CHAPTER XXVII
The Professor and his protégée spent the whole of that July wandering in Brittany—going from one old-world spot to another. There had not been much opposition raised by Mr. and Mrs. Anderton to Halcyone's accompanying her old master. They themselves were going to Scotland, and there Mabel had decided she would no longer be kept in the schoolroom, and intended to come forward as a grown-up girl assisting in the hospitalities of her father's shooting lodge. And Mrs. Anderton, knowing her temper, thought a rival of any sort might make difficulties. So, as far as they were concerned, Halcyone might start at once. They always left for the north in the middle of the month, and if the Professor wanted to get away sooner, they did not wish to interfere with his arrangements. Halcyone must come and pay them another visit later on.
As for the Aunts La Sarthe—their heads appeared to be completely turned by their sojourn at the seaside! They proposed to remain there all the summer, and put forward no objection to their niece's excursion with Mr. Carlyon. The once quiet spot of their youth had developed into a fashionable Welsh watering place, and Miss Roberta was taking on a new lease of health and activity from the pleasure of seeing the crowded parade, while the Aunt Ginevra allowed that the exhilarating breezes and cerulean waters were certainly most refreshing!
Before the Professor could leave for a lengthy trip abroad, it was necessary that he should return to the orchard house for a day, and Halcyone accompanied him, leaving Priscilla in London. Her mission was to secure the goddess's head—but, as there was no one at La Sarthe Chase, she decided just to go there and get her treasure and sleep the night at Cheiron's.
It would be an excursion of much pain to her, to be so near to her still loved lover and to feel the cruel gulf between them, but she must face it if she desired Aphrodite to accompany them. The Professor suggested she might take him through the secret passage and try with his help to open the heavy box. No such opportunity had ever occurred before or was likely to occur again, her aunts being absent and even old William nowhere about. It made the chance one in a thousand. So she agreed, and determined to force herself to endure the pain which going back would cause her.
She was perfectly silent all the way from London to Upminster—and Mr. Carlyon watched her furtively. He knew very well what was passing in her mind, and admired the will which suppressed the expression of it. She grew very pale indeed in the station-fly when they passed the gates of Wendover. It was about half past three in the afternoon—and the Professor had promised to come to the archway opening of the secret passage at five.
So Halcyone left him and took her way down the garden and through the little gate into the park. It seemed like revisiting some scene in a former life, so deep was the chasm which separated the last time she walked that way from this day. She passed the oak tree without stopping. She would not give way to any weakness or the grief which threatened to overwhelm her. She kept her mind steadily fixed upon the object she had in view, with a power of concentration which only those who live in solitude can ever attain to.
Aphrodite was there still in the bag lying on top of the heavy iron-bound box in the secret passage, and she carried her out into the sunlight and once more took the wrappings from the perfect face.
"You are coming with us, sweet friend," she whispered, and gazed long into the goddess's eyes. What she saw there gave her comfort.
"Yes, I know," she went on gently. "I did say that, whatever came, I would understand that it was life—And I do—and I know this evil pain is only for the time—and so I will not admit its power. I will wait and some day joy will return to me, like the swallow from the south. Mother, I will grieve not."
And all the softest summer zephyrs seemed to caress her in answer, and there she sat silent and absorbed, looking out to the blue hills for more than an hour.
Then she saw Cheiron advancing up the beech avenue, and covering up Aphrodite she went to meet him.
They came back to the second terrace and started upon their quest.
Mr. Carlyon had the greatest difficulty in keeping his old head bent to get through the very low part of the dark arched place, and he held Halcyone's hand. But at last they emerged into the one light spot and there saw the breastplate and the box. But at first it seemed as if they could not lift it; it had fallen with the lock downward. Cheiron, although a most robust old man, had passed his seventieth year, and the thing was of extreme heaviness. But at last they pushed and pulled and got it upright, and finally, with tremendous exertions with a chisel Mr. Carlyon had brought, managed to break open the ancient lock.
It gave with a sudden snap, and in breathless excitement they raised the lid.
Inside was another case of wood. This also was locked, but at its side lay an old key. The Professor, as well as his chisel, had prudently brought a small bottle of oil, and eventually was able to make the key turn in the lock, and they found that the box was in two compartments, one entirely filled with gold pieces, and the other containing some smaller heavy object enwound with silk.
