CHAPTER IV
THE ELOPING PERSONS
That was a night against which a black mark had afterwards to be set in the memory of Paul Nannock. It had seemed such a simple thing, and so inevitable – that promise to which he had been forced, and which would have meant, with anyone else, a mere matter of an idle stroll and a little easy talk. But with this man the children stood first; and ever in the front rank of them stood Moira, child of the woman he had loved. The absurdity of regarding the little expedition with Honora Jackman seriously occurred to him more than once, and yet he shrank from it; and the fact that the sensitive child who was so near to his heart had stamped it with her disapproval meant much to Paul. It was a desertion on his part, and she had answered it by a desertion of her own. Paul sat up later than usual, in the hope that she might after all come creeping down to his room; but she never appeared.
He stole upstairs at last, miserably enough, and listened at the door of her room. All was silent, and he told himself that she had forgotten, and had fallen asleep. Had he known that she lay in her bed, wide-awake, fighting out jealously the bitter problem in her mind, it would have been a matter of his hurrying in in the darkness, and taking her in his arms, and promising I know not what. But he did not know that, and he went upstairs to his own room.
In a new bravery induced by the darkness he determined that on the morrow he would invent an excuse, and would get out of the engagement with Honora; in a more sober and reflective moment he knew that he would do no such thing; the affair must be gone through with, and he must contrive in some fashion to make his peace with Moira afterwards.
The relations between the child and the man were so curious and so subtle, that no real explanation of anything that troubled them could ever be made between them. Their sympathy one with the other was so great, that it had long ago become a mutual business of give-and-take; the sensitive little creature had come to learn long since that no words were necessary, and that the mere taking of her into Old Paul's arms in silence meant much, and atoned for much, and explained everything. Gentle as she was, she resented bitterly and fiercely any interference with the man; he was all her world, and she must stand first with him, or her world crumbled into dust. And Paul had long ago come to understand that, and to understand that he must be watchful. The thought of it troubled him now; the impossibility of explaining to Moira that this was a mere act of politeness to Honora Jackman struck him with a sense of comical dismay.
He slept badly, and rose early; he was glad to get out into the air and into his garden before anyone was stirring; there was every promise of a perfect long summer day before him. Well, he would be done with Honora Jackman in a matter of an hour or so; the rest of the day was his own. Yet how he longed even to be rid of the responsibility of that hour or so!
He went back into the house and into his room, and set about preparing for himself a cup of coffee. He very often did that in the early morning, before anyone was about. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was not quite six. He was bending over the little spirit stove, when he suddenly drew himself upright and listened; for there was a sound of little feet upon the stair.
The sound drew nearer, while he listened a little guiltily. Then the door was pushed open, and Moira came in; and for a moment the man and the child looked deep into each other's souls.
"Hullo, Moira!" said Paul at last. "You're up early."
She did not reply; she walked across to him, and put up her face for a kiss. He did not dare even to whisper a question as to the previous night; he was casting about in his mind for the best thing to say under these tragic circumstances. The pride of the child forbade that she should even breathe the name of her rival; so that each waited and wondered what was best to be said. Had the simple Paul but known, however, Moira had already made up her mind what to do with him; had been thinking it out during the night.
Paul was sipping his coffee, and furtively glancing at the child, when he saw that she was about to speak. She was leaning against him, and his arm encircled her; almost he could feel her thin young body quiver with the eagerness of the question, although she spoke quietly enough.
"Old Paul – what do you do when you love anybody?"
"Do?" Paul set down his cup, and twisted the child about, the better to look into her eyes. "Oh, you just – just love 'em," he replied feebly.
"Oh!" The child lowered her eyes, and seemed to be pondering deeply. Finally she spoke, tracing a vein on the back of the man's hand with one finger as she said the words, and looking down at that finger. "Patience says that sometimes, when you're in that state, you elope."
"Patience seems to know a lot about it," said Paul. "Look here, old lady – what are you driving at? We're quite alone, you know – and I'll never breathe a word about it."
"Patience says that sometimes there's somebody in the way – 'somebody who stands between,' was what she said; and in that case you steal out quietly, and you rush away, and you never get caught. At least, that is, in the best eloping cases," she added, thoughtfully.
