The Second Honeymoon

by Ruby M. Ayres

CHAPTER XXIII

THE UNEXPECTED

Four days passed away, and still the Great Horatio had not arrived in London. He had sent a couple of telegrams from Marseilles explaining that a chill had delayed him.

"Sly old dog," Jimmy growled to Sangster. "He means that he's having a thundering good time where he is."

Sangster laughed.

"Marseilles isn't much of a place. Perhaps he really is ill."

Jimmy grunted something unintelligible.

"I doubt it," he added. "And the devil of it is that Christine doesn't believe me. She doesn't think the old idiot's coming home at all; she doesn't believe anything I tell her—now."

"Nonsense!" But Sangster's eyes looked anxious. He had seen a great deal during the last four days, and for the first time there was a tiny doubt in his mind. Had Christine really lost her love for Jimmy? He was obliged to admit that it seemed as if she had. She never spoke to him if she could help it, and he knew that Jimmy was as conscious of the change as he, knew that Jimmy was worrying himself to a shadow.

"Your brother will turn up when you're least expecting him," he said in his most matter-of-fact voice. "You'll see if he doesn't—and then everything will come right."

Jimmy grunted. He fidgeted round the room and came to anchorage in front of the window. He stood staring out into the not very cheerful street.

Sangster knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose.

"Well, we may as well be going," he said. "I thought you told me we were to lunch with your wife."

"So I did. She's gone shopping this morning—didn't want me. I said we'd meet her at the Savoy at one. I want to call in at my rooms first, if you don't mind." Jimmy spoke listlessly. He was a great deal with Sangster nowadays. Christine so often made excuses for him not to be with her, and he had got into that state when he could not tolerate his own company. He dreaded being left to his thoughts; he would not be alone for a minute if he could help it.

They left Sangster's rooms and went to Jimmy's.

"I asked Christine to come here the other day," Jimmy said with a short laugh as he fitted his key in the door. "She wouldn't, of course."

"Why not?"

"Because Cynthia had been here." He looked away from his friend's
eyes. "I don't blame her. She'll never understand the difference.
That—that other—— I wonder how it ever came about at all now, when
I look back."

Sangster followed him silently.

"I shall give the d——d place up," Jimmy said sullenly. "I can't afford to keep it on really; and if she won't come here——"

Sangster made no comment. Jimmy put his hat down on the table and went over to the sideboard for whisky and glasses.

"Don't be a fool, Jimmy," said Sangster.

He shrugged his shoulders when Jimmy told him to mind his own business.
He turned away.

"Here's a telegram," he said suddenly.

Jimmy turned.

"For me?"

"Yes—your brother I expect."

Jimmy snatched up the yellow envelope and tore it open. He read the message through:

"Coming to London to-night. Meet me Waterloo eight-thirty."

He laughed mirthlessly.

"The Great Horatio?" Sangster asked.

"Yes."

Jimmy had forgotten the whisky. He took up his hat.

"Come on; I must tell Christine." He made for the door.

"You'd better take the wire to show her," said Sangster. They went out into the street together.

"It's too early to go to the Savoy," said Jimmy. He was walking very fast now. There was a sort of eagerness in his face; perhaps he hoped that his brother's presence, as Sangster had said, would make all the difference. "We'll hop along to the hotel and fetch her."

He walked Sangster off his feet. He pushed open the swing door of the hotel with an impatient hand.

"Mrs. Challoner—my wife—is she in?"

The hall porter looked at Jimmy curiously. He thought he and Christine were the strangest married couple he had ever come across. There was a little twinkle in his solemn eyes as he answered:

"Mrs. Challoner went very early, sir. She asked me to telephone to you at the Savoy at one o'clock and say she was sorry she would not be able to meet you——"

"Not be able to meet me?" Jimmy's voice and face were blank.

"That is what Mrs. Challoner said, sir. She went out with a gentleman,—a Mr. Kettering, she told me to say, sir."

