Halcyone Part 21

Not a doubt of him entered her heart, or a fear. He certainly loved her as she loved him; they had been created for each other since the beginning of time. And it was only a question of arrangement when she should go away with him and never part any more.

Marriage, as a ceremony in church, meant nothing to her. Some such thing, of course, must take place, because of the stupid conventions of the world, but the sacrament, the real mating, was to be together--alone.

In her innocent and n.o.ble soul John Derringham now reigned as king. He had never had a rival, and never would have while breath stayed in her fair body.

By the evening of that day he had reasoned himself into believing that the whole thing was a dream--or, if not a dream, he had better consider it as such; but at the same time, as the dusk grew, a wild longing swelled in his heart for its recurrence, and when the night came he could not any longer control himself, and as he had done before he wandered to the tree.

The moon, one day beyond its first quarter, was growing brighter, and a strange and mysterious s.h.i.+mmer was over everything as though the heat of the day were rising to give welcome and fuse itself in the night.

He was alone with the bird who throbbed from the copse, and as he sat in the sublime stillness he fancied he saw some does peep forth. They were there, of course, with their new-born fawns.

But where was she, the nymph of the night?

His heart ached, the longing grew intense until it was a mighty force.

He felt he could stride across the luminous park which separated them, and scale the wall to the cas.e.m.e.nt window of the long gallery, to clasp her once more in his arms. And, as it is with all those beings who have scorned and denied his power, Love was punis.h.i.+ng him now by a complete annihilation of his will. At last he buried his face in his hands; it was almost agony that he felt.

When he uncovered his eyes again he saw, far in the distance, a filmy shadow. It seemed to be now real, and now a wraith, as it flitted from tree to tree, but at last he knew it was real--it was she--Halcyone! He started to his feet, and there stood waiting for her.

She came with the gliding movement he now knew belonged in her dual personality to the night.

Her hair was all unbound, and her garment was white.

All reason, all resolution left him. He held out his arms.

"My love!" he cried. "I have waited for you--ah, so long!"

And Halcyone allowed herself to be clasped next his heart, and then drawn to the bench, where they sat down, blissfully content.

They had such a number of things to tell one another about love. He who had always scoffed at its existence was now eloquent in his explanation of the mystery. And Halcyone, who had never had any doubts, put her beautiful thoughts into words. Love meant everything--it was just he, John Derringham. She was no more herself, but had come to dwell in him.

She was tender and absolutely pure in her broad loyalty, concealing nothing of her fondness, letting him see that if she were Mistress of the Night, he was Master of her Soul.

And the complete subservience of herself, the sublime transparency without subterfuge of her surrender, appealed to everything of chivalry which his nature held.

"Since the beginning," she whispered, in that soft, sweet voice of hers which seemed to him to be of the angels, "ever since the beginning, John, when I was a little ignorant girl, it has always been you. You were Jason and Theseus and Perseus. You were Sir Bors and Sir Percival and Sir Lancelot. And I knew it was just waiting--Fate."

"My sweet, my sweet," he murmured, kissing her hair.

"And the time you came, when I was so ugly," she went on, "and so overgrown--I was sad then, because I knew you would not like me. But the winds and the night were good to me. I have grown, you see, so that I am now more as you would wish, but everything has been for you from that first day in the tree--our tree."

That between two lovers the thing could be a game never entered her brain. The thought that it might be wiser to watch moods and play on this one or that, and conceal her feelings and draw him on with mystery, could meet with no faintest understanding in her fond heart.

She just loved him, and belonged to him, and that was the whole meaning of heaven and earth. Any trick of calculation would have been a thousand miles beneath her feet. And while he was there with her, clasping her slender willowy form to his heart, John Derringham felt exalted. The importance of his career dwindled, the imperative necessity of possessing Halcyone for his very own augmented, until at last he whispered in her ear as her little head lay there upon his breast:

"Darling child, you must marry me at once--immediately--next week. We will go through whatever is necessary at the registry-office, and then you must come away with me and be my very own."

