When Miss Charteris opened her eyes, the sun was streaming into her room. The sense of having slept heavily and unnaturally lay upon her. She had not heard Martha's entry; but her blinds were up, and the tea on the tray beside her bed was still fresh and hot.
She took a cup, and the after-effects of the bromide seemed to leave her.
She dressed, and went downstairs.
On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, lay the Professor's letter. When she had poured out her coffee and buttered her toast, she opened and read it.
The letter was exactly such as she had always dreamed the Professor would write, if he ever came to the point of making her a proposal. He touched on their long friendship; on how much it had meant to them both. He said he had often hoped for the possibility of a closer tie, but had not felt justified in suggesting it, until he was in a position to offer her a suitable home and income. This was now fortunately the case; therefore he hastened to write and plead his cause, though keenly conscious of how little there was in himself calculated to call forth in a woman the affection which it was his earnest hope and desire to win. She had trusted him as a friend, an intellectual guide and comrade, during many years. If she could now bring herself to trust him in a yet more intimate relation, he would endeavour never to disappoint or fail her.
The letter was signed:
"Yours in sincere devotion, " KENRICK HARVEY."
A postscript requested to be allowed to call, at the usual hour, that afternoon, for a reply.
Miss Charteris wrote a brief note of thanks and appreciation, and gave the Professor leave to call at three.
The Professor called at three.
He knocked and rang, and fumbled long over the umbrella-stand in the hall. He seemed to be taking all the umbrellas out, and putting them back again.
At last he appeared at the door of the drawing-room, where Miss Charteris awaited him. He was very nervous. He repeated the substance of his letter, only rather less well expressed. He alluded to Miss Ann, and to the extreme happiness and pleasure to her of having Christobel as a sister. But he completely ignored, both in the letter and in conversation, Miss Ann's betrayal of Christobel's confidence. For this she was grateful to him.
As soon as the Professor, having floundered through the unusual waters of expressed sentiment, stepped out on to the high and dry path of an actual question, Miss Charteris answered that question in the affirmative, and accepted the Professor's offer.
He rose, and held her hand for a few moments, looking at her with great affection through his glasses, which did not at all impede the warmth of his regard; in fact, being powerful convex lenses, they magnified it. Then he kissed her rather awkwardly on the brow, and hurried back to his seat.
A somewhat strained silence would have followed, had not the Professor had an inspiration.
Drawing a book from his pocket, he looked at her as you look at a child for whom you have a delightful surprise in store.
"That—er—matter being satisfactorily settled, my dear Christobel," he said, "should we not find it decidedly—er—refreshing to spend an hour over our Persian translation?"
Miss Charteris agreed at once; but while the Professor read, translated, and expounded, expatiating on the interest and beauty of various passages, her mind wandered.
She found herself picturing the Boy under similar circumstances; how the Boy would have behaved during the first hour of engagement; what the Boy would have said; what the Boy would have done. She was not quite sure what the Boy would have done; she had never experienced the Boy with the curb completely off. But she suddenly remembered: "Millions, or would it be billions?" and the recollection gave her a shock of such vivid reaction, that she laughed aloud.
The Professor paused, and looked up in surprise. Then he smiled, indulgently.
"My dear—er—Christobel, this passage is not intended to be humorous," he said.
"I know it is not," replied Miss Charteris. "I beg your pardon. I laughed involuntarily."
The Professor resumed his reading.
No; she was not quite sure as to all the Boy would have done; but she knew quite well what he would have said.
And here the Boy, quite unexpectedly, took a First in classics; for what the Boy would have said would certainly have been Greek to the Professor.
After this, events followed one another so rapidly that the whole thing became dream-like to Miss Charteris. She found herself helpless in the grip of Miss Ann's iron will—up to now, carefully shrouded in Shetland and lace. At last she understood why Emma's old mother had had to die alone in a little cottage away in Northumberland; Emma, good soul, being too devoted to her mistress to ask for the necessary week, in order to go home and nurse her mother. Emma had seemed a broken woman, ever since; and Christobel understood now the impossibility of any one ever asking Miss Ann for a thing which Miss Ann had made up her mind not to grant.