Sangster turned sharply away. For the first time for many weeks he was utterly and profoundly sorry for Jimmy Challoner, as he stood staring at the hall porter with blank eyes. The eager flush had faded from his face; he looked, all at once, ill and old; he pulled himself together with an effort.

"Oh! All right—thanks—thanks very much."

His voice sounded dazed. He turned and went down the steps to the street; but when he reached the pavement he stood still again, as if he hardly knew what he was doing. When Sangster touched his arm he started violently.

"What is it? Oh, yes—I'm coming." He began to walk on at such a rate that Sangster could hardly keep pace with him. He expostulated good-humouredly:

"What's the hurry, old chap? I'm getting old, remember."

Jimmy slackened speed then. He looked at his friend with burning eyes.

"I'll break every bone in that devil's carcass," he said furiously. "I'll teach him to come dangling after my wife. I ought to have known that was his little game. No wonder she won't go anywhere with me. It's Kettering—damn his impertinence! I suppose he's been setting her against me. He and Horace always thought I was a rotter and an outsider. I'll spoil his beauty for him; I'll——" His voice had risen excitedly. A man passing turned to stare curiously.

Sangster slipped a hand through Jimmy's arm.

"Don't be so hasty, old chap. There's no harm in your wife going out to lunch with Kettering if she wants to. Give her the benefit of the doubt for the present, at least."

"She's chucked me for him. She promised to meet me. She thinks more of him than she does of me, or she'd never have gone." There was a sort of enraged agony in Jimmy's voice, a fierce colour burned in his pale face.

Sangster shrugged his shoulders. It was rather amusing to him that Jimmy should be playing the jealous husband—Jimmy, whose own life had been so singularly selfish and full of little episodes which no doubt he would prefer to be buried and forgotten.

Jimmy turned on him:

"You're pleased, of course. You're chuckling up your sleeve. You think it serves me right—and I dare say it does; but I can't bear it, I tell you—I won't—I won't."

The words were boyish enough, but there was something of real tragedy in his young voice, something that forced the realisation home to Sangster that perhaps it was not merely dog-in-the-manger jealousy that was goading him now, but genuine pain. He looked at him quickly and away again. Jimmy's face was twitching. If he had been a woman one would have said that he was on the verge of an hysterical outburst. Sangster rose to the occasion.

"Let's go and get a drink," he said prosaically. "I'm as dry as dust and we haven't had any lunch."

Jimmy said he wasn't hungry, that he couldn't eat a morsel of anything if it were to save his life. He broke out again into a fresh torrent of abuse of Kettering. He cursed him up hill and down dale. Even when they were in the restaurant to which Sangster insisted on going he could not stop Jimmy's flow of expletives. One or two people lunching near looked at them in amazement. In desperation Sangster ordered a couple of brandies; he forced Jimmy to drink one. Presently he quieted a little. He sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. With the passing of his passionate rage, depression seemed to have gripped him. He was sullen and morose, he would not answer when Sangster spoke to him; when they left the restaurant he insisted on going back to Christine's hotel.

He questioned the porter closely. Where had she gone? Had they driven away together or walked?

They had had a taxi, the man told him. He began to look rather alarmed; there was something in Jimmy's white face and burning eyes that meant mischief, he thought. He told the "Boots" afterwards: "We shall hear more of this—you mark my words."

"A taxi—yes. . . . Go on." Jimmy moistened his dry lips. "You—you didn't hear where—what directions? . . ."

"Yes, sir. The gentleman told me to say Euston, told me to tell the driver to go to Euston, I mean, sir——" the man explained in confusion. He was red in the face now and embarrassed.

"Euston," said Jimmy and Sangster together. They looked at one another, Jimmy with a sort of dread in his eyes, Sangster with anxiety.

"Yes, sir. Euston it was, I'm sure. And the gentleman told me to tell the driver to go as fast as he could."

There was a little silence. Sangster slipped a hand through Jimmy's arm.

"Thanks—thanks very much," he said. He led Jimmy away.

