The Incredible Honeymoon

At the door she turned and looked back over her shoulder. "Good night," she said again. "Good night, Edward."

And that was the first time she called him by his name.

XV
KENILWORTH

THERE are some very pleasant shops in Warwick, and if you have time and no money you can spend some very agreeable mornings wandering from one shop to another, asking the prices of things you have all the will but none of the means to buy. If you have money and time you will buy a few of the things whose prices you have asked. Edward bought a ring, crystal with brilliants around it, very lovely and very expensive, and some topazes set in old silver, quite as beautiful but not so dear.

Then they went to the old-furniture shops, where he excited the vexed admiration of the dealers by his unerring eye for fakes. He bought an oak chest, carved with a shield of arms, the date 1612, and the initials "I. B."

"If we were really married," he told her, "I should be vandal enough to alter that 'I' to make it stand for your name."

"I should not think it a vandal's act – if we were married," she answered, and their eyes met. He bought tables and chairs of oak and beech; a large French cupboard whose age, he said, made it a fit mate for the chest; he bought a tall clock with three tarnished gold pines atop, and some brass pots and pewter plates. She strayed away from him at the last shop, while he was treating for a Welsh dresser with brass handles, and when he had made his bargain he followed her, to find her lovingly fingering chairs of papier-mâché painted with birds and flowers and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. There was a table, too, graceful and gay as the chairs, and a fire-screen of fine needlework.

"You hate anything that isn't three or four hundred years old," she said. "It's dreadful that our tastes don't agree, isn't it? Don't you think we ought to part at once? 'They separated on account of incompatibility of furniture.'"

"But don't you like the things we have been getting?"

"Of course I do, but I like these, too. They're like lavender and pot-pourri, and ladies who had still-rooms and made scents and liqueurs and confections in them, and walked in their gardens in high-heeled shoes and peach-blossom petticoats."

"Why not buy them, then?"

"I would if I had a house. If I were buying things I should first buy everything I liked, and not try to keep to any particular period. I believe the things would all settle down and be happy together if you loved them all. Did you get your precious dresser? And are you going to buy that Lowestoft dessert-service to go on it?"

He bought the Lowestoft dessert-service, beautiful with red, red roses and golden tracery; and next day he got up early and went around and bought all the painted mother-of-pearly things that she had touched. He gave the man an address in Sussex to which to send everything, and he wrote a long letter to his old nurse, whose address it was that he had given.

They had had dinner in the little private sitting-room over the front door, the smallest private room, I believe, that ever took an even semi-public part in the life of a hotel. It was quite full of curly glass vases and photographs in frames of silver and of plush, till Edward persuaded the landlady to remove them, "for fear," as he said, "we should have an accident and break any of them."

They breakfasted here, and here, too, luncheon was served, so that they met none of the other guests at meals, and in their in-goings and out-comings they only met strangers. Mr. Schultz might still have been at Tunbridge Wells, for any sense they had of him.

Presently and inevitably came the afternoon when they motored to Kenilworth.

"I've always wanted to see Kenilworth," she told him, "almost more than any place. Kenilworth and the Pyramids and Stonehenge and the Lost City in India – you know the one that the very name of it is forgotten, and they just found it by accident, all alone and beautiful, with panthers in it instead of people, and trees growing out of the roofs of the palaces, like Kipling's Cold Lairs."

"I get a sort of cold comfort from the thought of that city," he said. "That and Babylon and Nineveh and the great cities in Egypt. When I go through Manchester or New Cross or Sheffield I think, 'Some day grass and trees will cover up all this ugliness and flowers will grow again in the Old Kent Road.'"

"It is cold comfort," she said. "I wish flowers and grass could cover the ugliness, but I should like them to be flowers planted by us living people – not just wild flowers and the grass on graves."

The first sight of Kenilworth was naturally a great shock to her, as it always is to those who know of it only from books and photographs and engravings.

"Oh dear," she said, "how horrible! Why, it's pink!"

It is, bright pink, and to eyes accustomed to the dignified gray monochrome of our South Country castles, Bodiam and Hever, Pevensey and Arundel, Kenilworth at first seems like a bad joke, or an engraving colored by a child who has used up most of the paints in its paint-box and has had to make shift with Indian red and vermilion, the only two tints surviving. But when you get nearer, when you get quite near, when you look up at the great towers, when you walk between the great masses of it, and see the tower that Elizabeth's Leicester built, and the walls that Cromwell's soldiers battered down, you forgive Kenilworth for being pink, and even begin to admit that pink is not such a bad color for castles.

