The Project Gutenberg EBook of Halcyone, by Elinor Glyn This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Halcyone Author: Elinor Glyn Release Date: September 26, 2004 [EBook #13530] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HALCYONE *** Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team. HALCYONE BY ELINOR GLYN AUTHOR OF "THE REASON WHY," "HIS HOUR," "THREE WEEKS," ETC. 1912 TO THE MEMORY OF MY KIND FRIEND LORD ST. HELIER WHOSE SYMPATHY WITH MY CLASSICAL STUDIES SO GREATLY ENCOURAGED THEM ΔΡΑΣΑΝΤΙ ΠΑΘΕΙΝ "And now they are past the last blue headland and in the open sea; and there is nothing round them but the waves and the sky and the wind. But the waves are gentle and the sky is clear, and the breeze is tender and low; for these are the days when Halcyone and Ceyx build their nest and no storms ever ruffle the pleasant summer sea. And who were Halcyone and Ceyx? Halcyone was a fairy maiden, the daughter of the beach and of the wind. And she loved a sailor-boy and married him; and none on earth were so happy as they. But at last Ceyx was wrecked; and before he could swim to the shore, the billows swallowed him up. And Halcyone saw him drowning and leapt into the sea to him; but in vain. Then the Immortals took pity on them both, and changed them into two fair sea-birds, and now they build a floating nest every year and sail up and down for ever upon the pleasant seas of Greece." THE HEROES, Kingsley. CHAPTER I Outside one of the park gates there was a little house. In the prosperous days of the La Sarthe it had been the land steward's—but when there was no longer any land to steward it had gone with the rest, and for several years had been uninhabited. One day in early spring Halcyone saw smoke coming out of the chimney. This was too interesting a fact not to be investigated; she resented it, too—because a hole in the park paling had often let her into the garden and there was a particularly fine apple tree there whose fruit she had yearly enjoyed. She crept nearer, a tall, slender shape, with mouse-colored hair waving down her back, and a scarlet cap pulled jauntily over her brow—the delightful feeling of adventure tingling in her veins. Yes, the gap was there, it had not been mended yet—she would penetrate and see for herself who this intruder could be. She climbed through and stole along the orchard and up to the house. Signs of mending were around the windows, in the shape of a new board here and there in the shutters; but nothing further. She peeped over the low sill, and there her eyes met those of an old man seated in a shabby armchair, amid piles and piles of books. He had evidently been reading while he smoked a long, clay pipe. He was a fine old man with a splendid presence, his gray hair was longer than is usual and a silvery beard flowed over his chest. Halcyone at once likened him to Cheiron in the picture of him in her volume of Kingsley's "Heroes." They stared at one another and the old man rose and came to the window. Halcyone did not move. "Who are you, little girl?" he said. "And what do you want?" "I want to know who you are, and why you have come here?" she answered fearlessly. "I am Halcyone, you know." The old man smiled. "That ought to tell me everything," he said, gravely, "but unfortunately it does not! Who is Halcyone?" "I live at La Sarthe Chase with the Aunts La Sarthe," she said proudly, as though La Sarthe Chase had been Windsor Castle—"and I have been accustomed to play in this garden. I don't like your being here much." "I am sorry for that, because it suits me and I have bought it. But how would it be if I said you might come into the garden still and play? Would you forgive me then for being here?" "I might," said Halcyone. "What are all these books for?" "They are to read." "I knew that—" and she frowned, beetling her delicate dark brows, "but why such a lot? You can never read them all." The old man smiled. "I have read most of them already," he said. "I have had plenty of time, you see." "Yes, I dare say you are old," said Halcyone— "and what are they about? I would like to know that. My books so seldom interest me." He handed her one through the window, but it was written in Greek and she could not read it. She frowned again as she turned over the pages. "Perhaps there is something nice in that," she said. "Possibly." "Well, won't you tell me what?" "That would take a long time—suppose you come in and have tea with me, then we could talk comfortably." "That sounds a good plan," she said, gravely. "Shall I climb through the window—I can quite easily—or would you like me to go round by the door?" "The window will serve," said the old man. And with one bound as light as a young kid, Halcyone was in the room. There was a second armchair beyond the pile of books, and into that she nestled, crossing her knees and clasping her hands round them. "Now we can begin," she said. "Tea or talk?" asked the old man. "Why, talk, of course; there is no tea—" "But if you rang that bell some might come." Halcyone jumped up again and looked about for the bell. She was not going to ask where it was—she disliked stupid people herself. The old man watched her from under the penthouse of his eyebrows with a curious smile. The bell was hidden in the carving of the mantelpiece, but she found it at last and gave it a lusty