"And you only do that when somebody stands between?" whispered Paul. "Somebody, for instance, who is a little bit in the way?"
She did not look up at him; she only nodded quickly. As he looked at her, he saw a bright drop fall on his hand, but he was too wise to say anything; he went on in an unaltered tone:
"Someone, for instance, who would take – shall we say me, for argument? – away for a time; that is, of course, if they could. But, dear" – he drew her a little closer to him – "I don't really want to go."
"But of course there are things you must do, unless somebody else is brave enough to help you," she whispered. "That's why it seemed to me on such a day, that we might, if we were very quiet about it, elope!" She raised her eyes for the first time, and the eyes were laughing. "It isn't a serious business, Old Paul; and we could be back in time for supper."
"It is a serious business," he replied. "It's a desperate business. We might be pursued by that – that other person."
"There's not a moment to be lost, Old Paul," she cried, slipping out of his embrace, and dancing light-footed and light-hearted round the room. "Come at once!"
"Eloping persons generally have a carriage, and they drive at top speed," suggested Old Paul. "We must do the thing properly, you know."
"There is the Ancient One," replied Moira instantly.
"To be sure; I never thought of the Ancient One," he replied.
Now the Ancient One was an aged and somewhat dejected donkey, who had been bought out of sheer charity by Old Paul under distressing circumstances. Originally the Ancient One had been attached to a cart owned by a gipsy; and Paul had come upon the gipsy belabouring the animal unmercifully upon a country-road. Moira had been with him; she remembered to this hour all that had happened on that wonderful and exciting occasion.
Old Paul had first of all taken off his coat, and folded it neatly, and laid it on the bank; and then a moment later he and the gipsy were "all arms and legs," as Moira expressed it afterwards, "about the road."
It had ended in the gipsy being discovered, as they say in the plays, seated with a swollen face on the opposite bank, and bewailing his hard lot; while Old Paul stood over him, and asked what he wanted for the Ancient One. (They christened him the Ancient One afterwards, because Paul said that donkeys never died, and that this one ought to have died years before.)
Paul had paid certain bright sovereigns for the Ancient One, and had led him home in triumph, with Moira poised upon his back. After that an old chaise had been discovered, hidden away in the stable of an inn; and that had been a mere matter of seventeen shillings; and this was the equipage in which these eloping persons were to start.
But first, of course, there were preparations. You cannot elope without careful consideration; and it was more than possible that they might be hungry before the day was out and they crept home to supper. Going hand in hand and on tip-toe guiltily, they stole from the larder bread and cheese and a bottle of milk; moreover, Paul made an uncouth sandwich or two in a desperate hurry. When all this had been tied up in a cloth, they went out of the house in search of the Ancient One and the chaise.
By all the rules of the great game it was necessary, as Old Paul carefully explained in a whisper, that he should be waiting in the carriage in a lane, until the lady could escape and join him. Therefore, the better to keep up that fiction, Moira hid in the bushes until three shrill whistles sounded from outside the garden; then she crept out to meet her lover; and Old Paul (the dog must have been through this before, to understand it so well!) received her, hat in hand – a difficult process, because he had to hold the Ancient One with the other hand, and the Ancient One was kicking; but Moira, radiantly happy, got into the chaise, and sat bright-eyed and demure; then Old Paul climbed in beside her, and after a preliminary tussle with the Ancient One, started him on his journey.
Properly speaking, the Ancient One should have gone at top speed, with dust flying and the chaise rocking perilously. But there was no top speed about that animal; instead, he crawled along in a zig-zag fashion, just as tempting grass lured him at either side of the road; while Old Paul sat, leaning forward, with the reins hanging loose in his hands, the while he talked to Moira. For they were going out into the big world, these two, if only for a day; and it was a wonderful place to each innocent pair of eyes, unexplored and beautiful. Somewhere or other, when the Ancient One should have condescended to drag them to the spot, they were to have breakfast, and to discuss the plans for the day.
