THE PROPERTY OF THE CROWN
The summer passed in perpetual expectation; which, when autumn arrived, seemed ripe for fulfilment.
Diana's mind was so absorbed by her love for David, that she scarcely realised how completely she kept it out of her letters; or that his reticence might merely have been a reflection of her own. Also she every now and then relieved her feelings by writing him a complete outpouring. This, often written side by side with her letter for the mail, she would seal up in an envelope addressed to David, and place in a compartment of the sandal-wood box in which she kept all his letters, with a vague idea that some day she herself would be able to place in his hands these unposted missives.
One afternoon, just as she was closing both envelopes, callers arrived. They stayed to tea; leaving, only a few minutes before Rodgers came in with the post-bag.
Diana stamped her letter, and placed it in the bag. Then spent half an hour looking through some of David's before locking them up with the one she had just written. This was especially full of tenderness and longing; and, though the quick blood mantled her cheek at the recollection of words it contained, her heart felt lightened and relieved.
"How foolish I am," she thought; "no wiser than the ordinary married women, whom I used to despise."
She took up a little pile of these letters, lying safely in their own compartment in the sandal-wood casket.
"They all belong to David," she whispered. "Some day—he will see them."
Then something about the address of the one she had just placed with the rest, caught her eye. The writing was hurried, and more like that which she had rapidly finished for posting, while Rodgers waited.
She tore it open.
My dear David.
She glanced at the end. Then she sprang up and pealed the bell.
Yours affectionately, Diana Rivers, was in her hand. Your wife, who loves you and longs for you, had gone to David!
Rodgers reported, in an unmoved undertone, that the man with the post-bag had started for Riversmead, on his bicycle, twenty minutes ago.
"Order the motor," commanded Diana. "Tell Knox to come round as quickly as possible. I must overtake the post-bag."
She placed her letter in a fresh envelope, rapidly addressed, sealed, and stamped it; flew up for a hat and coat, and was downstairs, ready to start, within five minutes of her discovery of the mistake.
She paced the hall like a caged lion. Every word she had written stood out in letters of fire. Oh folly, folly, to have let the two letters lie side by side!
"It meant no more than we intended it should mean".... Your wife, who loves you and longs for you.
At last the motor hummed up to the portico. Diana was in it before it drew up.
"Overtake Jarvis," she said, and sat back, palpitating.
They flew down the avenue, and along the high road. But Jarvis had had nearly half-an-hour's start, and was a dependable man. A little way from the lodge gates they met him returning.
"On! To the post-office!" cried Diana.
It so happened that a smart, new post-office had lately been opened, in the centre of the little town—a stone building, very official in appearance. Its workings were carried out with great precision and authority. The old postmaster was living up to the grandeur of his new building.
Diana walked in, letting the door swing behind her.
"Has the Riverscourt bag been emptied yet?" she enquired. "If not, bring it to me, unopened."
A clerk went into the sorting-room, and returned in a few minutes with the letter-bag, open and empty.
"Has the mail gone?" demanded Diana.
No, the mail had not gone. It was due out, in a few minutes.
The letters were being sorted. She could hear the double bang-bang of the postmarking.
"I wish to see the Postmaster," said Diana.
The Postmaster was summoned, and, hurrying out, bowed low before the mistress of Riverscourt. She did not often come, in person, even to the new post-office.
Diana knew she had a difficult matter to broach, and realised that she must not be imperious.
D. R. might reign at Riverscourt; but E. R. was sovereign of the realm! Her love-letter to David had now become the property of the King; and this courteous little person, bowing before her, was, very consciously, the King's official in Riversmead. Was not E. R. carved with many flourishes on a stone escutcheon on the face of the new post-office?
Diana, curbing her impatience, smiled graciously at the Postmaster.
"May I have a few words with you, in your private room, Mr. Holdsworth?" she said.
Full of pleased importance, the little great man ushered her into his private sanctum, adjoining the sorting-room.
