“His health,” Philippa declared, “is marvellous. I should think he is one of the strongest men I know.”
Her brother patted her hand.
“You’ve been making rather a trouble of it, old girl,” he said affectionately. “It’s no good doing that, you know. You wait and let me have a talk with Henry.”
“I think,” she replied, “that nearly everything possible has already been said to him.”
“Perhaps you’ve put his back up a bit,” Richard suggested, “and he may really be on the lookout for something all the time.”
“It has been a long search!” Philippa retorted, with quiet sarcasm. “Let us talk about something else.”
They gossiped for a time over acquaintances and relations, made their plans for the week—Richard must report at the War Office at once.
Philippa grew more and more silent as the meal drew to a close. It was at Helen’s initiative that they left Richard alone for a moment over his port. She kept her arm through her friend’s as they crossed the hall into the drawing-room, and closed the door behind them. Philippa stood upon the hearth rug. Already her mouth had come together in a straight line. Her eyes met Helen’s defiantly.
“I know exactly what you are going to say, Helen,” she began, “and I warn you that it will be of no use.”
Helen drew up a small chair and seated herself before the fire.
“Are you going away with Mr. Lessingham, Philippa?” she asked.
“I am,” was the calm response. “I made up my mind this afternoon. We are leaving to-night.”
Helen stretched out one foot to the blaze.
“Motoring?” she enquired.
“Naturally,” Philippa replied. “You know there are no trains leaving here to-night.”
“You’ll have a cold ride,” Helen remarked. “I should take your heavy fur coat.”
Philippa stared at her companion.
“You don’t seem much upset, Helen!”
“I think,” Helen declared, looking up, “that nothing that has ever happened to me in my life has made me more unhappy, but I can see that you have reasoned it all out, and there is not a single argument I could use which you haven’t already discounted. It is your life, Philippa, not mine.”
“Since you are so philosophical,” Philippa observed, “let me ask you—should you do what I am going to do, if you were in my place?”
“I should not,” was the firm reply.
Philippa laughed heartily.
“Oh, I know what you are going to say!” Helen continued quickly. “You’ll tell me, won’t you, that I am not temperamental. I think in your heart you rather despise my absolute fidelity to Richard. You would call it cowlike, or something of that sort. There is a difference between us, Philippa, and that is why I am afraid to argue with you.”
“What should you do,” Philippa demanded, “if Richard failed you in some great thing?”
“I might suffer,” Helen confessed, “but my love would be there all the same. Perhaps for that reason I should suffer the more, but I should never be able to see with those who judged him hardly.”
“You think, then,” Philippa persisted, “that I ought still to remain Henry’s loving and affectionate wife, ready to take my place amongst the pastimes of his life—when he feels inclined, for instance, to wander from his dark lady-love to something petite and of my complexion, or when he settles down at home for a few days after a fortnight’s sport on the sea and expects me to tell him the war news?”
“I don’t think that I should do that,” Helen admitted quietly, “but I am quite certain that I shouldn’t run away with another man.”
“Why not?”
“Because I should be punishing myself too much.”
Philippa’s eyes suddenly flashed.
“Helen,” she said, “you are not such a fool as you try to make me think. Can’t you see what is really at the back of it all in my mind? Can’t you realise that, whatever the punishment it may bring, it will punish Henry more?”
“I see,” Helen observed. “You are running away with Mr. Lessingham to annoy Henry?”
“Oh, he’ll be more than annoyed!” Philippa laughed sardonically. “He has terrible ideas about the sanctity of things that belong to him. He’ll be remarkably sheepish for some time to come. He may even feel a few little stabs. When I have time, I am going to write him a letter which he can keep for the rest of his life. It won’t please him!”
“Where are you—and Mr. Lessingham going to live?” Helen enquired.
“In America, to start with. I’ve always longed to go to the States.”
“What shall you do,” Helen continued, “if you don’t get out of the country safely?”
“Mr. Lessingham seems quite sure that we shall,” Philippa replied, “and he seems a person of many expedients. Of course, if we didn’t, I should go back to Cheshire. I should have gone back there, anyway, before now, if Mr. Lessingham hadn’t come.”
“Well, it all seems very simple,” Helen admitted. “I think Mr. Lessingham is a perfectly delightful person, and I shouldn’t wonder if you didn’t now and then almost imagine that you were happy.”
“You seem to be taking my going very coolly,” Philippa remarked.
“I told you how I felt about it just now,” Helen reminded her. “Your going is like a great black cloud that I have seen growing larger and larger, day by day. I think that, in his way, Dick will suffer just as much as Henry. We shall all be utterly miserable.”
“Why don’t you try and persuade me not to go, then?” Philippa demanded. “You sit there talking about it as though I were going on an ordinary country-house visit.”
Helen raised her head, and Philippa saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
“Philippa dear,” she said, “if I thought that all the tears that were ever shed, all the words that were ever dragged from one’s heart, could have any real effect, I’d go on my knees to you now and implore you to give up this idea. But I think—you won’t be angry with me, dear?—I think you would go just the same.”
