Part 24

"We're not here to blame any one. You, General, evidently think that I'm hostile. I'm not. As far as you're concerned, Ann, whatever you've done is right. Of course I'm a little taken aback to find that my house was chosen for the honeymoon. But if you'd like to have the use of it for a week or so and Ann doesn't object, I'll clear out and leave you to yourselves. You'll make me really happy if you'll accept the offer; it'll be a proof of friendliness. You're wondering why we surprised you so early. It wasn't to prevent you from marrying. It was because Lady Dawn was responsible for Terry and we felt that a runaway match, with the marriage announced after the event, might damage not only her but you, General, as well. I read yesterday in the papers of what you're doing and I want to say just this to you. You're the better man. You deserved to win. Last time we met you refused to shake my hand. I hope you'll take it now. You can afford to be magnanimous to a rival, now that you're Terry's husband."

Tabs stood with his hand held out. Braithwaite made no motion to accept it; and yet his expression was generous. "I can't shake your hand as Terry's husband, Lord Taborley. I'm not married to her."

Lady Dawn sprang to her feet and came between the two tall men. "Not married to her! But you intend to marry her? You told us you were married."

Braithwaite was still smiling. "I am." To their amazement he slipped his arm about Ann and kissed her sleepy, tender mouth. "Terry is safe with your Ladyship's sister. We took her there when she arrived last night."

He turned to Tabs. "You said that I was the better man. I'm not. It was your sense of duty that always urged me. I have to thank your Lordship for the greatest happiness that can befall any man. You made me see it as my greatest happiness, when I was in danger of becoming a cad. There was one thing you said to me that sank into my mind. 'You'll never succeed, however great your courage, unless you start with your honor solvent.' You saved my honor. I didn't like your methods. But I thank you with all my heart now. If it hadn't been for you, neither Ann nor I would have come safely to our journey's end. I think we'd both like to shake your hand."

XI

It was two hours later. They were finishing their breakfast in the open, on the balcony of the Hyde Park Hotel. From where they sat they could watch a lawn-mower traveling slowly back and forth, patterning the sward with alternate stripes of different colored greenness. They could smell the acrid juices of newly cut grass. Beyond the islands of flowers and vivid candelabra of trees, they could see the wild fowl of the Serpentine rise and drift like phantoms across the sultry stretch of blueness. Wheels of a water-cart grumbled sleepily against the gravel. Moving through the sunlit shadows of the Row, riders were returning from their early morning gallop.

They were still together--just the two of them. They were romantically self-conscious of the domestic appearance which their twoness caused. Only married couples or very ardent lovers rise, while the lazy world is sleeping, to keep each other company at breakfast. They had not had the heart to disturb the General and Ann in their temporary possession of the little nest-like house.

Lady Dawn was speaking. "So you've done it again."

"What have I done?"

"What you did for Maisie. How did you put it last night? You've led them to their kingdom."

He smiled. "I seem to have a faculty for doing that. I do for others what I can't do for myself."

Still not looking at him, she said: "Perhaps you don't find your own kingdom because you're too much in love with the search. You don't want to bring your journey to an end. There are people like that."

"I'm not one of them.--I wish you'd look at me, Lady Dawn. Do you know what I covet most in all the world? Rest and certainty. I don't mean a lazy kind of rest, but the rest of a mind at peace with itself--the certainty we all had while the war was on, when we were adventuring for the advantage of other people. I've done nothing lately that wasn't for myself. I want some one to live for, so that I can forget myself. I've been thinking----"

The waiter presented the bill. Tabs scarcely knew whether to curse or bless. He had been approaching the danger-mark; nevertheless, he wasn't at all sure that he was grateful for the interruption. His heart cried out to him to risk humiliation by one last act of daring. Experience warned him that it is the sins of precaution--the follies left uncommitted--that are most regretted by men of seventy.

She rose as he was gathering up his change. The purpose that had brought them to London was ended. There was no further reason for their being together. If they were to prolong their companionship, a new excuse must be invented. He saw by the tentative manner in which she waited, that she also had realized that. He became perturbed lest she might dismiss him. Speaking hurriedly to forestall her, he said, "I suppose we had better make sure of Terry by hunting her up at Mulberry Tree Court."

She barely nodded. Perhaps she thought, now that Braithwaite had been eliminated as a rival, that this making sure of Terry betokened a rekindling of the old infatuation. A constraint grew up between them. It was not until they were standing on the top of the hotel steps, waiting for her car, that he ventured to correct the wrong impression. "Funny about Terry! If it hadn't been for her, we might never have been friends. The first day of my home-coming she drew my attention to you; it was too late--you had passed. You were driving with the Queen in the Park. I remember what Terry said. She called you Di and spoke of you as the most beautiful woman in England."

She gave no sign that she had heard. As though she were unescorted, she passed before him down the steps. But the moment they were seated in the car, she turned to him. She looked her full age. Her face was pale with more than weariness. He noticed the threads of gray in her hair. Ever since he had seen Ann in her flushed shy exaltation, he had felt more keenly the pathos of Lady Dawn. It was a pathos that found an echo in his heart--the pathos of approaching separation. What purpose did it serve her to be beautiful, if she had no man of her own to admire her?

"You were on the verge of telling me something, when the waiter interrupted," she prompted. "It began like a confession. You'd been speaking about living for other people and your need of rest. Then, you said you'd been thinking----"

"It was about how one could make a man's job out of living," he answered quickly. "It's all wrong that one should feel decent only when he's attempting to get slaughtered. It takes neither brains nor perseverance to be dead. Any one can----"

"But it was about finding rest that you were speaking."