She and the Professor now became puppets in Miss Ann's delicate hands. Miss Ann lay upon her couch, and pulled the wires. The Professor danced, because he had not the discernment to know he was dancing; Miss Charteris, because she had not the heart to resist. The Boy having gone out of her life, nothing seemed to matter. It was her duty to marry the Professor, and there is nothing to be gained by the postponement of duty.
But it was Miss Ann who insisted on the wedding taking place within a week. It was Miss Ann who reminded them that, the Long Vacation having just commenced, the Professor could easily be away, and there were researches connected with his Encyclopedia which it was of the utmost importance he should immediately make in the museums and libraries of Brussels. It was Miss Ann who insisted upon a special licence being obtained, and who overruled Christobel's desire to be married by her brother, the bishop. Miss Ann had become quite hysterical at the idea of the bishop being brought back from a tour he was making in Ireland, and Christobel yielded the more readily, because her brother's arrival would undoubtedly have meant Mollie's; and Mollie's presence, even if she refrained from protest and expostulation, would have brought such poignant memories of the Boy.
So it came to pass, with a queer sense of the whole thing being dream-like and unreal, that Miss Charteris—who should have had the most crowded and most popular wedding in Cambridge—found herself standing, as a bride, beside the Professor, in an ill-ventilated church, at ten o'clock in the morning, being married by an old clergyman she had never seen before, who seemed partially deaf, and partially blind, and wholly inadequate to the solemn occasion; with Miss Ann and her faithful Emma, sniffing in a pew on one side; while Jenkins breathed rather heavily in a pew, on the other. Martha had flatly refused to attend; and when Miss Charteris sent for her to bid her good-bye, Martha had appeared, apparently in her worst and most morose temper; then had suddenly broken down, and, exclaiming wildly: "'Ow about 'im?" had thrown her apron over her head, and left the room, sobbing.
"How about him? How about him?"
Each turn of the wheels reiterated the question as she drove to Shiloh to pick up Miss Ann; then on to the church where the Professor waited.
How about him? But he had left her to do that which she felt to be right, and she was doing it.
Nevertheless, Martha's wild outburst had brought the Boy very near; and he seemed with her as she walked up the church.
Her mind wandered during the reading of the exhortation. In this nightmare of a wedding she seemed to have no really important part to play. The Boy would burst in, in a minute; and a shaft of light would come with him. He would walk straight up the church to her, saying: "We have jolly well had enough of this, Christobel!" Then they would all wake up, and he would whirl her away in a motor and she would say: "Boy dear; don't exceed the speed-limit."
But the Boy did not burst in; and the Professor's hands, looking unusually large in a pair of white kid gloves, were twitching nervously, for an emphatic question was being put to him by the old clergyman, who had emerged from his hiding-place behind the Prayer-book, as soon as the exhortation was over.
The Professor said: "I will," with considerable emotion; while Miss Ann sobbed audibly into her lace pocket-handkerchief.
Christobel looked at the Professor. His outward appearance seemed greatly improved. His beard had been trimmed; his hair—what there was of it—cut. He had not once looked at her since she entered the church and took her place at his side; but she knew, if he did look, his eyes would be kind—kind, with a magnified kindness, behind the convex lenses. The Boy had asked whether she loved the Professor's mouth, eyes, and hair. What questions the amazing Boy used to ask! And she had answered——
But here a silence in the church recalled her wandering thoughts. The all-important question had been put to her. She had not heard one word of it; yet the church awaited her "I will."
The silence became alarming. This was the exact psychological moment in which the Boy should have dashed in to the rescue. But the Boy did not dash in.
Then Christobel Charteris did a thing perhaps unique in the annals of brides, but essentially characteristic of her extreme honesty.
"I am sorry," she said, in a low voice; "I did not hear the question. Will you be good enough to repeat it?"
Miss Ann, in the pew behind, gasped audibly. The old clergyman peered at her, in astonishment, over his glasses. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot.
Then he repeated the question slowly and deliberately, introducing a tone of reproof, which made of it a menace. Miss Charteris listened carefully to each clause and at the end she said: "I will."
