CHAPTER XXXIII
KEEPING FAITH
It was not until Sandy was actually in the express heading for Londonthat he realised quite all the difficulties which lay ahead. He wasjust a big-hearted, impulsive boy, and, without wasting time in futileblame or vain regrets, he had plunged straight into the maelstrom whichhad engulfed his pal, determined to help her back to shore.
But, assuming he was right in his surmise that Rooke would take Nanfirst of all to London, he doubted his own ability to persuade her toreturn with him, and even if he were successful in this, there stillremained the outstanding fact that by no human means could she reachMallow until the small hours of the morning. He could well imagine theconsternation and scandal which would ensue should she arrive back atthe Court about five o'clock A.M.!
In a place like Mallow, where there was a large staff of indoor andoutdoor servants, it would be practically impossible to secure Nan'sreturn there unobserved. And as far as the neighbourhood--and RogerTrenby--were concerned, she might just as well run away with MaryonRooke as return with Sandy McBain at that ungodly hour! She would beequally compromised. Besides, Kitty would have informed her householdthat she was not expecting Miss Davenant back that night.
Sandy began to see that the plans which he and Kitty had hastily throwntogether in the dire emergency of the moment might serve well enough byway of temporary cover, but that in the long run they would rathercomplicate matters. Lies would have to be bolstered up with otherlies. For example, what was he to do with Nan if he succeeded inpersuading her to return? Where was she really to spend the night? Itlooked as though a veritable tissue of deceit must be woven if she wereto be shielded from the consequences of her mad act. And Sandy was nota bit of good at telling lies. He hated them.
Suddenly into his harassed mind sprang the thought of Mallory. Of allmen in the world, surely he, who loved Nan, would find a way to saveher!
From the moment this idea took hold of him Sandy felt as though part ofthe insuperable load of trouble and anxiety had been lifted from hisshoulders. His duty was now quite simple and straightforward. When hereached down he had only to seek out Peter, lay the whole matter beforehim, and then in some way or other he believed that Nan's errant feetwould be turned from the dangerous path on which they were set.
There was something rather touching in his boyish faith that Peterwould be able, even at the last moment, to save the woman he loved.
With unwonted forethought, born of the urgent need of the moment, hedespatched the following telegram to Peter:
"_Coming to see you. Arrive London to-night seven-thirty. Veryurgent. Sandy McBain._"
"Well, young Sandy McBain?"
Peter looked up from a table littered with manuscript. His face, amoment before rather troubled and stern, relaxed into a friendly smile,although the fingers of one hand still tapped restlessly on a sheet ofpaper that lay beside him--a cablegram from India which had evidentlybeen the subject of his thoughts at the moment of Sandy's arrival.
"What's the urgent matter? Have you got into a hole and want afriendly haul-out? If so, I'm your man."
Sandy looked down wretchedly at the fine-cut face with its kind eyesand sensitive mouth.
"Oh, don't!" he said hastily, checking the friendly welcome as thoughit hurt him. "It--it isn't me. . . . It's Nan."
Peter sat quite still, only the hand that held his pen tightened in itsgrip.
"Nan!" he repeated, and something in the tone of his voice as heuttered the little name seemed to catch at Sandy's heart-strings andsent a sudden unmanageable lump up into his throat.
"Yes, Nan," he answered. Then, with a rush: "She's gone . . . goneaway with Maryon Rooke."
The penholder snapped suddenly. Peter tossed the pieces aside and rosequietly to his feet.
"When?" he asked tensely.
"Now--to-day. If they've come to London, they'll be here very soon.They were in his car--I saw them on the London road. . . . And sheleft a letter for me. . . . Oh, good God, Mallory! Can't you saveher--can't you save her?" And Sandy grabbed the older man by theshoulder and stared at him with feverish eyes.
Throughout the whole journey from Exeter to London he had beenrevolving the matter in his mind, thinking . . . thinking . . .thinking . . . to the ceaseless throb and hum of the train as it racedover the metals, and now he felt almost as though his brain would burst.
Peter pushed him down into a chair.
"You shall tell me all about it in a minute," he said quietly.Crossing the room to a cupboard in the wall, he took down a decanterand glass and poured out a stiff dose of whisky.
