by Jane Arbor
“I—I thought you were pushing her away guiltily because you, had heard Ian and me coming,” admitted Lysbet. “I thought you had been—kissing her!”
“Well,” said Richard, appearing to consider the possibility upon its merits, “if she had been in my arms I might even have been kissing her. But not like this!”
His lips were upon hers, eloquent of the manhood he was giving into her keeping, drawing the womanhood of her into his protection. They stood apart at last and knew their future to be rounded and of a promise that was very sweet.
But suddenly across Lysbet’s new sense of peace there came a jarring thought.
“Richard,” she said urgently. “About Eliot. I don’t know where he is. I can’t get in touch with him. He—he’ll come back here.”
“I want you to allow that,” answered Richard quietly. “Much as you’ll hate the idea, I want you to put up with Eliot in the house for just so long as it takes to get into touch with me. That,” his mouth set grimly, “will be my reward—the dealing with that young man in a way of which his worst angel could not but approve! I’ve promised myself that, and I’m not going to be cheated of it! Will you play, sweetheart?”
“As long as Aunt Alicia need not see him—of course,” agreed Lysbet.
“As you please. And yet, you know,” he added with a puckish smile, “I can’t help thinking that when she is a little stronger, my present-to-be new auntie is going to feel somewhat slighted if she isn’t allowed to bring her knitting to the execution!”
For weeks the harsh weather held but when it broke at last spring was already on the way and Easter, when Lysbet and Richard planned to be married, not far off.
Lysbet, in a topcoat and wellingtons, was in the garden looking at the thrusting points of the tulips when Richard, with the note of their ‘private’ whistle, hailed her from the terrace.
“Come over here,” she beckoned, and in a few moments he was at her side.
He put an arm about her waist and kissed her lightly and without passion. They both took a kind of restrained delight in quiet greetings of that sort; it seemed to emphasize that they were friends and companions as well as lovers and that they had all the time in the world to be all three.
“Caroline dropped a bombshell this morning,” remarked Richard as they walked across the lawn together. “It tinkled down upon me in the form of an oh-so-formal notice to leave. She is going to marry Major Silver!”
Lysbet’s surprise was certainly gratifying. “Going to marry Long John?” she gasped. “But—but he’s a bachelor!”
“Well, what’s wrong with that?” inquired Richard drily. “It’s usually considered a necessary condition for marriage.”
Lysbet laughed. “You know what I mean! We’ve always thought he was a confirmed one. For one thing, he must be ages old!”
“Fifty, Caroline says. She admits to twenty-seven and she appealed to me to know whether I didn’t think it was the ideal difference in age for marriage. I said, ‘Caroline, there isn’t any ‘ideal’ difference in age and you know it. The only thing that matters is whether you love the man and he loves you.’ Do you?”
“What did she say?”
“She pouted and said, Yes of course. She may do. You wouldn’t get her to admit it if she didn’t. But I should think he is head-over-ears in love with her and that will probably go a long way.”
Lysbet said thoughtfully: “I remember now. I met her in the town and she was full of his continual pressing her to dine with him.” She chuckled. “Ian won’t approve!”
“Whether he approves or does the other thing, I’ve no doubt that the young man will be extremely vocal about it,” was Richard’s judicial comment. “I can’t help hoping that his stepfather can wield a pretty line in birch rods.”
“Oh Richard—no!” protested Lysbet laughingly. “He only wants managing and he can be perfectly sweet.”
“Then Caroline obviously can’t manage him and it’s high time somebody else took a hand. On that score alone I would have approved the marriage!”
“Were you asked to?” teased Lysbet.
“Indeed I was. Caroline fairly stroked herself up against me and said in the most melting tones she has yet achieved: “Richard—you don’t mind, do you? I mean, it’s happiness and a future for me! Even at your own expense you wouldn’t have it otherwise—would you, Richard dear?” The mimicry of Caroline was so true that Lysbet laughed again rather guiltily, through her hope for Caroline’s happiness, born as it was of her own happiness, was genuine enough.
But Richard was suddenly grave. “Sweet, there’s something else,” he said. “Elsa Geraint is on my conscience. I’m worried about her future. I don’t know what she is going to do when she comes out of hospital and that will be in a few days now.”
Lysbet’s dark eyes clouded. “So Eliot did nothing for her before he went away? He didn’t even see her?”
“No. As I told you at the time, when I had that final showdown with him, she had made me promise that whatever else I said to him or did to him I would tell him that she was here in Fallsbridge, that she still loved him and she would wait for him to go to her. A promise like that was the last thing in the world I wanted to make. But I kept my word. I did tell him. And you know what happened—he laughed in my face and said: ‘Lord, Guyse, d’you really think I’m going round picking up the little indiscretions I’ve dropped by the way?’ Then,” said Richard not without satisfaction, “I knocked him down. I said: ‘Damn you, if I could drag you to see her I would. But now—get out!” And he did.”
“And he hasn’t been near her?”
“No. And I should think he is out of the country by now. I couldn’t tell her what he had said, of course. And I couldn’t buoy her with false hopes. I’ve had to see her fighting a losing battle with hope every day. And now she hasn’t anything but a sort of resigned despair at the knowledge that he has gone without trace and that he doesn’t want her any more—for anything at all.”
“But Richard—we must do something for her! She must come here!”
He looked relieved. “That was what I was wondering. I hoped you would say that. I’d been thinking that perhaps, if Aunt Alicia insists on leaving us to Falcons and our own devices when we are married, she would give a home to Elsa, keep her on as a companion, or something. Or perhaps the girl would rather get an outside job. At any rate, to have her here for the time being would give her a breathing-space, time to get thoroughly well. Thank you, sweetheart.”
“As if we could do less, when she has done so much for us!” accused Lysbet gently. “But is she going to be happy again, having loved Eliot like that?”
Richard shook his head. With a wisdom born of the experience of his profession rather than of his years, he said: “No one could convince Elsa now of what is the truth—that one day she will forget Eliot and be completely happy again. ‘Time heals everything’ is awfully trite and it doesn’t quite express what I mean when I say that all the worst that Eliot has done to her will drop away, and all the best she did for him—her wasted love, her misguided loyalty—will stay with her and be utterly valuable for the rest of her life. But you couldn’t tell her that and hope to be believed. It’s something which she must live out for herself.”
Lysbet said slowly: “I think I understand. You mean that love and loyalty, however mistakenly given, are realities which grow beyond even the betrayal of them?”
Richard took her hand and raised it almost reverently to his lips. “I mean just that, dearest. “As yours and mine will grow, beyond all the trivialities and the commonplaces of marriage, into something which will last us until the very end!”
THE END
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