The Brightener Part 26

"I begged the d.u.c.h.ess to say nothing to anybody," answered Robert. Our eyes met, and we smiled--Robert rather ruefully.

Of course the d.u.c.h.ess did the contrary of what she'd been begged to do, and said something to everybody. In less than a week the world was aware that Robert Lorillard, its lost idol, was coming back to life; that he who had been for a few months the husband of wonderful June Dana--the d.u.c.h.ess of Stane's daughter--was engaged to a "V.-A.-D. girl who'd nursed him in the war, and had been his secretary or something."

But, after all, the talk mattered very little to those most concerned.

They were divinely happy, the two who were talked about, though they would have liked to be let alone. I suppose, for Robert, it was a different kind of happiness from that which the condescension of his G.o.ddess had given him: less dazzling perhaps; more like the warm sweetness of early spring and its flowers, compared with a tropical summer of scented magnolias and daturas. June had been a G.o.ddess stepping down from her golden pedestal, and Joyce was a loving, adoring human girl, ready for all that wifehood might mean.

Robert shut up the little place by the river (where they planned to live later), and stopped at an hotel in town, though he had never let the flat in St. James's Square, the scene of his engagement to June.

I began helping Joyce choose a trousseau that could be got together in haste, for they were to go to the south of France and Italy for their honeymoon; and one day, after shopping the whole morning and part of the afternoon, we were to meet Robert for tea at the Savoy.

You know that soft amber light there is in the big _foyer_ of the Savoy at tea-time, like the beautiful subdued light in dreams? Since the war it brings back to me ghosts of all the jolly, handsome boys one used to see there, whose bodies sleep now under the poppies and _bluets_ of France; and as Joyce and I walked in, rather late, the thought of those boys and those days came over me with the sobbing music of the violins.

"It's like the beat, beat of invisible hearts," I said to myself. And suddenly I was sad.

There sat Robert, waiting for us. He had taken a table for three, and one of the chairs, I noticed, was a n.o.ble one covered with velvet brocade--a chair like a Queen's throne.

He rose at sight of us, and I saw that a little woman at a table close by was looking at him with intense interest. In fact, her interest in Robert gave her a kind of fict.i.tious interest of her own, in my eyes, she seemed so absorbed in him.

She was one of those women you'd know to be American if you met them crawling up the North Pole; and as she was in travelling dress I fancied that it was not long since she had landed.

"She probably admired him on the stage when she was here before the war, and hasn't been in England since till now," I thought, to be interrupted by Robert himself.

"That armchair's for you, Princess," he said, as I was going to slip into a smaller one and leave the "throne" for the bride-elect.

For an instant we disputed; then I was about to yield, laughing, when the little woman in brown jumped up with a gasp.

"Oh, you _can't_ sit in that chair!" she exclaimed. "Don't you _see_--there's someone there?"

We all three started and stared, thinking, of course, that the creature was mad. But her face looked sane, and pathetically pleading.

"Do forgive me!" she begged. "I forget that everyone doesn't see what I see. _They_ are so clear to me always. I'm not insane. But I couldn't let you sit in that chair. You may have heard of me. I am Priscilla Hay Reardon, of Boston. I can't at this moment give you the name of the lovely girl--the lady in the chair--but she would tell me, I think, if I asked her. I must describe her to you, though, she's so beautiful, and she so wants you all--no, not _all_; only the gentleman--to recognize her. She has red-brown hair, in glossy waves, and immense blue eyes, like violet flame. She has a dainty nose; full, drooping red lips, the upper one very short and haughty; a cleft in her chin; wonderful complexion, with rosy cheeks, the colour high under the eyes; a long throat; a splendid figure, though slim; and she is dressed in gray, with an ostrich plume trailing over a gray hat that shades her forehead. She has a string of gray pearls round her neck--_black_ pearls she says they are; she wears a chiffon scarf held by an emerald brooch, and on her hand is a ring with a marvellous square emerald."

Robert, Joyce, and I were speechless. The description of June was exact--June in the gray dress and hat she had worn the day we went to Robert's rooms, the day they were engaged; the dress he had made her wear when Sargent painted her portrait.

CHAPTER IV

THE SPIRIT OF JUNE

Before one of us could utter a word, the little woman hurried on.

"Ah, the lovely girl has begun to talk very fast now! I can hardly understand what she says, because she's half crying. It's to you she speaks, sir; I don't know your name! But, yes--it's _Robert_... 'Robert!' the girl is sobbing. 'Have you forgotten me already?'... Do those words convey any special impression to your mind, sir, or has this spirit mistaken you for someone else?"

Robert was ghastly, and Joyce looked as if she were going to faint. Even I--to whom this scene meant less than to them--even I was flabbergasted.

That is the _one_ word! If you don't know what it means, you're lucky, because in that case you've never been it. I should translate from experience: "FLABBERGASTED; astounded and bewildered at the same time, with a slight dash of premature second childhood thrown in."

