'I were but little happy, if I could say how much.'
Shakespeare.
Twenty-four hours have come and gone and have left everyone a day older, they are all in the garden, except Paul; a little golden haired girl is playing with Teddy, and Mabel watches them from a distance with a beaming smile. For a great happiness has come to her, the empty place in her heart has been refilled, for a strange and wonderful thing has happened; for only the evening before, her brother knocked at her bedroom door, as she was dressing for dinner, and on her saying, come in, he opened it, and said, 'Mabel, here is somebody I should like you to see.'
Somebody! yes indeed; and a small somebody too, somebody so like Philippa, somebody! who had a little gold locket with a turquoise in the centre. Ah! it seems too good to be true!
'Lilian!' Mabel calls, and then as the child does not take any notice, 'Baby—' The child turns and looks shyly at her mother; and emboldened by a sweet smile she runs and hides her head in her mother's gown, while the little hands are covered with kisses.
'You won't be afraid of me, will you?' asks Mabel, 'and you will love me very soon, I hope.'
'Ses,' is the answer, 'but I must love Mummy still.'
'Yes, dear, of course,' is the answer, 'Mummy, as you call her, is coming to see me this afternoon.'
Teddy has been watching from the distance, his nose has been altogether put out of joint, and it is rather a melancholy freckled face that Philippa catches sight of.
'Why, Teddy,' she says, 'come here and tell me what you were doing all the morning, and oh, Jimmy,' she says, turning to her husband, 'do be an angel and take baby back to the nursery, Mabel is so engrossed with Lilian.'
'Come along then, old woman,' and Jimmy lifts up his niece, 'but I say, Lippa, don't you think it would be just as well to be out of the way when Paul comes.'
'Perhaps it would,' answers she, 'and you had better take Teddy with you as well.'
Jimmy has just turned the corner of the house, when he runs straight into Paul and the lady he saw in the train.
There is no time to retreat, so he says, 'How do you do?' and the baby puts further conversation out of the question, by beginning to howl, Jimmy in the bottom of his heart feels thankful for it, though aloud he says, 'I must depart with this tiresome person, come along Teddy.'
The baby deposited in the nursery, he keeps out of the way till tea-time, when he finds them all seated round a table still in the garden.
Clotilde had at first refused to see anyone, but Paul persuaded her at length, 'Sooner or later, you must,' he had said, 'you know Mabel, and Lippa is a dear little girl.'
'But—' and Clotilde had looked up at her husband with those large dark eyes of hers 'they will—'
'The past will be forgotten,' was his reply, spoken sadly and quietly. And now she seems to be more at her ease.
'Have some tea, Jimmy,' says Philippa as he approaches.
'No thanks, it is too hot,' he replies.
'Come and sit then,' suggests Mabel pushing forward an empty chair, into which he sinks.
'Well, lazy boy, what have you been doing,' this from Lippa who is eating strawberries with apparent relish.
'Nothing,' is the yawned reply.
'Not even thinking of me,' and Lippa looks coquettishly at him from under her large shady hat.
'No, indeed, why should I, but you may as well spare me one strawberry.'
'Certainly not,' says she, 'this is my last one' (gradually raising it to her lips), 'not unless you say, you thought of me, all the time.'
'Oh, well, if you must! I thought of no one but you, I saw you in every one I met, even the gardener.'
'That's rude,' she says, 'but you may as well have this,' extending to him the coveted strawberry, with an adorable smile.
'What a silly child you are,' is all the thanks she gets.
But some one has driven up, in a very old fly, to the front door and Mrs Dalrymple is watching to see who it is.
'Chubby,' she exclaims as a man gets out clothed in an extraordinary check suit. 'No one else could have clothes like that.' There is no doubt about its being Lord Helmdon, he has caught sight of them and is coming towards them, looking decidedly hot and dusty.
'Do look at him,' says Paul, though there is absolutely no need, as they are all gazing at him.
'Hullo,' says Jimmy, 'who would have thought of seeing you here!'
'Eh! what,' is the inevitable answer.
'Dear Mrs Dalrymple,' he goes on, shaking her vigourously by the hand, 'I am stopping not far from here,—I thought you would not mind my coming over to see you, what!'
'She didn't say a word,' says Jimmy still reclining in the arm-chair, 'you didn't give her time.'
Mabel shakes with suppressed laughter, and Lippa's mouth is contorted into the most extraordinary shape, but she says calmly, 'I'm so glad to see you, won't you stop the night now you are here?'
'I'm afraid I can't, ah, how do you do?' he says to Mabel, 'well, Paul, pretty fit, eh?'
'Decidedly so,' replies he.
Clotilde has been sitting quite silent longing to get away, but Paul will not look at her, and, oh! what shall she do, Philippa is introducing her to the newcomer.
'Chubby allow me to introduce you to Paul's wife.'
'What!' he exclaims.
Jimmy who is in fear and trembling as to what he may say, kicks him violently on the shins under cover of the tablecloth, which sends him sprawling on his knees before Clotilde.
'I—er, I beg your pardon,' he says, 'but really, Jimmy, I wish you would keep your legs to yourself.'
'Me,' says Dalrymple, regardless of grammar and looking quite unconscious, 'never was further from doing anything else, in my life.'
'May you be forgiven,' whispers Lippa, who has observed it all—but aloud she says, 'Won't you have some tea.'
'No thanks, really not,' replies Helmdon, 'but if I may stay, we may as well tell the fly to go away.'
'Do,' says Dalrymple rising, 'have you got anything with you,' and together they go back to the house, where Jimmy explains all, including Clotilde, and the kick.
'Thanks, awfully, old man,' says Helmdon, 'I couldn't make it out a bit, what!'
The evening is lovely, and two and two they gradually leave the drawing-room, to Chubby, who, his body in one chair, and his legs in another, is wrapt in peaceful slumbers. Mabel and her husband walk slowly up and down, before the house discussing their children and friends.
Quite unconsciously Paul and Clotilde take their way to the little church, and pause not till they come to their baby's grave. The moon shines down on them, as side by side they stand on the edge of the cliff, the dark ocean stretching out before them, a type of the unknown future that will be theirs.
Paul becomes aware that she is crying, and says, turning her face up to his. 'My darling, dry your eyes, we have all done wrong, but it is no use dwelling on the past, a future lies before us, in which by God's help, we will try to atone for the past, "Heaven means crowned not vanquished when it says forgiven."' For all answer Clotilde goes close to him, and lays her sad weary head against his shoulder.
'Paul,' she murmurs, 'how good you are,' and then there is a silence more eloquent than words.
In the meantime Jimmy and Philippa hand in hand have reached a cornfield.
'Let us stop here,' she says seating herself on a stile.
'Very well,' he replies, following her example, 'only we must not stay out too late you know.'
'No, we won't,' says Lippa, 'but Jimmy, dear, don't you feel awfully happy, because I do.'
'Sitting on this stile,' queries he.
'No, of course not, don't be stupid, but,' and she puts her arm round his neck, 'everybody is all right, are they not? Mabel has her child back, Paul has Clotilde, and oh, Jimmy darling, I've got you.'
There is a little sob as she says this.
'Crying,' says he, placing his arm round her, 'if you cry when you're happy, what will you do, when there is really something to cry for, oh you silly child,' but the look in his eyes belies his words, and Lippa raising hers sees something in them, which makes her draw still closer, till their lips meet.
'Dearest,' he whispers.
And then a silence also falls on them, while the calm moon, unmoved at what she sees, still shines on the same, and the distant ripple of the waves breaking on the shore is all that is heard.