Whereupon, with much fumbling, the Professor and the old clergyman between them, succeeded in finding a ring, and in placing it upon the third finger of her left hand. As they did so, her thoughts wandered again. She was back in the garden with the Boy. He had caught her left hand in both his, and kissed it; then, dividing the third finger from the others, and holding it apart with his strong brown ones, he had laid his lips upon it, with a touch of unspeakable reverence and tenderness. She understood now, why the Boy had kissed that finger separately. She looked down at it. The Professor's ring encircled it.
Then the old clergyman said: "Let us pray"; and, kneeling meekly upon her knees, Christobel Charteris prayed, with all her heart, that she might be a good wife to her old friend, the Professor.
From the church, they drove straight to the station, Miss Ann's plan for them being, that they should lunch in London, reach Folkestone in time for tea, and spend a day or two there, at a boarding-house kept by an old cronie of Miss Ann's, before crossing to Boulogne, en route for Brussels.
Christobel disliked the idea of the boarding-house, extremely. She had never, in her life, stayed at a boarding-house; moreover it seemed to her that a wedding journey called imperatively for hotels—and the best of hotels. But Miss Ann had dismissed the question with an authoritative wave of the hand, and a veiled insinuation that hotels—particularly Metropole hotels—were scarcely proper places. Dear Miss Slinker's boarding-house would be so safe and nice, and the company so congenial. But here the Professor had interposed, laying his hand gently on Christobel's: "My dear Ann, we take our congenial company with us."
This was the farthest excursion into the realm of sentiment, upon which the Professor had as yet ventured. The sober, middle-aged side of Miss Charteris had appreciated it, with a certain amount of grateful emotion. But the youthful soul of Christobel had suddenly realized how the Boy would slap his leg, and rock, over the recital of such a sentence; and, between the two, she had been reduced to a condition bordering on hysterics.
They travelled from Cambridge in a first-class compartment, had it to themselves, and fell quite naturally into the style of conversation which had always characterized their friendship; meeting each other's minds, not over the happenings of a living present, but in a mutual appreciation of the great intellects of a dead and gone past. Before long, the Professor had whisked his favourite Persian poet from the tail-pocket of his coat, Christobel had provided paper and pencil, and they were deep in translation.
Arrived at Liverpool Street station, they entered a four-wheeler, and trundled slowly off to Cannon Street. Christobel had imagined four-wheelers to be obsolete; but the Professor dismissed her suggestion of a taxi, as being "a needlessly rapid mode of progression, indubitably fraught with perpetual danger," and proceeded to hail the sleepy and astonished driver of a four-wheeled cab.
(Oh, Boy dear, what would you have said to that four-wheeler—you dear record-breaking, speed-limit-exceeding, astonishingly rapid Boy? That ancient four-wheeler, trundling past the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, the Mansion House, up King William Street, and round into Cannon Street, endlessly blocked, continually pulling up; then starting on, only to be stopped again; and your Belovèd inside it, Boy dear, looking out of the ramshackle old window, in a vain endeavour to see something of the London you had planned to show her in your own delightful extravagant way. Oh, Boy dear, keep out of this! It is not your show. This four-wheeler has been hailed and engaged by the Professor. The lady within is the bride of the Professor. Hands off, Boy!)
They drew up, for a few minutes, outside a bookseller's in New Broad Street, on the left-hand side, just after they had trundled into it—a delightful little place, crammed, lined, almost carpeted, with books. The Professor plunged in, upsetting a pile of magazines in his hasty entrance through the narrow doorway. Here he always found precisely the book he happened to be requiring for his latest research. With an incoherent remark to the proprietor, who advanced to meet him, the Professor became immediately absorbed, in a far corner of the shop, oblivious of his cab, his bride, and his train. Christobel had followed him, and stood, a dignified, but somewhat lonely figure, just within the doorway. She had been to this shop with her father, during his lifetime, on several occasions, and had since often written for books. The bookseller came forward. He was a man possessed of the useful faculty of remembering faces and the names appertaining to them. Also he had cultivated the habit of taking an intelligent interest in his customers. But he did not connect this beautiful waiting figure, with the absorbed back of the Professor.
"What can I do for you to-day, Miss Charteris?" he inquired, with ready courtesy.
Christobel started. "Nothing to-day, thank you, Mr. Taylor. But I am much obliged to you for so often supplying my requirements by return of post. And, by the way, you have an excellent memory. It is many years since I came here last, with my father."
