The Second Honeymoon

by Ruby Mildred Ayres

  "Yes," said Jimmy sullenly. "You can--leave me to myself."

  He held his hands to the fire and shivered; Sangster looked at him silently for a moment, then he shrugged his shoulders and turned towards the door. He was out on the landing when Jimmy called his name.

  "Well?"

  "Where the deuce are you going?" Jimmy demanded irritably. "Nice sort of pal, you are, to go off and leave a chap when he's sick."

  Sangster did not make the obvious reply; he came back, shutting the door behind him. Jimmy was leaning back in his chair now; his face was nearly as red as the dressing-gown he wore, but he shivered violently from time to time. There was a little silence, then he opened his eyes and smiled rather apologetically.

  "Sorry to be so dull. I haven't slept for a week."

  It would have been nearer the truth to say that he had hardly closed his eyes since the night of Cynthia Farrow's death, but he knew that if he said that Sangster would at once bark up the wrong tree, and conclude that he was fretting for her--breaking his heart for her, whereas he was doing nothing of the kind.

  It was Christine, and not Cynthia, who was on his mind day and night, night and day; Christine for whose sake he reproached himself so bitterly and could get no rest. She was so young--such a child.

  Every day he found himself remembering some new little incident about her; every day some little jewel from the past slipped out of the mists of forgetfulness and looked at him with sad eyes as if to ask:

  "Have you forgotten me? Don't you remember----"

  He could not help thinking of Christine's mother too; he had been fond of her--she had mothered him so much in the old days; he wondered if she knew how he had repaid all her kindness; what sort of a hash he had made of life for poor little Christine.

  "You'd better cut off to bed," Sangster said again bluntly.

  He lit a cigarette and puffed a cloud of smoke into the air; he was really disturbed about Jimmy. The repeated advice seemed to annoy Jimmy; he frowned and rose to his feet; he caught his breath with a sort of gasp of pain. Sangster turned quickly.

  "What's up, old chap?"

  "Only my rotten head---it aches like the very devil."

  Jimmy stood for a moment with his hand pressed hard over his eyes, then he took a step forward, and stopped again.

  "I can't--I--confound it all----"

  Sangster caught his arm.

  "Don't be an ass; go to bed." He raised his voice; he called to Costin; between them they put Jimmy to bed and tucked him up. He kept protesting that there was nothing the matter with him, but he seemed grateful for the darkness of the room, and the big pillows beneath his aching head.

  Sangster went back to the sitting-room with Costin.

  "I don't think we need send for a doctor," he said. "It's only a chill, I think. See how he is in the morning. What's he been up to, Costin?"

  Costin pursed his lips and raised his brows.

  "He's been out most nights, sir," he answered stoically. "Only comes home with the milk, as you might say. Hasn't slept at all, and doesn't eat. It's my opinion, sir, that he's grieving like----" He looked towards the mantelshelf and the place which they could both remember had once held Cynthia Farrow's portrait.

  Sangster shook his head.

  "You mean----" he asked reluctantly.

  "Yes, sir." Costin tiptoed across the room and closed the door which led to Jimmy's bedroom. "He's never been the same, sir, since Miss Farrow died--asking your pardon," he added hurriedly.

  Sangster threw his cigarette end firewards.

  "It's a rotten business," he said heavily. In his own heart he agreed with Costin; he believed that it was Cynthia's death that was breaking Jimmy's heart. He would have given ten years of his life to have been able to believe that it was something else quite different.

  "Well, I'll look in again in the morning," he said. "And if you want me, send round, of course."

  "Yes, sir."

  Costin helped Sangster on with his coat and saw him to the door; he was dying to ask what had become of Mrs. Jimmy, but he did not like to. He was sure that Jimmy had merely got married out of pique, and that he had repented as quickly as one generally does repent in such cases.

  Sangster walked back to his rooms; he felt very depressed. He was fond of Jimmy though he did not approve of him; he racked his brains to know what to do for the best.

