CHAPTER FORTY
The Other Side of the Moon
The next thing that Loveland knew, he was sitting in a bog, which felt quite soft and comfortable, so comfortable that he at first believed himself to be in bed, waking out of a bad dream. Then with a flash he remembered all that had happened, and scrambled up in a cold sweat of fear for Lesley.
He was dripping with water and mossy mud, but though his limbs felt heavy and he staggered a little, his temples throbbing as if his brain were propelled by a steam engine, he was hardly conscious that his own body still existed. His one thought was of the girl.
A cataract of sparks which showered before his eyes dimmed his sight at first, but in a moment he saw a slight, grey-clad figure lying limply on the ground not far away. As for the motor-car which rested on its side at a little distance, its pleasant purring stilled, Loveland had forgotten all about it.
"Lesley!" he cried, as he ran to her. "Lesley!"
But she neither stirred nor answered.
Down he dropped on both knees beside her, and raised her head upon his arm. Her eyes were closed, and through the chiffon veil he could see the long lashes dark on the pallor of her cheeks.
The ground where she lay was spongy after a day of heavy rain which had soaked through the thick carpet of dead grass, deeply into the earth. The girl's position was easy, giving Loveland the hope that no bones were broken, and there was no stain of blood on the white face or the soft brown hair. But she lay very still; there was no flutter of the eyelashes, no faint gasping for breath.
Sick with fear that she might be dead, Loveland's memory refused the barrier between them. He was conscious only of his love for her, and his passionate remorse for the wish, harboured for a moment – the wish that she might let something happen to the car, and that they two might go out of the world together. There was no torture which he would not have prayed to suffer now, if through it he could even hope to bring her back to life.
"Dearest – precious one – darling!" he called her. "For God's sake wake up. Speak to me – only speak to me. I love you so!"
Instantly she opened her eyes wide, shivering a little in his arms, and looked up at him – half dazedly at first, then smiling as a woman might who has dreamed of a distant lover and wakes to find him near.
"Thank God you're not dead!" he stammered.
"And that —you're not!" she answered faintly. "You – you're not much hurt?"
"Not at all, and if I were it wouldn't matter," Loveland assured her fervently. "If only I hadn't let you drive – or if I hadn't talked to you! – it's all my fault. What shall I do if you're injured?"
"I – I'm all right, and – and rather happy," whispered Lesley. "I don't think anything's the matter at all – except a little shock."
"Let me lift you up for a minute, so that we can make sure whether you are hurt," said Val. "I'll do it so gently – "
"No. I'd rather lie still – just as I am," the girl answered.
"Would you be more comfortable if I laid your head on the ground?"
"No, keep it on your arm, please. I like it there," said Lesley; and Loveland was made so happy by the words and by the sudden revulsion from despair to hope that he could have broken down and sobbed.
"I feel as if I'd been dreaming," she murmured on. "I dreamed that you – that you called me —your darling: that you said you loved me."
"Forgive me!" exclaimed Loveland. "I couldn't help it. I was half mad."
"Then it wasn't a dream?"
"No. It wasn't a dream," he confessed. "Even though you think me an impostor, you can't believe me a wholly unredeemed villain, or you wouldn't have taken me into your house – for charity's sake, though it was. So you must know now that you've nothing to fear from my love."
"Is it real love – tell me?" she asked, her head nestling comfortably against his arm.
"It's the realest thing about me – it's grown to be the whole of me," Loveland broke out. "Nothing else matters. That's why I should have had to kill myself if you'd been hurt – or – but I can't speak of it. Thank God, you're alive and not injured. Yes, that's enough for me – it's got to be enough, and I ought to be happy though you're going to belong to another man."
"You wouldn't have wanted to marry me, any way," said Lesley.
"I wouldn't have wanted to – when it's the thing I'd give all but one year of my life for – the one year I'd keep to be happy in with you."
"Just a poor little humble story writer – and you would really like to marry It?"
"Don't torture me," said Loveland. "I've had about all I can stand. If I were the impostor you think me – "
"I don't think you an impostor," replied Lesley, beginning to speak in quite a natural tone of voice again, though she kept the support of Loveland's arm. "I never said I did. I only asked you once, why I should have more faith in you than others had? But I'd be ready to take you on faith, if you were ready to take me without a fortune."