At Kenilworth you talk, of course, about Queen Elizabeth, and the one who has read the guide-books tells the one who hasn't that when the Queen visited Leicester he had a new bridge built over his lake so that she might enter the castle by a way untrodden by any previous guest. Also that during her visit the clock bell rang not a note and that the clock stood still withal, the hands of it pointing ever to two o'clock, the hour of banquet. Further, that during her visit of seventeen days Kenilworth Castle managed to put away three hundred and twenty hogsheads of beer.

"Those were great days," said Edward.

There are towers to climb at Kenilworth, as well as towers to gaze at, and with that passion for ascending steps which marks the young the two made their way to the top of one tower after another. It was as they leaned on the parapet of the third and looked out over the green country that Edward broke off in an unflattering anecdote of my Lord of Leicester. He stiffened as a pointer stiffens when it sees a partridge.

"Look!" he said, "look!"

Two fields away sheep were feeding – a moment ago calm, white shapes dotting a pastoral landscape, now roused to violent and unsuitable activities by the presence among them of some strange foe, some inspirer of the ungovernable fear that can find relief only in flight. The scurrying mass of them broke a little, and the two on the tower saw the shape of terror. They heard it, also. It was white and active. It barked.

"Oh, run," said she; "it is Charles. I'm almost certain it is. Oh, run!" And he turned and ran down the tower steps. She saw him come out and cross the grassy square of the castle at fine racing speed.

"It is Charles," she assured herself. "It must be." Yet how could even that inspired dog have escaped from the stable at Warwick where they had left him, have followed their motor, and got here so soon. She could not know that another motor from the hotel, coming out to pick up a client, had overtaken Charles laboring up the hill from the top of which you get your first view of the castle towers, and, recognizing the dog – as who that had ever seen him could fail to do – had, so to speak, offered him a lift. Charles had accepted, and would have been handed over to his master's chauffeur at the Castle Gate House but that, a little short of that goal, as the car waited for a traction engine to pass it in the narrow way, Charles had seen the sheep, and with one bound of desperate gallantry was out and after them before his charioteer could even attempt restraint. And now Charles was in full pursuit of the sheep, barking happily in complete enjoyment of this thrilling game, and Edward was in pursuit of Charles, shouting as he ran. But Charles had no mind to listen – one could always pretend afterward that one had not heard, and no dog was more skilful than Charles in counterfeiting unconsciousness, nor in those acts of cajolery which soften the hearts of masters. His surprised delight when he should at last discover that his master was there and desired his company would be acted to the life and would be enough to soften any heart. If either had looked up and back he could have seen a white speck on a red tower, which was Herself, watching the chase. But neither of them did. More observant and, to his own thinking, more fortunate, was another visitor to the castle; he, to be exact, whom what we may call Charles's motor had come to Kenilworth to pick up.

He had seen the fleecy scurrying, heard the yaps of pursuit, seen the flying form of Edward, and entered sufficiently into the feelings of Charles to be certain that the chase was not going to be a short one. He now saw from the foot of Mervyn's tower the white speck against blue sky. He made his way straight to the tower where she stood. She saw him crossing the grassy court which Edward's flying feet had but just now passed over. He came quickly and purposefully, and he was Mr. Schultz – none other.

Now she was not afraid of Mr. Schultz. Why should she be? He had been very kind, and of course she was not ungrateful, but it was a shock to see him there – a shock almost as great as that given by the pinkness of Kenilworth, and, anyhow, she did not want to meet him again; anyhow, not to-day; anyhow, not on the top of a tower. And it was quite plain to her that he had perceived her presence, had recognized her, and was coming up expressly because of that – that his views were not hers, that he did want to meet her again, did want to meet her to-day, did want to meet her on top of a tower – this tower.

She looked around her "like a hunted thing," as they say, and then she remembered a very little room, hardly more than a recess, opening from the staircase. If she hurried down, hid there, and stood very close to the wall, he would pass by and not notice, and as he went up she could creep down and out, and, keeping close to the walls, get away toward Edward and Charles and the sheep and all the things that do not make for conversation with Mr. Schultz.

Lightly and swiftly as a hunted cat she fled down the stairs on whose lower marches was the sound of boots coming up toward her, echoing in the narrow tower like the tramp of an armed man. It came to her, as she reached the little room and stood there, her white gown crushed against the red stones, how a captive in just such a tower in the old days she and Edward had been talking of might have seized such a chance of escape from real and horrible danger, might have hidden as she was hiding, have held his breath as she now held hers, and how his heart would have beat, even as hers was beating, at the step of the guard coming toward the hiding-place, passing it, going on to the tower-top while he, the fugitive, crept down toward liberty and sunlight and the good green world roofed with the good free sky.

