Lucian the dreamer

by J. S. Fletcher

Then, finding that it was time he set out for King’s Cross, he kissed his wife’s cheek, bade her amuse and take care of herself during his absence, and went away, still in good spirits. For some time after he had gone Haidee remained where he had left her. She ate and drank mechanically, and she looked straight before her in the blank, purposeless fashion which often denotes intense concentration of thought. When she rose from the table she walked about the room with aimless, uncertain movements, touching this and that object without any reason for doing so. She picked up the Morning Post, glanced at it, and saw nothing; she fingered two or three letters which Lucian had left lying about on the breakfast-table, and laid them down again. They reminded her, quite suddenly, of a letter from Eustace Darlington which she had in her pocket, a trivial note, newly arrived, which informed her that he had made some purchase or other for her in Paris, whither he had gone for a week on business, and that she would shortly receive a parcel containing it. There was nothing of special interest or moment in the letter; she referred to it merely to ascertain Darlington’s address.

After a time Haidee went into the study and sought out a railway guide. She had already made up her mind to join Eustace Darlington, and she now decided to travel by a train which would enable her to reach Paris at nine o’clock that evening. She began to make her preparations at once, and instructed her maid to pack two large portmanteaus. Her jewels she packed herself, taking them out of a safe in which they were usually deposited, and after she had bestowed them in a small handbag she kept the latter within sight until her departure. Everything was carried out with coolness and thoughtfulness. The maid was told that her mistress was going to Paris for a few days and that she was to accompany her; the butler received his orders as to what was to be done until Mrs. Damerel’s return the next day or the day following. There was nothing to surprise the servants, and nothing to make them talk, in Haidee’s proceedings. She lunched at an earlier hour than usual, drove to the station with her maid, dropped a letter, addressed to Lucian at Simonstower vicarage, into the pillar-box on the platform, and departed for Paris with an admirable unconcern. There was a choppy sea in the Channel, and the maid was ill, but Haidee acquired a hearty appetite, and satisfied it in the dining-car of the French train. She was one of those happily constituted people who can eat at the greatest moments of life.

She drove from the Gare du Nord to the Hôtel Bristol, and engaged rooms immediately on her arrival. A little later she inquired for Darlington, and then discovered that he had that day journeyed to Dijon, and was not expected to return until two days later. Haidee, in nowise disconcerted by this news, settled down to await his reappearance.

CHAPTER XXIV

Lucian arrived at the old vicarage towards the close of the afternoon. He had driven over from Oakborough through a wintry land, and every minute spent in the keen air had added to the buoyancy of his spirits. Never, he thought as he was driven along the valley, did Simonstower look so well as under its first coating of snow, and on the rising ground above the village he made his driver stop so that he might drink in the charm of the winter sunset. At the western extremity of the valley a shelving hill closed the view; on its highest point a long row of gaunt fir-trees showed black and spectral against the molten red of the setting sun and the purpled sky into which it was sinking; nearer, the blue smoke of the village chimneys curled into the clear, frosty air—it seemed to Lucian that he could almost smell the fires of fragrant wood which burned on the hearths. He caught a faint murmur of voices from the village street: it was four o’clock, and the children were being released from school. Somewhere along the moorland side a dog was barking; in the windows of his uncle’s farmhouse, high above the river and the village, lights were already gleaming; a spark of bright light amongst the pine and fir trees near the church told him that Mr. Chilverstone had already lit his study-lamp. Every sound, every sight was familiar—they brought the old days back to him. And there, keeping stern watch over the village at its foot, stood the old Norman castle, its square keep towering to the sky, as massive and formidable as when Lucian had first looked upon it from his chamber window the morning after Simpson Pepperdine had brought him to Simonstower.

He bade the man drive on to the vicarage. He had sent no word of his coming; he had more than once descended upon his friends at Simonstower without warning, and had always found a welcome. The vicar came bustling into the hall to him, with no sign of surprise.

‘I did not know they had wired to you, my boy,’ he said, greeting him in the old affectionate way, ‘but it was good of you to come so quickly.’

Lucian recognised that something had happened.

‘I don’t understand you,’ he said. ‘No one wired to me; I came down on my own initiative—I wanted to see my uncle on business.’

‘Ah!’ said the vicar, shaking his head. ‘Then you do not know?—your uncle is ill. He had a stroke—a fit—you know what I mean—this very morning. Your Aunt Judith is across at the farm now. But come in, my dear boy—how cold you must be.’