I heard Robert answer in a strained voice:

"The words do convey an impression to my mind. But--this is too sacred--too private a subject. We can't discuss it here. I----"

"I know!" the woman breathlessly agreed. "_She_ feels it, too. She wouldn't have chosen a place like this. She's explaining--how for a long time she's tried to reach you, but couldn't make you understand. Now I've given her the chance. She's suffering terribly because of the barrier between you. I pity her. I wish I could help! Maybe I could if you'd care to come to my rooms. I'm staying in this hotel. I've just arrived in England from Boston, the first visit in my life. I haven't been in London much more than two hours now! I've got a little suite upstairs."

If she'd got a "little suite" at the Savoy, the woman must have money.

She couldn't be a common or garden medium cadging for mere fees.

Besides, no common or garden person, an absolute stranger to Robert Lorillard, met by sheer accident, could have described June Dana and that gray dress of four years ago; her jewels, too! Robert's name she might have picked up if Joyce or I had let it drop by accident; but the last was inexplicable. The thing that had happened--that was happening--seemed to me miraculous, and tragic. I felt that Fate had seized the bright bird of happiness and would crush it to death, unless something intervened. And what could intervene? I struggled not to see the future as a foregone conclusion. But I could see it in no other way except by shutting my eyes.

Robert turned to Joyce. He didn't say to her, "What am I to do?" Yet she read the silent question and answered it.

"Of course you must go," she said. "It--whether it's genuine or not, you'll have to find out. You can't let it drop."

"No, I can't let it drop," he echoed. He looked stricken. He, too, saw the dark, fatal hand grasping the white bird.

He had loved June pa.s.sionately, but the beautiful body he'd held in his arms lay under that sundial by the riverside. Her spirit was of another world. And he'd not have been a human, hot-blooded man, if the reproachful wraith of an old love could be more to him than the brave girl who'd saved his life and won his soul back from despair.

I saw, as if through their eyes, the thing they faced together, those two, and suddenly I rebelled against that figure of Destiny. I was wild to save the white bird before its wings had ceased to flutter. I didn't know at all what to do. But I had to do something. I simply _had_ to!

Miss Reardon rose.

"Would you like to come with me now?" she asked, addressing Robert, not Joyce or me. She ignored us, but not in a rude way. Indeed, there was a direct and rather childlike simplicity in her manner, which impressed one with her genuineness. I was afraid--horribly afraid--and almost sure, that she _was_ genuine. I respected her against my will, because she didn't worry to be polite; but at the same time I didn't intend to be shunted. I determined to be in at the death--or whatever it was!

"Aren't you going to invite us, too?" I asked. "If the--the apparition is the spirit we think we recognize, she and I were dear friends."

Miss Reardon's round, mild eyes searched my face. Then they turned as if to consult another face which only they could see. It was creepy to watch them gaze steadily at something in that big, _empty_ armchair.

"Yes," she agreed. "The lady--Lady----Could it be 'June'?--It sounds like June--says it's true you were her friend. But she says '_Not the other._' The other mustn't come."

"I wouldn't wish to come," Joyce protested. She was waxen pale. "I'll go home," she said to Robert. "Don't bother about me. Don't think about me at all. Afterward you can--tell me whatever you care to tell."

"No!" Robert and I spoke together, moved by the same thought. "Don't go home. Wait here for us."

"Very well," the girl consented, more to save argument at such a moment, I think, than because she wished to do what we asked.

She sank down in one of the chairs we had taken and Robert and I followed Miss Reardon. She appeared to think that we were sure to know her name quite well. I didn't know it, for I was a stranger in the world of Spiritualism. But her air of being modestly proud of the name seemed to prove that her reputation as a medium was good--that she'd never been found out in any fraud. And going up in the lift the words spoke themselves over and over in my head: "She couldn't know who Robert is, if it's true she's never been in England before, and if she has come to London to-day. At least, I don't see how she could."

In silence we let Miss Reardon lead us to the sitting room of her suite on the third floor. It was small but pretty, and smelt of La France roses, though none were visible, nor were there any other flowers there.

Robert and I looked at each other as this perfume rushed to meet us. La France roses were June's favourites, and belonged to the month of her birth. Robert had sent them to her often, especially when they were out of season and difficult to get.

"_She_ is here, waiting for us!" exclaimed Miss Reardon. "Oh, _surely_ you must see her--on the sofa, with her feet crossed--such pretty diamond buckles on her shoes!--and her lap full of roses. She holds up one rose, she kisses it, to you--Robert--Robert--some name that begins with L. I can't hear it clearly. But Robert is enough."

Yes, Robert was enough--more than enough!

Miss Reardon asked in an almost matter-of-fact way if he would like to sit down on the sofa beside June, who wished him to do so. He didn't answer; but he sat down, and his eyes stared at vacancy. I knew from their expression, however, that he saw nothing.

"What will be the next thing?" I wondered.

I had not long to wait to find out!