"There--drink that," he said, squirting in the soda-water. "You'll beall right directly," he added.
In a few minutes he had drawn the whole story from Sandy's eager lips,and as he listened his eyes grew curiously hard and determined.
"So we've just one chance--the house in Westminster," he commented."We'll go there, Sandy. At once."
They made their way quickly downstairs and out into the street.Hailing a passing taxi, Peter directed the man to drive to Maryon'shouse, where he enquired for Rooke in a perfectly ordinary manner, asthough expecting to find him in, and was told by the maid who openedthe door that Mr. Rooke had only just arrived and had gone out againimmediately, but that she expected him back at any moment.
"Then I'll wait," said Peter, easily. "Miss Davenant's waiting here,too, isn't she?"
An odd look of surprise crossed the girl's face. She hadthought--well, what matter what she had thought since it was evidentthere was really no secret about the lady's presence in her master'shouse. These people obviously expected to meet her there. Perhapsthere were others coming as well, to an appointed rendezvous for arestaurant supper party or something of the sort.
"Yes, sir," she answered civilly, "Miss Davenant is in the studio."
Sandy heard Peter catch his breath at the reply as though some kind oftension had been suddenly slackened. Then the maid threw open thestudio door and they saw Nan sitting in a chair beside a recently litfire, her hands clasped round her knees.
She turned at the sound of their entrance and, as her eyes fell uponPeter, she rose slowly to her feet, staring at him, while every drop ofcolour drained away from her face.
"Peter!" she cried wonderingly. "Peter!" Her hands groped for theback of the chair from which she had risen and clung to it.
But her eyes never left his face. There was an expression in them asof the dawning of a great joy struggling against amazed unbelief, sothat Sandy felt as though he had seen into some secret holy place.Turning, he stumbled out of the room, leaving those two who loved alonetogether.
"Peter, you're asking me to do the hardest thing in the world," saidNan at last.
She had listened in heavy silence while he urged her to return.
"I know I am," he answered. "And do you think it's--easy--for me toask it? To ask you to go back? . . . If it were possible. . . . DearGod! If it were possible to take you away, would I have left itundone?"
"I can't go back--I can't indeed! Why should I? I've only made Rogereither furious or wretched ever since we were engaged. It isn't as ifI could do any good by going back!"
"Isn't it something good to have kept faith?" There was a stern notein his voice.
She looked at him wistfully.
"If it had been you, Peter. . . . It's easy to keep faith when oneloves."
"And are you being faithful--even to our love?" he asked quietly.
"To our love?" she whispered.
"There is a faithfulness of the Spirit, Nan--the only faithfulnesspossible to those who are set apart as we are."
He broke off and stood silent a moment, looking down at her with hard,hurt eyes. Presently he went on:
"That was all we might keep, you and I--our faith. Honour binds eachof us to someone else. But"--his voice vibrating--"honour doesn't bindyou to Maryon Rooke! If you go with him, you betray our love--the partof it that nothing can to
uch or spoil if we so will it. You won't dothat, Nan. . . . You _can't_ do it!"
She knew, then, that she would have to go back, go back and keep faithwith Roger--and keep that deeper faith which love itself demanded.
Her head drooped, and she stretched out her hands as though seekingsomething of which they might lay hold. Peter took them into his andheld them.
After a while a slight tremor ran through her body, and she drewherself away from him, relinquishing his hands.
"I'll go back," she said. "You've won, Peter. I can't . . .hurt . . . our love."
To Sandy the time seemed immeasurably long as he waited on the furtherside of the closed door, but at last they came to him--Peter, stern andrather strained-looking, and Nan with tear-bright eyes and a face fromwhich every vestige of colour had vanished.
"Get a taxi, will you, Sandy?" said Peter.
Perhaps Sandy's face asked the question his lips dared not utter, forNan nodded to him with a twisted little smile.
"Yes, Sandy boy, I'm going back."
"Thank God!"
He wrung her hands and then went off in search of a taxi. Nan glancedround her a trifle nervously.
"Maryon may be here at any moment," she said. "Something's gone wrongwith the car and he's taken it round to the garage to get it put right."