"Professor Charteris was one of my best customers," said the bookseller, in an undertone of deferential sympathy. "I never knew a finer judge of a book than he. If I may be allowed to say so, I deeply deplored his loss, Miss Charteris."
Christobel smiled, and gently unbent, allowing the kindly expression of appreciation and regret to reach her with comfort in these moments of dream-like isolation. A friendly hand seemed to have been outstretched across the chasm which divides the passionately regretted past, from the scarcely appreciated present. She could see her father's tall scholarly figure, as he stood lovingly fingering a book, engaged in earnest conversation with Mr. Taylor, regardless of the passing of time; until she was obliged to lay her hand on his arm, and hurry him through the crowded streets, down the steep incline, to the platform from which the Cambridge express was on the point of starting. And when safely seated, with barely a minute to spare, he would turn to her, with a smile of gentle reproof, saying: "But, my dear child, we had not concluded our conversation." And she would laugh and say: "But we had to get home to-night, Papa." Whereupon he would lean back, contentedly, replying: "Quite right, my dear. So we had."
Ah, happy those whose fathers and mothers still walk the earth beside them. Youth remains, notwithstanding the passing of years, while there is still a voice to say, in reproof or approbation: "My child."
But the bookseller, not yet connecting her with the Professor, still waited her pleasure; and suddenly a thought struck Christobel. An eager wish awoke within her.
"Mr. Taylor," she said, hurriedly; "can you supply me with the very newest thing on the subject of aviation? I want to learn all there is to know about propellers, steering-gear, cross-currents, and how to avoid the dangers——"
She stopped short. The Professor had found what he wanted, and was fumbling for his purse.
The bookseller turned quickly to a pile at his elbow, took up a paper-covered book, and placed it in her hands. "The very latest," he said. "Published yesterday. You will find in it all you want to know." Then, as he handed the Professor his change, "Allow me to place it to your account, Miss Charteris," he said.
Experiencing a quite unaccountable sense of elation and fresh interest in life, Christobel, armed with her book on aviation, re-entered the four-wheeler. The Professor, absorbed in his own purchase, had not noticed her private transaction. He followed her into the cab, and made three ineffectual attempts to close the door. Just as the driver was slowly beginning to prepare to climb down, Mr. Taylor came across the crowded pavement, to their rescue; released the Professor's coat-tail, shut them in, and signed to the cabman to drive on. With a good deal of "gee-up" and whip-flourishing, they re-commenced to trundle. Mr. Taylor was not merely a provider of literature; he was also a keen observer of life, and of human nature. As Christobel leaned forward to acknowledge his help, and to smile her farewell, his expression seemed to say: "A four-wheeler, Professor Harvey, and the latest work on aviation! An unusual combination." "Very unusual," she said to herself, and smiled again. Then it seemed to her that her friend of the bookshop had said: "You will find what you want, on page 274." She knew he had not, as a matter of fact, mentioned any page; but the figures came into her mind. She opened the book, and glanced at page 274. It was headed: "Fine performances by Mr. Guy Chelsea." She shut it quickly. There was no room for the actual presence of the Boy in the Professor's four-wheeler.
They lunched at a depôt of the Aerated Bread Company, close to Cannon Street station. While Christobel was struggling with a very large plateful of cold tongue, she suddenly remembered that one of the Boy's many plans had been to take her to lunch at his favourite restaurant in Piccadilly; where she would be able to order any dish she fancied, and find it better served than she had ever known it before; or to dine at the Hotel Metropole, where Monsieur Delma's perfect orchestra would play for her any mortal thing for which she chose to ask, and play it better than she had ever heard it played.
These memories, and a really excellent cup of coffee, helped Christobel in her struggles with the round of cold tongue; and she looked across the little marble-topped table brightly at the Professor, and spoke with a cheerful hopefulness which surprised herself.
But something, other than his own plate of cold tongue, seemed weighing on the Professor. He had become preoccupied and distrait.
When they reached the Folkestone train, Christobel found out the cause of his preoccupation.