The thought did not make for calmness. She said afterward that the tower must have been haunted by the very spirit of fear, for a panic terror came over her, something deeper and fiercer than anything Schultz could inspire – at any rate, in this century – and a caution and care that such as fear alone can teach. She slid from her hiding-place and down the stair, and as she went she heard above her those other steps, now returning. Nothing in the world seemed so good as the thought of the sunshine and free air into which in another moment she would come out. Round and round the spirals of the stone staircase went her noiseless, flying feet; the sound of the feet that followed came louder and quicker; a light showed at the bottom of the stairs; she rounded the last curve with a catch of the breath that was almost a cry, and in her eyes the vision of the fair, free outside world. She sprang toward green grass and freedom and sunlight, and four dark walls received her. For half-way down that tower the steps divide and she had passed the division and taken the stairs that led down past the level of the earth. And the light that had seemed to come through the doorway of the tower came through the high-set window of a dungeon, and there was no way out save by the stairs on which already she could hear feet descending. The man who followed her had not missed the way.

To turn back and meet that man on the stairs was impossible. She stood at bay. And she knew what the captive in old days must have felt – what the rabbit feels when it is caught in the trap. She stood rigid, with such an access of blind terror that the sight of the man, when he came down the last three steps, was almost – no, quite – relief. She had not fled from him, but from something more vague and more terrible. And when he spoke fear left her altogether, and she asked herself, "How could I have been so silly?"

"Miss Basingstoke?" He spoke on what he meant for a note of astonishment and pleasure, but his acting was not so good as hers, and he had to supplement it by adding, "This is, indeed, a delightful surprise."

"Oh, Mr. Schultz," she said, and quite gaily and lightly, too – "how small the world is! Of all unlikely places to meet any one one knows!" and she made to pass him and go up the stairs. But he stood square and firm at the stair-foot.

"No hurry," he said, "no hurry – since we have met. It is a wonderful pleasure to me, Miss Basingstoke. Don't cut it short. And what have you been doing all this long time?"

"Oh, traveling about," she answered, watching the stair-foot as the rabbit from beside its burrow might watch the exit at which a terrier is posted. "Just seeing England, you know. We neglect England too much, don't you think, rushing off to the Riviera and Egypt and India and places like that when all the while there are the most beautiful things at home."

"I agree," he said, "the most beautiful things are in England," and lest his meaning should escape her, added, with a jerk of a bow, "and the most beautiful people." And still he stood there, smiling and not moving.

"Have you your car with you?" she asked, for something to say.

"No, but I'll send for it if you like. We could have some pleasant drives – Stratford, Shakespeare's birthplace – "

"We've been to Stratford," she put in, and went a step nearer to the stair-foot.

"Then anywhere you like. Shall I send for the car?"

"Mr. Basingstoke," she said, quite untruly, "doesn't care much about motoring."

"Mr. – ? Oh, your brother! Well, we did very well without him before, didn't we? Do you remember what a jolly drive we had, and a jolly lunch; in point of fact, practically everything was jolly until he turned up. I wished him far enough, I can tell you, and I hope you did. Say you did."

"Of course I didn't," she had to say.

"Well, he'd no right to be stuffy if another fellow took care of you when he couldn't be bothered to."

"You know it wasn't that. You know it was a mistake."

"I know a good deal," he said, "more than you think for." And he smiled, trying to meet her eyes.

"It's cold here," she found herself saying. "I was just going up. I don't like dungeons. Do you?"

"I like this one," said he. "Anywhere where you are, don't you know – a palace and all that – "

"I really must go," she said. "My brother won't know where I am."

"No," he said, with meaning, "he won't." And he set his two hands to the pillars of the arch under which he stood and swayed to and fro, looking at her.

"I must really go. Will you let me pass, Mr. Schultz, please."

"Not till you tell me to send for my car. I've set my heart on those drives with you. Our brother can stay behind if he doesn't care for motoring. I don't want him, and I'll take care you don't miss him."

"Do, please," she said, "let me pass."

"No," said he. "I've got you and I mean to keep you. Your brother – "

"He's not my brother," she said, on a sudden resolution. "We told you that because, because – "

"Don't bother to explain," he said, smiling. That smile, in the days when that dungeon was a dungeon, might have cost him his life if the lady before him had had a knife and the skill to use it. Even now it was to cost him something.

"He's not my brother – we're married," she said. And at that he laughed.

"I know, my dear girl," he said. "I know all about it. But marriages like that don't last forever, and they don't prevent another gentleman playing for his own hand. I was there when he wasn't, and you let me help you."

"I wish I hadn't," said she. "I wish I'd walked all the way to London first. I didn't think – "

"You didn't think I'd got the sense to put two and two together," said he; "but I have. Come, look here. I liked your looks from the first. I thought – Never mind about that, though. I was wrong. But even now I like you better than any girl I've ever come across. Now, look here – "

"Don't say any more," she urged, almost wildly. "Don't! I am married. You don't believe me, but I am. You were kind once; be kind now and let me go – "

It was like a prisoner imploring a jailer.

