CHAPTER LII
TWO YEARS AFTER
Augusta Wyndham was pacing up and down the broad gravel walk which ran down the centre of the rectory garden in a state of great excitement. She was walking quickly, her hands clasped loosely before her, her tall and rather angular figure drawn up to its full height, her bright black eyes alert and watchful in their expression.
"Now, if only they are not interrupted," she said, "if only I can keep people from going near the rose-walk, he'll do it – I know he'll do it – I saw it in his eyes when he came up and asked me where Lilias was. He hasn't been here for six months, and I had given up all hope; but hope has revived to-day – hope springs eternal in the human breast. Tra la, la – la, la. Now, Gerry, boy, what do you want?"
A sturdy little fellow in a sailor suit stood for a moment in the porch of the old rectory, then ran with a gleeful shout down the gravel walk towards Augusta. She held out her arms to detain him.
"Well caught, Gerry," she said.
"It isn't well caught," he replied with an angry flush. "I don't want to stay with you, Auntie Gussie; I want to go to my – my own auntie. Let me pass, please."
"You saucy boy, auntie's busy; you shall stay with me."
"I won't. I'll beat you – I won't stay."
"If I whisper something to you, Gerry – something about Auntie Lil. Now be quiet, mannikin, and let me say my say. You love Auntie Lil, don't you?"
"You know that; you do talk nonsense sometimes. I love father in heaven, and mother, and Auntie Lil."
"And me, you little wretch."
"Sometimes. Let me go to Auntie Lil now."
"I want to whisper something to you, Gerry. Auntie Lil is talking to someone she loves much better than you or me or anyone else in the world, and it would be very unkind to interrupt her."
Gerry was sitting on Augusta's shoulder. From this elevated position he could catch a glimpse of a certain grey dress, and a quick flash of chestnut hair, as the sun shone on it – that dress and that hair belonged to Auntie Lil. It was no matter at all to Gerry that someone else walked by her side, that someone was bending his dark head somewhat close to hers, and that as she listened her steps faltered and grew slow.
Gerry's whole soul was wounded by Augusta's words. His Aunt Lilias did not love anyone better than him. It was his bounden duty, his first duty in life, to have such an erroneous statement put right at once.
He put forth all his strength, struggled down from Augusta's shoulders, and before she was aware of it was speeding like an arrow from a bow to his target, Lilias.
"There, now, I give it up," said Augusta. "Awful child, what mischief may he not make? Don't I hear his shrill voice even here! Oh, I give it up now; I shall go into the house. The full heat of the sun in July does not suit me, and if in addition to all other troubles Lilias is to have a broken heart, I may as well keep in sufficient health to nurse her."
Meanwhile Gerry was having a very comfortable time on Carr's shoulder; his dark eyes were looking at his Aunt Lilias, and his little fat, hot hand was clasped in hers.
"Well," he said suddenly, "which is it?"
"Which is what, Gerry? I don't understand."
"I think you are stoopid, Auntie Lil. Is it him or me?"
Then he laid his other fat hand on Carr's forehead.
"Is it him or me?" said Gerry, "that you love the most of all the peoples in the world?"
"It's me, Gerry, it's me," suddenly said Adrian Carr; "but you come next, dear little man. Kiss him, Lilias, and tell him that he comes next."
"Gerald's dear little boy," said Lilias. She took him in her arms and pressed her head against his chubby neck.
"Dear, dear little boy," she said. "I think you'll always come second."
She looked so solemn when she spoke, and so beautiful was the light in her eyes when she raised her face to look at Gerry, that even he, most despotic of little mortals, could not but feel satisfied.
He ran away presently to announce to all and everyone within reach that Mr. Carr had kissed Auntie Lil like anything, and the newly-betrothed pair were left alone.
"At last, Lilias," said Carr.
She looked shyly into his face.
"I thought I should never win you," he continued. "I have loved you for years, and I never had courage to tell you so until to-day."
"And I have loved you for years," replied Lilias Wyndham.
"But not best, Lilly. Oh, I have read you like a book. I never came before Gerald in your heart."
"No," she said letting go his hand, and moving a step or two away, so that she should face him. "I love you well, beyond all living men, but Gerald stands alone. His place can never be filled."
The tears sprang into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
"And I love you better for loving him so, my darling," answered her lover. He put his arms round her, and she laid her head on his breast.
For a long time they paced up and down the Rose-walk. They had much to say, much to feel, much to be silent over. The air was balmy overhead, and the rose-leaves were tossed by the light summer breeze against Lilias' grey dress.