"Yes, but I've burdened you with too many of my troubles." He hesitated, wondering whether he dare tell her what had happened to his heart. "I've done nothing for you. I've only borrowed from your strength. You're the most restful woman, the most calm----" Then he dodged. "But since you ask me of what I was thinking, it was of how I might escape to the old hardships. I thought I'd call at the Passport Office and get in touch with the Royal Geographical Society, and commence arrangements to explore----"

"Then I sha'n't be seeing you again?" She asked it in a tone of dreariness, bordering on terror. Her hands trembled in her lap. She stared straight before her.

"But you will." He forced a cheerfulness into his voice which he was far from feeling. "These things take time. It may be weeks----"

"But you'll go away. I know it."

"I suppose I shall. Sooner or later I shall return. In the meanwhile we can write."

She paid no attention to his consolation. Her face was gray as granite. Her hands kept folding and unfolding. There was something symbolic in their emptiness. "You won't come back. It's the end. You weren't sent, after all."

How or why he said it, he never could tell. The words were utterly unpremeditated. He spoke them, ordinarily and unemotionally, as though throwing out a casual suggestion. "We could get married, if that would make you happier."

"It's what I'd like."

His heart missed a beat. He dared not credit his senses. He glanced down at her, prepared to find that she was mocking. The most beautiful woman in England! There was no mistake; she had actually asked him.

"It's what I should like, too." He spoke conventionally. Nothing in his tone betrayed his emotion. "It's what I've been dreaming from the moment that we met---- When would be convenient?"

"As soon as possible."

"Would a week from to-day suit?"

She nodded, "Or sooner."

Beneath the robe his hand sought hers. He did not trust himself to look at her. She was his, all of her and forever. It was marvelous. The secret clasp of her hand was sufficient for the present. He was still doubtful of his fortune and unnerved by his temerity. He felt aloof and disembodied--an uninvolved spectator. And this was love, the journey's end--this smiling stillness, which was so different from anything he had imagined!

They entered Mulberry Tree Court and drew up before the house with the marigold-tinted curtains. It was while they were waiting for the door to be opened that he broke the silence. Smiling down at her with a guilty, glad expression he asked, "We're engaged now, I suppose?"

She returned his smile less certainly. "I'm ashamed. But you won't go----"

He laughed at the folly of her question. "Go, when I've got you, the woman whom I wanted!"

"Then you won't go exploring? You won't exchange me for hardships?"

"Di, dearest, I've done with searching."

The door was opening. She pulled herself together. Porter stood before them, neatly laundered, with the old suspicious meekness in her glance.

"Good morning, Porter. We've come to see Miss Beddow. We've been told that she's staying with my sister."

"She is, your Ladyship. But none of them are down. She arrived so late and unexpected."

They followed her across the hall into the sun-filled drawing-room, with its fragrant flowers, tall windows, rockery-garden and little oval pond, with the toy boat floating on its surface. The moment the door had closed, he had her in his arms. Now that he was sure of her possession, he held her desperately as if he feared that he were going to lose her. "Closer," she whispered. "Closer." It flashed through his memory that the last time he was in that room, he had been the spectator of just such a union and had fled from it because he was excluded.

She stirred against him, lifting up her face.

"This time you're really crying," he whispered. Stooping he pressed her lips. "They always told me you never----"

Freeing her arms, she clasped him tightly about the neck. He could feel the weight of her body, dragging his face lower. She kissed him passionately, stopping his breath, as though she would breathe into him her very soul. "Oh, my dearest--my very dear! How cruel you were! You made me ask you. I thought I'd never get you."

The door was opening. Terry was watching them. The first they knew of her presence was when she spoke.

"You came to see me."

They broke apart like shameful children and stood regarding her, their hands just touching. She seemed their elder.

"I suppose you have the right to jeer at me," she continued slowly. "I'm left out. I was too cold. I'm too late. I didn't want what was offered at the time it was offered. What I didn't want once, I can't have now. And, perhaps, I still don't want it. Tabs used to speak of kingdoms. I never knew what he meant. You've all found yours--Maisie, Braithwaite, both of you and even Ann. Everybody, except me." She laughed to prevent her tears from falling. "I suppose Tabs would tell me that mine's still round the corner. You would, wouldn't you, Tabs?"

Her need, which had been theirs, penetrated their happiness. They felt again the old wild pang of neglected loneliness. Sargent's painting above the mantelpiece, looking down on them, reminded Lady Dawn of her own forgotten tragedy. It was unendurable that their gladness should bring sorrow to Terry. With a common instinct they went towards her. Lady Dawn placed her arms about her. It was Tabs who spoke.

"Little Terry, you're not left out. You're ours more than ever. We've not robbed you. We couldn't. Of you alone it's true that everything lies before you. All the time you've had your kingdom, though you didn't know it. You still have it--the Kingdom of Youth, for which we older people were all searching."

In the silence that followed there stole to them through the summer sunshine, above the mutter of London, the music of a distant barrel-organ. In the mind of Tabs a picture formed; it was of children dancing along a golden pavement on that first spring morning of his disillusion. The tune which the barrel-organ played was the same. His brain sang words to the music:

"Après la guerre There'll be a good time everywhere."

And it was no longer an optimism--it was fulfilled promise.

Surely, beyond the bounds of space, Lord Dawn also listened and was happy. For Tabs, as long as life lasted, it would be the marching-song of the kingdom round the corner.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Kingdom Round the Corner, by Coningsby Dawson