The Moon out of Reach

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE PRICE

  A sense of bustle and mild excitement pervaded Trenby Hall. The houndswere to meet some distance away, and on a hunting morning it invariablynecessitated the services of at least two of the menservants andpossibly those of an observant maid--who had noted where last he hadleft his tobacco pouch--to get Roger off successfully.

  "My hunting boots, Jenkins!" he demanded as he issued from the library."And look sharp with them! Flask and sandwich-case--that's right." Hebusied himself bestowing these two requisites in his pockets.

  Nan, cool and unperturbed; joined him in the hall, a small, amusedsmile on her face. She had stayed at Trenby long enough by now to bewell used to the cyclone which habitually accompanied Roger's departureto the meet, and the boyish unreasonableness of it--seeing that thewell-trained servants invariably had everything in readiness forhim--rather appealed to her. He was like a big, overgrown school-boyreturning to school and greatly concerned as to whether his cricket-batand tuck-box were safely included amongst his baggage.

  "You, darling?" Roger nodded at her perfunctorily, preoccupied withthe necessities of the moment. "Now, have I got my pipe?"--slappinghis pockets to ascertain. To miss his customary pipe as he trottedleisurely home after the day's hunting was unthinkable. "Matches!I've no matches! Here, Morton"--to the butler who was standing by withRoger's hunting-crop in his hand. "Got any matches?"

  Morton produced a box at once. He had been in Roger's service fromboyhood, fought side by side with him in Flanders, and no demand of hismaster's had yet found him unprepared. Nan was wont to declare thathad Roger requested the Crown jewels, Morton would have immediatelyproduced them from his pocket.

  Outside, a groom was patiently walking a couple of horses up and down.Quivering, velvety nostrils snuffed the keen air while gleaming blackhoofs danced gently on the gravel drive, executing little side steps ofexcitement--for no hunting day comes round but that in some mysteriousway the unerring instinct of the four-legged hunter acquaints him ofthe fact. Further along clustered the pack, the hounds paddingrestlessly here and there, but kept within bounds by the occasionalcrack of a long-lashed crop or a gruff command from one of the whips.

  Nan was always conscious of a curious intermingling of feeling when, asnow, she watched Roger ride away at the head of his hounds. The dayshe had almost lost her life at the kennels recurred to her mindinevitably--those moments of swift and terrible danger when it seemedas though nothing could save her. And with that memory cameanother--the memory of Roger flinging himself forward to the rescue,forcing back with bare hands the great hound which had attacked her. Aquick thrill--the thrill of primitive woman--ran through her at therecollection. No woman can remain unmoved by physical courage--moreespecially if it is her own imperative need which has called it forth.

  That was the side of Roger which she liked best to dwell upon. But shewas rapidly learning that he had other less heroically attractivesides. No man who has been consistently spoiled and made much of by acouple of women is likely to escape developing a certain amount ofselfishness, and Nan had already discovered that Roger was somewhatinclined to play the autocrat. As he grew accustomed to her presencein the house he settled down more or less tranquilly into the normalways of existence, and sometimes, when things went awry, he would losehis temper pretty badly, as is the natural way of man.

  Unfortunately, Nan's honest endeavours to get on better terms with herfuture mother-in-law met with no success. Lady Gertrude had presentedan imperturbably polite and hostile front almost from the moment of thegirl's arrival at the Hall. Even at dinner the first evening, she hadcast a disapproving eye upon Nan's frock--a diaphanous little garmentin black: with veiled gleams of hyacinth and gold beneath the surfaceand apparently sustained about its wearer by a thread of the sameglistening hyacinth and gold across each slender shoulder.

  With the quickness of a squirrel Isobel Carson, demurely garbed asbefitted a poor relative, noted the disapprobation conveyed by LadyGertrude's sweeping glance.

  "I suppose that's what they're wearing now in town?" she askedconversationally of Nan across the table.

  Roger looked up and seeing the young, privet-white throat and shoulderswhich gleamed above the black, smiled contentedly.

  "It's jolly pretty, isn't it?" he rejoined, innocently unaware that anyintention lurked behind his cousin's query.

