Across the Stream Part 22

"Certainly he won't, for I shall keep myself," she said. "I shall try to persuade Jessie to go down to Lacebury with Cousin Marion, and I think I shall succeed. And where will you be? Up in Scotland, I suppose."

He put down the end of the cigarette which Helena had given him. He was less likely, if he was smoking, to smell the faint odour of cigar that had mounted the stairs. But, as a matter of fact, he would not have noticed the smell of burned feathers just then.

He turned to her quickly.

"I shall be--wherever you will permit me to be," he said. "But, wherever that is, mayn't we be together? I want never to be away from you any more. I want nothing else in the world but that."

Helena raised dewy eyes to him.

"Do you mean...?" she began. "Do you mean...?"

"Yes. And I want your answer."

"That is, 'yes,' too," she said.

She had an almost irresistible desire to burst into peals of laughter, but it was not so difficult to transform that into an aspect of radiant happiness. He kissed her, and she could feel his hands laid on her shoulders, trembling. And, out of sheer grat.i.tude, she found herself able to respond quite pa.s.sably, for the innate respectability of pa.s.sion touched her. He had paid her the sincerest compliment that a man can pay a girl, in expressing his desire to have her always with him, to be the father of her children, to renounce such freedom as had been his, and to take in exchange for it a devoted slavery. And, since it was exactly that which she had set her purpose to accomplish, it was no wonder that she was content.

But, as soon as he had left her, without translating into the sphere of practical arrangements the when and how of their mutual pledge, Helena, after one tip-toe dance round the drawing-room, sat down again and was instantly immersed in those considerations. He would have liked to dine with them that night, but Archie was coming, and so, before he called again next morning, it was necessary to indulge in careful thought so as to produce a spontaneous suggestion next day. On her face she wore the happiness of child-like smiles, and throughout her meditations that never faded. Occasionally it was as if the sun was withdrawn behind some fleece of a summer cloud, but, if there had been a machine for the registration of her internal suns.h.i.+ne, there would scarcely have been a break in the record of serene hours.

Archie occupied her first; she was sorry for Archie, because the blow that this would be to him glanced back on to her. She had long ago made up her mind not to marry him if she could succeed in the quest now accomplished, but she regretted that now she would never see his eyes glow as he blurted out--she knew he would blurt it out, and probably kiss her with that light, rough eagerness which was so characteristic of him--the tale of his love. Not so many weeks ago, at Silorno, she had determined to marry him, but that was before the wider horizon opened to her. If he had proposed to her then she would certainly have accepted him, but she felt, though so much finer a future had now dawned on her, a sort of grudge against him for not having done so. That made the thought of telling him not unpleasant to her; there was an excitement in the thought of seeing his blank face--would it be blank? She thought so--when he heard her news. Perhaps the sight of how much it hurt him would hurt her also, but that pain would somehow enfold a rapture, for it would be clear how much he wanted her. But why had he not kissed her, when they sat on that last evening in the dark garden at Silorno? All might have been different then. Never till this afternoon had a man kissed her, and that kiss had struck her as being a little prim and proper. Archie would not and could not have been prim, he would have been quick and impulsive; there would have been something romantic about it, for with him she could have supplied that gleam of romance herself.

There had been fleecy clouds during this part of her meditation, and they gathered again, ever so light, as she thought of Cousin Marion and Jessie. Everybody was so clever nowadays, and she was afraid that Cousin Marion had seen that Archie was in love with her, even as Jessie had done. It would be tiresome if they behaved censoriously about it, and replied frigidly to congratulations, and made cold faces at the wedding.

But she thought she could get round Cousin Marion, who, from experience, she knew was very easily convinced, but Jessie was more clear-sighted...

And then, with a sense of refreshment, she remembered how Jessie had betrayed herself not so many days ago. Thereat the sun came out quite serenely again, and remained out when she thought of her father. He loved shooting, and Helena determined that he should enjoy quant.i.ties of shooting. He loved all sorts of the nice things that money made so easily procurable, comfort and good cigars and riding and bathrooms attached to bedrooms. Certainly there should be a delicious room for him in all her houses; she would name it "daddy's room." The filial sentimentality of this quite overcame her, and she murmured "darling daddy," and felt just as if she had sacrificed herself for him and made this marriage in order to secure him a comfortable old age. Bertie and he would get on excellently together: they could talk about tiger-shooting, and temples, and exotic affairs--for Bertie was a great traveller, and, if he wanted to travel again, she had no intention of being an ap.r.o.n-stringing wife. Marriage became a sacrilege rather than a sacrament if it was an affair of watch-dogs on the leash, ready to follow up trails. And again she softly applauded the n.o.bility of her sentiments.

There was a faint stir and rattle of crockery in the room below, which implied that the parlour-maid was removing her father's tea. Helena knew all the noises of the house, down to the gurgling sound of tooth-cleaning that came from her father's bedroom, which showed that he was nearly dressed, and now, correctly interpreting the c.h.i.n.k of plate and tea-cup, she was certain of finding him in his study with his after-tea cigar. Very likely Jessie had gone there too; for she often took the evening paper in to her father and read him the news, and Helena hoped that this was the case to-day. She could let Jessie know the event of the afternoon with less embarra.s.sment if there was somebody else present. She could tell her father about it much more easily than she could tell Jessie alone. She would sit close to him, and whisper and hide her head... her sense of drama would make it all quite simple.