In that, again, Old Paul showed his absolute genius; you might have imagined that he would have stopped in some secluded spot, and have opened that precious cloth which contained the provisions he had so artfully prepared; but not a bit of it; he had other ideas than that for such an occasion. Presently, if you please, the Ancient One was turned unresisting into an old stable yard attached to an equally old inn; there to dream in a little while of the Elysian Fields, amid a generous bounty of hay. By that time a wondering landlady had conducted Old Paul and the child to a room upstairs, where in the mere twinkling of an eye a cloth was spread upon the table, and a round-faced, open-eyed young female had bounced in and out with knives and forks and cups and plates. For by that time the Ancient One had been examined, and the very chaise appraised; and the story was abroad of this wonderful young man who had come suddenly as it were into the deserted place, and had mysteriously ordered breakfast.
The landlady herself waited upon them; hovered about them, indeed, with hands upraised, and with stifled exclamations of wonder and delight. It was difficult to get rid of her; she came in on the mere pretext of picking up a crumb from the floor; there was no delicacy about her. When, however, it had at last dawned upon her that her presence was an outrage, the two settled down to their meal; and the dark eyes looked into the blue ones contentedly and happily; and the blue ones smiled back; for even Moira knew that this was the proper thing to do on an elopement.
They grew quite confidential over that meal – more confidential, in fact, than they had ever been. It was as though they had been lifted out of their ordinary world, and set down in an enchanted one somewhere else; the ordinary conditions of life had slipped past them; and could be lightly forgotten. Old Paul told her something of the days when he had been a boy, something of his life in a time that seemed now far off, lying back in the shadows. And Moira learned, to her surprise, that in that time Patience had been with him, and had even then, as it seemed to his remembrance, been quite old.
"I was a little chap, and I remember that we were all very poor, Moira," he said across the table. "But always Patience was there; she looked after my mother a lot, when my mother seemed only to be a young girl. Then heaps and heaps of riches came to me, too late for the young girl who was my mother, but still I had Patience with me; which accounts, you see," he added whimsically, "for her being there now, and understanding me so well. If sometimes you think she's hard and stern, dear, you've only got to remember that I've given her a lot of trouble in my time, and made her anxious about me. I've taken a deal of watching, Moira."
"You have, Old Paul," she retorted, with a remembrance of her rescue of him that day. "You might have been quite destroyed if we hadn't looked after you carefully," she added, with her elbows on the table and her chin propped in her palms.
"Do you know," he said, looking across at her gratefully, "although I wouldn't mention it to a soul, I shall never know quite how to thank you for to-day. This elopement of ours has quite put matters straight; I should never have thought of it myself at all."
"Patience says that it takes a woman to manage things," retorted Moira wisely.
They found the Ancient One less inclined to move than ever after his feasting; indeed, Moira declared that it was a little difficult to fit him in between the shafts. But they got him started, and went away on another unknown expedition, with the whole inn to watch them, including the landlady and the bouncing female who had brought in the knives and forks and plates. At the last moment the Ancient One decided that he would return to the hay, and it became necessary for Old Paul to lead him out into the high road, and for the landlady and the bouncing one to push the chaise behind; while Moira, in a high state of dignity, sat in the chaise, and strove hard not to laugh. For Old Paul saying pretty things to the donkey while he led him was certainly funny.
Paul had been thoughtful in regard to the home-coming, and the landlady had received secret orders, so that by the time the long bright day was ending, and the shadows were lengthening across the roads and fields, they came, in some unaccountable fashion, by a circuitous route back to the inn again; there to find the landlady, apparently moved to astonishment at their re-appearance, and yet with a sumptuous meal on the way. Moira was handed over to the care of the motherly woman and the bouncing maid, while Paul smoked a pipe, and lounged in a deep window seat, and looked out over the darkening fields. And presently the child came down, radiant and hungry, with her attendant slaves hovering about her. The man and the child ate their meal in the dusk of the room, with only their eyes for lights – the one for the other.
"It's been the most wonderful elopement possible," said Moira, with a deep sigh of contentment. "I'm sure that even the Ancient One will remember it to his dying day – that is, if he ever dies at all."
"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," said Paul.
A little jealous feeling crept in, even in the midst of Moira's happiness; she stole round the table, and got an arm about his neck, and whispered:
"Have you thought about her at all, Old Paul?"