  "It might be--if there were more of it," said Lady Gertrude icily. Shehad not failed to notice earlier that Nan was wearing the abbreviatedskirt of the moment--though in no way an exaggerated form ofit--revealing delectable shoes and cobwebby stockings which seemed tocry out a gay defiance to the plain and serviceable footgear which sheherself affected.

  "It does look just a tiny bit daring--in the country," murmured Isobeldeprecatingly. "You see, we're used to such quiet fashions here."

  "I don't think anything can be much quieter than black," replied Nanevenly.

  There for the moment the matter rested, but the next day Roger hadasked her, rather diffidently, if she couldn't find something plainerto wear in an evening.

  "I thought you liked the dress," she countered.

  "Well--yes. But--"

  "But your mother has been talking t0 you about it? Is that it?"

  Roger nodded.

  "Even Isobel thought it a little outre for country wear," he saideagerly, making matters worse instead of better, in the blundering waya man generally contrives to do when he tries to settle a femininedifference of opinion.

  Nan's foot tapped the floor impatiently and a spark of anger lit itselfin her eyes.

  "I don't think my choice of clothes has anything to do with MissCarson," she answered sharply.

  "No, sweetheart, of course it hasn't, really. But I know you'd like toplease my mother--and she's not used to these new styles, you see."

  He stumbled on awkwardly, then drew her into his arms and kissed her.

  "To please me--wear something else," he said. Although unformulatedeven to himself, Roger's creed was of the old school. He quitehonestly believed that a woman's chief object in life was to please hermale belongings, and it seemed to him a perfectly good arrangement.

  Not to please him, but because she was genuinely anxious to win LadyGertrude's liking, Nan yielded. Perhaps if she conceded thisparticular point it would pave the way towards a better understanding.

  "Very well," she said, smiling. "That especial frock shan't appearagain while I'm down here. But it's a duck of a frock, really,Roger!"--with a feminine sigh of regret.

  She was to find, however, as time went on, that there were very manyother points over which she would have to accept Lady Gertrude'srulings. Punctuality at meals was regarded at Trenby Hall as one ofthe laws of the Medes and Persians, and Nan, accustomed to the libertygenerally accorded a musician in such matters, failed on more than oneoccasion to appear at lunch with the promptness expected of her.

  In the West Parlour---a sitting-room which Lady Gertrude herself neverused--there was a fairly good piano, and here Nan frequently foundrefuge, playing her heart out in the welcome solitude the roomafforded. Inevitably she would forget the time, remaining entirelyoblivious of such mundane things as meals. Then she would be sharplyrecalled to the fact that she had committed an unforgivable sin byreceiving a stately message from Lady Gertrude to the effect that theywere waiting lunch for her.

  On such occasions Nan sometimes felt that it was almost a physicalimpossibility to enter that formal dining-room and face the glacialdisapproval manifest on Lady Gertrude's face, the quick glance ofcondolence which Isobel would throw her--and which always somehowfilled her with distrust--and the irritability which Roger was scarcelyable to conceal.

  Roger's annoyance was generally due to the veiled criticism which hismother and cousin contrived to exude prior to her appearance. Nothingdefinite--an intonation here, a double-edged phrase there--but enoughto show him that his future wife fell far short of the standard LadyGertrude had in mind
for her. It nettled him, and accordingly he feltirritated with Nan for giving his mother a fresh opportunity fordisapprobation.

  They were all unimportant things--these small jars and clashes of habitand opinion. But to Nan, who had been used to such absolute freedom,they were like so many links of a chain which held and chafed her. Shefretted under them as a caged bird frets. Gradually, too, she wasawakening to the limitations of the life which would be hers when shemarried Roger, realising that, much as he loved her, he was quiteunable to supply her with either the kind of companionship or themental stimulus her temperament craved and which the little coterie ofclever, brilliant people who had been her intimates in town had givenher in full measure. The Trenbys' circle of friends interested her notat all. The men mostly of the sturdy, sporting type, bored herineffably, and she found the women, with their perpetual local gossipand discussion of domestic difficulties, dull and uninspiring. Of theMcBains, unfortunately, she saw very little, owing to the distance,between the Hall and Trevarthen Wood.

