cause
of his preoccupation.
"My dear Ann--I should say Christobel," remarked the Professor,
hurriedly, as he put her into an empty compartment, and hesitated in
the doorway. "I am always accustomed at this hour to have my pipe and
a nap. Should you object, my dear Ann--er--that is, Christobel, if I
sought a smoking compartment?"
"Oh, _please_ do!" she exclaimed, eagerly. The idea of two hours of
freedom and solitude suddenly seemed an undreamed of joy. "Don't think
of me. I am quite happy here."
"I will provide you with a paper," said the Professor, and hailed a
passing boy. He laid the paper on her lap, and disappeared.
The train started.
Christobel looked out of the window as they slowly steamed across the
bridge over the Thames. She loved the flow of the river, with its
constant procession of barges, dredges, boats, and steamers; a silent,
moving highway, right through the heart of the noisy whirl of London
street-traffic. They ran past old St. Saviour's Church, now promoted
to be Southwark Cathedral; out through the suburbs, until streets
became villas, woods and meadows appeared, and the train ran through
Chislehurst--peaceful English resting-place where lie entombed the
bright Imperial hopes of France--then on through Sevenoaks, into the
bowery green of the Kentish hop-gardens.
After passing Sevenoaks, she took up the Professor's paper and glanced
at it. Somehow she had felt sure it would be the _Daily Graphic_. It
was the _Daily Mirror_! She had never held a halfpenny illustrated
paper in her hands before. No doubt it was an excellent paper, and met
the need of an immense number of people, to whom an additional
halfpenny a day would be a consideration. But, that the Professor,
when providing her with one paper, should have chosen a halfpenny
instead of a penny paper, seemed to hold a curious significance, and
called up sudden swift memories of the Boy. He would have bought
_Punch_, the _Graphic_, the _Illustrated_, the _Spectator_, and a
_Morning Post_, plumped them all down on the seat in front of her; then
sat beside her, and talked, the whole journey through, so that she
would not have had a moment in which to open one of them.
(Oh, Boy dear! Don't look at this _Daily Mirror_. You might misjudge
the good Professor. With your fifty thousand a year, how can you be
expected to understand a mind which _must_ consider ha'pence, even when
brides and wedding journeys are concerned. _Do_ keep away, Boy dear.
This is not your wedding journey.)
Then she opened the _Daily Mirror_, and there looked out at her, from
its central page, the merry, handsome, daring face of her own Little
Boy Blue!
He was seated in his flying machine, steering-wheel in hand, looking
out from among many wires. His cap was on the back of his head; his
bright eyes looked straight into hers; his firm lips, parted in a
smile, seemed to be saying: "I jolly well mean to do it." Beneath was
an account of him, and a description of the flight he was to attempt on
that day, across the Channel, circling round Boulogne Cathedral, and
back. He was to start at two o'clock. At that very moment he must be
in mid-air.
Oh, Little Boy Blue! Little Boy Blue! You have a way of making hearts
stand still.
* * * * *
The boarding-house proved to be a place decidedly conducive to the
taking of a fresh-air cure; because nobody remained within its four
walls, if the weather could possibly admit of their going out.
As soon as Christobel and the Professor had taken tea, and replied to
Miss Slinker's many questions, they went out to walk on the Leas until
sunset. It was a radiant afternoon, and the strong wind which had
suddenly arisen, blowing, in unexpected gusts, from the sea, acted as a
tonic to weary heart and brain. Christobel, holding on her hat as she
walked, battled her way beside the Professor, up a cross street, into
the Sandgate Road.
There they went to the telegraph office, and sent Miss Ann news of
their safe arrival, and of the extreme comfort they felt sure of
experiencing at Miss Slinker's delightful abode. (This was the
Professor's wording.)
They looked in at Parson's Library _just_ to order a book Miss Ann
wanted; and, on a little farther, _just_ to match some crewel silks for
a tea-cosy Miss Ann was making.
These commissions duly executed, they were free to make their way to
the Leas parade, whence they would look down upon the beach, and enjoy
a distance view across the Channel. They took the side street which
brought them out upon the esplanade, close to the lift by which people
continuously mounted or descended the steep face of the cliff.
A considerable crowd lined the esplanade railing, looking over eagerly.
Apparently there was some object of particular interest to be seen
below.
Christobel and the Professor advanced to the railing, and also looked
over.
She saw a strange thing floating in the sea, between the promenade pier
and the harbour. It seemed a huge insect, with broken wings. Its body
was a mass of twisted wires. Around this, a little fleet of
rowing-boats had gathered. They looked black, on the blue wind-swept
waters, like water-boatmen on a village pond. They darted in and out
and round about the wreckage of the huge wings and twisted wire, and
seemed waiting for a chance to help.
A man stood next to Christobel and the Professor; a man who talked to
himself.
"Ah, poor chap," he said; "poor chap! So nearly back! So nearly broke
the record! Such a sport!"
"What is that thing in the water?" inquired the Professor.
The man turned and looked at him.