He called a taxi and told the man to drive to Jimmy's rooms. He made no attempt to speak, did not know what to say. Jimmy was leaning back with closed eyes.

Presently:

"Do you think she's gone?" he asked huskily.

Sangster made a hurried gesture of denial:

"No, no."

Jimmy laughed mirthlessly.

"She has," he said. "I know she has. Serves me damned well right. It's all I deserve." There was a little pause. "Well," he said, "she's more than got her own back, if it's any consolation to her to know it."

He felt as if there were a knife being turned in his heart. His whole soul revolted against this enforced pain. He had never suffered like this in all his life before. Even that night at the theatre, when Cynthia Farrow had given him his congé, he had not suffered as now; then, it had been more damage to his pride than his heart; but this—he loved Christine—he knew now that he loved little Christine as he had never loved any other woman, as he never would love anyone again.

He cursed himself for a blind fool. It goaded him to madness to think of the happiness that had been his for the taking, and which he had let fall to the ground. He clenched his teeth in impotent rage. When they reached his rooms he threw his hat and coat aside, and began pacing up and down as if he could not keep still for a moment. Life was insufferable, intolerable; he could not imagine how he was going to get through all the stretch of years lying in wait for him. He had forgotten that the Great Horatio was coming home that night; the Great Horatio had suddenly faded out of the picture; it was no longer a thing of importance if his allowance were cut down, or stopped once and for all. All he wanted was Christine—Christine. He would have given his soul for her at that moment, for just one glimpse of the old trust and love in her brown eyes, for just a sight of the happy smile with which she had greeted him when they were first engaged. They had all been his once, and now he had lost her forever.

Another man had taken and prized the treasure he had blindly thrown away. Jimmy groaned as he paced up and down, up and down.

Sangster was pretending to read. He turned the pages of a magazine, but he saw nothing of what was written there. In his own way he was as unhappy as Jimmy, in his own way he was suffering tortures of doubt and apprehension.

He did not know Kettering; had only seen him once at Upton House; but he fully realised that the man had a strong personality, and one very likely to hold and keep such a nature as Christine's.

But he could not bear to think of the shipwreck this meant for them all. He could not believe that her love for Jimmy had died so completely; she had loved him so dearly.

Jimmy came over to where he sat:

"Go and ring up again, there's a dear chap," he said. His voice was hoarse. "Ring up the hotel for me, will you? She may have come back. . . . Oh, I hope to God she has," he added brokenly.

Sangster rose at once. He held out his hand.

"I'm so sorry, Jimmy. I'd give anything—anything——" he stopped. "But it's all right, you see," he added cheerily, struck by the despair in his friend's face. "She'll be back there by now. We're both getting scared about nothing. . . . I'll ring up."

He walked over to the desk where Jimmy's 'phone stood. There was a moment of suspense as he rang and gave the number.

Jimmy had begun his restless pacing once more. His hands were deep thrust in his trousers pockets, his head bent. His heart seemed to be hammering in his throat as he tried not to listen to what Sangster was saying—tried not to hear.

"Yes. . . . Challoner—Mrs. Challoner. I only wondered if she had returned. . . . Not yet—oh. . . . Yes. . . . A wire. . . . Yes. . . ."

There was a little silence; a tragic silence it seemed to Jimmy. He was standing still now. He felt as if his limbs had lost all power of movement. His eyes were fixed on Sangster's averted face. After a moment Sangster hung up the receiver.

He did not turn at once; when, at last, he moved, it was very slowly. He went across to Jimmy and laid a hand on his arm. "She's not there, old man; but . . . but there's a wire from her—she wired to the manager. . . ." He paused. He looked away from the agony in Jimmy's eyes. He tried twice to find his voice before he could go on, then:

"She—she's not coming back to-night," he said. "The—the wire was sent from—from Oxford . . ."

And now the silence was like the silence of death. Sangster held his breath. He could feel the sudden rigidness of Jimmy Challoner's arm beneath his hand.