A bright fire burned in the grate. The room was new, and not yet papered; and the autumn evening was chill. Diana walked up to the fire, drew off her gloves, and, stooping, warmed her hands at the blaze.
Then she turned and faced the Postmaster.
"Mr. Holdsworth, I want you to do me a great kindness. An hour ago, I put by mistake into our post-bag, a letter addressed to my husband, which it is most important that he should not receive. It was a mistake. Here is the letter I intended for him. I want you to find the other in the sorting-room, and to get it back for me."
The little man stiffened visibly. E. R. seemed writ large all over him.
"That is impossible, madam," he said, "absolutely impossible. Once posted, a letter becomes the property of the Crown until it reaches the hands of the addressee. I, as a servant of the King, have to see that all Crown-property is safeguarded. I could not, under any circumstances whatever, return a letter once posted."
"But it is my own letter!" exclaimed Diana. "An hour ago it lay on my writing-table, side by side with this one, for which it was mistaken. It is my own property; and I must have it back."
"It ceased to be your property, Mrs. Rivers, when it was taken from your private post-bag and placed among other posted letters. Neither you nor I have any further control over it."
Diana's imperious temper flashed from her eyes, and flamed into her cheeks. Her first impulse was to fling this little person aside, stride into the sorting-room, and retrieve her letter to David, at any cost.
Then a wiser mood prevailed. She came a step nearer, looking down upon him with soft pleading eyes.
"Mr. Holdsworth," she said, "you are an official of the Crown, and a faithful one; but, even before that, you are a man. Listen! I shall suffer days and nights of unspeakable anguish of mind, if that letter goes. My husband is out in the far wilds of Central Africa. That letter would mean endless worry and perplexity to him, in the midst of his important work; and also the wrecking of a thing very dear to us both. So strongly do I feel about it, that, if it goes, I shall sail on the same boat, travelling night and day, by the fastest route, in order to intercept it at his very gate! See how I trust you, when I tell you all this!"
The Postmaster hesitated. "You could cable him to return it to you unopened," he said.
"I could," replied Diana; "but that would involve a mystery and a worry; and I would give my life to shield him from worry. See! Here is the letter intended for this mail, ready stamped and sealed. All I ask you to do, is to substitute this one for the other."
She held out the letter, and looked at the Postmaster.
His eyes fell before the pleading in hers.
He was a Crown official and an Englishman. Had she offered him a hundred pounds to do this thing, he would have shown her out of his office with scant ceremony. But the haughty young lady of Riverscourt, in all her fearless beauty, had looked at him with tears in her grey eyes, and had said: "See how I trust you."
He hesitated: his hand moved in the direction of the letter, his fingers working nervously.
Diana laid her hand upon his arm, bending towards him.
"Please," she said.
He took the letter.
"I will see whether the other is already gone," he mumbled, and disappeared through a side door, into the sorting-room.
In a few moments he returned, still holding Diana's letter. His plump face was rather pale, and his hand shook. He laid Diana's letter on the table between them.
"I am very sorry, Mrs. Rivers," he said. "I cannot possibly give you back a letter once posted. Were I known to have done such a thing, I should at once be dismissed."
Diana paled, and stood very still, considering her next move.
"I cannot give you back the letter," said the Postmaster. His eyes met hers; then dropped to the letter lying on the table between them.
Then the stars in their courses fought against David, for suddenly Diana understood. This was the letter she wanted, placed within her reach.
With a rapid movement she pounced upon it, verified it at a glance; tore it to fragments, and flung them into the flames.
"There!" she said. "You did not give it to me, and I have not taken it. It is simply gone—as if it had never been either written or posted."
Then she turned to the little fat man near the door, and impulsively held out her hand. "God bless you, my friend!" she said. "I shall never forget what you have done for me this day."
"We had best both forget it," whispered the Postmaster, thickly. "If a word of it gets about, I lose my place."