"An aeroplane," he said, slowly, speaking with a sort of stolid
deliberation. "A wrecked aeroplane. Caught in a cross-current, worse
luck! Just accomplished one of the finest flights on record. Started
from up here; skimmed over the Channel to Boulogne; circled round the
cathedral--such a clear day; we could watch the whole flight with
field-glasses--came gaily back without a stop; was making for the cliff
again, when a cross-current caught him; something went wrong with the
steering-gear; and down it goes, with a plunge, head first into the
sea."
"And the--er--occupant?" inquired the Professor.
"The aeronaut? Ah, he didn't fall clear, worse luck, or they could
soon have fished him out. He stuck to his seat and his wheel, and fell
smash in among his wires. They are trying to extricate him now. Bad
luck, poor chap! Such a sport."
"Do you know his name?" asked the Professor, peering down at the
waiting crowd which lined the beach.
"Guy Chelsea," said the man. "And I give you my word, he was the
finest, pluckiest young amateur we had among the airmen."
Then Christobel's heart began to beat again, and her limbs seemed to
regain the power to move.
"He is mine," she said. "I must go to him. He is my own Little Boy
Blue." And she began to run along the Leas toward the stone steps
which zigzag down to the shore.
She heard the Professor running after her.
"Ann," he called, "Ann! Stay! This is--most--unnecessary!"
She flew on.
"At least take the lift!" bawled the Professor.
She hurried on and reached the steps, pausing an instant to glance back.
The Professor had stopped at the lift, and was waving to her with his
umbrella.
She could never remember running down those steps. In what seemed but
a moment from the time she reached them, she found herself stumbling
painfully down the steep slope of shingle to the water's edge.
The lift, bearing the Professor, had just begun to crawl down the face
of the cliff. She could see him gesticulating through the glass
windows.
The crowd on the shore, chiefly composed of rough men, was thickest
round the base of a wide stone breakwater, jutting out into the sea.
On this break-water stood an empty stretcher. A coast-guardsman
marched up and down, keeping the crowd off the breakwater.
Christobel reached the outskirts of the crowd, and could get no farther.
"Please let me through," she said. "I belong to him. He is mine."
They turned and looked at her.
"She's 'is mother," said a voice. "Let 'er through."
"Mother be blowed!" said another voice, hoarsely. "Get out! She's 'is
_wife_."
"Yes," she cried eagerly. "Yes! Oh, do let me through! I am his
wife."
Suddenly she knew it was true. The Boy's great love had made her his
wife. Had he not said: "You and I are one, Christobel; eternally,
indissolubly _one_. You will find it out, when it is too late"?
The crowd parted, making a way for her, straight to the foot of the
breakwater.
She mounted it, and walked towards the empty stretcher.
The coast-guardsman confronted her.
"He is mine," she said, quietly. "I have the right to be here."
The man saluted, in respectful silence.
She stood gazing out to where the crowd of boats hovered about the
great insect with broken wings.
The sea gleamed golden in the sunset.
One boat, larger than the rest, slowly detached itself from the general
mêlée, pulling with measured stroke toward the breakwater.
Something lay very still in the bow, covered with a sail-cloth.
Two coast-guardsmen rowed; one steered.
The boat came toward the breakwater, in a shaft of sunlight.
Christobel turned to the man beside her.
"Is there any hope?" she asked.
"'Fraid not, lady. My mate just signalled: all U P."
"Ah!" she said, looking wide-eyed into his face. "Ah!--But there must
be pioneers."
The coast-guardsman turned and walked toward the crowd.
"She's 'is wife, men," he said, with a jerk of his thumb over his
shoulder. "She's 'is wife; yet when I told her it was all U P, she
said: 'There must be pioneers.'"
The crowd of roughs doffed their caps.
The boat drew slowly nearer.
Then she saw the Professor, hurrying down the shingle, waving his
umbrella.
He must not come yet.
She advanced to the shore end of the breakwater, and spoke to the crowd.
"Please," she said, "oh, please, if possible, prevent that gentleman
from reaching the breakwater."
They turned, and saw the advancing figure of the Professor, flurried
and irate.
"'Ullo, Bill," cried a voice. "She says: Don't let the old bloke
through."
They passed the word from one to the other. "Don't let the old bloke
through." They closed the outer ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder.
The Professor's umbrella waved wildly on the outskirts.
She moved along the breakwater. Yes, that was it. "Don't let the old
bloke through." She had never used such a word in her life before, but
it just met the needs of the case. "Don't let the old bloke through."
The boat drew nearer.
A bugle, away up on the cliff, sounded the call to arms.
"Little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn! The cow's in the meadow; the
sheep, in the corn. Where is the boy who looks after the sheep? Ah,
dear God! Where is the Boy? Where is the Boy? Where is the
Boy?--He's under the sailcloth--fast asleep."
The boat drew nearer. She could hear the measured plash of the oars;
the rhythmic rattle of the rowlocks. They advanced, to the beat of the
words in her brain.