Then Jimmy turned away and dropped into a chair by the table. He fell forward with his face hidden in his outstretched arms.

"Oh, my God!" he said in a hoarse whisper.

It was so useless to try and offer any consolation. Sangster stood looking at him with a suspicious moisture in his honest eyes. Christine—little Christine! His heart felt as if it were breaking as he thought of her—of her love for Jimmy—of the first days of their engagement. And now it was in vain that he tried to remember that Jimmy was to blame for it all. He tried to harden his heart against him; but, somehow, he could not. He went over to where he sat and laid a kind hand on his shoulder.

"Don't give up yet, boy." At that moment he felt years older than his friend. "There may be some mistake. Don't let's give up till we're sure—quite sure——"

Jimmy raised his face. His lips were grey and pinched.

"It's no use," he said hopelessly. "No use. . . . Somehow I know it. . . . Oh, my God! If I could only have it over again—just a day. . . ." The anguish in his voice would have wrung a harder heart than Sangster's. For a moment there was unbroken silence in the room. Then Jimmy struggled to his feet.

"I must go after her. She won't come back, I know. But at least I can try. . . . It may not be too late—— Kettering—damn him! . . ." He broke off. He stood for a moment swaying to and fro.

Sangster caught his arm.

"You're not fit to go. Let me. . . . I'll do all I can. . . I give you my word of honour that I'll move heaven and earth to find her. And we may be mistaken. We may. . . ." He broke off. Someone had knocked softly on the door. For a moment neither of them answered, then the handle was softly turned, and Christine stood there on the threshold. . . .

Sangster caught his breath hard in his throat. He looked at her, and he had to hold himself back with an iron hand to keep from rushing to her, from falling at her feet in abasement for the very real doubt and dread that he had cherished against her.

She looked so young—such a child, and her brown eyes were so sweet and shy as she looked at Jimmy—never at him. He realised it with a little stabbing pain that it was not once at him that she looked, but past him, to where Jimmy stood like a man turned to stone.

Then: "Christine," said Jimmy Challoner with a great cry.

He put out his hand and touched her, almost as if he doubted that she was real. His breath was coming fast; he was ashen pale.

"Christine," he said again in a whisper.

Sangster moved past him. He did not look at Christine any more. He walked to the door and opened it. He hesitated a moment, wondering if either of them would see him going, be conscious of his presence. But he might not have been there for all they knew. He went out slowly and shut the door behind him.

It was the shutting of the door that broke the spell, that roused Jimmy from the lethargy into which he had fallen. He tried to laugh.

"I'm sorry. I—I didn't expect you." The words sounded foolish to himself. He tried to cover them. "Won't you sit down? I'm—I'm glad. . . ." A wave of crimson surged to his face. "Oh, my God! I am glad to see you," he said hoarsely.

He groped backwards for his chair and fell into it.

A most humiliating weakness came over him. He hid his face in his hands.

Christine stood looking at him with troubled eyes; then she put out her hand and touched him timidly:

"Jimmy!"

He caught her hand and carried it to his lips. He kissed it again and again—the little fingers, the soft palm, the slender wrist.

"I thought I should never see you again. I couldn't have borne it. . . . Christine—oh my dear, forgive me, forgive me. I'm so wretched, so utterly, utterly miserable. . . ."

The appeal was so boyish—so like the old selfish Jimmy whom Christine had loved and spoilt in the days when they were both children. It almost seemed as if the years were rolled away again and they were down at Upton House, making up a childish quarrel—Jimmy asking for pardon, she only too anxious to kiss and be friends.

Tears swam into her eyes and her lips trembled; but she did not move.

"I want to tell you something," she said slowly.

He looked up, his eyes full of a great dread.

"Not that you're going away—I can't bear it. You'll drive me mad—Christine—little Christine." He was on his knees beside her now, his arms round her waist, his face buried in the soft folds of her dress. "Forgive me, Christine—forgive me. I love you so, and I've been punished enough. I thought you'd gone away with that devil—that brute Kettering. I've been half mad!" He flung back his head and looked at her. She was very flushed. Her eyes could not meet his.