"Once – but not seriously," he whispered. "But I don't like you to say that, dear," he added.
"That's because you don't understand," she breathed, with her lips against his cheek. "I should have died if I had thought of you in the woods with her; I could not have borne it. Promise me, Old Paul – promise me truly?"
"What, little maid?" he whispered.
"Promise me that never in all your life will you elope with anybody but me. Let me know that no one else will be taken away by you like this. Let this be my own – my very own elopement."
And Old Paul most solemnly promised.
They drove home under a kindly moon and stars; and by that time Moira was nearly asleep. Jogging along through the country lanes, Old Paul as he held the reins and kept an arm about the child, dreamed dreams. Dreamed, perhaps, that this might have been the woman who had died; that in such a fashion he might have travelled through an impossible world of moonshine and of starshine with her, and been impossibly happy. Almost he came to think that by the love of the child he had won back to the love of the mother; that the disaster that had touched his life was a thing to be forgotten – something long since atoned for, alike in death and by the gift of this baby. The love his young manhood had known for the mother seemed to be swallowed up in this purer, finer love for the child; he came back, at the end of his perfect day, secure in that love at least.
By the time the sleepy Ancient One stopped at the gate in the wall Moira was awake again; she suffered herself to be lifted from the chaise, and so to face the commonplace world again. She stood, swaying a little with sleep, in the warm dusk; she became dimly conscious that someone was surveying her through a bright eyeglass. That was the crowning moment of her triumph, and she did not need to say anything in explanation.
"I was taking a stroll," sounded the high voice of Honora Jackman. "Where have you been hiding all day, you two?"
Old Paul felt the warm fingers of the child tighten about his hand; he knew what answer he must give. "Well, as a matter of fact," he replied blandly, "Moira and I have been away all day – on a little excursion." The fingers tightened still more, and he plunged desperately into the full truth. "We – we eloped together early this morning; and it has been a wonderful day."
That was enough; impelled by the stern hand of Moira he was swept past Honora Jackman, and was drawn towards the house, leading the Ancient One. It was the hour of Moira's triumph, and she would not have abated one jot of it. The shrill little laugh the woman gave was the final beautiful note of it.
Only Anthony Ditchburn seemed to have suffered. He came querulously to Paul that night – looking in with a scared face, and with glances over his shoulder, as though in fear of pursuit.
"Why did you go away, Nannock?" he demanded. "She's a horrible woman; she came early, and said something about woods; seemed to have a sort of suspicion that I was hiding you. Came again several times during the day, and asked about you; was positively rude at times. And I in the midst of an important chapter! You needn't laugh," he added piteously; "it has quite unnerved me. She's dangerous."
But Old Paul leaned back in his chair, and laughed until he cried.
CHAPTER V
JIMMY'S AFFECTIONS
It does not need to be recorded here that after that first fierce outburst the image of Honora Jackman faded from the mind of Jimmy, and became but as a vague dream of the past. True, for a time he hugged to himself the impossible thought of her; remembered with a pang the day of her departure. For even the Baffalls were to see the last of her, and Jimmy was to be privileged to be inconsolable for some twenty-four hours.
She did not depart without something of a sensation. She felt she owed it to her reputation, and to her superior knowledge of the world, that she should let this man know that she understood his feelings – understood, in particular, that he was afraid of her. Bitterly though she resented the fashion in which he had set her aside, there was consolation in the thought that he had had to set, as she believed, the frail child between herself and him; she would remind him of that at least before she went. Mrs. Baffall being easily managed on such a matter, it came about that Mrs. Baffall put in an appearance at Daisley Place, and sought an interview with Old Paul.
"She's going away," said Mrs. Baffall; it did not seem necessary to mention any name.
"You'll miss her," replied Old Paul politely.
Mrs. Baffall glanced about her as though fearing listeners; then she smoothed her gloved hands down over her silk dress, bending herself a little to do so, and spoke in a confidential whisper:
"We shall – and we shan't, Mr. Nannock, in a manner of speaking," she said. "Between you and me and what I may call the gate-post, Baffall and me won't be sorry. She's nice, and she's got style, but it's a bit too much of a style for us. Bare shoulders at dinner make me feel chilly – and her voice seems to go through and through the house."