"There must--be pion--eers! Don't let the old bloke through. Oh,
where is the boy who looks after the sheep? He's under the sail-cloth,
fast asleep."
The boat drew level with the breakwater, grating against it.
"Under the sail-cloth, Boy dear; under the sail-cloth--fast asleep."
Tenderly, carefully, they lifted their burden. As the boat rocked, and
their feet shuffled beneath the weight, she closed her eyes. When she
opened them once more, the quiet Thing under the sail-cloth lay upon
the stretcher. Every man within sight stood silent and bareheaded.
The bugle on the cliff sounded: "lights out."
The golden shaft of sunlight died from off the sea.
Then she came forward, and knelt beside her Boy.
Suddenly she understood the cry of anguish wrung from the loving heart
of a woman at a tomb: "Tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will
take Him away!" Oh, faithful heart of woman, alike through all the
ages; ready, with superhuman effort, to prove a limitless love and a
measureless grief!
She knelt beside the stretcher, and lifted the sail-cloth.
Yes, it was the Boy--her own Little Boy Blue.
His curly hair was matted with blood and salt water. There was a deep
gash across his temple, from the ear, right up into the hair His eyes
were closed; but his lips smiled, triumphant. "There must be pioneers!
Every good life given, advances the cause." "Yes, Little Boy Blue.
But has it ever struck you, that, if you marry, your wife will most
probably want you to give up flying; not being able to bear that a man
who was her ALL, should do these things?" She lifted the sail-cloth
quite away, and stood looking down upon him, so shattered, yet so
beautiful, in his triumphant sleep.
Suddenly her arm was seized from behind. She turned.
The Professor had succeeded in pushing his way through the crowd, and
in mounting the breakwater. His cravat was awry; his top-hat was on
the back of his head. He looked at her through his glasses, in amazed
indignation.
"Christobel," he said, "this is no place for you. Come away at once.
Do you hear? I _bid_ you come with me at once."
The only thing she really minded was that his hat was on, in the
presence of her Dead.
She could not free her arm from the grip of the Professor.
She turned and pointed to the stretcher, with her left hand.
"My place is here," she said, clearly and deliberately. "I have the
right to be here. This is all a fearful nightmare, from which we are
bound before long to wake. But meanwhile, I tell you plainly--as I
ought to have told you before--_this is the body of the man I love_."
At that moment, one of the crowd, springing on to the breakwater behind
the Professor, struck off his hat with a cane. It fell into the sea.
The Professor let go her arm, and turned to see who had perpetrated the
outrage, and whether the hat could be recovered.
Then she bent over the stretcher.
"Boy dear," she whispered, in tones of ineffable tenderness; "this is
where they have laid you; but _I_ will take you away."
She put her arms beneath the body; then, with an almost superhuman
effort, lifted it, and gathered it to her. It felt limp and broken.
The head fell heavily against her breast. The blood and salt-water
soaked through her thin muslin blouse. But she held him, and would not
let him go. "I will take him away," she whispered; "I will take him
away."
She knew she was losing her reason, but she had known that, ever since
she first looked down from the top of the cliff, and saw the broken
wings floating on the sea. Now, with her Boy in her arms, her one idea
was to get away from the Professor; away from the coast-guardsmen; away
from the crowd.
Turning her back upon the beach, she staggered along the breakwater,
toward the open sea.
"I will take him away," she repeated; "I will take him away."
Then her foot slipped. She still held the Boy, but she felt herself
falling.
She closed her eyes.
She never knew which she struck first, the stone breakwater, or the
sea----
THE SEVENTH DAY
THE STONE IS ROLLED AWAY
When Christobel recovered consciousness and opened her eyes, she found
herself in bed, in her own room, at home.
Martha bent over her.
The morning light entered dimly, through closed curtains.
In dumb anguish of mind, she looked up into Martha's grim old face.
"Tell me where you have laid him," she said, "and I will take him away."
Martha snorted.
"I've laid your tea-tray on the table beside your bed, Miss," she said;
"and when you 'ave finished with it, _I_ will take it away."
Whereupon, Martha lumbered to the large bow-window, drew back all the
curtains with a vigorous clatter of brass rings, and let in a blaze of
morning sunshine.
Christobel lay quite still, trying to collect her thoughts.
One of her pillows was clasped tightly in her arms.
She lifted her left hand, and looked at it.
No ring encircled the third finger.
"Martha," she called, softly.
Martha loomed large at the side of the bed.
"What is to-day?"
"Wednesday, Miss," replied Martha, too much surprised to be
contemptuous.
"Martha--where is Mr. Chelsea?"
"Lord only knows," said Martha, tragically.
"Martha--is he--living?"
"Living?" repeated Martha, deliberately. Then she smiled, her crooked
smile. "Living don't express it, Miss Christobel. Lively's more like
it, when Mr. Guy is concerned. And I reckon, wherever 'e is, e's
makin' things lively somewhere for somebody. You don't look quite the
thing this morning, Miss. Sit up and take your tea."