"That's—that's just what I want to tell you," she said in a whisper.

Jimmy's arms fell from about her. He rose to his feet slowly; he tried to speak, but no words would come. Then, quite suddenly, he broke down into sobbing.

He was very much of a boy still, was Jimmy Challoner. Perhaps he would never grow up into a man as Kettering and Sangster understood the word; but his very boyishness was what Christine had first loved in him. Perhaps he could have chosen no surer or swifter way to her forgiveness than this. . . .

In a moment her arms were round his neck. She tried to draw his head down to her shoulder. Her sweet face was all concern and motherly tenderness as she kissed him and kissed him.

"Don't, Jimmy—don't! Oh, I do love you—I do love you."

She began to cry too, and they kissed and clung together like children who have quarrelled and are sorry.

Jimmy drew her into his arms, and they sat clasping one another in the big arm-chair. It was a bit of a squeeze, but neither of them minded. His arms were round her now, her head on his shoulder. He kissed her every minute. He said that he had all the byegone years of both their lives to make up for. He asked her a hundred times if she really loved him; if she had forgiven him; and if she loved him as much as she had done a month ago—two months ago; if she loved him as much as when they were children; and if she would love him all his life and hers.

"All my life and yours," she told him with trembling lips.

He had kissed the colour back to her cheeks by this time. She looked more like the girl he had seen that fateful night in the stalls at the theatre. He kissed her eyes because he said they were so beautiful. He kissed her hair.

Presently she drew a little away from him.

"But I want to talk to you," she said. She would not look at him. She sat nervously twisting his watch-chain.

"Yes," said Jimmy. He lifted her hand and held it against his lips all the time she spoke.

"It's about—about Mr. Kettering," she said in a whisper.

Jimmy swore—a sign that he was feeling much better.

"I don't want to hear his confounded name."

"Oh, but you must—Jimmy. I—I—he——"

"He's been making love to you——"

No answer. Jimmy took her face in his hands, searching its flushed sweetness with jealous eyes.

"Has he?" he demanded savagely.

"N-no . . . but . . . oh, Jimmy, don't look like that. He only came up this morning because—because Gladys is ill. He thought I ought to know and—and—I thought I would go down and see her. But in the train——" she faltered.

"Yes . . ." said Jimmy from between his teeth.

Christine raised her brown eyes.

"He said—he said——" Suddenly she fell forward, hiding her face against his coat. "Oh, it doesn't matter, dear; it doesn't matter, because it was then that I knew it was only you I wanted—only you I loved. I knew that I couldn't bear any other man to say that he loved me—that it was you—only you."

"Oh, my sweet!" said Jimmy huskily. He turned her face and kissed her lips. "I don't deserve it; but—oh, Christine, do believe that there's never been anyone like you in my life; that I've never cared for anyone as I do for you—all that—that other——"

"I know—I know," she was thinking remorsefully of the days when Kettering had seemed to come before Jimmy in her heart; of the days when she had been unhappy because he stayed away. And now there was a deep thankfulness in her heart that he himself had brought things to a climax. She had been so pleased to see him when he called at the hotel that morning. She had never dreamed that sheer longing had driven him to London to see her, or that he had made Gladys the excuse. She had readily agreed to a run down to Upton House to see Gladys. She had started off with him quite happily and unsuspectingly. And then—even now it sent a little shiver of dread through her to think of the way he had spoken—the way he had pleaded with her—looked at her.

He had held her hands, kissed them, he had tried to kiss her, and it had been the touch of his lips that had melted the numbness of her heart and told her that she loved Jimmy; that in spite of everything that had happened, everything he had done, he was the one and only man who would ever count in her life. Passionate revulsion had driven her back to London. She had parted with Kettering then and there. She had told him that she never wished to see him again. She had felt as if she could never be happy till she was back with Jimmy, till she had made it up with him, till they had kissed and forgiven one another. She told him all this now simply enough. The little Christine of happier days had come back from the land of shadowy memories to which she had retreated as she sat on Jimmy's knee and kissed him between their little broken sentences and asked him to forgive her.