  It was, therefore, with a cry of delight that she welcomed Sandy, whoarrived in his two-seater shortly after Roger had ridden off to themeet. Lady Gertrude and Isobel had already gone out together, bentupon some parochial errand in the village, so that Nan was alone withher thoughts. And they were not particularly pleasant ones.

  "Sandy!" She greeted him with outstretched hands. "You angel boy! Iwasn't even hoping to see you for another few weeks or so."

  "Just this minute arrived--thought it about time I looked you upagain," returned Sandy cheerfully. "I met Trenby about a mile away andscattered his horses and hounds to the four winds of heaven with mystink-pot."

  "Yes," agreed Nan reminiscently. "Why does your car smell soatrociously, Sandy?"

  "It's only in slow movements--never in a presto. That's why I'm alwaysgetting held up for exceeding the speed limit. I'm bound to let herrip--out of consideration to the passersby."

  "Well, I'm awfully glad you felt moved to come over here this morning.I'm--I'm rather fractious to-day, I think. Do you suppose LadyGertrude will ask you to stay to lunch?"

  "I hope so. But as it's only about ten-thirty a.m., lunch is merely afuturist dream at present."

  "I know. I wonder why there are such enormous intervals between mealsin the country?" said Nan speculatively. "In town there's never anytime to get things in and meals are a perfect nuisance. Here they seemto be the only breaks in the day."

  "That," replied Sandy sententiously, "is because you're leading an idleexistence. You're not doing anything--so of course there's no time todo it in."

  "Not doing anything? Well, what is there to do?" She flung out herhands with an odd little gesture of hopelessness. "Besides, I am doingsomething--I learned how to make puddings yesterday, and to-morrow I'mto be initiated into soup jellies--you know, the kind of stuff you trotaround to old women in the village at Christmas time."

  "Can't the cook make them?"

  "Of course she can. But Lady Gertrude is appalled at my lack ofdomestic knowledge--so soup jellies it has to be."

  Sandy regarded her thoughtfully. She seemed spiritless, and thecharming face held a gravity that was quite foreign to it. In thesearching winter sunlight he could even discern one or two faint linesabout the violet-blue eyes, while the curving mouth, with itsprovocative short upper lip, drooped rather wearily at its corners.

  "You're bored stiff," he told her firmly. "Why don't you run up totown for a few days and see your pals there?"

  Nan shrugged her shoulders.

  "For the excellent reason that half of them are away, or--or married orsomething."

  Only a few days previously she had seen the announcement of MaryonRooke's marriage in the papers, and although the fact that he wasmarried had now no power to wound her, it was like the snapping of yetanother link with that happy, irresponsible, Bohemian life which sheand Penelope had shared together.

  "Sandy"--she spoke impetuously. "After I'm--married, I don't think Ishall ever go to London again. It would be like peeping into heaven.Then the door would slam and I'd come back--here! I'm out of itnow--out of everything. The others will all go on singing and playingand making books and pictures--right in the heart of it all. While Ishall be stuck away here . . . by myself . . . making soup jellies!"

  She sprang up and walked restlessly to the window, staring out at theundulating meadowland.

  "I'm sick of the sight of those fields!" she exclaimed almostviolently. "The same deadly dull green fields day after day. If--ifone of them would only turn pink for a change it would be a relief!"Her breath caught in a strangled sob.

  Sandy followed her to the window.

  "Look here, Nan, you can't go on like this." There was an unaccustomeddecision in his tones; the boyish inflection had gone. It was a manwho was speaking, and determinedly, too. "You've no business to beeverlastingly gazing at green fields. You ought to be turning 'em intomusic so that the people who've got only bricks and mortar to stare atcan get a whiff of them."

  Nan gazed at him in astonishment--at this new, surprising Sandy who wastalking to her with the forcefulness of a man ten years his senior.