She sat up, loosing the pillow out of her arms--the pillow which had
been, first her Little Boy Blue, as she drew him to her in the
darkness; then the dead body of Guy Chelsea, as she lifted it on the
breakwater.
She took her tea from Martha's hand, and drank it quickly. She wanted
Martha to go.
It was Wednesday! Then the Boy had left her only the day before
yesterday. His telegram had come last night. The Professor's proposal
had not yet reached her.
Martha lifted the tray and departed.
Then Christobel Charteris rose, and stood at her open window, in the
morning sunlight. She looked out upon the mulberry-tree and the long
vista of soft turf; in the dim distance, the postern gate in the old
red wall--his paradise, and hers.
She lifted her beautiful arms above her head. The loose sleeves of her
nightdress fell away, baring them to the elbows. She might have stood,
in her noble development of face and form, for a splendid statue of
hope and praise.
"Ah, dear God!" she breathed, "is it indeed true? Is it possible? Is
my Boy alive? And am I free--free to be his alone? Am I free to give
him all he wants, free to be all he needs?"
She stood long at the window motionless, realizing the mental
adjustment which had come to her during the strenuous hours of the
night.
Her dream had taught her one great lesson: That under no circumstances
whatever, can it be right for a woman to marry one man, while with her
whole being she loves another. Love is Lord of all. Love reigns
paramount. No expectations, past or present, based on friendship or
gratitude; no sense of duty or obligations of any kind could make a
marriage right, if, in view of that marriage, Love had to stand by with
broken wings.
She felt quite sure, now, that she could never marry the Professor; and
humbly she thanked God for opening her eyes to the wrong she had
contemplated, before it was too late.
But there still remained the difficult prospect of having to disappoint
a man she esteemed so highly; a man who had been led to believe she
cared for him, and had waited years for him; a man who, for years, had
set his heart upon her. This was a heavy stone, and it lay right in
the path of perfect bliss which she longed to tread with her Little Boy
Blue.
Who should roll it away?
Could she feel free to take happiness with the Boy, if she had
disappointed and crushed a deeply sensitive nature which trusted her?
She dressed, and went down to the breakfast-room, her soul filled, in
spite of perplexities, with a radiance of glad thanksgiving.
Martha and Jenkins came in to prayers. Martha had now taken to curling
all her wisps. She appeared with many frizzled ringlets, kept in place
by invisible pins.
Martha always came in to prayers, as if she were marching at the head
of a long row of men and maids. Jenkins followed meekly, placing his
chair at what would have been the tail of Martha's imaginary retinue.
According to the triumphant dignity of Martha's entry, Jenkins placed
his chair near or far away. Martha was in great form to-day. Jenkins
sat almost at the door. If the door-bell rang during prayers, the
first ring was tacitly ignored; but if it rang again, Martha signed to
Jenkins, who tiptoed reverently out, and answered it. No matter how
early in the morning's devotions the interruption occurred, Jenkins
never considered it etiquette to return. Miss Charteris used to dread
a duet alone with Martha. She always became too intensely conscious of
herself and of Martha, to be uplifted as usual by the inspired words of
Bible and Prayer-book. The presence of Jenkins at once constituted a
congregation.
On this particular morning, no interruptions occurred.
The portion for the day chanced to be the scene at the empty tomb, in
the early dawn of that first Easter Day, as given by Saint Mark.
The quiet voice vibrated with unusual emotion as Miss Charteris read:
"_And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came
unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among
themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the
sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled
away: for it was very great._"
Christobel Charteris paused. She seemed to see the shore at
Dovercourt, and the brave little figure struggling to carry the heavy
stone; and, later on when the cannon-ball lay safely in the castle
court-yard, Little Boy Blue standing erect, with lifted cap, and
shining eyes, a picture of faith triumphant.
"_I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not._"
How far were the happenings of this strange night owing to that dead
mother's prayers; and to the Boy's unfailing faith, even through these
hard days?
Miss Charteris could read no farther. She closed the Bible. "Let us
pray," she said, and turned to the Collect for the week.
"_O God, Whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in
heaven and earth: We humbly beseech Thee to put away from us all
hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._"
* * * * *
On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, lay the Professor's letter.
She had known it would be there.
She poured out her coffee and buttered her toast.
Then she opened the letter.
"My dear Ann"----
After the nightmare through which she had just passed, this beginning
scarcely surprised her. She glanced back at the envelope to make quite
sure it was addressed to herself; then read on. It was dated the
evening before, from the Professor's rooms in College.
"MY DEAR ANN,--I regret to have been unable to look in upon you this
evening, on my return from town, and my duties will keep me from paying
you a visit until to-morrow, in the late afternoon. Hence this letter.
"Needless to say, I have been thinking over, carefully, the remarkable
statement you saw fit to make to me, concerning the feelings and
expectations of our young friend. It came to me as a genuine surprise.
I have always looked upon our friendship as purely Platonic; based
entirely upon the intellectual enjoyment we found in pursuing our
classical studies together.