pull. It seemed answered instantaneously by a strange-looking man,—a dark, extremely thin person with black, dull eyes. The old man spoke to him in an unknown language and he retired silently. "Who was that?" asked Halcyone. "That is my servant,—he will bring tea." "He is not English?" "No—does that matter?" "Of course not—but what country does he come from?" "You must ask him someday." "I want to see countries," and she stretched out her slender arms, "I want to fly away outside the park and see the world." "You have time," said the old man. "When I am big enough I shall run away—I get very tired of only the Aunts La Sarthe. They never understand a word I say." "What do you say?" "I want to say all sorts of things, but if it isn't what they have heard a hundred times before, they look shocked and pained." "You must come and say them to me then, perhaps I might understand, and in any case I should not be shocked or pained." "They remind me of the Three Gray Sisters, although there are only two of them—one eye and one tooth between them." "I see—there is something we can talk about at all events," said the old man. "The Three Gray Sisters are friends of yours—are they?" "Not friends!" Haley one exclaimed emphatically. "I can't bear them, silly old things nodding there, with their ridiculous answers to Perseus, saying old things were better than new—and their day better than his—I should have thrown their eye into the sea if I had been he. Do all old people do that?—pretend their time was the best?—do you? I don't mean to." "You are right. It is a bad habit." "But are they better, the old things?" The old man did not answer for a moment or two. He looked his visitor through and through with his wise gray eyes —an investigation which might have disconcerted some people, but Halcyone was unabashed. "I know what you are doing," she said. "You are seeing the other side of my head—and I wish I could see the other side of yours, I can the Aunts' La Sarthe and Priscilla's, in a minute, but yours is different." "I am glad of that—you might be disappointed, though, if you did see what was there." "I always want to see," she said simply—"see everything; and sometimes I find the other side not a bit what this is— even in the birds and trees and the beetles. But you must have a huge big one." The old man laughed. "You and I are going to be good acquaintances," he said. "Tell me some more of Perseus. What more do you know of him?" "I have only read 'The Heroes,'" Halcyone admitted, "but I know it by heart—and I know it is all true though my governess says it is fairy-tales and not for girls. I want to learn Greek, but they can't teach me." "That is too bad." "When things are put vaguely I always want to know, them—I want to know why Medusa turned into a gorgon? What was her sin?" The old man smiled. "I see," said Halcyone, "you won't tell me, but some day I shall know." "Yes, some day you shall know," he said. "They seem such great people, those Greeks; they knew everything—so the preface of my 'Heroes' says, and I want to learn the things they knew—mathematics and geometry, rather—and especially logic and metaphysics, because I want to know the meaning of words and the art of reasoning, and above everything I want to know about my own thoughts and soul." "You strange little girl," said the old man. "Have you a soul?" "I don't know, I have something in there," and Halcyone pointed to her head—"and it talks to me like another voice, and when I am alone up a tree away from people, and all is beautiful, it seems to make it tight round here,—and go from my head into my side," and she placed her lean brown paw over her heart. "Yes—you perhaps have a soul," said the old man, and then he added, half to himself—"What a pity." "Why a pity?" demanded Halcyone. "Because a woman with a soul suffers, and brings tribulation—but since you have one we may as well teach you how to keep the thing in hand." At that moment, the dark servant brought tea, and the fine oriental china pleased Halcyone whose perceptions took in the texture of every single thing she came in contact with. The old man seemed to go into a reverie, he was quite silent while he poured out the tea, forgetting to enquire her tastes as to cream and sugar—he drank his black—and handed Halcyone a cup of the same. She looked at him, her inquiring eyes full of intelligence and understanding, and she realized at once that these trifles were not in his consideration for the moment. So she helped herself to what she wanted and sat down again in her armchair. She did not even rattle her teaspoon. Priscilla often made noises which irritated her when she was thinking. The old man came back to a remembrance of her presence at last. "Little girl," he said—"would you like to come here pretty often and learn Greek, and about the Greeks?" Halcyone bounded from her chair with joy. "But of course I would!" she said. "And I am not stupid—not really stupid Mademoiselle says, when I want to learn things." "No—I dare say you are not stupid," the old man said. "So it is a bargain then; I shall teach you about my friends the Greeks, and you shall teach me about the green trees, and your friends the rabbits and the beetles." Then those instinctive good manners of Halcyone's came uppermost, inherited, like her slender shape and balanced head, from that long line of La Sarthe ancestors, and she thanked the old man with a quaint, courtly, sweetly pedantic grace. Then she got up to go— "I like being here—and may I come again to-morrow?" she said afterwards. "I must go now or they will be disagreeable and perhaps make difficulties." The old man watched her as she curtsied to him and vaulted through the window again, and on down the path, and through the hole in the paling, without once turning round. Then he muttered to himself: "A woman thing who refrains from looking back!