The Man and the Moment Part 20

His suite at Arranstoun--which he had never seen since the day after his wedding, having gone up to London that very next night, and from there made all his arrangements for the China trip--gave him a shock--he who had nerves of steel--and into the chapel he loathed to go. His one consolation was that Binko, now seven years old, had not transferred his affection to Alexander Armstrong, with whom he had spent the time; but after an hour or two had rapturously appeared to remember his master, and now never, if he could help it, left his side.

Michael took to reading books--no habit of his youth!--although his shrewd mind had not left him in the usual plight of blank ignorance, which is often the portion of a splendid, young athlete leaving Eton!

But now he studied subjects seriously, and the whys and wherefores of things; and he grew rather to enjoy the evenings alone, between the goings and comings of his parties, when, buried in a huge chair before his log fire, with only Binko's snorts for company, he could pore over some volume of interest. He studied his family records, too, getting all sorts of interesting doc.u.ments out of his muniment room.

What a fierce, brutal lot they had always been! No wonder the chapel had to be so gloriously filled--and then there came to his memory the one little window which was still plain, and how he had told Sabine that he supposed it had been left for him to garnish--as an expiatory offering--the race being so full of rapine and sin!

Should he put the gorgeous gla.s.s in now--it was time. But a gla.s.s window could not prevent the punishment--since it had already fallen upon him, nor even alleviate the suffering.

He was staring straight in front of him at the picture of Mary, Queen of Scots', landing--it had been painted at about 1850, when romantic subjects of that sort were in vogue, and "the fellow in the blue doublet" was said, by the artist, to represent the celebrated Arranstoun of that time. The one who had killed a Moreton and stolen his wife. No doubt that is why his grandfather had bought it. He thought it looked very well over the secret door, and then he deliberately let himself picture how it had once fallen forward, and all the circ.u.mstances which had followed in consequence. He reconstructed every word he could remember of his and Sabine's conversation that afternoon. He repictured her innocent baby face--and from there on to the night of the wedding.

He reviewed all his emotions in the chapel, and the strange exaltation which was upon him then--and the mad fire which awoke in his blood with his first kiss or of her fresh young lips when the vows were said. Every minute incident was burned into his memory until the cutting of the cake--after that it seemed to be a chaos of wild pa.s.sion, and moments of extraordinary bliss. He suddenly could almost see her little head there unresisting on his breast, all tears and terror at last hushed to rest by his fond caresses--and then he started from his seat--the memory was too terribly sweet.

He had, of course, been the most frightful brute. Nothing could alter or redeem that fact; but when sleep came to them at length he had believed that he had made her forgive him, and that he could teach her to love him and have no regrets. Then the agony to wake and find her gone!

What made her go after all? How had she slipped from his arms without awakening him? If he had only heard her when she was stealing from the room, he could have reasoned with her, and even have again caught her and kissed her into obedience--but he had slept on.

He remembered all his emotions--rage at her daring to cross his will to begin with, and then the deep wound to his self-love. That is what had made him write the hard letter which forever put an end to their reunion.

"What a paltry, miserable, arrogant wretch I was then," he thought--"and how pitifully uncontrolled."

But all was now too late.

The next morning's post brought him a letter from Henry Fordyce, in which he told him he had been meaning to write to him ever since he had returned from France more than a month ago, but had been too occupied.

The whole epistle breathed ecstatic happiness. He was utterly absorbed in his lady love, it was plain to be seen, and since his mind seemed so peaceful and joyous, it was evident she must reciprocate. Well, Henry was worthy of her--but this in no way healed the hurt. Michael violently tore up the letter and bounded from his bed, pa.s.sion boiling in him again. He wanted to slay something; he almost wished his friend had been an enemy that he could have gone out and fought with him and reseized his bride. What matter that she should be unwilling--the Arranstoun brides had often been unwilling. She had been unwilling before, and he had crushed her resistance, and even made her eventually show him some acquiescence and content. He could certainly do it again, and with more chance of success, since she was a woman now and not a child, and would better understand emotions of love.

He stood there shaking with pa.s.sion. What should he do? What step should he take? Then Binko, who had emerged from his basket, gave a tiny half-bark--he wanted to express his sympathy and excitement. If his beloved master was transported with rage, it was evidently the moment for him to show some feeling also, and to go and seize by the throat man or beast who had caused this tumult.

His round, faithful, adoring eyes were upturned, and every fat wrinkle quivered with love and readiness to obey the smallest command, while he snorted and s...o...b..red with emotion. Something about him touched Michael, and made him stoop and seize him in his arms and roll the solid ma.s.s on the bed in rough, loving appreciation.

"You understand, old man!" he cried fondly. "You'd go for Henry or anyone--or hold her for me"--And then the pa.s.sion died out of him, as the dog licked his hand. "But we have been brutes once too often, Binko, and now we'll have to pay the price. She belongs to Henry, who's behaved like a gentleman--not to us any more."

So he rang for his valet and went to his bath quietly, and thus ended the storm of that day.

And Henry Fordyce in London was awaiting the arrival of his well-beloved, who, with the Princess and Mr. Cloudwater, was due to be at the Ritz Hotel that evening, when they would dine all together and spend a time of delight.