Presently she began to talk of the past. Carr asked tenderly for Valentine.
"Valentine is so noble," replied her sister-in-law. "You don't know what she has been to me since that day when she and I looked together at Gerald's dead face. Oh, that day, that dreadful day!"
"It is past, Lilias. Think of the future, the bright future, and he is in that brightness now."
"I know."
She wiped the tears again from her eyes. Then she continued in a changed voice: —
"I will try and forget that day, which, as you say, is behind Gerald and me. At the time I could scarcely think of myself. I was so overcome with the wonderful brave way in which Valentine acted. You know her father died a month afterwards, and she was so sweet to him. She nursed him day and night, and did all that woman could do to comfort and forgive him. His brain was dreadfully clouded, however, and he died at last in a state of unconsciousness. Then Valentine came out in a new light. She went to the insurance offices and told the whole story of the fraud that had been practised on them, and of her husband's part in it. She told the story in such a way that hard business men, as most of these men were, wept. Then she sold her father's great shipping business, which had all been left absolutely to her, and paid back every penny of the money.
"Since then, as you know, she and Gerry live here. She is really the idol of my old father's life; he and she are scarcely ever parted. Yes, she is a noble woman. When I look at her I say to myself, Gerald, at least, did not love unworthily."
"Then she is poor now?"
"As the world speaks of poverty she is poor. Do you think Valentine minds that? Oh, how little her father understood her when he thought that riches were essential to her happiness. No one has simpler tastes than Valentine. Do you know that she housekeeps now at the rectory, and we are really much better off than we used to be. Alack and alas! Adrian, you ought to know in time, I am such a bad housekeeper."
Lilias laughed quite merrily as she spoke, and Carr's dark face glowed.
"It is a bargain," he said, "that I take you with your faults and don't reproach you with them. And what has become of that fine creature, Esther Helps?" he asked presently.
"She works in East London, and comes here for her holidays. Sometimes I think Valentine loves Esther Helps better than anyone in the world after Gerry."
"That is scarcely to be wondered at, is it?"
Just then their conversation was interrupted by some gleeful shouts, and the four little girls, no longer so very small, came flying round the corner in hot pursuit of Gerry.
"Here they is!" exclaimed the small tyrant, gazing round at his devoted subjects, and pointing with a lofty and condescending air to Adrian and Lilias. "Here they is!" he said, "and I 'spose they'll do it again if we ask them."
"Do what again?" asked Lilias innocently.
"Why, kiss one another," replied Gerry. "I saw you do it, so don't tell stories. Joan and Betty they wouldn't believe me. Please do it again, please do. Mr. Carr, please kiss Auntie Lil again."
"Oh, fie, Gerry," replied Lilias. She tried to turn away, but Carr went up to her gravely, and he kissed her brow.
"There's nothing in it," he continued, looking round at the astonished little girls. "We are going to be husband and wife in a week or two, and husbands and wives always kiss one another."
"Then I was right," said Betty. "Joan and Rosie wouldn't believe me, but I was right after all. I am glad of that."
"I believed you, Betty. I always believed you," said Violet.
"Well, perhaps you did. The others didn't. I'm glad I was right."
"How were you right, Betty?" asked Carr.
"Oh, don't ask her, Adrian. Let us come into the house," interrupted Lilias.
"Yes, we'll come into the house, of course. But I should like to know how Betty was right."
"Why you wanted to kiss her years ago. I knew it, and I said it. Didn't you, now?"
"Speak the trufe," suddenly commanded Gerry.
"Yes, I did," replied Carr.
When Adrian Carr left the rectory that evening he had to walk down the dusty road which led straight past the church and the little village school-house to the railway station. This road was full of associations to him, and he walked slowly, thinking of past scenes, thanking God for his present blessings.
"It was here, by the turnstile, I first saw Lilias," he said to himself. "She and Marjory were standing together, and she came forward and looked at me, and asked me in that sweet voice of hers if I were not Mr. Carr. She reminded me of her brother, whom I just barely knew. It was a fleeting likeness, seen more at first than afterwards.
"Here, by this little old school-house the villagers stood and rejoiced the last day Gerald came home. Poor Wyndham – most blessed and most miserable of men. Well, he is at rest now, and even here I see the cross which throws a shadow over his grave!"
Carr looked at his watch. There was time. He entered the little church-yard. A green mound, a white cross, several wreaths of flowers, marked the spot where one who had been much loved in life lay until the resurrection. The cross was so placed as to bend slightly over the grave as though to protect it. It bore a very brief inscription: —