—Yes, I fear she has a soul." Then he returned to his pipe and his Aristotle. CHAPTER II Halcyone struck straight across the park until she came to the beech avenue, near the top, which ran south. The place had been nobly planned by that grim old La Sarthe who raised it in the days of seventh Henry. It stood very high with its terraced garden in the center of four splendid avenues of oak, lime, beech and Spanish chestnut running east, west, north and south. And four gates in different stages of dilapidation gave entrance through a broken wall of stone to a circular drive which connected all the avenues giving access to the house, a battered, irregular erection of gray stone. To reach the splendid front door you entered from the oak avenue and crossed the pleasance, now only an overgrown meadow where the one cow grazed in the summer. Then you were obliged to mount three stately flights of stone steps until you reached the first terrace, which was flagged near the house and bordered with stiff flower-beds. Here you might turn and look back due west upon a view of exquisite beauty—an undulating fertile country beneath, and then in the far distance a line of dim blue hills. But if you chanced to wish to enter your carriage unwetted on a rainy day, you were obliged to deny yourself the pleasure of passing through the entrance hall in state, and to go out at the back by stone passages into the courtyard where the circular avenue came up close to a fortified door, under the arch of which you could drive. Everything spoke of past grandeur and present decay—only the flower-beds of the highest terrace appeared even partly cultivated; the two lower ones were a wild riot of weeds and straggling rose trees unpruned and untrained, and if you looked up at the windows in the southern wing of the house, you saw that several panes in them were missing and that the holes had been stuffed with rags. At this time of the year the beech avenue presented an indescribably lovely sight of just opening leaves of tender green. It was a never-failing joy to Halcyone. She walked the few paces which separated her from it and turning, stood leaning against the broken gate now, drinking in every tone of the patches the lowered sun made of gold between the green. For her it was full of wood nymphs and elves. It did not contain gods and goddesses like the others. She told herself long stories about them. The beech avenue was her favorite for the spring, the lime for the summer, the chestnut for the autumn, and the oak for the winter. She knew every tree in all four, as a huntsman knows his hounds. And when, in the great equinoctial storm of the previous year, three giant oaks lay shattered and broken, the sight had caused her deep grief, until she wove a legend about them and turned them into monsters for Perseus to subdue with Medusa's head. One, indeed, whose trunk was gnarled and twisted, became the serpent of the brazen scales who sleepeth not, guarding the Golden Fleece. "As the tree falls so shall it lie," seemed to be the motto of La Sarthe Chase. For none were removed. Halcyone stretched out her arms and beckoned to her fairy friends. "Queen Mab," she called, "come and dance nearer to me—I can see your wings and I want to talk to you to-day!" And as if in answer to this invitation, the rays of the lowered sun shifted to an opening almost at her feet, and with a cry of joy the child began to dance in the gorgeous light. "Come follow, follow me, ye fairy elves that be," she sang softly. And the sprites laughed with gladness, and gilded her mouse hair with gold, and lit up her eyes, and wove scarves about her with gossamer threads, and beneath her feet tall bluebells offered their heads as a carpet. But Halcyone sprang over them, she would not have crushed the meanest weed. "Queen Mab!" she said at last, as she sat down in the middle of the sunlight, "I have found an old gentleman—and he is Cheiron, and if one could see it in the right light, he may have a horse's body, and he is going to teach me just what Jason learnt—and then I shall tell it to you." The rays shifted again to a path beyond, and Halcyone bounded up and went on her way. Old William was drawing the elder Miss La Sarthe in a dilapidated basket-chair, up and down on the highest terrace. She held a minute faded pink silk parasol over her head—it had an ivory handle which folded up when she no longer needed the parasol as a shade. She wore one-buttoned gloves, of slate-colored kid, and a wrist-band of black velvet clasped with a buckle. An inverted cake-tin of weather-beaten straw, trimmed with rusty velvet, shadowed her old, tired eyes; an Indian shawl was crossed upon her thin bosom. "Halcyone!" she called querulously. "Where have you been, child? You must have missed your tea." And Halcyone answered: "In the orchard." For of what use to inform Aunt Ginevra about that enchanting visit to Cheiron! Aunt Ginevra who knew not of such beings! "The orchard's let," grunted old William—"they do say it's sold—" "I had rather not hear of it, William," said Miss La Sarthe frowning. "It does not concern one what occurs beyond one's gates." Old William growled gently, and continued his laborious task—one of the wheels squeaked as it turned on the flags. "Aunt Ginevra, you must have that oiled," said Halcyone, as she screwed up her face. "How can you bear it? You can't see the lovely spring things, with that noise." "One does not see with one's ears, Halcyone," quavered Miss La Sarthe. "Take me in now, William." "And she can't even see them with her eyes—poor Aunt Ginevra!" Halcyone said to herself, as she walked respectfully by the chair until it passed the front door on its way to the side. Then she bounded up the steps and through the paneled, desolate hall, taking joy in climbing the dog-gates at the turn of the stairs, which she could easily have opened—and she did not pause until she reached her own room in the battered south wing, and was soon curled up in the broad window sill, her hands clasped round her knees. For this was a wonderful thing which had come into her life.—She had met someone who could see the other side of her head! Henceforth there would be a human voice, not only a fairy's, to converse with her. Indeed, the world was a very fair place! Here, Priscilla found her when it was growing dark, still with the rapt expression of glad thought on her face. And the elderly woman shook her head. "That child is not canny," she muttered, while aloud she chided her for idleness and untidiness in having thrown her cap on the floor. But Halcyone flung her arms round Priscilla's neck and laughed in her beard. "Oh, you dear old goosie! I have been with the Immortals on the blue peaks of Olympus and there we did not wear caps!" "Them Immortals!" said Priscilla. "Better far you were attending to things you can see. They'll be coming down and carrying you off, some of these fine nights!" "The Immortals don't care so much about the nights, Priscilla—unless Artemis is abroad—she does—but the others like the sunlight and great white clouds and a still blue sky. I am quite safe—" and Halcyone smiled. Priscilla began tidying up. "Ma'm'selle's wrote to the mistresses to say she won't come back, she can't put up with the place any longer." This sounded too good to be true! Another governess going! Surely they would see it was no use asking any more to come to La Sarthe Chase—Halcyone had never had one who could appreciate its beauties. Governesses to her were poor-spirited creatures afraid of rats, and the dark passages—and one and all resentful of the rag-stuffed panes in the long gallery. Surely with the new-found Cheiron to instruct her about those divine Greeks a fresh governess was unnecessary. "I shall ask Aunt Ginevra to implore my stepfather not to send any more. We don't want them, do we, Priscilla?" "That we don't, my lamb!" agreed Priscilla. "But you must learn something more useful than gods and goddesses. Your poor, dear mother in heaven would break her heart if she knew you were going to be brought up ignorant." Halcyone raised her head haughtily. "I shan't be ignorant—don't be afraid. I would not remain ignorant even if no other governess ever came near me. I can read by myself, and the dear old gentleman I saw to-day will direct me." And then when she perceived the look of astonishment on Priscilla's face: "Ah! That is a secret! I had not meant to tell you—but I will. The orchard cottage is inhabited and I've seen him, and he is Cheiron, and I am going to learn Greek!" "Bless my heart!" said Priscilla. "Well, now, it is long past seven o'clock and you must dress to go down to dessert." And all the time she was putting Halcyone into her too short white frock, and brushing her mane of hair, the child kept up a brisk conversation. Silent for hours at a time, when something suddenly interested her she could be loquacious enough. One candle had to be lit before her toilet was completed, and then at half past seven she stole down the stairs, full of shadows, and across the hall to the great dining-room, where the Misses La Sarthe dined in state at seven o'clock, off some thin soup and one other dish, so that at half past seven the cloth had been cleared away by old William (in a black evening coat now and rather a high stock), and the shining mahogany table reflected the two candles in their superb old silver candlesticks. At this stage, as Halcyone entered the room, it was customary for William to place the dish of apples on the table in front of Miss La Sarthe, and the dish of almonds and raisins in front of Miss Roberta. The dessert did not vary much for months—from October to late June it was the same; and only on Sundays was the almond and raisin dish allowed to be partaken of, but an apple was divided into four quarters, after being carefully peeled by Miss La Sarthe, each evening, and Miss Roberta was given two quarters and Halcyone one, while the eldest lady nibbled at the remaining piece herself. In her day, children had always come down to dessert, and had had to be good and not greedy, or the fate of Miss Augusta Noble of that estimable book, "The