"I think I understand," said Paul, nodding. "But you want me to do something?"
"I thought if you could stand the shoulders for one evening – you being more used to 'em like, Mr. Nannock – it'd be a charity. She said this morning" – Mrs. Baffall made an extraordinary grimace, as though controlling a desire to laugh – "said this very morning that she was dying to see you and the children together – in your own place. Seems quite set on it."
Paul walked across to the window and looked out; turned there, and looked at the old woman. There was an unspoken question in his eyes, and she answered it promptly.
"Lord bless the man – she won't eat you!" she exclaimed, in a more natural fashion than that in which she usually spoke. "And if it'll do her any good, by all means let her. I'm sure you'll excuse me speaking in such a fashion to you, sir; but I think she's got about a hundred and fifty a year to live on – and not many friends, as you count friends in this world. And she ain't a bad sort, take her all round – and she's a woman."
Paul came away from the window and stood close to the old woman, who had risen to meet him; in that moment they clasped hands and looked into each other's eyes. "Come, all of you – and you shall fix the date," said Paul.
She withdrew her hand and laughed a little confusedly; settled the strings of her bonnet with some faint touch of coquetry. "Make it to-morrow, Mr. Nannock," she said.
In order not to reveal the innocent plot Paul sent a formal invitation that day by the hand of Jimmy. Jimmy had a wild hope that he might see his divinity, for, of course, at that time her image had not faded by any means – that was only to come later. But the lady did not put in an appearance; instead, Mrs. Baffall entertained him in the showy drawing-room, inquiring politely as to the health of everybody, and giving him minute particulars concerning various uninteresting matters with which he could not possibly be concerned. But Jimmy learnt, to his fluttering delight, that she was coming to dinner on the morrow; it might be that he would get a glimpse of her.
He was to get more than a glimpse. Old Paul gravely informed him, on his return to the house, that he was to dine with the company on the morrow; and Jimmy, blushing furiously, blurted out his thanks and fled from the room. For reasons of state Paul decided that the girls had better not appear; perhaps he feared Moira a little. In his own mind he set this experienced woman of the world against the child, and carefully made allowances for feelings with which another would not have credited her. In fact, all things considered, Paul felt he would be glad when the dinner party should be over, and Honora Jackman well away upon her travels again.
Honora came softly, and with something of timidity. To judge from her manner, and from the fashion in which her hand lingered in his for a moment at her coming, this might have been really an affair of hearts between them; some impossible romance, in which self-sacrifice had been demanded and sadly given. Mrs. Baffall quite felt that the unfortunate woman was departing into a grey world, charged with sad and secret memories. So well, indeed, did Honora carry out that part of the business that Paul himself had an uncomfortable feeling that he had treated her rather badly, and that she was behaving with a generosity that called for the highest commendation. In manner he was quite apologetic.
She had evidently determined that she would stamp this night into the memory of Paul Nannock; would go away, in fact, leaving the sweetest savour behind her. The boisterousness was gone; there was almost a new timidity about her. When she came into that sitting-room that was littered with books and toys, and came up frankly to him with a hand outstretched, she was careful to keep her disengaged white arm round the neck of the radiant Jimmy; insisted afterwards on having Jimmy beside her at table. And there talked in a quiet voice, and with a little low ripple of laughter, about what she was to do and what prosaic things were to happen to her.
"It's just been simply lovely down here with you all," she said. "I'll own I came to scoff; I've remained to do the other thing. If you knew anything about me, you dear simple folk, you'd know that for a time I've lost sight and touch of the hard world in which I live. Funny – isn't it? Yet it's true; even Jimmy here has taught me a lot. I shall remember your woods and your fields, and I shall think of you often and often. Gracious! – I'm growing sentimental."
She was to be a revelation to them that night. Presently she sat down at the piano in the dusk of the room (Paul remembered it afterwards, and could smell again, when he remembered, the soft warm summer night outside the open windows) and sang to them. She began with a haunting Irish song – an old thing, with a hint of mournfulness and longing and fatality in it – passed rapidly into a happy-go-lucky burlesque affair that set them chuckling, and caused Mrs. Baffall to roll about in her chair and to cram her handkerchief into her mouth. The voice was not particularly good, but it had a pleasant quality of sincerity and naturalness, and she made the most of it. And then suddenly she came out with the complete object of her visit revealed.