The blood rushed to Loveland's face, which had been pale and drawn. "Is it true – do you mean it?" he stammered. "Do you care for me a little?"
"A great deal," said Lesley. "Too much, I used to think on the ship; but I don't think so now, because you're different. It's the real you I loved all the time. The miracle's happened, you know. I'm seeing the other side of the moon. But wouldn't it be doing you an injury to marry you, when you and your family counted on a great heiress?"
"It was the other Me, who hadn't the sense to see what a beastly, caddish thing it would be to marry a girl just because she was rich – a girl I didn't love," Val hurried on. "Oh, Lesley, you're not playing with me, are you? I couldn't marry any other woman but you."
"What about the old family home that's tumbling to ruin?"
"It will have to tumble."
"And your family?"
"There's only my mother, and what she wants most is my happiness. My love for you has somehow shown me how to appreciate her more. But, Lesley – what about Sidney Cremer? Do you care enough for me – a man you say you're 'taking on faith' – to give up all Cremer's money and to throw him over for my sake?"
"I can't throw him over."
"Then how can we be married?"
"And I can't give up his money," she added.
"Lesley! Have you raised me up only to let me fall deeper into the pit than ever?"
"We both fell into the pit together, didn't we?" she said, laughing a little. "If you go deeper, I'll go deeper, too, for we're going to stand or fall together now."
"Then, what do you mean?" asked Val. "You'll have to send one of us away – me or Sidney Cremer."
"Let me sit up, and we'll talk it over," said Lesley, with a quaint cheerfulness and matter-of-factness that utterly bewildered Loveland. "I feel so well and so happy now, that I believe I can find my way out of any entanglement so long as we go hand in hand." And sitting on the wet grass in her thick fur coat she twisted herself so lithely about that there could no longer be any fear of obscure injuries.
Val, resting on one knee, took the little grey mitten that she held out to him, and pressed the hand in it. But there was bitterness in his voice as he answered. "This is an entanglement that you'll find no way out of. You can't keep us both."
"You don't trust me," Lesley reproached him. "Just wait before deciding to give me up, until we've thoroughly thrashed things out, beginning at the beginning, and going right on to the end."
"I shan't decide to give you up; nothing can make me do that now," Loveland said. "It's Cremer who'll have to go to the wall."
Lesley laughed. "Like his motor. Poor, poor car – I'm sorry for it, but it hasn't sacrificed itself in vain. I was beginning to wonder how on earth to bring all this about. That was what kept me awake last night, if I'm to tell the whole truth. It had to come some way, and it had to come soon. Well, Sidney's motor-car has solved the difficulty, and Sidney will be glad, for my happiness is the same to him as his own. And now I've gone so far, I may as well confess that from the very minute I saw you play 'Lord Bob,' in that dingy little hall at Ashville, I hoped – oh, but hoped more than anything, that you would ask me to marry you. Please, please, don't be shocked, but I invited you to come here just for that."
Loveland was utterly at sea, or would have been if her hand had not lain in his, and if she had not begged him to wait and trust her.
"Yet, you were engaged to Sidney Cremer," he said, half to himself.
"I was bound to Sidney just as I am now, and just as I have been for the last three years. And I wasn't tired of him then, not a bit, and I'm not, even at this minute. But I love you– the Real You."
"Darling!" exclaimed Loveland. Yet he marvelled at her. This was a phase of the girl's character – her true and noble character – which he was at a loss to understand.
"You were very cold to me that night at Ashville," he ventured to say.
"I was trying you. I wasn't quite sure, you see, which side of the moon I was looking at; and if after all it was only the same old side, I didn't want to let myself be dazzled by it, as I couldn't help being at first. Oh, but don't misunderstand me! It wasn't the reflected light – the light of a high position – that had dazzled me. That never mattered. It was a different light – a light that never shone on land or sea, but shines just once, they say, in every woman's life. That means what I said before: that I was in love with you on the boat, even when I laughed at your talk of love. I felt more like crying than laughing, though, because the sort of love you gave me in return for mine wasn't worth my having. I was too good for it."
"Heaven knows you were," Val admitted, humbly.
"But I'm not too good – no, not good enough, for what you give me now; and that's why I'm so frightfully happy, and delighted that Sidney's motor jumped over conventionalities instead of my having to take the leap myself. Instead, I just leaped with the car, and you leaped, too – and everything is going to be Heavenly for all the rest of our lives."
