I hurried her upstairs, where the arrangements for the guests were wonderfully managed. Then I felt a sudden uneasiness. Coming down in the train I had determined to give Lilia—God pardon me if I dare to call Mercedes by her old name!—to give the one who is really my own darling the opportunity of showing herself to me in gleams of recognition of her old home. I had planned that some day she should come into the library and find me seated at the table—those pistols before me—then, then, when I am convinced of her soul’s identity, my love for her and hers for me could not be sinful or even faulty, it would be the most natural thing in the world. Now, her old home was changed, scarcely recognisable.
“You have not done anything to the library?” I cried, almost fiercely, I fear; for poor mammy seemed dreadfully “upset,” as women call it, until I pacified her.
The library furniture had been recovered and the position of the chairs and tables altered, that was all. I soon had all the things back in their places. The books were untouched. Standing at the door, the room looked so much the same I could almost conjure up the figure of Sir Roderick, seated in his chair, his long pipe in his mouth.
Oh the misery of recalling the past! Yet, yet, had they not died, would Lilia’s soul and my soul have ever known each other as they do now?
I went to meet her at the station. They were all to have a saloon carriage—the prince and princess, the Forwoods, and Lady Boisville. I had invited the count, much against my wish, but in deference to Lady Forwood’s advice. “If you did not, the prince might make an excuse at the last moment, in which case it would hardly do for Mercedes to come,” she said. And recognising that she was right in her suggestion, I wrote to the fellow. Fortunately he had accepted an invitation to deer-stalk, and was going to the Lakes on his way (or said he was, which amounted to the same thing).
Driving to the station in the brougham (the waggonette followed for the men), I felt a dread that she would not come. It seemed too glorious a crown to my wasted, weary life that she would live under my roof, that every hour of each day I could look at her and listen to her voice, that morning and night I should touch her hand.
“Impossible!” I said to myself. “It cannot happen, it will not happen; something will prevent it all at the last moment.”
Shall I ever forget waiting on the platform that September evening? The houses and trees growing dark against a yellow sunset, people coming out of the booking-office and buying papers (travellers by the incoming train), porters trundling the luggage to the end of the platform. How could they all go on in this senseless, mechanical way when the one great event of my life was happening—when Joy was coming for the first time to my tired, thirsty soul?
Then came an awful minute. The signal was down. The electric bell had sounded, “ding-dong, ding-dong” went the porter’s handbell. “Andrew!” I shouted (it seemed to me a shill, frantic cry, but it can scarcely have been, for he only said, “All right, sir,” and no one else looked round), then I saw the steam-cloud and the black engine-front, and rattle-rattle the train came slowly nearer and alongside, how slowly! Was tortoise ever so abominably languid in its creepings?
No one there! That was my first belief. I went up and down by the first-class carriages, then someone touched me on the shoulder—Sir David.