They lifted it out and carried it to the light, and then with great excitement they unrolled the coverings. It proved to be a gold-and-jeweled crucifix and beneath it lay a parchment with a seal.
Leaving the pieces of gold in the box, they carried the crucifix and the parchment out on to the terrace, and then the Professor adjusted his strongest spectacles and prepared to read what he could, while Halcyone examined the beautiful thing.
The writing was still fairly dark and the words were in Latin. It stated, so the Professor read, that the money and the crucifix were the property of Timothy La Sarthe, Gentleman to Queen Henrietta Maria, and that, should aught befall him in his flight to France upon secret business for Her Majesty, the gold and the crucifix belonged to whichever of his descendants should find it—or it should be handed to; that all others were cursed who should touch it, and that it would bring the owner fortune, as it was the work of one Benvenuto Cellini, an artist of great renown in Florence before his day, and therefore of great value. The quaintly phrased deed added that if it were taken to one Reuben Zana, a Jew in the Jewry at the sign of the Golden Horn, he would dispose of it for a large sum to the French king. The crucifix had been brought from Florence in the dower of his wife Donna Vittoria Tornabuoni, now dead. If his son Timothy should secure it, he was advised not to keep it, as its possession brought trouble to the family.
"Then it is legally ours and not treasure-trove," said Halcyone. "Oh, how good! It will make the Aunts La Sarthe quite rich perhaps, and look how beautiful it is, the jeweled thing."
They examined it minutely. It was a masterpiece of that great craftsman and artist and of untold value. Cheiron silently thrilled with the delight of it—but Halcyone spoke.
"I am glad Ancestor Timothy suggested selling it," she said. "I would never keep a crucifix, the emblem of sorrow and pain. For me, Christ is always glorified and happy in heaven. Now what must we do, Master? Must we at once tell the aunts? But I will not consent to anyone knowing of this staircase. That would destroy something which I could never recover. We must pretend we have found it in the long gallery; there is a recess in the paneling which no one knows of but I, and there we can put it and find it again. It will be quite safe. Shall we leave it there, Cheiron, until we come back from abroad? How much do you think it is worth?"
"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 Saturday 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.
"You are indeed Cheiron, Master," she said—and then her eyes widened and she looked into the glowing ashes. "And you have one pupil, who, like Heracles in his fight with the Centaurs, has accidentally wounded you. But I want you not to let the poison of the arrow grow in your blood; the wound is not incurable as his was. Master, why do you never speak to me now of Mr. Derringham?"
Cheiron frowned. One of his eyebrows had grown in later years at least an inch long and seemed to bristle ready for battle when he was angry.
"I think he has behaved as no gentleman should," he growled, "and I would rather not mention him."
"You know of things perhaps with which I am not acquainted," said Halcyone, "but from my point of view, there is nothing to judge him for. Whatever he may have done in becoming engaged to marry this lady—because she is rich—we do not know the forces that were compelling him. It hurts me, Cheiron, that you take so stern a view—it hurts me, Master."
Mr. Carlyon put out his hand and stroked her soft hair as she sat there on a low stool looking up at him.
"Oh, my dear," he said, and could articulate no more because a lump grew in his throat.
"Everything is so simple when we know of it," she went on, "but everyone has not had the fortune to learn nature and the forces which we must encourage or guard against. And Mr. Derringham, who had to mix with the world, ran many dangers which could not come to you and me at La Sarthe Chase. Ah, Cheiron! Even you do not know of the ugly things which creep away out of sight in the night—my night that I love! And they could sting one if one did not know where to put one's feet. And so it must be with him—he did not always see where just to put his feet, so we must not judge him, must we?" she pleaded.
"Not if you do not wish," Mr. Carlyon blurted out. And then he began to puff wreaths of smoke from his long old pipe.
"Indeed, I do not wish, Cheiron," she said. "Perhaps he is very unhappy now—we do not know—so we should only send him good thoughts to cheer him. I dream of him often," she went on in a far-off voice, as though she had almost forgotten the Professor's presence, "and he cries to me in pain. And I could not bear it that you should be thinking badly of him, and so I had to speak because thoughts can help or injure people—and now he wants all the gentle currents we can send him to take him through this time."
The Professor coughed violently; his spectacles had grown dim.
Then Halcyone rubbed her soft cheek against his old withered hand.
