Part 10 (1/2)
”Positive! I could tell you the church, and the day, and call a whole pewful of witnesses who were convulsed by it.”
”Well, I shall tell his Majesty at the next opportunity, and say you heard it. But how about the tennis? What comes next? Final for couples?
Oh, yes! Dal, you and Miss Lister play Colonel Loraine and Miss Vermount; and I think you ought to win fairly easily. You two are so well matched. Jane, this will be worth watching.”
”I am sure it will,” said Jane warmly, looking at the two, who had risen and stood together in the evening sunlight, examining their rackets and discussing possible tactics, while awaiting their opponents. They made such a radiantly beautiful couple; it was as if nature had put her very best and loveliest into every detail of each.
The only fault which could possibly have been found with the idea of them wedded, was that her dark, slim beauty was so very much just a feminine edition of his, that they might easily have been taken for brother and sister; but this was not a fault which occurred to Jane.
Her whole-hearted admiration of Pauline increased every time she looked at her; and now she had really seen them together, she felt sure she had given wise advice to Garth, and rejoiced to know he was taking it.
Later on, as they strolled back to the house together,--she and Garth alone,--Jane said, simply: ”Dal, you will not mind if I ask? Is it settled yet?”
”I mind nothing you ask,” Garth replied; ”only be more explicit. Is what settled?”
”Are you and Miss Lister engaged?”
”No,” Garth answered. ”What made you suppose we should be?”
”You said at Overdene on Tuesday--TUESDAY! oh! doesn't it seem weeks ago?--you said we were to take you seriously.”
”It seems years ago,” said Garth; ”and I sincerely hope you will take me--seriously. All the same I have not proposed to Miss Lister; and I am anxious for an undisturbed talk with you on the subject. Miss Champion, after dinner to-night, when all the games and amus.e.m.e.nts are in full swing, and we can escape un.o.bserved, will you come out onto the terrace with me, where I shall be able to speak to you without fear of interruption? The moonlight on the lake is worth seeing from the terrace. I spent an hour out there last night--ah, no; you are wrong for once--I spent it alone, when the boating was over, and thought of--how--to-night--we might be talking there together.”
”Certainly I will come,” said Jane; ”and you must feel free to tell me anything you wish, and promise to let me advise or help in any way I can.”
”I will tell you everything,” said Garth very low, ”and you shall advise and help as ONLY you can.”
Jane sat on her window-sill, enjoying the sunset and the exquisite view, and glad of a quiet half-hour before she need think of summoning her maid. Immediately below her ran the terrace, wide and gravelled, bounded by a broad stone parapet, behind which was a drop of eight or ten feet to the old-fas.h.i.+oned garden, with quaint box-bordered flower-beds, winding walks, and stone fountains. Beyond, a stretch of smooth lawn sloping down to the lake, which now lay, a silver mirror, in the soft evening light. The stillness was so perfect; the sense of peace, so all-pervading. Jane held a book on her knee, but she was not reading. She was looking away to the distant woods beyond the lake; then to the pearly sky above, flecked with rosy clouds and streaked with gleams of gold; and a sense of content, and gladness, and well-being, filled her.
Presently she heard a light step on the gravel below and leaned forward to see to whom it belonged. Garth had come out of the smoking-room and walked briskly to and fro, once or twice. Then he threw himself into a wicker seat just beneath her window, and sat there, smoking meditatively. The fragrance of his cigarette reached Jane, up among the magnolia blossoms. ”'Zenith,' Marcovitch,” she said to herself, and smiled. ”Packed in jolly green boxes, twelve s.h.i.+llings a hundred! I must remember in case I want to give him a Christmas present. By then it will be difficult to find anything which has not already been showered upon him.”
Garth flung away the end of his cigarette, and commenced humming below his breath; then gradually broke into words and sang softly, in his sweet barytone:
”'It is not mine to sing the stately grace, The great soul beaming in my lady's face.'”
The tones, though quiet, were so vibrant with pa.s.sionate feeling, that Jane felt herself an eavesdropper. She hastily picked a large magnolia leaf and, leaning out, let it fall upon his head. Garth started, and looked up. ”Hullo!” he said. ”YOU--up there?”
”Yes,” said Jane, laughing down at him, and speaking low lest other cas.e.m.e.nts should be open, ”I--up here. You are serenading the wrong window, dear 'devout lover.'”
”What a lot you know about it,” remarked Garth, rather moodily.
”Don't I?” whispered Jane. ”But you must not mind, Master Garthie, because you know how truly I care. In old Margery's absence, you must let me be mentor.”
Garth sprang up and stood erect, looking up at her, half-amused, half-defiant.
”Shall I climb the magnolia?” he said. ”I have heaps to say to you which cannot be shouted to the whole front of the house.”
”Certainly not,” replied Jane. ”I don't want any Romeos coming in at my window. 'Hoity-toity! What next?' as Aunt 'Gina would say. Run along and change your pinafore, Master Garthie. The 'heaps of things' must keep until to-night, or we shall both be late for dinner.”