"I don't quite see how, if you're not tired of Cremer," said Loveland.
"Don't be jealous of Sidney any more; I liked making you a little jealous of him at first – after I saw how you felt. It was fun for me – and I thought it was good for you. But now it's different. I'm sure —sure– about the other side of the moon, and I want you to be as happy as I am. Oh, don't speak yet! I must go on a little further. You know, I told you I had a telegram this morning?"
"Yes – yes."
"Well, you thought it was from Sidney Cremer, and I didn't contradict. Lots of things you've thought lately I let you go on thinking, without contradicting. The telegram was from little Fanny Milton – about you."
"About me?"
"She knew from a journalist who is a friend of hers that you'd come to this part of the country with a theatrical troupe, and they'd found out that the actors were playing pieces of Sidney Cremer's at Ashville. They talked it over together – Fanny and this Mr. Kidd. He wanted to know for his paper's sake where you'd disappeared to when the company broke up. Last evening he suggested that she should telegraph to me. They both thought I might have heard about you. So that's why I felt that you wouldn't be stopping on as my chauffeur very long."
"Did Miss Milton say in the telegram that New York had discovered its mistake about me?"
"No, she didn't say that, though it was a long telegram. I expect she thought I would have seen the newspapers. Well, I haven't; but I can put two and two together quite nicely, and I was sure that you'd come into your own again with the great American public – perhaps partly through Fanny Milton's Mr. Kidd. I'd be willing to wager all the profits of Sidney Cremer's next play or novel – if I had them – that you can now go back, if you like, and get without any difficulty the heiress you came across the water for."
"I'm sick of the very word heiress!" protested Loveland, with complete sincerity.
"That's the new You. And what a very new You it is, when one comes to think of it! Only a few weeks old. But it's the only real one. The other was a shell which has broken."
"You broke it," said Val.
"I cracked it a little, maybe, on the boat; but it took a big hammer to smash it, and now I've swept all the fragments away. There's just the real you and the real me in the world – with the wonderful light from the other side of the moon shining on us two – and Sidney Cremer."
"Oh, Sidney Cremer!" cried Loveland. "He still stands between us."
"No, he doesn't. If you love me you'll have to love Sidney, too, because Sidney Cremer and I are one, and his money is mine; because I earn it, and don't I enjoy it, too! Haven't I enjoyed it for three whole years, since all of a sudden from being a poor girl, dependent on Aunt Barbara, I waked up to find myself a rich one – oh, not rich in your meaning of the word, not rich enough to line castle walls with gold and diamonds, but rich enough to do nice little things for an old Kentucky farm-house, and perhaps even to help restore ancient British strongholds if the lord of them and of my heart will give me so much happiness.
"You – you are Sidney Cremer?" Loveland could only stammer the words stupidly.
"Yes. Are you so surprised that I'm clever enough to make a success with my brain and my pen? I often wondered when you'd begin to suspect – but you never did. And I was wondering, too, whether Sidney Cremer would have to propose to you in the end. It's been great fun keeping my secret from the world, never letting anyone know the real truth except Auntie and the Ashville cousins – though Fanny Milton and lots of other acquaintances thought I was a friend of Sidney Cremer's – perhaps even a poor relation of his. But the most fun of all has been keeping the secret from you till the time was ripe to tell. Do you remember saying the other day, 'Sidney Cremer is everything?' I told you I'd remind you of that some time, and ask if you could say it again. Can you now?"
"Sidney Cremer is everything," repeated Loveland. Whereupon Lesley gave one of her little soft, cooing sighs, and let him take her into his arms.
They were both very muddy and mossy, and rather bruised and shaken, if they had not been too deeply absorbed in the feelings of their hearts to think of the feelings of their bodies. And perhaps a boggy field with no shelter save a motor-car lying rakishly on one side, was a queer place for an engagement between a young English Marquis and a celebrated American novelist-playwright. But for Lesley and Loveland it was perfect. Sidney Cremer's vivid fancy had never created a more enchanting scene for the love-making of hero and heroine. And though, if there had been an audience, it would have seen the stage lit up only with pale rays of wintry sunshine, for the girl and the man it was illumined with ineffable light from the other side of the moon.