She fastened one of the cream-coloured roses that Archie had brought her into the front of her dress and went down to her father's room. It was a stale little apartment, dry and brown and smoked like a kippered herring, furnished chiefly with books and files and decorated with the produce of oriental bazaars, spears and sh.e.l.ls and things suggestive of mummies. He was in a big basket chair close to the window, and in the window-seat, as she had hoped, sat Jessie, with the evening paper.

Helena had not forgotten that she had sent a message to him that she had a headache, and to Jessie that a friend had come to see her with a wish for a private conversation. She made these little plans quickly perhaps but always coolly, and remembered them afterwards. Sometimes a little delicate adjustment was necessary, but she seldom got caught out...

"Darling daddy," she said, "may I pay you a little visit? Or are you and Jessie engrossed in something I shan't understand?"

"No, come in, dear," said he. "How's the headache?"

She hovered for a moment like some bright bird, and then perched herself on the arm of his chair, between him and her sister.

"It's quite gone, ever so many thanks," she said. "I think I must have had a little snooze just before tea, which took it away. And then, as I told Jessie, somebody came here especially to have a little talk to me.

Daddy, how delicious your cigar smells!"

"And who was you visitor?" he asked.

"Lord Harlow," said she very softly, and paused.

Jessie had put down her paper, and Helena could feel that she was listening in tense expectation. She did not look round, but firmly laid her hand on Jessie's clasping it. The other she tucked into her father's arm, and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Daddy, I had a long talk to him," she said, "and he is coming here again to-morrow morning. At least, he did the talking, and I only spoke when he had said what he had come to say. Oh, my dear, I am so happy, so awfully, awfully happy."

Helena felt that she had done that quite beautifully. If she had thought about it for ever so long, she could not have improved on it. A few boisterous e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns from her father followed, and, finding that Jessie had disengaged her hand, she completed the circle round her father's arm. Then presently she rose, with smiling and suffused face, just kissed him, and left the room.

"Well, I'm sure that's the best bit of news I've heard for a long time,"

he said. "Certainly he is a good deal older than she, but there's no harm in that. I was twenty years older than your mother, Jessie. And what do you think of it all?"

"I think Helena will be very happy," said Jessie.

"So do I, and I'm sure she deserves to be. If she's as kind and loving to her husband as she has been to her father, we shan't hear any complaints. Dear me! What a bit of news!"

He was silent a moment.

"How we old folk get out of touch with young people!" he said. "If I had been told to guess who it was who would ask Helena to be his wife, I should have said it was Archie. Didn't you think that Archie was very fond of her?"

Mixed with Jessie's misery for Archie's sake, and with her bitter contempt for her sister, was a pity for Helena, as deep as the sea, that she could be what she was. She could wear the roses Archie had sent her, and not be burned alive by them...

"I never though that Helena really cared for him," she said quietly.

"No? Well, you were more clear-sighted than I. But I fancy Marion thought so too. He's dining with us to-night, isn't he? Or will Helena put him off? And are we to say anything to him about it?"

"I expect Helena will tell us what she wishes," said Jessie.

He laughed.

"No doubt she will. She--what's the phrase?--she pulls the strings in this piece, doesn't she? Bless me, it's after six o'clock. We might go across the bridge and have a stoll in Battersea Park. I expect Helena will like to be left alone. Yes; what is it?"

The parlour-maid had come in, with the request that Colonel Vautier would go to see Helena for a minute now, or some time before dinner.

Accordingly he went upstairs, in high good humour, stumbling on the carpet-rods.

"Oh, daddy, how sweet of you to come to me at once!" she said. "Archie's dining here to-night, and I think I will tell him my news myself. He's such a dear; it would hurt him to hear it from anybody else."

Colonel Vautier felt that he had perhaps not been so wrong after all.

"Yes, my dear, that is kind and thoughtful of you," he said.

"So I'll tell him as soon as he gets here," said she. "Will you and Jessie be very kind and let me have two minutes with him?"

Helena's eyes wandered away a minute, and returned rather dewy to her father's face.

"Perhaps you would tell Jessie for me," she said.

She opened her eyes very wide, in a sort of childlike bewilderment.

"I wonder why Jessie is so cold to me," she said. "I must have vexed her somehow without meaning it. I feel sad about it. She did not say one word when I told you and her my news; she did not kiss me..."

"Jessie is never very demonstrative," said her father, intending to speak to Jessie about this.

"No; perhaps that's all. Thank you ever so much, daddy."

She watched them going out together, and thought what a pity it was that some people were so frank as to say that others revolted them, even though they apologized afterwards. It never paid to be coa.r.s.e and rude like that...

Helena, according to her plan, was in the drawing-room among his roses when Archie arrived.