"I admit, I cannot bring myself to contemplate matrimony with much
enthusiasm.
"At the same time, your feeling in the matter being so strong, and my
sense of gratitude toward my late friend, a thing never to be
forgotten; if you are quite sure, Ann--and I confess it seems to me
altogether incredible--that our young friend entertains, toward me,
feelings which will mean serious disappointment to her, if I fail----"
This brought the letter to the bottom of the first page.
Without reading any farther, Miss Charteris folded it, and replaced it
in the envelope.
The indignant blood had mounted to the roots of her soft fair hair.
But already, in her heart, sounded a song of wondering praise.
"_And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it
was very great._"
The iron gate of the front garden swung open. Hurried steps flew up
the path. Emma, poor soul, had been told to _fly_; and Emma had flown.
She almost fell into the arms of Jenkins, as he opened the hall door.
The note with which Emma had run, at a speed which was now causing her
"such a stitch as never was," came from Miss Ann, and was marked
"_urgent_" and "_immediate_."
The corners of Christobel's proud mouth curved into a quiet smile as
she took it from the salver. She had expected this note.
"Take Emma downstairs, Jenkins," she said. "Ask Martha to give her a
cup of coffee, and an egg, if she fancies it. Tell Emma, I wish her to
sit down comfortably and rest. The answer to this note will be ready
in about half an hour; not before."
Miss Charteris finished her coffee and toast, poured out a fresh cup,
and took some marmalade. She did not hurry over her breakfast.
When she had quite finished, she rose, and walked over to the
writing-table. She sat down, opened her blotter, took paper and
envelopes; found a pen, and tried it.
Then she opened Miss Ann's letter, marked "urgent" and "immediate."
"SWEETEST CHILD" (wrote Miss Ann)--"See what Kenrick has done! We--you
and I--_so_ understand his dear absent-minded ways. He wrote this
letter to you last night, and, owing to his natural emotion and tension
of mind, addressed it to me! Needless to say, I have read only the
opening sentences. Darling Christobel, you will, I feel sure, overlook
the very natural mistake, and not allow it in any way to affect your
answer to my brother's proposal. Remember how difficult it is for
_great_ minds to be accurate in the _small_ details of _daily_ life. I
have known Kenrick to put two spoonfuls of mustard into a cup of
coffee, stir it round, and drink it, _quite_ unaware that anything was
wrong--I have indeed! See how our dear Professor needs a _wife_!
"I feel quite foolishly anxious this morning. Do send me one line of
assurance that all is well. You cannot but be touched by my brother's
letter. From beginning to end, it breathes the faithful devotion of a
lifetime. Do not misunderstand the natural reticence of one wholly
unaccustomed to the voicing of sentiment. I only wish you could hear
all he _says_ to me!"
Then followed a few prayers and devout allusions to Providence--which
brought a stern look to the face of Miss Charteris--and, with a whiff
of effusive sentiment, Ann Harvey closed her epistle.
An open letter from the Professor to herself was enclosed; but this,
Christobel quietly laid aside.
She took pen and paper, and wrote at once the note for which Emma
waited.
"DEAR ANN,--I enclose a letter from your brother which came, addressed
to me, this morning, but was evidently intended for you. I have read
only the first page, which was quite sufficient to make the true state
of affairs perfectly clear to me.
"Providence has indeed interposed, by means of the Professor's
absent-minded ways, to prevent the wrecking of three lives--mine, your
brother's, and that of the man I love; to whom I shall be betrothed
before the day is over.
"I shall not tell the Professor that I have seen a portion of his
letter to you. I think we owe it to him not to do so. He has always
been a true and honourable friend to me.
"Yours,
"C. C."
When Emma had duly departed with this letter and enclosure, Miss
Charteris breathed more freely. She had been afraid lest, in her
righteous indignation, in her consciousness of the terrible mischief so
nearly wrought, she should write too strongly to Miss Ann, thus causing
her unnecessary pain.
It was quite impossible, to the fine generosity of a nature such as
that of Christobel Charteris, really to understand the mean,
self-centred, unscrupulous dishonesty of an action such as this of Miss
Ann's. From the calm heights whereon she walked, such small-minded
selfishness of motive did not come within her field of vision. She
could never bring herself to believe worse of Miss Ann than that, in
some incomprehensible way, she had laboured under a delusion regarding
herself and the Professor.
Miss Ann disposed of, she turned to the Professor's letter.
It was not the letter of her dream, by any means; nor was it the letter
she had sometimes dreamed he would write.
It was straightforward and simple; and, holding the key to the
situation, she could read between the lines a certain amount of
dismayed surprise, which made her heartily sorry for her old friend.
The Professor touched on their long friendship, his regard for her
parents, his sincere admiration for herself; their unity of interests
and congeniality of tastes; his sudden change of fortunes; quoted a
little Greek, a little Sanskrit, and a little Persian; then, fortified
by these familiar aids to the emotions, offered her marriage, in
valiant and unmistakable terms.