"Let you go?" he echoed. "I know better. Not till you say, 'Send for the motor,' and that you'll go out in it with me. Say that and you're free as air."

And she might have said it, for the terror that lurked in that tower was coming back, in a new dress, but the same terror. But he went on, "Come, say it, and seal the bargain prettily."

And then she said, "If you don't let me pass I swear I'll – "

What the threat would have been she hardly knew, and he never knew, for he took a step toward her with his hands outstretched, and words seemed at once to become weak and silly. She clutched her rosy sunshade at about half its length and struck full at his head. The sunshade broke. He put his hands to his temples and held them a moment.

"Now, by God," he said, "after that – " and came toward her.

And even as he moved the feet of the deliverer sounded on the stairs. Hurried feet, spurning the stones, feet swifter than a man's, lighter than a woman's – little feet that gave out a thin, quick sound not like the sound of human footsteps. She called aloud on the name of the deliverer and he came, swift as the arrow from the bow of a master-archer.

"Charles!" she cried. "Charles, seize him! Hold him!"

And Charles, coming headlong into that dark place like a shaft of live white light, seized him, and held, by the leg.

Mr. Schultz did his best to defend himself, but he had no stick, and no blows of the human fist confused or troubled that white bullet head, no curses affected it, and against those white teeth no kicks or struggles availed.

"Hold him! hold him!" she cried, the joy of vicarious battle lighting her eyes.

"Confound it!" said Schultz. "Call the devil off."

"I will," said she, "from the top of the stairs. And I'll leave you this for comfort: If you behave yourself for the future I won't tell my husband about this. He'd half kill you."

"I don't know about that," said Schultz, even with Charles's teeth quietly but persistently boring his leg. "I don't know so much about that."

"I do," she said, with almost the conviction of the woman in love. "You'd better stay here till we've gone away. I'm not ungrateful for what you did for me on that day, and if you never dare to speak to me again I'll never tell."

"I don't care what you tell," said Schultz. "Call the devil off, I say."

She ran up the stairs, and at the top called out, "Charles, drop it. Come here, sir."

And Charles dropped it and came.

It was then for the first time that she felt that she was Charles's mistress, even as Edward was Charles's master.

The dog and the woman went out together into the sunshine, and there, between blue sky and green grass, embraced with all the emotions proper to deliverer and delivered. When Edward rejoined them, five minutes later, she was able to say, quite calmly:

"Yes, he found me out. He is clever. He is a darling."

"He deserves a jolly good hiding," said Edward, "and I've a jolly good mind to give it to him."

"Let him off this time," she said, "it was so clever of him to find me out. He hadn't hurt any of the sheep, had he?"

"No," said he, "but he might have."

"Oh, if we come to might-have-beens," said she, "I might not be here, he might not be here. We all might not be here. Think of that. No, don't look at him with that 'wait-till-I-get-you-home' expression. Forgive him and be done with it."

And when she looked at him like that, as he told himself, what could he do but forgive the dog?

"Why," he said, "of course I'll forgive him!" adding, with one of those diabolical flashes of insight to which our subconscious selves are sometimes liable. "Why, I'd forgive Schultz himself if you asked me like that."

"It isn't Mr. Schultz I want you to forgive," she said, "it's Charles – Charles that I love."

"Not Schultz whom you like."

"I hate Schultz," said she, so vehemently that he wondered. Because always before she had defended the man and called him kind and helpful. It was, however, so pleasant to him that she should hate Schultz that he put his wonder by to taste that pleasure.

She had the self-control to wait till they were gliding through the streets of Warwick before she said, "Do you want to stay here any longer?"

"Not if you don't," said he.

"I should like to go to Chester," she said, "now – this evening. Would you mind? There's such lots to see, and something might happen at any moment to stop our – "

"Our incredible honeymoon?" he said. "But what could?"

"Oh, Aunt Alice might be ill and want me" – and hated herself for the words. The moment she had uttered them she felt that in using her as a defense she had almost as good as called down the wrath of the gods on Aunt Alice, whom she loved. "Oh, a thousand things might happen," she added, quickly.

"My lady's will is my law," said Edward, and within an hour or two they were on the way to Chester. Charles did not, this time, make his journey in the dog-box. She smiled on the guard, and Charles traveled in a first-class carriage with his master and his mistress. He sat between them and was happy as only they can be happy who have combined duty and pleasure. He had chased sheep – this was obviously not wrong, since master had not punished him for it. He had bitten a stranger at mistress's bidding. Mistress was evidently one who sympathized with the natural aspirations of right-minded dogs. Charles knew now how much he loved her. He leaned himself against her, heavily asleep, now and then growling softly as he slept. His mistress felt that in his dreams he was still biting Mr. Schultz. He was.