"We shall be off directly," answered Peter. "See"--he pointed down thestreet--"here comes Sandy with a taxi for us." He spoke reassuringly,as though to a frightened child.
In a few minutes they had started, the taxi slipping swiftly awaythrough the lamp-lit streets. It had turned a corner and was out ofsight by the time the parlourmaid, hearing the sound of the street doorclosing, had hurried upstairs only to find an empty studio. Nor couldshe give Rooke, on his return, the slightest information as to what hadbecome of his guests--the lady, or the two gentlemen who, she told him,had called shortly afterwards, apparently expecting to find MissDavenant there.
Meanwhile the taxi had carried them swiftly to Peter's house, where hehurried Nan and Sandy up to his own sanctum, instructing thetaxi-driver to wait below.
"We've just time for a few sandwiches before we start," he said. Herang the bell for his servant and gave his orders in quick,authoritative tones.
Nan shook her head. She felt as though a single mouthful would chokeher. But Peter insisted with a quiet determination she found herselfunable to withstand, and gradually the food and wine brought back alittle colour into her wan face, though her eyes were still full of adumb anguish and every now and then her mouth quivered piteously.
She felt dazed and bewildered, as though she were moving in a dream.Was it really true that she had run away from the man she was to marryand was being brought back by the man who loved her? The whole affairappeared topsy-turvy and absurd. She supposed she ought to feelashamed and overwhelmed, but somehow the only thing that seemed to herto matter was that she had failed of that high ideal of love whichPeter had expected of her. She knew instinctively, despite the gravekindness of his manner, that she had hurt him immeasurably.
"And what are you going to do with me now?" she asked at last, with anodd expression in her face. She felt curiously indifferent about herimmediate future.
Mallory glanced up at her from the time-table he was studying.
"There's a ten o'clock express which stops at Exeter. We're taking youhome by that."
"There's no connection on to St. Wennys," remarked Nan impassively.
It didn't seem to her a matter of great importance. She merely statedit as a fact.
"No. But Sandy left his car in Exeter and we shall motor from there."
"We can all three squash in," added Sandy.
"We won't be able to keep Roger ignorant of the fact I've been away,"pursued Nan.
"He will know nothing about it," said Peter quietly.
She looked dubious.
"I think," she observed slowly, "that you may find it more difficultthan you expect--to manage that. Someone's sure to find out and tellhim."
"Not necessarily," he answered.
"What about the servants?" persisted Nan. "They'll hardly allow myarrival at Mallow in the early hours of the morning to pass withoutcomment! I really think, Peter," she added with a wry smile, "that itwould have been simpler all round if you'd allowed me to run away."
His eyes sought hers.
"Won't you trust me, Nan?" he said patiently. "I'm not going to takeyou to Mallow to-night. I'm going to take you to Sandy's mother."
"To the mater!"
Sandy fairly gasped with astonishment.
Eliza, narrow-minded and pre-eminently puritanical in her views, wasthe very last person in the world whose help he would have thought ofrequisitioning in the present circumstances.
Peter nodded.
"Yes. I've only met her two or three times, but I'm quite sure she isthe right person. I believe," he added, smiling gently, "that I knowyour mother better than you do, Sandy."
And it would appear that this was really the case. For when, in thesmall hours of the morning, the trio reached Trevarthen Wood and Sandyhad effected an entry and aroused his mother, there followed a briefinterview between Peter and Mrs. McBain, from which the latter emergedwith her grim mouth all tremulous at the corners and her keen eyesshining through a mist of tears.
Sandy and Nan were waiting together in the hall, and both looked upanxiously as she bore down upon them.
To the ordinary eye she may have appeared merely a very plain oldwoman, arrayed in a hideous dressing-gown of uncompromising redflannel. But to Nan, as the bony arms went round her and the Scottishvoice, harsh no longer but tender as an old song, murmured in her ears,she seemed the embodiment of beautiful, consoling motherhood, and herflat chest a resting-place where weary heads might gladly lie andsorrowful hearts pour out their grief in tears.
"Dinna greet, ma bairnie," crooned Eliza. "Ma wee bairnie, greet naemair."