  "As for being 'out of it,' as you say," he went on emphatically. "Ifyou are, it's only by your own consent. Anyone who writes as you canneed never be out of it. If you'd only do the big stuff you're capableof doing, you'd be 'in it' right enough--half the time confabbing withsingers and conductors, and the other half glad to get back to yourgreen fields and the blessed quiet. If you were like me, now--not adamn bit of good because I've no technical knowledge . . ."

  In an instant her quick sympathies responded to the note of regretwhich he could not keep quite out of his voice.

  "Sandy, I'm a beast to grouse. It's true--you've had much harderluck." She spoke eagerly, then paused, checked by a sudden piercingmemory. "But--but music . . . after all, it isn't the only thing."

  "No," he returned cheerfully. "But it will do quite well to go onwith. Let's toddle along to the piano and amuse each other."

  She nodded, and together they made their way to the West Parlour.

  "Have you written anything new?" he asked, turning over some sheets ofscribbled, manuscript that were lying on the piano. "Let's hear it."

  Rather reluctantly she played him a few odd bits of her recentwork--the outcome of dull, depressing days.

  Sandy listened, and as he listened his lips set in an uncompromisingstraight line.

  "Well, I never heard more maudlin piffle in my life!" was his frankcomment when she had finished. "If you can't do better than that,you'd better shut the piano and go digging potatoes."

  Nan laughed rather mirthlessly.

  "I don't know what sort of a hand you'd make at potato digging,"pursued Sandy. "But apparently this is the net result of your musicalstudies"--and, seating himself at the piano, he rattled off a causticparody of her performance.

  "Rank sentimentalism, Nan," he said coolly, as he dropped his handsfrom the keys. "And you know it as well as I do."

  "Yes, I suppose it is. But it's impossible to do any serious workhere. Lady Gertrude fairly radiates disapproval whenever I spend anhour or two at the piano. Oh!"--her sense of humour rising uppermostfor a moment--"she asked me to play to them one evening, so I gave themsome Debussy--out of sheer devilment, I think"--smiling a little--"andat the end Lady Gertrude said politely: 'Thank you. And now, might wehave something with a little more tune in it?"

  Sandy shouted with delight.

  "After all, people like that are awfully refreshing," he said at last.

  "At times," admitted Nan. "All the same," she went on dispiritedly,"one must be in the right atmosphere to do anything worth while."

  "Well, I'm exuding as much as I can," said Sandy. "Atmosphere, I mean.Look here, what about that concerto for pianoforte and orchestra whichyou had in mind? Have you done anything to it yet?"

  She shook her head.

  "Then get on to it quick--and stick at it.
Don't waste your timewriting the usual type of sentimental ballad-song--a degree or twobelow par."

  Nan was silent for a few minutes. Then:

  "Sandy," she said, "you're rather like a dose of physic--wholesome butunpalatable. I'll get to work to-morrow. Now let's go and forage forsome food. You've made me fearfully hungry--like a long sermon inchurch."

  Christmas came, bringing with it, at Roger's suggestion, a visit fromLord St. John, and his presence at the house worked wonders in the wayof transforming the general atmosphere. Even Lady Gertrude thawedbeneath the charm of his kindly, whimsical personality, and to Nan thefew days he spent at the Hall were of more value than a dozen tonics.She was no longer shut in alone with her own thoughts--with him shecould talk freely and naturally. Even the under-current of hostilecriticism of which she was almost hourly conscious ceased to fret hernerves.

  Insensibly Lord St. John's evident affection for his niece and quietappreciation of her musicianship influenced Lady Gertrude for the timebeing, softening her attitude towards her future daughter-in-law, eventhough it brought her no nearer understanding her. Isobel, alertlycapable of adapting herself to the prevailing atmosphere, reflected inher manner the same change. She had long since learned to keep theprivate workings of her mind locked up--when it seemed advisable.

  "I'm glad to see you in what will one day be your own home, Nan," saidLord St. John. They were sitting alone together in the West Parlour,chatting in the cosy intimacy of the firelight.

  "I'd rather you saw it when it _is_ my own home," she returned with arueful smile. "It will look very different then, I hope."

  "Yet I'm glad to see it now," he repeated.

  There was a slight emphasis on the word "now," and Nan glanced up insurprise.