"You knew it, of course, Master," she said very softly. "I loved him always and I love him still—and, if I have forgiven any hurt which he brought me, surely it need not stand against him with you. To-night—oh, he is suffering so! I cannot bear that there should be one shadow going to him that I can take away. Cheiron, promise me you won't think hardly ever any more—promise me, Cheiron, dear!"
The Professor's voice was almost the growl of a bear—but Halcyone knew he meant to acquiesce.
"Cheiron," she whispered, while she caressed his stiff fingers, "the winter of our souls is almost past. I feel and know the spring is near at hand."
"I hope to God it is," Mr. Carlyon said, very low.
Next day they moved on into Italy, crossing the frontier and stopping the night at Turin where they proposed to hire a motor. From thence they intended to get down to Genoa to continue their pilgrimage. It was not such an easy matter, in those few years ago, as it is now to hire a motor, but one was promised to them at last—and off they started. Halcyone took the greatest interest in everything in that quaint and grand old town. Her keen judgment and that faculty she possessed of always seeing everything from the simplest standpoint of truth made her an ideal companion to wander with on this journey of cultured ease.
"How strong a place this seems, Cheiron," she said, after two days of their sight-seeing. "All the spirits at the zenith of Genoa's greatness were strong—nothing weak or ascetic. They must have been filled with gratitude to God for giving them this beautiful life, those old patrons of decoration. There is nothing cheap or hurried; it is all an appreciation of the magnificence due to their noble station and their pride of race. For the Guelphist of them seems to have been an aristocrat and an autocrat in his personal ménage. Is it not so, Master?"
"I dare say," agreed Cheiron. He was watching with deep interest for her verdict upon things.
"It gives me the impression of solid riches," she went on, "the encouragement of looms of costly stuffs, the encouragement for workers in marble, in bronze, in frescoes, all the material gorgeous, tangible pleasures of sight and touch. It is not poetic; it inspires admiration for great deeds, victorious navies, triumphs—banquets—I have no sense of music here except the music of feasting. I have no sense of poetry except of odes to famous admirals or party leaders, and yet it is a great joy in its way and a noble monument to the proud manhood of the past." And she looked down from the balcony of the Palazzo Reale, where they were standing, into the town below.
Her thoughts had gone as ever to the man she loved. He had this haughty spirit—he could have lived in those days—and she saw him a Doria, a Brignole-Sale or a Pallavicini, gorgeous, masterful and magnificent. England in the present day was surely a supplice for such an arrogant spirit as that of John Derringham.
The prosperous mercantile part of Genoa said nothing to her—she wanted always to wander where she could weave romances into the things round. She had never seen any fine pictures before. The Anderton family were not lovers of art and, while in London, Halcyone had been too unhappy to care or even ask to be taken to galleries—and Cheiron had not suggested doing so; he was a good deal occupied himself. But now it was a great pleasure to him to watch and see what impression they would make upon a perfectly fresh eye. The immense cultivation of her mind would guide her taste probably—but it would be an interesting experiment.
She stopped instantly in front of a Van Dyck, but she did not speak. In fact she made no observations at all about the pictures until they were back in their hotel. It was still very hot, although September had come, and they had their dinner upon an open terrace.
And then her thoughts came out.
"I like the Guido Renis, Cheiron," she said; "his Magdalen in the Reale Palazzo is exquisite—she is pure and good. But I do not like the saints and martyrs in the throes of their agony, they say nothing to me, I have no sympathy for them. I adore the Madonna and the Child; they touch me—here," and she laid her hand upon her heart. "The Sassoferarto Virgin in the Reale Palazzo is like Miss Lutworth, she is full of kindness and youth. The early masters' works, which are badly drawn and beautifully colored, I have to take apart—and it is unsatisfying. Because, while I am trying not to see the wrong shape, I have only half my faculties to appreciate the exquisite colors, and so a third influence has to come in—the meaning of the artist who painted them and perhaps put into them his soul. But that is altruistic—I could as well admire something of very bad art for the same reason. For me a picture should satisfy each of these points of view to be perfect and lift me into heights. That is why perhaps I shall prefer sculpture on the whole, when I shall have seen it, to painting."
And Mr. Carlyon felt that, learned in art and old as he was, Halcyone might give him a new point of view.
Next day they left for Pisa.