Part 40 (1/2)
”For another?”
”No matter. Only a fancy of mine--to rub out the recollection of something I don't like. Of course, if Barrie objects--but I hope she won't.”
Barrie did not object in words. Only her heart rebelled. But her one great wish was to put her heart to sleep. And nothing else mattered.
Nothing else must matter now.
IV
BARRIE WRITES AGAIN
This never was a story. I wrote things down, to please myself, just as they happened. But now that the end of the heather moon has come, I must write of its last days. I think by and by I shall send all this to Mrs.
James, in California, otherwise she will never understand how everything came about; and besides, if it hadn't been for her the end would have been very different.
This part will have to be a sort of confession. When I began to write, I used not to say much about my feelings, even when I was sure of them, which was seldom; but I see now that I fell in love with my knight the minute I saw him first. I must have been fascinated, or it would not have occurred to me to choose him as the man to buy my brooch. I might have spoken to some one else. By the time we started on our trip and got as far as Gretna Green, I _wors.h.i.+pped_ him. That is why I was so happy.
I never troubled then about what the end would be. I just gave myself up to being happy, and it seemed as if such happiness must last forever. I used to wonder why I wasn't more impatient to get to Edinburgh and see my mother--the one thing I started out to do. But it was because I'd fallen in love with my knight, and he was already more important for me than any one else in the world, more important even than Barbara.
Soon I began to suspect what was happening; and in Edinburgh I was quite, _quite_ sure. But I wasn't any longer perfectly happy. There were clouds over the heather moon--that sweet, kind moon which I used to say was the best of the year for falling in love.
I stopped writing then, for if I had written it would have had to be all about my feelings. The world was full of them. They were like gulls wheeling round a lighthouse lamp; and my heart was the lamp.
I thought, in Edinburgh, that my knight didn't care for me as I did for him. He kept away, and let other men go with me everywhere. Now I understand why, but then it made me miserable, for I knew he was the One Man, and always would be. A girl who had once loved him could never look at any one else. There were other things too that made me sad. n.o.body wanted me. People were always planning how to send me away: but the heather moon shone in spite of all, and each evening when she came up, out of the mysterious places where she hides, she seemed to say: ”Courage. Have faith in me. Don't lose hope, and I'll show you yet where to find the rainbow key.” So I wouldn't lose hope; and I felt rewarded when my knight asked me to write to him, and promised that by and by I should see him again.
Then a letter came, and though I couldn't think why he had gone back to Carlisle to call on Grandma, I felt it must be for a reason connected with me; and that was cheering--just to know that I was in his mind.
About London--when he went there afterward--I wasn't so sure. But it was the happiest day in my life when he suddenly appeared at Ballachulish.
He came just in time, it seemed, to save me as he had saved me before. I could hardly keep from showing how I adored him. As he had come such a long way and had done so much for my sake, I thought that perhaps after all he did care, though it seemed too wonderful to be true. Now and then, while we were waiting to hear what Barbara would say about the invitation to Dhrum, there was a look in his eyes that made me feel the heather moon had been my true friend. He was changed, too, not hard and cynical as he used to be, but kind and gentle to every one, as if he had begun to see what a beautiful place the world can be.
This made it worse when Mrs. West came, and explained that all he had done for me was for duty, not for love: that he loved her, and I had spoiled everything for them both. Mrs. West said that he would stick to his duty at all costs, until I was actually married, so I was glad then, instead of sorry as I had been before, that Basil wanted me. I saw that she was right, and the sooner it was over the better. But I didn't dare think about the future. I just went on blindly, and did what Basil and Mrs. West told me to do. Nothing seemed to matter except to show my knight that after all my selfishness and thoughtlessness and conceit I had freed him.
I would rather have been married anywhere than at Gretna Green, but Basil had set his heart on that place.
We told my knight that Barbara was making me go away at once with Mrs.
West and Basil; or rather, I let them explain. I couldn't. I was afraid I should break down, and he would see how wretched I was. It was all I could do to say ”good-bye.” It nearly killed me to see the hurt, surprised look on his face. Even now I can hardly write of that.
Basil had found out about the marriage laws. We had been in Scotland for three weeks, and all we had to do, if we wanted to be married in a hurry, was to declare before two witnesses who knew us both, that we took each other as husband and wife. We could have done it just as well at Ballachulish if Basil hadn't been determined it should be Gretna Green; but afterward I thought that he, or perhaps Mrs. West, had felt it would be better to have the wedding far away from my knight, who called himself my guardian, and might consider it his duty to object.
Mrs. West was to be one of the witnesses, and, as Barbara couldn't leave the man she was engaged to, the very last day before he sailed, Basil thought we had better have Salomon the chauffeur for the second witness.
Mr. George Vanneck might have come on from Glasgow, but I heard Mrs.
West say to Basil, when he suggested telegraphing, ”I don't want to see him just now, and especially at the time of a wedding. He might be unreasonable.”
As we needed Salomon, we went all the way in the car, instead of taking the train from Oban, which would have saved us a few hours.
When we got to Gretna Green it was evening, but the daylight lingered still. In the south it would already have been gone. There was a pale dusk mingling with the moons.h.i.+ne, and I couldn't help remembering the mysterious light in Sweetheart Abbey, on my first night of Scotland and the heather moon. I remembered my dream, too, the dream of the locked ebony and silver box, which could be opened only by the key of the rainbow. It nearly broke my heart to think of these things, and I wished it _would_ break, so that I might die instead of marrying Basil: for if I were dead I should be safely out of everybody's way, just the same as being married.
Basil asked me where it was that we had gone through the ceremony for the photographs, but before I had time to answer, the car brought us to the house, and he recognized it from the biograph pictures. He told Salomon to stop, and leaving Mrs. West and me in the car, he got out to talk with the man of the house. Up till that moment I had been dully wis.h.i.+ng it were all over, and had been actually in a hurry; but suddenly I felt as if I couldn't bear being married, and should have to run away.
I longed and almost prayed for something--anything--to happen which would put off the wedding until another day. If an earthquake had wrecked the house I should have been delighted. But nothing did happen.