The Heather-Moon Part 40

"For another?"

"No matter. Only a fancy of mine--to rub out the recollection of something I don't like. Of course, if Barrie objects--but I hope she won't."

Barrie did not object in words. Only her heart rebelled. But her one great wish was to put her heart to sleep. And nothing else mattered.

Nothing else must matter now.

IV

BARRIE WRITES AGAIN

This never was a story. I wrote things down, to please myself, just as they happened. But now that the end of the heather moon has come, I must write of its last days. I think by and by I shall send all this to Mrs.

James, in California, otherwise she will never understand how everything came about; and besides, if it hadn't been for her the end would have been very different.

This part will have to be a sort of confession. When I began to write, I used not to say much about my feelings, even when I was sure of them, which was seldom; but I see now that I fell in love with my knight the minute I saw him first. I must have been fascinated, or it would not have occurred to me to choose him as the man to buy my brooch. I might have spoken to some one else. By the time we started on our trip and got as far as Gretna Green, I _wors.h.i.+pped_ him. That is why I was so happy.

I never troubled then about what the end would be. I just gave myself up to being happy, and it seemed as if such happiness must last forever. I used to wonder why I wasn't more impatient to get to Edinburgh and see my mother--the one thing I started out to do. But it was because I'd fallen in love with my knight, and he was already more important for me than any one else in the world, more important even than Barbara.

Soon I began to suspect what was happening; and in Edinburgh I was quite, _quite_ sure. But I wasn't any longer perfectly happy. There were clouds over the heather moon--that sweet, kind moon which I used to say was the best of the year for falling in love.

I stopped writing then, for if I had written it would have had to be all about my feelings. The world was full of them. They were like gulls wheeling round a lighthouse lamp; and my heart was the lamp.

I thought, in Edinburgh, that my knight didn't care for me as I did for him. He kept away, and let other men go with me everywhere. Now I understand why, but then it made me miserable, for I knew he was the One Man, and always would be. A girl who had once loved him could never look at any one else. There were other things too that made me sad. n.o.body wanted me. People were always planning how to send me away: but the heather moon shone in spite of all, and each evening when she came up, out of the mysterious places where she hides, she seemed to say: "Courage. Have faith in me. Don't lose hope, and I'll show you yet where to find the rainbow key." So I wouldn't lose hope; and I felt rewarded when my knight asked me to write to him, and promised that by and by I should see him again.

Then a letter came, and though I couldn't think why he had gone back to Carlisle to call on Grandma, I felt it must be for a reason connected with me; and that was cheering--just to know that I was in his mind.

About London--when he went there afterward--I wasn't so sure. But it was the happiest day in my life when he suddenly appeared at Ballachulish.

He came just in time, it seemed, to save me as he had saved me before. I could hardly keep from showing how I adored him. As he had come such a long way and had done so much for my sake, I thought that perhaps after all he did care, though it seemed too wonderful to be true. Now and then, while we were waiting to hear what Barbara would say about the invitation to Dhrum, there was a look in his eyes that made me feel the heather moon had been my true friend. He was changed, too, not hard and cynical as he used to be, but kind and gentle to every one, as if he had begun to see what a beautiful place the world can be.

This made it worse when Mrs. West came, and explained that all he had done for me was for duty, not for love: that he loved her, and I had spoiled everything for them both. Mrs. West said that he would stick to his duty at all costs, until I was actually married, so I was glad then, instead of sorry as I had been before, that Basil wanted me. I saw that she was right, and the sooner it was over the better. But I didn't dare think about the future. I just went on blindly, and did what Basil and Mrs. West told me to do. Nothing seemed to matter except to show my knight that after all my selfishness and thoughtlessness and conceit I had freed him.

I would rather have been married anywhere than at Gretna Green, but Basil had set his heart on that place.

We told my knight that Barbara was making me go away at once with Mrs.

West and Basil; or rather, I let them explain. I couldn't. I was afraid I should break down, and he would see how wretched I was. It was all I could do to say "good-bye." It nearly killed me to see the hurt, surprised look on his face. Even now I can hardly write of that.

Basil had found out about the marriage laws. We had been in Scotland for three weeks, and all we had to do, if we wanted to be married in a hurry, was to declare before two witnesses who knew us both, that we took each other as husband and wife. We could have done it just as well at Ballachulish if Basil hadn't been determined it should be Gretna Green; but afterward I thought that he, or perhaps Mrs. West, had felt it would be better to have the wedding far away from my knight, who called himself my guardian, and might consider it his duty to object.

Mrs. West was to be one of the witnesses, and, as Barbara couldn't leave the man she was engaged to, the very last day before he sailed, Basil thought we had better have Salomon the chauffeur for the second witness.

Mr. George Vanneck might have come on from Glasgow, but I heard Mrs.

West say to Basil, when he suggested telegraphing, "I don't want to see him just now, and especially at the time of a wedding. He might be unreasonable."

As we needed Salomon, we went all the way in the car, instead of taking the train from Oban, which would have saved us a few hours.

When we got to Gretna Green it was evening, but the daylight lingered still. In the south it would already have been gone. There was a pale dusk mingling with the moons.h.i.+ne, and I couldn't help remembering the mysterious light in Sweetheart Abbey, on my first night of Scotland and the heather moon. I remembered my dream, too, the dream of the locked ebony and silver box, which could be opened only by the key of the rainbow. It nearly broke my heart to think of these things, and I wished it _would_ break, so that I might die instead of marrying Basil: for if I were dead I should be safely out of everybody's way, just the same as being married.