  When he got home he sat down at his desk and stared at the pen and ink for some moments undecidedly; then he began to write.

  He addressed an envelope to Christine down at Upton House, and stared at it till it was dry. After all, she might resent his interference, and yet, on the other hand, if Jimmy were going to be seriously ill, she would blame him for not having told her.

  Finally he took a penny from his waistcoat pocket and tossed up for it.

  "Heads I write, tails I leave it alone."

  He tossed badly and the penny came down in the waste-paper basket, but it came down heads, and with a little lugubrious grimace, Sangster dipped the pen in the ink again and squared his elbows.

  He wrote the letter four times before it suited him, and even then it seemed a pretty poor epistle to his critical eye as he read it through--

  "Dear Mrs. Challoner,--I am just writing to let you know that Jimmy is ill; nothing very serious, but I thought that perhaps you would like to know. If you could spare the time to come and see him, I am sure he would very much appreciate it. He seems very down on his luck. I don't want to worry or alarm you, and am keeping an eye on him myself, but thought it only right that you should know.--Your sincere friend,

  "RALPH SANGSTER."

  It seemed a clumsy enough way of explaining things, he thought discontentedly, and yet it was the best he could do. He folded the paper and put it into the envelope; he sat for a moment with it in his hand looking down at Christine's married name, "Mrs. James Challoner."

  Poor little Mrs. Jimmy! A wife, and yet no wife. Sangster lifted the envelope to his lips, and hurriedly kissed the name before he thrust the envelope into his pocket, and went out to post it.

  Would she come, he wondered? he asked himself the question anxiously before he dropped the letter into the box. Somehow deep down in his heart he did not think that she would.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  KETTERING HEARS SOMETHING

  "I shall never be able to manage it if I live to be a hundred," said Christine despairingly.

  She leaned back in the padded seat of Kettering's big car and looked up into his face with laughing eyes.

  She had been trying to drive; she had driven the car at snail's pace the length of the drive leading from Upton House, and tried to turn out of the open carriage gate into the road.

  "If you hadn't been here we should have gone into the wall, shouldn't we?" she demanded.

  Kettering laughed.

  "I'm very much afraid we should," he said. "But that's nothing. I did all manner of weird things when I first started to drive. Take the wheel again and have another try."

  But Christine refused.

  "I might smash the car, and that would be awful. You'd never forgive me."

  "Should I not!" His grave eyes searched her pretty face. "I don't think you need be very alarmed about that," he said. "However, if you insist----" He changed places with her and took the wheel himself.

  It was early morning, and fresh and sunny. Christine was flushed and smiling, for the moment at least there were no shadows in her eyes; she looked more like the girl who had smiled up from the stalls in the theatre to where Jimmy Challoner sat alone in his box that night of their meeting.

  Jimmy had never once been mentioned between herself and this man since that first afternoon. Save for the fact that Kettering called her "Mrs. Challoner," Christine might have been unmarried.

  "Gladys will think we have run away," she told him presently with a little laugh. "I told her we should be only half an hour."

  "Have we been longer?" he asked surprised.

  Christine
looked at her watch.

  "Nearly an hour," she said. "We were muddling about in the drive for ever so long, you know; and I really think we ought to go back."

  "If you really think so----" He turned the car reluctantly. "I suppose you wouldn't care for a little run after lunch?" he asked carelessly. "I've got to go over to Heston. I should be delighted to take you."

  "I should love it--if I can bring Gladys."

  He did not answer for a moment, then:

  "Oh, bring Gladys by all means," he said rather dryly.

  "What time?"

  "I'll call for you at two--If that will do."

  They had reached the house again now; Christine got out of the car and stood for a moment with one foot on the step looking up at Kettering.

  There was a little silence.

  "How long have we known each other?" he asked suddenly.

  She looked up startled--she made a rapid calculation.

  "Nearly three weeks, isn't it?" she said then.

  He laughed.

  "It seems longer; it seems as if I must have known you all my life."