Fairchild Family," would certainly fall upon them. Halcyone, from her earliest memory, had come down to dessert every night—except at one or two pleasant moments when the measles or a bad cold had kept her in bed. Half past seven o'clock, summer and winter, had meant for her the quarter of an apple, two or three strawberries or a plum—and almost always the same conversation. Miss La Sarthe sat at the head of the table, in a green silk dress cut low upon the shoulders and trimmed with a bertha of blonde lace. Miss Roberta—sad falling off from dignity—had her thin bones covered with a habit shirt of tulle, because she was altogether a poorer creature than her sister, and felt the cold badly. Both ladies wore ringlets at the sides of their faces and little caps of ribbon and lace. Even within Halcyone's memory, the dining-room had lost some of its adornments. The Chippendale chairs had gone, and had been replaced by four stout kitchen ones. The bits of rare china were fewer—but the portrait of the famous Timothy La Sarthe, by Holbein, still frowned from his place of honor above the chimneypiece. All the La Sarthes had been christened Timothy since that time. The affair of the governess seemed to be troubling Miss Roberta. At intervals she had found comfort in these denizens of the outer world, and, free from the stern eye of Sister Ginevra, had been wont to chat with one and another. They never stayed long enough for her to know them well, and now this lady—the fifth within two years—had refused to return. Life seemed very dull. "Need I have any more governesses, Aunt Ginevra?" Halcyone said. "There is an old gentleman who has bought the orchard house and he says he will teach me Greek—and I already know a number of other tiresome things." Halcyone had not meant to tell her aunts anything about Cheiron—this new-found joy—but she reasoned after she heard of Mademoiselle's non-return that the knowledge that she would have some instructor might have weight with those in charge of her. It was worth risking at all events. Miss La Sarthe adjusted a gold pince-nez and looked at the little girl. "How old are you, Halcyone?" she asked. "I was twelve on the seventh of last October, Aunt Ginevra." "Twelve—a young gentlewoman's education is not complete at twelve years old, child—although governesses in the house are not very pleasant, I admit"—and Miss La Sarthe sighed. "Oh, I know it isn't!" said Halcyone, "but you see, I can speak French and German quite decently, and the other things surely I might learn myself in between the old gentleman's teaching." "But what do you know of this—this stranger?" demanded Miss La Sarthe. "You allude to someone of whom neither your Aunt Roberta nor I have ever heard." "I met him to-day. I went into the orchard as usual, and found the house was inhabited, and I saw him and he asked me in to tea. He is a very old gentleman with a long white beard, and very, very clever. His room is full of Greek books and we had a long talk, and he was very kind and said he would teach me to read them." This seemed to Halcyone to be sufficient in the way of credentials for anyone. "I have heard from Hester," Miss Roberta interposed timidly, "that the orchard house has been bought by an Oxford professor—it sounds most respectable, does it not, sister?" Miss La Sarthe looked stern: "More than thirty-five years ago, Roberta, I told you I disapproved of Hester's chattering. I cannot conceive personally, how you can converse with servants as you do. Hester would not have dared to gossip to me!" Poor Miss Roberta looked crushed. She had often been chided on this point before. Halcyone would like to have reminded her elder aunt that William, who was equally a servant, had announced some such news to her that afternoon; but she remained silent. She must gain her point if she could, and to argue, she knew, was never a road to success. "I am sure if we could get a really nice English girl," hazarded Miss Roberta, wishing to propitiate, "it might be company for us all, Ginevra—but if Mrs. Anderton insists upon sending another foreign person—" "And of course she will," interrupted the elder lady; "people of Mrs. Anderton's class always think it is more genteel to have a smattering of foreign languages than to know their own mother tongue. We may get another German—and that I could hardly bear." "Then do write to my stepfather, please, please," cried Halcyone. "Say I am going to be splendidly taught—lots of interesting things—and oh—I will try so hard by myself to keep up what I already know. I will practice—really, really, Aunt Ginevra—and do my German exercises and dear Aunt Roberta can talk French to me and even teach me the Italian songs that she sings so beautifully to her guitar!" This last won the day as far as Miss Roberta was concerned. Her faded cheeks flushed pink. The trilling Italian love- songs, learnt some fifty years ago during a two years' residence in Florence, had always been her pride and joy. So she warmly seconded her niece's pleadings, and the momentous decision was come to that James Anderton should be approached upon the subject. If the child learned Greek—from a professor—and could pick up a few of Roberta's songs as an accomplishment, she might do well enough—and a governess in the house, in spite of the money paid by Mr. Anderton to keep