Basil asked me where it was that we had gone through the ceremony for the photographs, but before I had time to answer, the car brought us to the house, and he recognized it from the biograph pictures. He told Salomon to stop, and leaving Mrs. West and me in the car, he got out to talk with the man of the house. Up till that moment I had been dully wis.h.i.+ng it were all over, and had been actually in a hurry; but suddenly I felt as if I couldn't bear being married, and should have to run away.

I longed and almost prayed for something--anything--to happen which would put off the wedding until another day. If an earthquake had wrecked the house I should have been delighted. But nothing did happen.

Mrs. West talked cheeringly to me while Basil was gone, saying how happy I should be all the rest of my life, and what a lovely honeymoon her brother was planning. "I shall go away and leave you to your two selves," she said; and though I'm afraid I almost hated her, still I longed to cry out, "Oh, _don't_ go away!"

In a few minutes Basil came back, looking excited and rather happy, yet there was that curiously pitiful, apologetic expression in his eyes which had been in them always lately, as if he were ashamed and sorry about something.

"It's all right," he explained. "The man tells me we can be married here, and it's not too late. He says a good many people come even nowadays, simply for the romance of having their wedding at Gretna Green." Then Basil gave his hand to me, to help me down from the car. I felt very weak, and almost sick. How different from the day when my knight and I had dashed up to this door in the old-fas.h.i.+oned chaise, and played the game of being married at the anvil! How my heart beat as he held me for an instant in his arms! I ought to have known then that I was in love with him. Now, it was as if my heart were dying, for it felt cold and heavy as lead, as I told myself that after this it would be wrong to call Mr. Somerled "my knight," or even to think of him at all, since to think was to love.

Mrs. West got down from the car too, and took off her veil. Basil explained to Salomon what it would be necessary for him to do, and how he must leave his motor for a few minutes.

My knees trembled so that I could scarcely walk. Basil noticed it, and insisted on my taking his arm. "It's because she has been sitting still in the car so long," Mrs. West said to him hastily. "I am often like that after a day's motoring."

"You're awfully pale," said Basil, staring at me anxiously. "You won't faint or anything, will you?"

"Oh, no," I said. "I am quite well." I tried to speak naturally, but my voice sounded as if it were some one else's, miles away. And for a minute, after entering the little room that looked so familiar, I was afraid that I might cry or be somehow stupid.

"Now," said Basil, "all we have to do is to state before these witnesses that we take one another in marriage. Isn't that it?" he asked, turning to the old man, who in the costume brought by the photographers, had performed the ceremony over me and my knight.

"Yes, sir, that is all there is to it," he replied; but as he spoke he was peering curiously at me. "That's all there is to what we call an irregular marriage in Scotland, such as this is going to be. When I say 'irregular,' you mustn't think anything wrong. It's as legal as the kind with banns. If you want to register your marriage, sir, you must make application to the sheriff of the county; but it's just as binding and legal without."

"That is what I understood," said Basil. "But, of course, I shall have it registered. Are you ready, Barrie?"

"Excuse me the liberty, sir," broke in the old man, "but I think this will be the young leddy who was done for the Cinema? I know her by her hair. I'm not so sure, though, that I recognize you, sir, or----"

"No, no, it wasn't I. That was her guardian," Basil returned hurriedly.

"Now, Barrie, if you're ready----"

"Yes, I'm ready----" I began. I found that I could speak only in a whisper. Or perhaps it was the whirr of a pa.s.sing motor outside which drowned my voice.

"Well then, come, dearest child, and stand here by me. Give me your hand----Is anything the matter?"

I forgot to answer, the sound of that car out there was so like the well-remembered purr of the Gray Dragon. But I seemed always to be hearing a kind of undertone of Dragon music. Often I had turned my head as we came from Oban, to see if some car gaining on us from behind were the Gray Dragon. It never was; and this would not be. But it was not pa.s.sing after all. It was stopping near the house--as near as Blunderbore would allow.

"Is anything the matter?" I heard the words more clearly the second time he spoke.

"No," I said. "There is nothing----"

He took my hand, which was hanging by my side, for I had forgotten to give it when he asked. His felt very hot to the touch, so mine must have been cold. He pressed it warmly, and his eyes called to mine. There was no light in the room, for it was not needed yet, and I could see that his face was white. I wished above all things to pull my hand away from him.

"I, Basil, take thee, Barribel----" he began formally.

"I forbid this marriage. It mustn't go on," said a voice at the door. It sounded like the voice of my knight: but everything was so dream-like and unreal that I thought the voice was part of the unreality. It could not be his.

But it was. He came forward, covered with dust from head to foot, as if he had been driving far and fast.

"Barribel MacDonald is already my wife," he said.

He took my hand away from Basil, who was so astounded that for an instant he did not resist. But in another second a flood of rage seemed to sweep over him, giving him strength and presence of mind.

"That's not true, and you know it!" he exclaimed, while Mrs. West stood still as a statue, looking suddenly years older than before. "Barrie, come to me."

But my knight would not let me go. He grasped my hand so tightly that it hurt. I felt as if my fingers would break in his, and for just that moment I was deliriously happy, until I remembered, with a sharp pain like an icicle in my heart, that he loved Mrs. West.