"Never you fear!" cried Diana, her buoyancy returning, in her relief and thankfulness. "I trusted you, and you may safely trust me."
"Hush," cautioned Mr. Holdsworth, as he opened the door; "we had best both forget." Then, as she passed out: "Your letter was just in time, m'am," he remarked aloud, for the benefit of the clerks in the office. "I placed it in the bag myself."
"Thank you," said Diana. "It would have troubled me greatly to have missed this evening's mail. I am much obliged to you, Mr. Holdsworth."
Leaning back in the motor, on her homeward way, her heart felt sick at the suspense through which she had passed.
A reaction set in. The chill of a second winter nipped the bloom of her summer, and the rich fulfilment promised by her golden autumn. The fact that it seemed such an impossible horror that one of her tender love-letters should really reach David, proved to her the fallacy of the consolation she had found in writing them.
It placed him far away—and far away forever. He would never know; he would never care; he would never come.... It meant no more than we intended it should mean.... Good-bye, my wife.
Tears stole from beneath Diana's closed lids, and rolled silently down her cheeks.
Your wife, who loves you and longs for you! But David would never know. It was so true—oh, so true! But David would never know.
And, away in the African swamps, at that very hour, David, lying in his wooden hut, recovering from one of the short bouts of fever, now becoming so frequent, leaned upon his elbow and drew from beneath his pillow Diana's last letter, which he had been too ill to read when the mail came in; scanned it through eagerly, seeking for some word which might breathe more than mere friendliness; pressed his hot lips against the signature, yours affectionately, Diana Rivers; then lay back and fought the hopeless consuming longing, which grew as the months passed by, strengthening as he weakened.
"I promised it should never mean more than she intended," he said. "She chose me, because she trusted me. I should be a hound, to go back! But oh, my wife—my wife—my wife!"
"You can serve dinner for me in the library to-night, Rodgers," said Diana. "Tell Mrs. Mallory I shall dine there alone. I am tired. Yes, thank you; I caught the mail."
She shivered. "Order fires everywhere, please. The place is like an ice-house. Winter has taken us unawares."
She moved wearily across the great silent hall, and slowly mounted the staircase.
No light shone through the stained-glass window at the bend of the staircase; the stern outline of Rivers knights stood unrelieved by glow of colour. The knight with the dark bared head, his helmet beneath his arm, more than ever seemed to resemble David; not David in his usual quiet gentleness; but David, standing white and rigid, protesting, in startled dismay: "Why not? Why, because, even if I wished—even if you wished—even if we both wished for each other—in that way, Central Africa is no place for a woman. I would never take a woman there."
As she looked at the young knight with the close-cropped dark head, and white face, she remembered her sudden gust of fury against David; and the mighty effort with which she had surmounted it. Her answer came back to her with merciless accuracy; and, turning half way up the second flight of stairs, she faced the shadowy knight, and repeated it in low tones.
"My dear Cousin David, you absolutely mistake my meaning. I gave you credit for more perspicacity. I have not the smallest intention of going to Central Africa, or of ever inflicting my presence or my companionship, upon you.... And you yourself have told me, over and over, that you never expect to return to England."
Diana's hand tightened upon the balustrade, as she stood looking across at the big window. These were the words she had spoken to David.
The bareheaded knight remained immovable; but his face seemed to whiten, and his outline to become more uncompromisingly mail-clad.
"David," came the low tender voice from the staircase, "oh, David, I do want you—'in that way'! I would go to Central Africa or anywhere else in the wide world to be with you, David. Send for me, David, or come to me—oh, David, come to me!"
The tall slim figure on the staircase leaned towards the shadowy window, holding out appealing arms.
A bitter smile seemed to gather on the white face of the steel-clad knight. "I am to provide the myrrh," said David's voice.
Diana turned and moved slowly upward.
She could hear the log fire in the hall beginning to hiss and crackle.
She shivered. "Yes, it is winter," she said; "it is winter again; and it has taken us unawares."