The Incredible Honeymoon

"How proud he is of his house! And well he may be! And when did he arrange all this beautiful furniture?"

"When she banished him from London. It was something to do; and she does like it?"

"She does indeed. Have you furnished it all?"

"Not nearly all. I wanted your advice about the other parlor and the housekeeper's room and – oh, lots of things. Yes, you are quite right in the surmise which I see trembling on those lips. Mrs. Burbidge is going to be our housekeeper. She's staying at old nurse's, ready to come in whenever she's wanted. If any one else decides to keep house for me she can be sewing-maid, or still-room maid, or lady-in-waiting to the hen-roost."

"I see," she said, crumbling bread and looking at him across the glass and the silver and the white flowers. "So this was the house! When I was in the straw nest you made me I never thought the house could be like this. I imagined it damp and desolate, with strips of torn paper – ugly patterns – hanging from the wall, and dust and cobwebs and mice, perhaps even a rat. I was almost sure I heard a rat!"

"Poor, poor little princess."

"Yes, I will!" she said, suddenly, answering a voice that was certainly not his. "I don't care what you say, I will tell him. Edward, when I ran away it wasn't only because I didn't want to be a burden and all that – though that was true, too – the real true truth was that I was frightened. Yes, I was! I shivered in that straw nest and listened and listened and listened, and held my breath and listened again, and I was almost sure I heard something moving in the house; and it was so velvet-dark, and I had to get up every time I wanted to strike a match, because of not setting fire to the straw, and at last there were only four matches left. And I kept thinking – suppose something should come creeping, creeping, very slowly and softly, through the darkness, so that I shouldn't know it until it was close to me and touched me! I couldn't bear it – so I ran away. Now despise me and call me a coward."

But he only said, "My poor Princess, how could I ever have left you alone for a moment?" and came around the table expressly to cut just the right number of white grapes for her from the bunch in the silver basket. Being there, his hand touched her head, lightly, as one might touch the plumage of a bird.

"How soft your hair is!" he said, in a low voice, and went back to his place.

When the meal was over, "Let's clear away," she said, "it won't look so dismal for your nurse when she comes in the morning."

"Let me do it," said he. "Why should you?"

"Ah, but I want to," she said. "And I want to see the kitchen."

And the kitchen was worth seeing, with its rows of shining brasses, its tall clock, its high chintz-flounced mantelpiece. When all was in order, when the table shone bare in its bright, dark mahogany, he mended the fire, for the evening was still chill with the rain, and drew up the big chair for her to the hearth she had just swept. He stood a moment looking down at her.

"May I sit at your feet, Princess?" he asked.

She swept aside her muslin and her gold embroideries to make a place for him. The house was silent, so silent that the crackle of the wood on the hearth seemed loud, and louder still the slow ticking of the tall clock on the other side of the wall. Outside not a breath stirred, only now and then came the tinkle of a sheep-bell, the sound of a hoof on the cobblestones of the stable across the yard, or the rattle of the ring against the manger as some horse, turning, tossed his head.

He leaned back against her chair and threw his head back until he could look at her face. The tips of her fingers touched his forehead lightly and his head rested against her knee; and now he could not see her face any more. Only he felt those smooth finger-tips passing across his brow with the touch of a butterfly caress.

"Are you happy?" he said, once again and very softly.

And once again she answered, "Yes!"

Her hand ceased its movement and lay softly on his hair. His hand came up and found her other hand. For a long time neither spoke. Then suddenly she said, "What is it?" for she had felt the tiniest movement of the head her hand rested on, a movement that told her he had been about to speak and had then thought, "Not now, not yet."

So she said, "What is it?" because she had a secret, and she feared that he knew it.

Then he did speak. He said: "I have something to tell you; I hope you will forgive me. I must tell you now. Ah! let your hand lie there while I tell you. Princess, I have deceived you. If I did not think you would forgive me, I don't think I could tell you, even now."

"I could forgive you anything," she said, so low that he hardly knew he heard it.

"It is this," he said. "That marriage of ours – that mock marriage – ah, try to forgive me for deceiving you! It was a real marriage, my dear; I tricked you into a real marriage. It seemed to be the only way not to lose you. It was a real marriage. You are my wife."

The clock ticked on in the kitchen, the fire crackled on the hearth, far on the down a sheep-bell tinkled and was still. He sat there, immobile, rigid, like a statue of a man, his heart beating a desperate tune of hope and fear. Could she forgive him? Dared he hope it? This moment, so long foreseen, held terrors he had not foretold for it. Was it possible that this deceit of his should come between them, even now? He almost held his breath in a passion of suspense, and the moments fell past slowly, slowly. He could bear it no longer. He sprang up, walked across the room, came back, leaned on the mantelpiece so that she could not see his face.

"Oh, Princess, oh, my dearest!" he said, brokenly, "don't say that you can't forgive me."

She, too, had risen and stood beside him. Now she laid her hand on his shoulder. "It's not that," she said. "I don't know how to tell you. I've nothing to forgive – unless you have, too."

He turned to meet her eyes, and they fell before his.

"Oh, Edward," she said, with a little laugh that was half tears, "don't look like that! My dear, I knew it all the time."

And there they were, clinging to each other like two children saved from a shipwreck.

"You knew?" he said at last.

"Of course I knew," she said.

They drew back to let their eyes meet in that look of incredulous gladness that lovers know when, at last, all barriers are down and true love meets true love without veils or reservations.

"Thank God for this day," he said, reverently.

And at that a thunderous clamor at the house-door broke in on their dream, a clatter and a clangor, a rattling of chains and a volley of resonant reverberatory barks.

"Why, it's Charles!" he cried. "How could he know I was here?"

How, indeed? For it was indeed Charles, incredibly muddy and wet, bounding round in the room the moment the doors were opened, knocking over a chair, clattering the fire-irons, and coming to heavy anchor, with all four feet muddy, on the edge of her white gown.

"I must go and chain him up in the stable," he said, when Charles had been fed with the remains of the supper. "You won't be afraid to be left alone in the house, Princess, dear?"

"I sha'n't be afraid now," she said, caressing Charles's bullet head. "You see, it's all different now. How could I be afraid in my own home?"

THE END