“You seem to think that I am obstinate,” Philippa complained.
“You see, you are temperamental, dear,” Helen reminded her. “You have a complex nature. I know very well that you need the daily love that Henry doesn’t seem to have been willing to give you lately, and I couldn’t stop your turning towards the sun, you know. Only—all the time there’s that terrible anxiety—are you quite sure it is the sun?”
“You believe in Mr. Lessingham, don’t you?” Philippa asked.
“I do indeed,” Helen replied. “I am not quite sure, though, that I believe in you.”
Philippa was a little startled.
“Well, I never!” she exclaimed. “Exactly what do you mean by that, Helen?”
“I am not quite sure,” Helen continued, “that when the moment has really come, and your head is upturned and your arms outstretched, and your feet have left this world in which you are now, I am not quite sure that you will find all that you seek.”
“You think he doesn’t love me?”
“I am not convinced,” Helen replied calmly, “that you love him.”
“Why, you idiot,” Philippa declared feverishly, “of course I love him! I think he is one of the sweetest, most lovable persons I ever knew, and as to his being a Swede, I shouldn’t care whether he were a Fiji Islander or a Chinese.”
Helen nodded sympathetically.
“I agree with you,” she said, “but listen. You know that I haven’t uttered a single word to dissuade you. Well, then, grant me just one thing. Before you start off this evening, tell Mr. Lessingham the truth, whatever it may be, the truth which you haven’t told me. It very likely won’t make any difference. Two people as nice as you and he, who are going to join their lives, generally do, I believe, find the things they seek. Still, tell him.”
Philippa made no reply. Richard opened the door and lingered upon the threshold. Helen rose to her feet.
&n
bsp; “I am coming, Dick,” she called out cheerfully. “There’s a gorgeous fire in the gun room, and two big easy-chairs, and we’ll have just the time I have been looking forward to all day. You’ll tell me things, won’t you?”
She looked very sweet as she came towards him, her eyes raised to him, her face full of the one happiness. He passed his arm around her waist.
“I’ll try, dear,” he said. “You won’t be lonely, Philippa?”
“I’ll come and disturb you when I am,” she promised.
The door closed. She stood gazing down into the fire, listening to their footsteps as they crossed the hall.
CHAPTER XXXI
Table of Contents
Lessingham stood for a moment by the side of the car from which he had just descended, glanced at the huge tires and the tins of petrol lashed on behind.
“Nothing more you want, chauffeur?” he asked.
“Nothing, sir,” was the almost inaudible reply.
“You have the route map?”
“Yes, sir, and enough petrol for three hundred miles.”
Lessingham turned away, pushed open the gate, and walked up the drive of Mainsail Haul. Decidedly it was the moment of his life. He was hard-pressed, as he knew, by others besides Griffiths. A few hours now was all the start he could reasonably expect. He was face to face with a very real and serious danger, which he could no longer ignore, and from which escape was all the time becoming more difficult. And yet all the emotionalism of this climax was centered elsewhere. It was from Philippa’s lips that he would hear his real sentence; it was her answer which would fill him once more with the lust for life, or send him on in his rush through the night for safety, callous, almost indifferent as to its result.
He walked up the drive, curiously at his ease, in a state of suspended animation, which knew no hope and feared no disappointment. Just before he reached the front door, the postern gate in the wall on his left-hand side opened, and Philippa stood there, muffled up in her fur coat, framed in the faint and shadowy moonlight against the background of seabounded space. He moved eagerly towards her.
“I heard the car,” she whispered. “Come and sit down for a moment. It isn’t in the least cold, and the moon is just coming up over the sea. I came out,” she went on, as he walked obediently by her side, “because the house somehow stifled me.”
She led him to a seat. Below, the long waves were breaking through upon the rocks, throwing little fountains of spray into the air. The village which lay at their feet was silent and lifeless—there was, indeed, a curious absence of sound, except when the incoming waves broke upon the rocks and ground the pebbles together in their long, backward swish. Very soon the sleeping country, now wrapped in shadows, would take form and outline in the light of the rising moon; hedges would divide the square fields, the black woods would take shape and the hills their mystic solemnity. But those few minutes were minutes of suspense. Lessingham was to some extent conscious of their queer, allegorical significance.
“I have come,” he reminded her quite steadily, “for my answer.”
She showed him the small bag by her side upon the seat, and touched her cloak. She was indeed prepared for a journey.
“You see,” she told him, “here I am.”
His face was suddenly transformed. She was almost afraid of the effect of her words. She found herself struggling in his arms.
“Not yet,” she begged. “Please remember where we are.”
He released her reluctantly. A few yards away, they could hear the soft purring of the six-cylinder engine, inexorable reminder of the passing moments. He caught her by the hand.
“Come,” he whispered passionately. “Every moment is precious.”
She hesitated no longer. The open postern gate seemed to him suddenly to lead down the great thoroughfare of a new and splendid life. He was to be one of those favoured few to whom was given the divine prize. And then he stopped short, even while she walked willingly by his side. He knew so well the need for haste. The gentle murmur of that engine was inviting him all the while. Yet he knew there was one thing more which must be said.