And far away in Brittany, the Pere Anselme read in his book of meditations:

It is when the sky is clearest that the heaviest bolt falls--it would be well for all good Christians to be on the alert.

And chancing to look from his cottage window, he perceived that a heavy rain cloud had gathered over the Chateau of Heronac.

CHAPTER XIV

In the morning before they left Heronac, Sabine's elderly maid, Simone, came to her with the face she always wore when her speech might contain any reference to the past. She had been with Sabine ever since the week after her marriage, and was a widow and a Parisian, with a kind and motherly heart.

"Will madame take the blue despatch-box with her as usual?" she asked.

Sabine hesitated for a second. She had never gone anywhere without it in all those five years--but now everything was changed. It might be wiser to leave it safely at Heronac. Then her eyes fell upon it, and a slight shudder came over her of the kind which people describe as "a goose walking over your grave."

No, she could not leave it behind.

"I will take it, Simone."

"As madame wishes," and the maid went on her way.

When Sabine had reached London late on that evening in the June of 1907 on her leaving Scotland she found, in response to the wire she had sent him from Edinburgh, Mr. Parsons waiting for her at the station, his astonishment as great as his perturbation.

Her words had been few; her young mind had been firmly made up in the train coming south. No one should ever know that there had been any deviation from the original plan she had laid out for herself. With a force of will marvellous in one of her tender years, she had controlled her extreme emotion, and except that she looked very pale and seemed very determined and quiet, there were no traces of the furnace through which she had pa.s.sed, in which had perished all her old conceptions of existence, although as yet she realized nothing but that she wanted to go away and to be free and forget her tremors, and presently join Moravia.

The marriage had been perfectly legal, as the certificate showed, and Mr. Parsons, whatever his personal feelings about the matter were, knew that he had not the smallest control over her--and was bound to hand over to her her money to do with as she pleased.

She merely told him the facts--that the marriage had been only an arrangement to this end--Mr. Arranstoun having agreed before the ceremony that this should be so--and that she wanted to engage a good maid and go over to Paris as soon as possible, to see her friend the Princess Torniloni.

She had decided in the train that her methods with all who opposed her must be as they used to be with Sister Jeanne--a statement of her intentions, and then silence and no explanations. Sister Jeanne had given up all argument with her in her last year at the convent!

Mr. Parsons soon found that his words were falling upon deaf ears, and were perfectly useless. She had cut herself adrift from her aunt and uncle, whom she cordially disliked, leaving them a letter to tell them that as she was now her own mistress, she never meant to trouble them or Mr. Greenbank again, and she bid them adieu!

"It is not as if they had ever been the least kind to me," she did condescend to inform the lawyer. "They couldn't bear me really--Samuel, although he was such a poor creature, was far the best of them. Uncle was only wanting my money for him, and Aunt Jemima detested me, and only had me with her because Papa left in his will that she had to, or lose his legacy. You can't think what I've learned of their meannesses in the month I've know them!"

Thus Mr. Parsons had no further arguments to use--and felt that after seeing her safe to his own hotel that night, and helping to engage a suitable and responsible maid next day to travel with her, he could do no more.

The question of the name troubled him most, and he almost refused to agree that she should be known as Mrs. Howard.

"But I have told Mr. Arranstoun that I mean to be only that!" Sabine exclaimed, "and he didn't mind, and"--here her violet eyes flashed--"I _will not_ be anything else--so there!"

Mr. Parsons shrugged his shoulders; she was impossible to deal with, and as he himself was obliged to return to America in the following week, he felt the only thing to do was to let her have her way. And so well did he guard his client's secret then and afterwards, that even Simone, though a shrewd Frenchwoman, had never known that her mistress' name was not really Howard. At the time of her being engaged she was just leaving an American lady from the far West whom Mr. Parsons knew of, and she was delighted to come as maid and almost chaperon to this sweet, but wilful young lady.

So they had gone to Paris together, to order clothes--such a joyous task--and to make herself forget those hours so terribly full of strange emotion was all which occupied Sabine's mind at this period. Other preoccupations came later; and it was then that she listened to Simone's suggestion of going to San Francisco. The maid knew it well, and there they spent several months in a quiet hotel. But they neither of them cared much to remember those days, and nothing would have ever induced Sabine to return thither.

She thought of these things now, as Simone left the room with the blue case, but she put from her all disturbing remembrances on her journey to Paris, and rushed into Moravia's arms, who was waiting for her in her palatial apartment in the Avenue du Bois; they really loved one another, these two women, as few sisters do.

"Sabine, you darling!" the Princess cried, while Girolamo, kept up an hour later to welcome his G.o.d-mamma, screamed with joy.

"Now tell me everything, everything, pet!" Moravia demanded, as she poured out the tea. "Has the divorce been settled? How soon will you be free? When can you get married to this nice Englishman?"

"I don't exactly know, Morri--the law is such a strange thing; however, my--husband--has agreed and begun to take the necessary steps by requesting me to go back to him, which I have refused to do."

"You are looking perfectly splendid, dear. Having all that brain stimulation evidently suits you. Wasn't the visit of Lord Fordyce delightful in that romantic old castle? What did you do all the time?

and what was the friend like?--you did not tell me."

Sabine stirred her tea.