Christobel's heart stood still as she realized that not one word in
that letter would have revealed to her the true state of the case.
Truly, under Providence, she had cause to bless the Professor's "dear
absent-minded ways."
As she took pen and paper to reply to his letter, her heart felt very
warm toward her old friend. She gave him full credit for the effort
with which he had done what he had been led to consider was the right
thing toward her.
"MY DEAR PROFESSOR" (she wrote),--"I rejoice to hear of your good
fortune. It is well indeed when the great thinkers of the world are
rendered independent of all anxious taking of thought as to what they
shall eat, or what they shall drink, or wherewithal they shall be
clothed. I like to think of you, my friend, as now set completely free
from all mundane cares; able to give your undivided attention to the
work you love.
"I appreciate, more than I can say, the kind proposition concerning
myself, which you make in your letter. I owe it to our friendship to
tell you quite frankly that I feel, and have long felt, how great an
honour it would be for any woman to be in a position so to administer
your household as to set you completely free for your great
intellectual pursuits.
"But marriage would mean more than this, and our long friendship
emboldens me to say that I should grieve to see you--owing perhaps to
pressure or advice from others--burden your life with family ties for
which you surely do not yourself feel any special inclination.
"And, now, my friend, I must not close my letter without telling you
how great a happiness has come into my lonely life. I am about to
marry a man whom--" Miss Charteris paused, and looked through the open
window to the softly moving leaves of the old mulberry-tree. A gleam
of amusement shone in her eyes, curving her lips into a tender smile.
The Boy seemed beside her, slapping his knee and rocking with merriment
at the way she was about to bewilder Miss Ann and the Professor--"a man
whom I have known and loved for over twenty years.
"I am sure you will wish me joy, dear Professor.
"Believe me, always,
"Gratefully and affectionately yours,
"CHRISTOBEL CHARTERIS."
She rang the bell, and sent the answer to the Professor's letter, by
Jenkins. She could not wait for the slow medium of the post. She
could not let him remain another hour in the belief that, in order to
save her from disappointment, he was compelled to marry Christobel
Charteris.
She stood at the breakfast-room window, and watched Jenkins as he
hurried down the garden with the note. Going by the lane, and taking a
short cut across the fields, he would reach the Professor's rooms in a
quarter of an hour. Until then, life was somewhat intolerable.
The proud blood mantled again over the face, the strong sweet beauty of
which the Boy so loved. Her letter to the Professor had not been easy
to write. She had had to be true to herself, and true to him, in the
light of what she knew to be his real feeling in the matter; bearing in
mind that before long he would almost certainly learn from Miss Ann
that she had replied to his proposal after having read his sentiments
on the subject, so candidly expressed on the first page of his letter
to his sister.
To relieve her mind, after this intricate whirl of
cross-correspondence, she took up the _Daily Graphic_, and opened it,
casually turning the pages.
Suddenly there looked out at her from the central page, the merry,
handsome, daring face of her own Little Boy Blue. He was seated in his
flying-machine steering-wheel in hand, looking out from among many
wires. His cap was on the back of his head, his bright eyes looked
straight into hers; his firm young lips, parted in a smile, seemed to
say; "I jolly well mean to do it!" It was the very picture she had
seen in the Professor's _Daily Mirror_, in her dream of the night
before. Below was an account of the flight from Folkestone which he
was about to attempt.
Then she remembered, with a shock of realization, that the flight
across the Channel, round Boulogne Cathedral and back, was to take
place on that very day. His telegram, of the night before, had said:
"I am going to do a big fly to-morrow. Wish me luck." Ah, what if it
ended as she had seen it end in her dream: great broken wings; a mass
of tangled wire; and the Boy--_her_ Boy--with matted hair, and wounded
head, asleep beneath the sailcloth!
Her heart stood still.
With their perfect joy so near its fulfilment, she could not let him
take the risk. Was there time to stop him?
She looked at the paper. The start was for 2 p.m. It was now eleven
o'clock.
She remembered his last words: "When you want me and send--why, I will
come from the other end of the world."
She never quite knew how she reached the telegraph-office. It seemed
almost as dreamlike as her flight from the top to the bottom of the
Folkestone cliffs. But it was not a dream this time; it was desperate
reality.
Why do people always break the points of the pencils hanging from
strings in the telegraph-offices? Surely it is possible to write a
telegram without stubbing off the pencil, and leaving it in that
condition, for the next person in a hurry.
She flew from compartment to compartment, and at last produced her own
pencil, and wrote her telegram in the final section of the row,
independent of official broken points.
"_Do not fly to-day. Come to me. I want you._
"_Christobel._"
She addressed it to the hotel from which he had telegraphed on the
previous day; but added to the address: "If not there, send immediately
to aviation sheds." She had no idea what to call the places, but this
sounded well, and seemed an intuition, or an unconscious recollection
of some remark of the Boy's.
She handed it over the counter. "Please see that it goes through at
once," she said.
