“Oh, Claire! Claire! You blessed infant! I suppose all those preliminary remarks of yours about ‘a letter from Lady Anne’ and the ‘news’ it contained were by way of preparing me for the shock—‘breaking the news’ in fact?”
“Yes,” admitted Claire, flushing a little.
Jean rocked with laughter—gay, spontaneous laughter such as Claire had not heard issue from her lips since the day when Madame de Varigny had come to Staple.
“And you just about succeeded in frightening me to death!” continued Jean. “Oh, Claire, Claire, you adorable little goose, didn’t you know that good news never kills?”
“I didn’t feel at all sure,” returned Claire, laughing a little, too, in spite of herself. “You’ve looked lately as though it wouldn’t take very much of anything—good or bad—to kill you.”
“Well, it would now,” Jean assured her solemnly. “Not all the powers of darkness would prevail against me, I verily believe.” She paused, frowning a little. “How beastly it is though, to feel outrageously happy because someone is dead! It’s indecent. Poor little Nesta! Oh, Claire! Is it hateful of me to feel like this? Do say it isn’t, because—because I can’t help it!”
“Of course it isn’t,” protested Claire. “It’s only natural.”
“I suppose it is. And I really am sorry for Nesta—though I’m so happy myself that it sort of swamps it. Oh, Claire darling”—the shadow passing and sheer gladness of soul bubbling up again into her voice—“I’m bound to kiss someone—at once. It’ll have to be you! And look! Those two may be here any moment—Lady Anne said so. I’m going to make myself beautiful—if I can. I wish I hadn’t grown so thin! The most ravishing frock in the world would look a failure draped on a clothes-horse. Still, I’ll do what I can to conceal from Blaise the hideous ravages of time. And I’m not going to wear black—I won’t welcome him back in sackcloth and ashes! I won’t! I won’t! I’ve got the darlingest frock upstairs—a filmy grey thing like moonlight. I’m going to wear that. I know—I know”—-softly—“that Glyn would understand.”
And if he knew anything at all about it—and one would like to think he did—it is quite certain Peterson would have approved his daughter’s decision. For to his incurably romantic spirit, the idea of a woman going to meet the lover of whom a malign fate had so nearly robbed her altogether, clad in the sable habiliments with which she had paid filial tribute to her father’s death, would have appeared of all things the most incongruous and irreconcilable.
So that when at last a prehistoric vehicle, chartered from the inn of the Green Dragon in the village below, toiled slowly up the hill to Peirnfels and Blaise and Nick climbed down from its musty interior, a slender, moon-grey figure, which might have been observed standing within the shadow of a tall stone pillar and following with straining eyes the snail-like progress of the old-fashioned carriage up the steep white road, flitted swiftly back into the shelter of the house. Claire, dimpling and smiling at the great gateway of the castle, alone received the travellers.