"I've never, never loved anyone but you, Jimmy," she said earnestly.
"I've never really loved anyone but you."

And Jimmy said, "Thank God!"

He looked at her with passionate thankfulness and love. He told her all that he had suffered since he went to the hotel and found she had gone. He said that she had punished him even more than she could ever have hoped.

"And that wire—— There was a wire to say that you were not coming back," he said with sudden bitter memory. She nodded.

"I sent it from Oxford. We had to change there. I meant to stay with
Gladys. Poor Gladys!" she added with a little soft laugh of happiness.

"She can do without you—I can't," he said quickly.

"Really and truly?" she asked wistfully.

Jimmy drew her again into his arms. He held her soft cheek to his own.

"I've never really wanted anything or anyone badly in all my life until now," he said. "Now you're here, in my arms, and I've got the whole world."

They sat silent for a little.

"Happy?" asked Jimmy in a whisper.

Christine nodded.

"Quite—quite happy," she told him.

Presently:

"Jimmy, you won't—you won't be horrid to—to Mr. Kettering, will you?
He was kind to me—he was very kind to me when—when I was so unhappy."

"Were you very unhappy, my sweet?"

"Dreadfully."

"I'm sorry, darling—so sorry. I can't tell you."

Christine kissed him.

"You won't ever be unkind again, Jimmy?"

"Never—never! Do you believe me?"

She looked into his eyes.

"Yes."

"And you do love me?"

Christine made a little grimace.

"I'm tired of answering that question."

"I shall never be tired of asking it," he said. "And about Kettering? We shan't ever need to see him again, shall we? So there'll be no chance for me to tell him that I should like to punch his beastly head."

Christine laughed happily, then she grew serious all at once.

"Jimmy, do you know that I somehow think he will marry Gladys——"

"What!" said Jimmy in amazement.

She nodded seriously.

"I believe Gladys likes him. I don't know, but I do believe she does.
And she'd make him a splendid wife."

Jimmy screwed up his nose.

"Don't let's talk about her," he said. "I'd much rather talk about my own wife——"

Christine flushed.

"Do you think I shall make a—nice wife, Jimmy?" she asked in a whisper.

Jimmy caught her to his heart.

"Do I? Darling—I can't—somehow I can't answer that question. I'm not half good enough for you. I don't deserve that you——" he began brokenly.

She laid her hand on his lips.

"You're not to say rude things about my husband," she told him with pretended severity.

He kissed the hand that covered his mouth.

"And so when the Great Horatio comes——" said Christine. Jimmy gave a stifled exclamation; he dragged his watch from his pocket.

"By Jove!" he said.

"What's the matter?" she asked anxiously.

He explained:

"I had a wire from the old chap. We were to meet him at Waterloo this evening at eight-thirty; it's nearly eight now."

Christine climbed down from his knee with a sudden show of dignity.

"We must go at once—of course we must." She came back for a moment to his arms. "Oh, Jimmy, aren't you glad that we're really—really all right, that we haven't got to pretend now the Great Horatio is home?"

"I can never tell you how glad," said Jimmy humbly.

They kissed, and Christine danced over to the looking-glass to put her hat straight.

Jimmy watched her with adoring eyes. Suddenly:

"I shall tell him that we can't stay after to-night," he said decidedly. "I shall tell him that he can't possibly expect it."

Christine looked round.

"Tell whom—your brother? What do you mean—that he can't expect it?"

Jimmy put an arm round her.

"I shall tell him—don't you know what I shall tell him?" he said fondly. He bent his head suddenly to hers. "I'll tell him that we're going away to-morrow"—his voice dropped to a whisper—"on a second honeymoon."

"Oh!" said Christine softly.