  The words were ordinary enough, but the look in his eyes brought the swift colour to Christine's cheeks--her eyes fell.

  "Is that a compliment?" she asked, trying to speak naturally.

  "I hope so; I meant it to be."

  Her hand was resting on the open door of the car; for an instant he laid his own above it; Christine drew hers quickly away.

  "Well, we'll be ready at two, then," she said. She turned to the house. Kettering drove slowly down the drive. He was a very fine-looking man, Christine thought with sudden wistfulness; he had been so kind to her--kinder than anyone she had ever known. She was glad he was going to have Upton House, as it had got to be sold. He had promised her to look after it, and not have any of the trees in the garden cut down.

  "It shall all be left just as it is now," he told her.

  "Perhaps some day you'll marry, and your wife will want it altered," she said sadly.

  "I shall never get married," he had answered quickly.

  She had been glad to hear him say that; he was so nice as a friend, somehow she did not want anyone to come along and change him.

  She went into the house and called to Gladys.

  "I thought you would think we were lost perhaps," she said laughingly, as she thrust her head into the morning-room where Gladys was sitting.

  The elder girl looked up; her voice was rather dry when she answered: "No, I did not think that."

  Christine threw her hat aside.

  "I can't drive a bit," she said petulantly. "I'm so silly! I nearly ran into the wall at the gate."

  "Did you?"

  "Yes. Gladys, we're going over to Heston at two o'clock with Mr. Kettering."

  Gladys looked up.

  "We! Who do you mean by 'we'?"

  "You and I, of course."

  "Oh"--there was a momentary silence, then: "There's a letter for you on the table," said Gladys.

  Christine turned slowly, a little flush of colour rushing to her cheeks. She glanced apprehensively at the envelope lying face upwards, then she drew a quick breath, almost of relief it seemed.

  She picked the letter up indifferently and broke open the flap. There was a moment of silence; Gladys glanced up.

  "What's the matter?" she asked.

  Christine was staring out of the window, the letter lay on the floor at her feet.

  "Jimmy's ill," she said listlessly.

  "Ill!" Gladys laid down her pen and swung round in the chair. "What's the matter with him?" she asked rather sceptically.

  "I don't know. You can read the letter, it's from Mr. Sangster--Jimmy's great friend."

  She handed the letter over.

  Gladys read it through and gave it back.

  "Humph!" she said with a little inelegant sniff; she looked at her friend. "Are you going?" she asked bluntly.

  Christine did not answer. She was thinking of Jimmy, deliberately trying to think of the man whom she had done her best during the last three weeks to forget. She tried to think of him as he had been that last dreadful night at the hotel, when he had threatened to strike her, when he had told her to clear out and leave him; but somehow she could only recall him as he had looked at Euston that morning when he said good-bye to her, with the hangdog, shamed look in his eyes, and the pathetic droop to his shoulders.

  And now he was ill! It was kind of Sangster to have written, she told herself, even while she knew quite well that Jimmy had not asked him to; it would be the last thing in the world Jimmy would wish.

  If he were ill, it was not because he wanted her. She drew her little figure up stiffly.

  "I shan't go unless I hear again that it is serious," she said stiltedly.

  "Not--go!" Gladys's voice sounded somehow blank, there was a curious expression in her eyes. After a moment she looked away. "Oh, well, you must please yourself, of course."

  Christine turned to the door--she held Sangster's letter in her hand.

  "Besides," she said flippantly, "I'm going over to Heston this afternoon with Mr. Kettering."

  She went up to her room and shut the door. She stood staring before her with blank eyes, her pretty face had fallen again into sadness, her mouth dropped pathetically.

  She opened Sangster's letter and read it through once more. Was Jimmy really ill, and was Sangster afraid to tell her, she wondered? Or was this merely Sangster's way of trying to bring them together again?

  But Jimmy did not want her; even if he were dying Jimmy would not want to see her again.

  If he had cared he would never have consented to this separation; if he had cared--but, of course, he did not care!

