Part 32 (1/2)
”Anything up to fifty thousand pounds perhaps to a collector,” the Professor said, ”since it is an original and unique. Look at the splendid rubies and emeralds and these two big diamonds at the top, and there is so little of Benvenuto's work left that is authentic.”
”That is an unusual sum of money, is it not?” Halcyone asked. ”That would surely give them anything they want for their lives; perhaps we ought not to keep them waiting.”
And so after much talk it was arranged that Halcyone should make several journeys, taking the gold to the long gallery and then the crucifix; and then the box could be lifted and repacked again there. And, when she had it all stowed away carefully in the recess of the paneling, she and Cheiron should go openly to the back door and let the caretaker know they had arrived, and go into the house--and there ostensibly find the treasure. Then they would write to the Misses La Sarthe about their discovery, and take the box to Applewood and deposit it in the bank until their return.
All this took a long time but was duly carried out, and about eight o'clock Halcyone and the Professor were able to go back, carrying the crucifix with them, to keep it safe for the night and then to put it back with the gold and the parchment, before they took the box to the bank on the morrow.
”It may be worth more still and there is a good deal of gold,” the Professor said, ”and their coins would be worth more now. You will be quite a little heiress some day, dear child.”
”I do not care the least about money, Cheiron,” she said, ”but I shall be so glad for the aunts.”
And when eventually the old ladies received the news of their fortune there was much rejoicing, and by following Cheiron's advice they were not defrauded and might look forward to a most comfortable end to their lives. Miss Roberta even dreamed of a villa at the seaside and a visit to London Town!
But meanwhile the Professor and Halcyone went back to London and on the Sat.u.r.day left for Dieppe.
London, perhaps from her numbed state of misery, had said nothing to Halcyone. It remained in her memory as a nightmare, the scene of the confirmation of her winter of the soul. Its inhabitants were ghosts, the young men--jolly, hearty, young fellows from the Stock Exchange, and rising Radical politicians whom she had met--went from her record of things as so many shadows.
The vast buildings seemed as prisons, the rush and flurry as worrying storms, and even the parks as only feeble reminders of her dear La Sarthe Chase.
Nothing had made the least real impression upon her except Kensington Gardens, and they to the end of her life would probably be only a reminder of pain.
But her first view of the sea!
That was something revivifying!
Her memory of the one occasion when she had gone to Lowestoft with her mother was too dim to be anything of a reality, and, when they got to Newhaven, the Professor and Priscilla and she, with a brisk summer wind blowing the green-blue water into crested wavelets, the first cry of life and joy escaped her and gladdened Cheiron's heart.
How wonderful the voyage was! She took in every smallest change in the tones of the sky--she watched the waves from the forepart of the bridge, and some new essence of life and the certainty that her night forces would never desert her made themselves felt and cheered her.
Of John Derringham she thought constantly. He was not buried in that outer circle of oblivion from which the thoughts unconsciously shy--as we bury our dead, their going so shrouded in pain that we long to blot out the memory of them. John Derringham was always with her. She prayed for his welfare with the fervor and purity of her sweet soul. He was her spirit lover still. He could never really belong to any other woman, she knew. And as the days went by a fresh beauty grew in her pale face. The night sky itself seemed to be melted in her true eyes with the essence of all its stars.
Cheiron often wondered at her. There was never a word or allusion to the past. She was extremely quiet, and sometimes the droop of her graceful head and the sad curves of her tender lips would make the kind old cynic's heart ache. But she was always cheerful, taking unfeigned interest in the country and the people, delighting in the simple faith of the peasants and the glory of some of the old cathedrals.
And Aphrodite traveled everywhere with them. A special case had been made for her--and Halcyone often took her out to keep them company in the late evenings or when a rare rain storm kept them indoors.
Mr. Carlyon had not written to John Derringham since his engagement had been announced. He wished all connection with his former pupil to be broken off. He had no mercy for his action, he could not even use his customary lenient common sense towards the failings of mankind.
John Derringham had made his peerless one suffer--and his name was anathema. As far as Cheiron was concerned he was wiped off the list of beings who count.
Halcyone's delicate sense of obligation had been put at ease by her stepfather. He had made over to her a few hundreds a year which he said had belonged to her mother--the simple creature was too ignorant of all business to be aware whether this was or was not the case. She had grown to have a certain liking for James Anderton. There was a hard, level-headed, shrewd honesty about him, keen to drive a bargain--even the one about her mother to which Priscilla had alluded and to which they had never made any further reference--but, when once he had gained his point, he was generous and kind-hearted.
He could not help it that he was not a gentleman, Halcyone thought, and he did his best for everybody according to his lights.
Her few hundreds a year seemed untold wealth to her who had never had even a few sixpences for pocket money! But there was always some instinctive dislike for the thing itself. It remained to her a rather unpleasant medium for securing the necessities of life, though she was glad she now possessed enough not to be a burden upon her aunts, and could hand what was necessary for her trip over to the Professor.
They wanted to get into Italy as soon as it should be cool enough.
August saw them in an out-of-the-way village in Switzerland.
And the mountains caused Halcyone a yet deeper emotion than the sea had done. Nature here talked to her in a voice of supreme grandeur, and bade her never to be cast down but to go on bearing her winter with heroic calm.
She often stayed out the entire night and watched the stars fade and the dawn come--Phoebus with his sun chariot! Somehow Switzerland, although it was not at all the actual background, seemed to bring to her the atmosphere of her ”Heroes.” The lower hill near their village could certainly be Pelion, and one day she felt she had discovered Cheiron's cave. This was a joy--and that night, when it rained and she and the Professor sat before their wood fire in the little inn parlor, with Aphrodite lying near them in her silken folds, she coaxed her old master into telling her those moving tales of old.