"My dear Ann—I should say Christobel," remarked the Professor, hurriedly, as he put her into an empty compartment, and hesitated in the doorway. "I am always accustomed at this hour to have my pipe and a nap. Should you object, my dear Ann—er—that is, Christobel, if I sought a smoking compartment?"
"Oh, please do!" she exclaimed, eagerly. The idea of two hours of freedom and solitude suddenly seemed an undreamed of joy. "Don't think of me. I am quite happy here."
"I will provide you with a paper," said the Professor, and hailed a passing boy. He laid the paper on her lap, and disappeared.
The train started.
Christobel looked out of the window as they slowly steamed across the bridge over the Thames. She loved the flow of the river, with its constant procession of barges, dredges, boats, and steamers; a silent, moving highway, right through the heart of the noisy whirl of London street-traffic. They ran past old St. Saviour's Church, now promoted to be Southwark Cathedral; out through the suburbs, until streets became villas, woods and meadows appeared, and the train ran through Chislehurst—peaceful English resting-place where lie entombed the bright Imperial hopes of France—then on through Sevenoaks, into the bowery green of the Kentish hop-gardens.
After passing Sevenoaks, she took up the Professor's paper and glanced at it. Somehow she had felt sure it would be the Daily Graphic. It was the Daily Mirror! She had never held a halfpenny illustrated paper in her hands before. No doubt it was an excellent paper, and met the need of an immense number of people, to whom an additional halfpenny a day would be a consideration. But, that the Professor, when providing her with one paper, should have chosen a halfpenny instead of a penny paper, seemed to hold a curious significance, and called up sudden swift memories of the Boy. He would have bought Punch, the Graphic, the Illustrated, the Spectator, and a Morning Post, plumped them all down on the seat in front of her; then sat beside her, and talked, the whole journey through, so that she would not have had a moment in which to open one of them.
(Oh, Boy dear! Don't look at this Daily Mirror. You might misjudge the good Professor. With your fifty thousand a year, how can you be expected to understand a mind which must consider ha'pence, even when brides and wedding journeys are concerned. Do keep away, Boy dear. This is not your wedding journey.)
Then she opened the Daily Mirror, and there looked out at her, from its central page, the merry, handsome, daring face of her own Little Boy Blue!
He was seated in his flying machine, steering-wheel in hand, looking out from among many wires. His cap was on the back of his head; his bright eyes looked straight into hers; his firm lips, parted in a smile, seemed to be saying: "I jolly well mean to do it." Beneath was an account of him, and a description of the flight he was to attempt on that day, across the Channel, circling round Boulogne Cathedral, and back. He was to start at two o'clock. At that very moment he must be in mid-air.
Oh, Little Boy Blue! Little Boy Blue! You have a way of making hearts stand still.
The boarding-house proved to be a place decidedly conducive to the taking of a fresh-air cure; because nobody remained within its four walls, if the weather could possibly admit of their going out.
As soon as Christobel and the Professor had taken tea, and replied to Miss Slinker's many questions, they went out to walk on the Leas until sunset. It was a radiant afternoon, and the strong wind which had suddenly arisen, blowing, in unexpected gusts, from the sea, acted as a tonic to weary heart and brain. Christobel, holding on her hat as she walked, battled her way beside the Professor, up a cross street, into the Sandgate Road.
There they went to the telegraph office, and sent Miss Ann news of their safe arrival, and of the extreme comfort they felt sure of experiencing at Miss Slinker's delightful abode. (This was the Professor's wording.)
They looked in at Parson's Library just to order a book Miss Ann wanted; and, on a little farther, just to match some crewel silks for a tea-cosy Miss Ann was making.
These commissions duly executed, they were free to make their way to the Leas parade, whence they would look down upon the beach, and enjoy a distance view across the Channel. They took the side street which brought them out upon the esplanade, close to the lift by which people continuously mounted or descended the steep face of the cliff.
A considerable crowd lined the esplanade railing, looking over eagerly. Apparently there was some object of particular interest to be seen below.
Christobel and the Professor advanced to the railing, and also looked over.
She saw a strange thing floating in the sea, between the promenade pier and the harbour. It seemed a huge insect, with broken wings. Its body was a mass of twisted wires. Around this, a little fleet of rowing-boats had gathered. They looked black, on the blue wind-swept waters, like water-boatmen on a village pond. They darted in and out and round about the wreckage of the huge wings and twisted wire, and seemed waiting for a chance to help.