  She began to cry softly; big tears ran down her cheeks, and she brushed them angrily away.

  She had tried to shut him out of her heart. She had tried to forget him. In a defensive, innocent way she had deliberately encouraged Kettering. She liked him, and he helped her to forget; it restored her self-esteem to read the admiration in his kind eyes, it helped to soothe the hurt she had suffered from Jimmy's hands; and yet, in spite of it all, he was not Jimmy, and nobody could ever take Jimmy's place. She kept away from Gladys till lunch time, when at last she appeared, her eyes were red and swollen, and she held her head defiantly high. Gladys considerately let her alone. Somehow, in spite of everything, she quite expected to hear that Christine was off to London by the afternoon train, but the meal passed almost in silence, and when it was finished Christine said:

  "We'd better get ready; Mr. Kettering will be there at two."

  Gladys turned away.

  "I'd rather not go, if you don't mind," she said uncomfortably.

  "Not--go!"

  "No--I--I don't care about motoring. I--I've got a headache too."

  Christine stared at her, then she laughed defiantly.

  "Oh, very well; please yourself."

  She went upstairs to dress; she took great pains to make herself look pretty. When Kettering arrived she noticed that his eyes went past her gloomily as if looking for someone else.

  "Gladys is not coming," she said.

  His face brightened.

  "Not coming! Ought I to be sorry, I wonder?"

  She laughed.

  "That's rude."

  "I'm sorry." He tucked the rug round her, and they started away down the drive. "You don't want the wheel, I suppose?" he asked whimsically.

  Christine shook her head.

  "Have you--you been crying?" Kettering asked abruptly.

  Christine flushed scarlet.

  "Whatever makes you ask me that?"

  "Your eyes are red," he told her gently.

  She looked up at him with resentment, and suddenly the tears came again. Kettering bit his lip hard. He did not speak for some time.

  "I've got a headache," Christine said at last with an effort. "I--oh, I know it's silly. Don't laugh at me."

  "I'm not laughing." His voice dragged a little; he kept his eyes stead
ily before him.

  "I thought perhaps something had happened--that you had had bad news," he said presently. "If--if there is anything I can do to help you, you know--you know I----"

  "There isn't anything the matter," she interrupted with a rush. She was terrified lest he should guess that her tears were because of Jimmy; she had a horror nowadays that everyone would know that she cared for a man who cared nothing for her; she brushed the tears away determinedly; she set herself to talk and smile.

  They had tea at Heston, in the little square parlour of a country inn where the floor was only polished boards, and where long wooden trestles ran on two sides of the room.

  "It looks rather thick," Kettering said ruefully, standing looking down at the plate of bread and butter. "I hope you don't mind; this is the best place in the village."

  Christine laughed.

  "It's like what we used to have at school, and I'm hungry."

  She looked up at him with dancing eyes; she had quite forgotten her sorrow of the morning. Somehow this man's presence always cheered her and took her out of herself. She poured tea for him, and laughed and chatted away merrily.

  Afterwards they sat over the fire and talked.

  Christine said she could see faces in the red coals; she painted them out to Kettering.

  He had to stoop forward to see what she indicated; for a moment their heads were very close together; it was Christine who drew back sharply.

  "Oughtn't we to be going home?" she asked with sudden nervousness.

  She rose to her feet and went over to the window; the sunshine had gone, and the country road was grey and shadowy. Kettering's big car stood at the kerb. After a moment he followed her to the window; he was a little pale, his eyes seemed to avoid hers.

  "I am quite ready when you are," he said.

  She was fastening her veil over her hat; her fingers shook a little as she tied the bow.

  Kettering had gone to pay for the tea; she stood looking after him with dawning apprehension in her eyes.

  He was a fine enough man; there was something about him that gave one such a feeling of safety--of security. She could not imagine that he would ever deliberately set himself to hurt a woman, as--as Jimmy had. She went out to the car and stood waiting for him.