The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor
a heavy blow. She was never so near to loving John Derringham as during this Whitsuntide when she felt she had lost him. Cora Lutworth once said of her:
"Cis is one of the happiest women in the world, because when she looks in the glass in the morning she never sees anything but herself, and is perfectly content. Most of us find shadows peeping over our shoulders of what we would like to be."
Arabella found her employer extremely trying during the Saturday and Sunday, and was almost in tears when she wrote to her mother.
Mr. Derringham has plainly determined not to be ensnared yet. If this did not render M. E. so difficult to please, the situation would be very instructive to watch. And I am not even now certain whether he will escape eventually, because her whole pride in herself is roused and she will stick at nothing. I have a shrewd suspicion as to what has caused the change in his feelings and intentions towards M. E., but I have not imparted my ideas to her, since doing so might do no good, and would in some way certainly injure an innocent person. As yet I believe she is unaware of this person's existence. We have done everything we can for Mr. Derringham with the most erudite conversation. I have been up half of the night ascertaining facts upon all sorts of classical subjects, as that seems to be more than ever the bent of his mind in these last two visits. (I am given to understand from other sources that the person of whom I made mention above is a highly-trained Greek scholar and of exceptional refinement and cultivation, so that may be the reason.) The strain of preparing M. E. for these talks and then my anxiety when, at meals or after them, I hear her upon the brink of some fatal mistake, has caused me to have most unpleasant headaches, and really, if it were not so modern and silly a phrase, I should say the thing was getting on my nerves. However, all the interesting guests are leaving on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Derringham, I understand from what he said to me, intends to go over to his old master, Professor Carlyon's, and catch a later train from there, but M. E. does not know this, and I have not felt it my duty to inform her of it, because it might involve some awkwardness connected with the person about whom I have already given you a hint. I must close now, as I have some facts to look up concerning the worship of Dionysus which M. E. is going to bring in to-night. It was only yesterday I told her who he was, and I had the greatest difficulty to get her to understand he was Bacchus as well, as she had learned of him when younger under that name as the God of Drunkards, and did not consider him a very nice person to mention. But Mr. Derringham held forth upon the rude Thracian Dionysus last night and the fundamental spirituality of his original cult, and so she felt it might seem rather _bourgeois_ to be shocked, and has committed to memory as well as she can some facts to-day.
It will be seen from Miss Clinker's frank letter to her parent that Mrs. Cricklander was leaving no stone unturned to gain her object, and such praiseworthy toil deserves the highest commendation.
John Derringham, meanwhile, having successfully smoothed matters to his own satisfaction, felt at liberty to dream in his spare moments of his love. He already began to wonder how he had ever felt any emotion towards the fair Cecilia--she was perfectly charming, but left him as cold as ice!
And so at last the good-bys were said, and he got into the motor with some of the other guests, ostensibly for the station, but in reality to get out at the Lodge gates upon the pretense of going to see the Professor. He intended, instead of this, to cross the haw-haw and reconnoiter upon the hope of meeting his beloved, because there was no necessity for him to spend a dull afternoon in Upminster when perhaps some more agreeable hours could be snatched under the tree. He had attended to every point, he believed, even having written a letter to Cheiron which he had taken the precaution to give to his servant to post from London on the following morning, so that there would be no Bristol mark as a clew to their whereabouts. In this he merely stated that when his old master would receive it Halcyone would be his wife, and that for a time they had decided to keep the marriage secret, and he hoped his old master would understand and sympathize.
The only qualm of any sort he experienced during these three days was when he was composing this letter, so he finished it quickly and did not even read it over. And now, as he strode across the Wendover park, it was safe in his servant's pocket and would be despatched duly next day. He was unaware of the fact that Mr. Carlyon had left for London by a morning train.
As he came within view of the haw-haw, he saw in the far distance Halcyone just flitting towards the beech avenue gate, and in his intense haste to catch her up before she should get too near the house, he removed the bricks very carelessly, not even remarking that one, and the most important, was disposed of in such a manner that the spike left beneath would not bear his weight.
He had got thus far, his eyes fixed upon the slender white figure rapidly disappearing from his view, when with a tremendous crash his foothold gave way and he fell with fearful force into the ditch beneath, his head striking one of the fallen bricks. And after that, all things were blank and his soul wandered into shadowland and tasted of the pains of death.
* * * * *
From the first break of day on that Tuesday when Halcyone awoke she was conscious that some sorrow was near her. Every sense of hers, every instinct, so highly trained by her years of communion with Nature seemed always to warn her of coming events.
She was restless--a state of being quite at variance with her usual calm. The air was sultry and, though no rain fell, ominous clouds gathered and faint thunder pealed afar off.
"What is it? What is it, God?" she asked of the sky. But no answer came, and at last she went out into the park and towards the tree. She had made all her simple preparations--everything that she must take had been put into a small bag and was safely waiting in the secret passage, ready for her to fetch on the morrow.
Cheiron, she knew, had gone to London. Had they not said good-by on the evening before? And his last words had made her smile happily at the time.
"Things are changing, Halcyone," he had said, with the whimsical raising of his left penthouse brow. "Perhaps you will not want to learn Greek much longer with your crabbed old Cheiron in his cave."
And she had flung her arms round his neck and buried her face in his silver beard, and assured him she would always want to learn--all her life. But now she felt a twinge of sadness--she would indeed miss him, her dear old master, and he, too, would be lonely without her. Then she fought with herself. Feelings of depression were never permitted to stay for a moment, and she looked away into the trees for comfort--but only a deathly stillness and a sullen roll of distant thunder answered, and left her uncomforted.
And then some force stronger than her will seemed to drive her back to the house, and to the long gallery, and just at the very moment when she had passed beyond her lover's sight it was as if something chased her, so that she ran the last few yards, and paused not until she stood in front of Aphrodite's shrine.
It would be difficult to carry the marble head with the other few things she proposed to take, but none the less was the necessity imperative. She could not be married without the presence of her beloved mother to bless her.
As she lifted her goddess out, with her silken wrappings, the first flash of the nearing storm lit up the dark room with lurid flame.
Halcyone shivered. It was the one aspect of Nature with which she was out of harmony. When thunder rolled and lightning quivered, her vitality seemed to desert her and she experienced what in her came nearest to fear.
"Ah! someone has angered God greatly," she whispered aloud; and then she carried the head to the secret door, knowing full well she would be unwatched in her entry there--on such a day, with thunder pealing, not a servant would have ventured into the long gallery.
Another and louder rumble reached her with muffled sound, as she made her way in the dark underground, and as she came to the place where there was the contrived gleam of light and outer air, the lightning turned the narrow space into a green dusk.
Halcyone was trembling all over, and when she had put her precious bundle safely into the bag with the rest of her simple preparations, she laid it on the iron-bound box which