"Mr. Nannock," she said, with a faint flush mounting in her cheek, "you won't let me go away without seeing the – the children?"
"I'll be – delighted," he said, looking at her helplessly, and inwardly praying with extreme fervour that Moira might be asleep. "Perhaps, Mrs. Baffall – "
But Mrs. Baffall shook her head. "I'm very comfortable, thank you," she replied, "and I can see the children any time. Miss Jackman won't get another chance."
So Paul, feeling somewhat ridiculous, went out of the room, and lighted a candle in the hall, and prepared to set out on his expedition. Honora Jackman, evidently amused, stood with her skirts gathered in one hand ready to mount the stairs, watching him; noted with a secret delight the perplexed frown on the face bending above the candle. He came at last to the foot of the stairs, and smiled at her over the candle, and indicated the way.
"Is it very far up?" she asked.
"Only the first floor," he replied, and she tripped on in front of him, while he followed demurely with the candle.
The girls had two tiny beds in a big wilderness of a room – a room that had been specially fitted, under Paul's direction, for their comfort. There was a huge cupboard that held toys and dolls; there were deep chairs and couches; there was a big fireplace, covered still with a high curved fire-guard – reminiscent of the days when they had been very young indeed. Old Paul, holding the candle, opened the door, and motioned to Honora Jackman to go in. Honora stepped in delicately, and Paul followed with the light.
The first bed held Alice. She lay there with her fair curls fallen about her face, and with a smile upon the half-parted lips. Honora smiled as she bent over her. "She looks like a small angel," she whispered.
In the next bed, as they tip-toed over to it, was Moira; and Moira, be it noted, was not asleep. She had lain fretting and fuming at the thought of the woman downstairs; she had heard the footsteps on the stairs, and had known, indignantly enough, that the woman was coming up. Instantly she had closed her eyes and feigned sleep. It was, of course, a very wrong thing to do, and there is no possible excuse that can be urged; but the child felt that here, at this moment, she was to see even deeper into the heart of Old Paul, and to understand what that real intimate heart meant for her.
Old Paul bent over her, and softly put back a long strand of dark hair from her face. Honora Jackman had taken the candle, and was shading the light carefully, so that it happened that Moira's flush of sudden pleasure at his touch was unseen. Honora was looking not at the child, but at him, and her eyes were laughing.
"Why are you so afraid of me, Mr. Nannock?" she whispered, squeezing the warm top of the candle between a finger and thumb, and looking thoughtfully at the light.
"I – I don't think I am," he breathed in reply.
"Oh, yes, you are," she retorted. "So much afraid of me that you had once to set this baby between me and – shall we say – possible danger?" She gave a little quick laugh in her throat, and flashed a glance at him.
"Oh – that was a whim – of hers and mine," he said steadily, still keeping his voice to the lowest. "Besides, if you come to that, I think she stands first – in all things."
"Oh, I quite know that," she whispered. "But I wonder sometimes, as every woman wonders where a man who interests her is concerned – I wonder what you think of me."
"Nothing but the best, I assure you."
"That counts for nothing – and means nothing," she whispered sharply. "Lord, what fools we women are," she went on, in quite another tone. "I wonder what you'd think of me if I told you what was in my mind?"
"Is it necessary?" he whispered gravely.
"I think so," she said. "I came down here and heard about you, and set you down for a fool – a gaby. I thought all this business of the children was a pose – something to make you talked about; I know now that it isn't. And I like you for it – love you a little for it."
"Shall we go downstairs?" he asked.
"Not yet; there's something else to be said – and I may as well say it beside this child, who holds your heart in those slim fingers of hers, as anywhere else – better perhaps. I don't suppose you'll see me again – at any time; why should you?" She laughed that queer little laugh in her throat, and kept her bright eyes on the light of the candle. "So I'll say now that I would have sold my immortal soul to-night to have had you stand beside me as you've stood beside this baby – and touched my hair once like that – and looked at me with that softened look in your eyes. That's all. Now we can go down."