"Of course," was all she said.

"It is absolutely impossible that we could let anyone know about it at present--even Cheiron--" he went on, a little hurriedly. "The circ.u.mstances are such that I cannot publicly own you as my wife, although it would be my glory so to do. I should have to give up my whole career, because I have no money to keep a splendid home, which would be your due. But I dare say these things do not matter to you any more than they do to me. Is it so, sweet, darling child?"

"How could they matter?" Halcyone whispered from the shelter of his clasped arms. "Of what good would they be to me? I want to be with you when you have time; I want to caress you when you are tired, and comfort you, and inspire you, and love you, and bring you peace. How could the world--which I do not know--matter to me? Are you not foolish to ask me such questions, John!"

"Very foolish, my divine one," he said, and forgot what more he would have spoken in the delirium of a wors.h.i.+ping kiss.

But presently he brought himself back to facts again.

"Darling," he said, "I will find out exactly how everything can be managed, and then you will meet me here, under this tree, and we will go away together and be married, and for a week at least I will make the time to stay with you, as your lover, and you shall be absolutely and truly my sweetest wife."

"Yes," said Halcyone, perfectly content.

"And after that," he went on, "I will arrange that you stay somewhere near me, so that every moment that I am free I can come back to the loving glory of your arms."

"I cannot think of any other heaven," the tender creature murmured. And then she nestled closer, and her voice became dreamy.

"This is what G.o.d means in everything," she whispered. "In the Springtime, which is waiting for the Summer--in all the flowers and all the trees. This is the secret the night has taught me from the very beginning, when I first was able to spend the hours in her arms."

Then this mystery of her knowledge of the night he had to probe; and she told him, in old-world, romantic language, how she had discovered the stairs and Aphrodite, and even of the iron-bound box which she had never been able to move.

"It contains some papers of that Sir Timothy, I expect," she said. "We know by the date of the breastplate that it was when Cromwell sent his Ironsides to search La Sarthe that he must have escaped through the door and got to the coast; but he was drowned crossing to France, so no one guessed or ever knew how he had got away--and I expect the secret of the pa.s.sage died with him, and I was the first one to find it."

"Then what do you make of the G.o.ddess's head?" asked John Derringham.

"Was that his, too?"

"Yes, I suppose so," she answered. "He was a great, grand seigneur--we know of that--and had traveled much in Italy when a young man, and stayed at Florence especially. He married a relative of the Medici belonging to some female branch, and he is even said to have been to Greece; but in the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany he would certainly have learned to appreciate the divine beauty of Aphrodite. He must have brought her from there as well as the Hebe and Artemis, which are not nearly so good. They stand in the hall--but they say nothing to me."

"It would be interesting to know what the papers are about," John Derringham went on. "We must look at them together some day when you are my wife."

"Yes," said Halcyone, and thrilled at the thought.

"So it was through the solid masonry you disappeared last night? No wonder, sprite, that I believed I was dreaming! Why did you fly from me?

Why?"

"It was too great, too glorious to take all at once," she said, and with a sudden shyness she buried her face in his coat.

"My darling sweet one," he murmured, drawing her to him, pa.s.sion flaming once more. "I could have cried madly"--and he quoted in Greek:

/$ "Wilt them fly me and deny me?

By thine own joy I vow, By the grape upon the bough, Thou shalt seek me in the midnight, thou shalt love me even now."

Mr. Carlyon had not restricted Halcyone's reading: she knew it was from the "Bacchae" of Euripides, and answered:

"Ah, yes, and, you see, I have sought you in the midnight, and I am here, and I love you--even now!"

After that, for a while they both seemed to fall into a dream of bliss.

They spoke not, they just sat close together, his arms encircling her, her head upon his breast; and thus they watched the first precursors of dawn streak the sky and, looking up, found the stars had faded.

Halcyone started to her feet.