The clerk knew her. "Yes, Miss Charteris," he replied. He began
reading the message aloud, but almost immediately stopped, and checked
the words off silently. He glanced at the clock. "It should be there
before noon, Miss Charteris," he said.
He did not look at her, as he passed her the stamps. He had long
thought her one of the finest women who stepped in and out of the
post-office. He had never expected to see her hands tremble. And
fancy _any_ woman--even _she_--being able to tell Guy Chelsea not to
fly! He had a bet on, about that flight, with an enthusiastic backer
of Chelsea's. He was glad he had taken the odds against its coming
off, before seeing this wire. But--after all! It is easy enough to
_ask_ a chap not to fly; but----
He took up a copy of the _Daily Mirror_, and looked at the brave
smiling face. "I jolly well mean to do it!" the young aeronaut seemed
to be saying. The clerk laughed, and shook his head. "Hurry up that
wire," he called to the operator. Then he jingled the loose change in
his pockets. "I wonder," he said.
* * * * *
During the hours which followed, Christobel Charteris knew suspense.
Perhaps that strong, self-contained nature could never have fully
sounded the depths of its own surrender, without those hours of
uncertainty, when nothing stood between her and the man she loved, but
the possibility that her telegram would fail to reach him; that he
would carry out his dangerous flight; that disaster and death would
overtake him and wrest him from her, and that he would die--Guy Chelsea
would die--without ever knowing of the cup of bliss she was now ready,
with utterly loving hand, to hold to his lips.
Having sent her message, there was nothing more she could do, and the
burden of inaction seemed almost too great a weight to carry, during
the hours which must elapse, before his coming could turn uncertainty
into assurance; restlessness, into peace.
It did not occur to her, as a possibility, that Guy Chelsea would elect
to fly, after receiving her request. She knew her slightest wish would
be law to the Boy's tender loyalty; and though he knew nothing of her
cause for anxiety, nor of the complete change of circumstances since he
left her, not forty-eight hours before, she felt sure he would not fly;
she felt certain he would come--if--_if_ the message reached him in
time.
At two o'clock it came to her, with overwhelming certainty, that her
message had not reached him, and that he had started on his flight.
She seemed to see the great wings mounting--mounting; then skimming
over the sea. She almost heard the hum he had so often described--the
hum of the giant insect on which the bird-man flew.
Her own Little Boy Blue was flying through space. O God, what might
not any minute be bringing! He had said: "One never expects those
things to happen, and when they do happen, it's over so quickly that
there is no time for expectation." Was it happening now? Was it going
to be over so quickly, that her cup of bliss would be dashed from her
lips untasted? Was she to lose her all, because of a cross-current or
a twisted wire?
She was walking up and down the garden now, and paused beside the chair
in which she had sat when he had said, only seven days ago: "It was
always you I wanted; not your niece. Good heavens! How can you have
thought it was Mollie, when it was you--you--just only you, all the
time?" And she, half-laughing at him, had asked: "Is this a proposal?"
"My ALL," she said. "Oh, Boy dear, my ALL. If I lose you, I lose my
ALL."
She walked on slowly, moving to the repetition of those words. It
seemed a comfort to repeat the great fact that, at last, he was this to
her. Surely it would reach him, by some sort of wireless telegraphy
through space. Surely it would control cross-currents, keep propellers
acting as they should; steering-gear from twisting.
"O God, he is my ALL--he is my ALL!"
* * * * *
The afternoon sun began to glint through the trees.
The jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems" lifted pale anxious faces to
the sky.
Clocks all around chimed the hour of four.
Suddenly her limbs weakened. She could walk no longer.
She sank into a chair, beneath the mulberry-tree.
In a few minutes Jenkins would bring out tea. Would Martha have
arranged a tea such as the Boy loved, with cups for two, hot
buttered-toast and explosive buns?
What a boy he was, at heart--this man who had won her; what a gay,
laughter-loving boy!
She lay back, very still, under the mulberry-tree, and lived again
through each of the Boy's days, from the first to the sixth.
She kept her eyes closed. The sunlight, glinting through the mulberry
leaves, fell in bright patches on her white gown, and on her soft
golden hair.
The garden was very still. All nature seemed waiting with the heart
that waited.
"_Little Boy Blue, come blow me your horn!_"
"I shall blow it all right on the seventh day," the Boy had said; "and
when I do, you will hear it."
This was the seventh day.
Suddenly the horn of a motor tooted loudly in the lane.
She rose, her hands clasped upon her breast, and stood waiting
A shaft of golden sunlight streamed down the garden, and seemed to
focus on the postern gate.
Then the gate swung open and the Boy came in, slamming it behind him.
She saw him coming up the lawn toward her, bareheaded; the sunlight in
his shining eyes.
"I couldn't wait for trains," he shouted. "I came by motor. And I
jolly well exceeded the speed-limit all the way!"
She moved a few steps to meet him.
"Boy dear," she said, "you always exceed all speed-limits. It is a way
you have. Exceed them as much as you like, so long as I am with you
when you do it. But--oh, my Little Boy Blue!--don't fly again; for, if
you fall and break your wings, indeed you will break my heart."