“Philippa,” he began, “you know what we are doing? We can escape, I believe. My flight is all wonderfully arranged. But there will be no coming back. It will be all over when our car passes over the hills there. You will not regret? You care enough even for this supreme sacrifice?”
“I shall never reproach you as long as I live,” she promised. “I have made up my mind to come, and I am ready.”
“But it is because you care?” he pleaded anxiously.
“It is because I care, for one reason.”
“In the great way?” he persisted. “In the only way?”
She hesitated. He suddenly felt her hand grow colder in his. He saw her frame shiver beneath its weight of furs.
“Don’t ask me quite that,” she begged breathlessly. “Be content to know that I have counted the cost, and that I am willing to come.”
He felt the chill of impending disaster. He closed the little gate through which they had been about to pass, and stood with his back to it. In that faint light which seemed to creep over the world before the moon itself was revealed, she seemed to him at that moment the fairest, the most desirable thing on earth. Her face was upturned towards his, half pathetic, half protesting against the revelation which he was forcing from her.
“Listen, Philippa,” he said, “Miss Fairclough warned me of one thing. I put it on one side. It did not seem to be possible. Now I must ask you a question. You have some other motive, have you not, for choosing to come away with me? It is not only because you love me better than any one else in the world, as I do you, and therefore that we belong to one another and it is right and good that we should spend our lives in one another’s company? There is something else, is there not, at the root of your determination? Some ally?”
It was a strange moment for Philippa. Nothing had altered within her, and yet a wonderful pity was glowing in her heart, tearing at her emotions, bringing a sob into her throat.
“You mean—Henry?” she faltered.
“I mean your husband,” he assented.
She was suddenly passionately angry with herself. It seemed to her that the days of childishness were back. She was behaving like an imbecile whilst he played the great game.
“You see,” he went on, his own voice a little unsteady, “this is one of those moments in both our lives when anything except the exact truth would mean shipwreck. You still love your husband?”
“I am such a fool!” she sobbed, clutching at his arm.
“You were willing to go away with me,” he continued mercilessly, “partly because of the anger you felt towards him, and partly out of revenge, and just a little because you liked me. Is that not so?”
Her head pressed upon his arm. She nodded. It was just that convulsive movement of her head, with its wealth of wonderful hair and its plain black motoring hat, which dealt the death-blow to his hopes. She was just a child once more—and she trusted him.
“Very well, then,” he said, “just let me think—for a moment.”
She understood enough not to raise her head. Lessingham was gazing out through the chaotic shadows of the distant banks of clouds from which the moon was rising. Already the pain had begun, and yet with it was that queer sense of exaltation which comes with sacrifice.
“We have been very nearly foolish,” he told her, with grave kindliness. “It is well, perhaps, that we were in time. Those windows which lead into your library,—through which I first came to you, by-the-by,—” he added, with a strange, reminiscent little sigh, “are they open?”
“Yes!” she whispered.
“Come, then,” he invited. “Before I leave there is something I want to make clear to you.”
They made their way rather like two conspirators along the little terraced walk. Philippa opened the window and closed it again behind them. The room was empty. Lessingham, watching her closely, almost groa
ned as he saw the wonderful relief in her face. She threw off the cloak, and he groaned again as he remembered how nearly it had been his task to remove it. In her plain travelling dress, she turned and looked at him very pathetically.
“You have, perhaps, a morning paper here?” he enquired.
“A newspaper? Why, yes, the Times,” she answered, a little surprised.
He took it from the table towards which she pointed, and held it under the lamplight. Presently he called to her. His forefinger rested upon a certain column.
“Read this,” he directed.
She read it out in a tone which passed from surprise to blank wonder:
Commander Sir Henry Cranston, Baronet, to receive the D.S.O. for special services, and to be promoted to the rank of Acting Rear-Admiral.
“What does it mean?” she asked feverishly. “Henry? A D.S.O. for Henry for special services?”
“It means,” he told her, with a forced smile, “that your husband is, as you put it in your expressive language, a fraud.”
CHAPTER XXXII
Table of Contents
For a moment Philippa was unsteady upon her feet. Lessingham led her to a chair. From outside came the low, cautious hooting of the motor horn, calling to its dilatory passenger.
“I can not, of course, explain everything to you,” he began, in a tone of unusual restraint, “but I do know that for the last two years your husband has been responsible to the Admiralty for most of the mine fields around your east coast. To begin with, his stay in Scotland was a sham. He was most of the time with the fleet and round the coasts. His fishing excursions from here have been of the same order, only more so. All the places of importance, from here to the mouth of the Thames, have been mined, or rather the approaches to them have been mined, under his instructions. My mission in this country, here at Dreymarsh—do not shrink from me if you can help it—was to obtain a copy of his mine protection scheme of a certain town on the east coast.”
“Why should I shrink from you?” she murmured. “This is all too wonderful! What a little beast Henry must think me!” she added, with truly feminine and marvellously selfish irrelevance.
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