  "Why now particularly?" she asked, smiling. "Are you going tocold-shoulder me after I'm married?"

  Lord St. John shook his head.

  "That's very likely, isn't it?" he said, smiling. "No, my dear, that'snot the reason." He paused as though searching for words, then went onquietly: "The silver chord is getting a bit frayed, you know, Nan. I'man old man, and I'm just beginning to know it."

  She caught her breath quickly and her face whitened. Then she forced alaugh.

  "Nonsense, Uncle David! Kitty always declares you're the youngest ofus all."

  His eyes smiled back at her.

  "Unfortunately, my dear, Time takes no account of a juvenile spirit.His job is with this body of ours. But the spirit," he addeddreamingly, "and its youthfulness--that's for eternity."

  "But you look quite well--_quite_ well," she insisted. And her mannerwas the more positive because in her inmost mind she thought she coulddetect a slight increase of that frail appearance she had first noticedon Penelope's wedding-day.

  "I've had hints, Nan--Nature's wireless. So I saw Jermyn Carter a fewweeks back--"

  "What did he say?" She interrupted swiftly.

  "That at my age a man mustn't expect his heart to be the same as in histwenties."

  A silence fell between them. Then Nan's hand stole out and claspedhis. She had never imagined a world without this good comrade in it.The bare thought of it brought a choking lump into her throat, robbingher of words. Presently St. John spoke again.

  "I've nothing to grizzle about. I've known love and I've knownfriendship--the two biggest things in life. And, after all,since . . . since she went, I've only been waiting. The world, withouther, has never been quite the same."

  "I know," she whispered.

  "You Davenant women," he went on more lightly, "are never loved andforgotten."

  "And we don't love--and forget," said Nan in a low voice.

  St. John looked at her with eyes that held a very tender comprehension.

  "Tell me, Nan, was it--Peter Mallory?"

  She met his glance bravely for a moment.

  "Yes," she answered at last, very quietly. "It was Peter." With asudden shudder she bent forward and covered her face with her hands."And I can't forget," she said hoarsely.

  A long, heavy silence fell between them.

  "Then why--" began Lord St. John.

  Nan lifted her head.

  "Why did I promise Roger?" she broke in. "Because it seemed the onlyway. I--I was afraid! And then there was Penelope--and Ralph. . . .Oh, it was a ghastly mistake. I know now. But--but there'sRoger . . . he cares . . ."

  "Yes. There's Roger," he said gravely. "And you've given him yourword. You can't draw back now." There was a note of sternness in theold man's voice--the sternness of a man who has a high creed of honourand who has always lived up to it, no matter what it cost.

  "Remember, Nan, no Davenant was ever a coward in the face ofdifficulties. They always pulled through somehow."

  "Or ran away--like Angele de Varincourt."

  "She only ran from one difficulty into the arms of a hundred others.No wrong can be righted by another wrong."

  "Can any wrong ever be really righted?" she demanded bitterly.

  "We have to pay for our mistakes--each in our turn." He himself hadpaid to the uttermost farthing. "Is it a very heavy price, Nan?"

  She turned her face away a little.

  "It will be . . . higher than I expected," she acknowledged slowly.

  "Well, then, pay up. Don't make--Roger--pay for your blunder. Youhave other things--your music, for instance. Many people have to gothrough life with only their work for company. . . . Whereas you areRoger's whole world."

  With the New Year Lord St. John returned to town. Nan missed him everyminute of the day, but she had drawn new strength and steadfastnessfrom his kindly counsels. He understood both the big tragedies oflife--which often hold some brief, perfect memory to make thembearable--and those incessant, gnat-like irritations which uncongenialfellowship involves.

  Somehow he had the faculty of relegating small personal vexations totheir proper place in the scheme of things--thrusting them far into thebackground. It was as though someone drew you to the window and,ignoring the small, man-made flower-beds of the garden with theirinsistent crop of weeds, the circumscribed lawns, and the foolish,twisting paths that led to nowhere, pointed you to the distantlandscape where the big breadths of light and shadow, the broaddraughtmanship of God, stretched right away to the dim blue line of thehorizon.