In a moment she was sobbing on his breast, her arms flung around him.
There was nothing broken or limp about his strong young body, pulsating
with life.
He put his arms about her, holding her in a clasp of close possessive
tenderness.
He did not yet understand what had happened; but he knew the great gift
he desired had been given him. He waited for her to speak.
She lifted her face to his.
"Guy," she said; "ah, take me, hold me, keep me! I am altogether your
own. I will explain to you fully, by and by. The stone was very
great; but lo, as we reached it, the Angel of the Lord had rolled it
away.... No other man has a shadow of claim over me. I am free to
say, to the only man I have ever really loved: Take me; I am yours.
Oh, Boy! I am altogether yours."
He bent over her.
The sweet proud lips were parted in utter surrender, and lifted to his.
He paused--just for one exquisite moment, of realization.
She waited his kiss with closed eyes, so she did not see the radiance
of his face, as he looked up to the blue sky, flecked with fleeting
white clouds. But she heard the voice, which from that hour was to
make the music of her life:
"Thank the Lord," said Little Boy Blue.
Then--he kissed her.
* * * * *
"_And the evening and the morning were the seventh day._"
_List of_
MRS. BARCLAY'S NOVELS
By FLORENCE L. BARCLAY
THE ROSARY
Over One Million Copies Sold
_Translated into French, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, Finnish,
Dutch, and Spanish._
"The sentiment is never mawkish; it rings true, and throughout the
whole story there is a vein of elevating emotion which should attract
lovers of wholesome fiction."--_Times_.
THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE
"A youthful sentiment, fresh and romantic, flows through Mrs. Barclay's
new book, and gives to the story some of the delicate odour of lavender
and jessamine, and old-fashioned flowers."--_Daily Graphic_.
THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR
"A worthy successor to 'The Rosary.' It has the same charm and grip,
whilst the plot is again unusual and clever...."--_Evening Standard_.
THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE
"It is a book to turn over in a sunny garden, under shady trees, when
one might look up from the clear print and see a happy prince coming in
through the green gate to lead one's own self to
fairyland."--_Manchester Guardian_.
THE BROKEN HALO
"It is the record of the saving of a soul by charity. The end
represents the triumph of mortal kindness."--_Standard_.
THE WALL OF PARTITION
"A brisk, readable story with a strong plot, full of incident and sure
of a wide appreciation."--_Globe_.
THE UPAS TREE
"The book is full of that mixture of humour, feeling, and religion that
gain for Mrs. Barclay so wide a popularity."--_Church Family Newspaper_.
RETURNED EMPTY
"This is certainly the most arresting tale that the authoress has
produced since her first huge success."--_Daily Mail_.
SHORTER WORKS
Seven of Mrs. Barclay's Shorter Stories now collected for the first
time into one volume, and including one which has never before been
printed in book form.
THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER
3s. 6d. net.
Mrs. Barclay's Last Long Novel.
"It has tenderness, it has a story which never flags, above all it has
humanity."--_Observer_.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Ltd.,
24 Bedford St., Strand, London, W.C. 2, & New York
_SOME PRESS OPINIONS ON THE LATE_
FLORENCE L. BARCLAY
"A writer who appealed to and won the affection of so many of her
fellow countrymen and women is no negligible quantity. Indeed there is
reason to think that Mrs. Barclay understood the tendency of her age
better than many contemporary novelists whose technical skill exceeded
hers."--_Times_.
"Mrs. Barclay's death will be regretted by many thousands of
readers."--_Morning Post_.
"'The Rosary' and nearly all her other books were inspired by true
religious feeling, which she always managed to infuse into the
imagination of her readers."--_Sphere_.
"From the highest to the lowest she commanded an attentive
public."--_Liverpool Daily Courier_.
"There was a purpose behind all she wrote that lifted her books above
the common, and enabled her to reach readers who would turn away from
the 'typical best-seller' in disgust."--_Sunday Times_.
"Mrs. Barclay was not merely a popular authoress. The ideals she
preached were high and noble and tended to elevate her
readers."--_Church Family Newspaper_.
"The underlying quality of Mrs. Barclay's literary art was her
wonderful gift of depicting home life, and it was this characteristic
which made her name loved in countless homes all over the
land."--_Lady_.
"She gave wholesale enjoyment to countless thousands, while she was
also one of the comparatively few popular authoresses who are in
themselves as good as the very best of their books."--_Glasgow Herald_.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Ltd.,
24 Bedford St., Strand, London, W.C. 2, & New York
_BY FLORENCE L. BARCLAY_
THE ROSARY
THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE
THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR
THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE
THE UPAS TREE
THE BROKEN HALO
THE WALL OF PARTITION
THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER
RETURNED EMPTY
SHORTER WORKS
_BY ONE OF HER DAUGHTERS_
THE LIFE OF FLORENCE BARCLAY
End of Project Gutenberg's Through the Postern Gate, by Florence L. Barclay
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