A man stood next to Christobel and the Professor; a man who talked to himself.
"Ah, poor chap," he said; "poor chap! So nearly back! So nearly broke the record! Such a sport!"
"What is that thing in the water?" inquired the Professor.
The man turned and looked at him.
"An aeroplane," he said, slowly, speaking with a sort of stolid deliberation. "A wrecked aeroplane. Caught in a cross-current, worse luck! Just accomplished one of the finest flights on record. Started from up here; skimmed over the Channel to Boulogne; circled round the cathedral—such a clear day; we could watch the whole flight with field-glasses—came gaily back without a stop; was making for the cliff again, when a cross-current caught him; something went wrong with the steering-gear; and down it goes, with a plunge, head first into the sea."
"And the—er—occupant?" inquired the Professor.
"The aeronaut? Ah, he didn't fall clear, worse luck, or they could soon have fished him out. He stuck to his seat and his wheel, and fell smash in among his wires. They are trying to extricate him now. Bad luck, poor chap! Such a sport."
"Do you know his name?" asked the Professor, peering down at the waiting crowd which lined the beach.
"Guy Chelsea," said the man. "And I give you my word, he was the finest, pluckiest young amateur we had among the airmen."
Then Christobel's heart began to beat again, and her limbs seemed to regain the power to move.
"He is mine," she said. "I must go to him. He is my own Little Boy Blue." And she began to run along the Leas toward the stone steps which zigzag down to the shore.
She heard the Professor running after her.
"Ann," he called, "Ann! Stay! This is—most—unnecessary!"
She flew on.
"At least take the lift!" bawled the Professor.
She hurried on and reached the steps, pausing an instant to glance back.
The Professor had stopped at the lift, and was waving to her with his umbrella.
She could never remember running down those steps. In what seemed but a moment from the time she reached them, she found herself stumbling painfully down the steep slope of shingle to the water's edge.
The lift, bearing the Professor, had just begun to crawl down the face of the cliff. She could see him gesticulating through the glass windows.
The crowd on the shore, chiefly composed of rough men, was thickest round the base of a wide stone breakwater, jutting out into the sea. On this break-water stood an empty stretcher. A coast-guardsman marched up and down, keeping the crowd off the breakwater.
Christobel reached the outskirts of the crowd, and could get no farther.
"Please let me through," she said. "I belong to him. He is mine."
They turned and looked at her.
"She's 'is mother," said a voice. "Let 'er through."
"Mother be blowed!" said another voice, hoarsely. "Get out! She's 'is wife."
"Yes," she cried eagerly. "Yes! Oh, do let me through! I am his wife."
Suddenly she knew it was true. The Boy's great love had made her his wife. Had he not said: "You and I are one, Christobel; eternally, indissolubly one. You will find it out, when it is too late"?
The crowd parted, making a way for her, straight to the foot of the breakwater.
She mounted it, and walked towards the empty stretcher.
The coast-guardsman confronted her.
"He is mine," she said, quietly. "I have the right to be here."
The man saluted, in respectful silence.
She stood gazing out to where the crowd of boats hovered about the great insect with broken wings.
The sea gleamed golden in the sunset.
One boat, larger than the rest, slowly detached itself from the general mêlée, pulling with measured stroke toward the breakwater.
Something lay very still in the bow, covered with a sail-cloth.
Two coast-guardsmen rowed; one steered.
The boat came toward the breakwater, in a shaft of sunlight.
Christobel turned to the man beside her.
"Is there any hope?" she asked.
"'Fraid not, lady. My mate just signalled: all U P."
"Ah!" she said, looking wide-eyed into his face. "Ah!—But there must be pioneers."
The coast-guardsman turned and walked toward the crowd.
"She's 'is wife, men," he said, with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. "She's 'is wife; yet when I told her it was all U P, she said: 'There must be pioneers.'"
The crowd of roughs doffed their caps.
The boat drew slowly nearer.
Then she saw the Professor, hurrying down the shingle, waving his umbrella.
He must not come yet.
She advanced to the shore end of the breakwater, and spoke to the crowd.
"Please