her, was a continual gall and worry to them. Halcyone knew very little about her stepfather. She was aware that he had married her mother when she was a very poor and sorrowful young widow, that she had had two stepsisters and a brother very close together, and then that the pretty mother had died. There was evidently something so sad connected with the whole story that Priscilla never cared much to talk about it. It was always, "your poor sainted mother in heaven," or, "your blessed pretty mother"—and with that instinctive knowledge of the feelings of other people which characterized Halcyone's point of view, she had avoided questioning her old nurse. Her stepfather, James Anderton, was a very wealthy stockbroker—she knew that, and also that a year or so after her mother's death he had married again—"a person of his own class," Miss La Sarthe had said, "far more suitable to him than poor Elaine." Halcyone had only been six years old at her mother's death, but she kept a crisp memory of the horror of it. The crimson, crumpled-looking baby brother, in his long clothes, whose coming somehow seemed responsible for the loss of her tender angel, for a long time was viewed with resentful hatred. It was a terrible, unspeakable grief. She remembered perfectly the helpless sense of loss and loneliness. Her mother had loved her with passionate devotion. She was conscious even then that Mabel and Ethel, the stepsisters, were as nothing in comparison to herself in her mother's regard. She had a certainty that her mother had loved her own father very much—the young, brilliant, spendthrift, last La Sarthe. And her mother had been of the family, too—a distant cousin. So she herself was La Sarthe to her finger tips—slender and pale and distinguished- looking. She remembered the last scene with her stepfather before her coming to La Sarthe Chase. It was the culmination after a year of misery and unassuaged grieving for her loss. He had come into the nursery where the three little girls were playing—Halcyone and her two stepsisters—and he had made them all stand up in his rough way, and see who could catch the pennies the best that he threw from the door. His brother, "Uncle Ted," was with him. And the two younger children, Mabel of five and Ethel of four, shouted riotously with glee and snatched the coins from one another and greedily quarreled over those which Halcyone caught with her superior skill and handed to them. She remembered her stepfather's face—it grew heavy and sullen and he walked to the window, where his brother followed him—and she remembered their words and had pondered over them often since. "It's the damned breeding in the brat that fairly gets me raw, Ted," Mr. Anderton had said. "Why the devil couldn't Elaine have given it to my children, too. I can't stand it—a home must be found for her elsewhere." And soon after that, Halcyone had come with her own Priscilla to La Sarthe Chase to her great-aunts Ginevra and Roberta, in their tumble-down mansion which her father had not lived to inherit. Under family arrangements, it was the two old ladies' property for their lives. And now the problem of what James Anderton—or rather the second Mrs. James Anderton—would do was the question of the moment. Would there be a fresh governess or would they all be left in peace without one? Mrs. James Anderton, Miss Roberta had said once, was a person who "did her duty," as people often did "in her class"—"a most worthy woman, if not quite a lady"—and she had striven to do her best by James Anderton's children—even his stepchild Halcyone. Miss La Sarthe promised to write that night before she went to bed—but Halcyone knew it was a long process with her and that an answer could not be expected for at least a week. Therefore there was no good agitating herself too soon about the result. It was one of her principles never to worry over unnecessary things. Life was full of blessed certainties to enjoy without spoiling them by speculating over possible unpleasantnesses. The old gentleman—Cheiron—and old William and the timid curate who came to dine on Saturday nights once a month were about the only male creatures Halcyone had ever spoken to within her recollection—their rector was a confirmed invalid and lived abroad—but Priscilla had a supreme contempt for them as a sex. "One and all set on themselves, my lamb," she said; "even your own beautiful father had to be bowed down to and worshiped. We put up with it in him, of course; but I never did see one that didn't think of himself first. It is their selfishness that causes all the sorrow of the world to women. We needn't have lost your angel mother but for Mr. Anderton's selfishness—a kind, hard, rough man—but as selfish as a gentleman." It seemed a more excusable defect to Priscilla in the upper class, but had no redeeming touch in the status of Mr. Anderton. Halcyone, however, had a logical mind and reasoned with her nurse: "If they are all selfish, Priscilla, it must be either women's fault for letting them be, or God intended them to be so. A thing can't be all unless the big force makes it." This "big force"—this "God" was a real personality to Halcyone. She could not bear it when in church she heard the meanest acts of revenge and petty wounded vanity attributed to Him. She argued it was because the curate did not know. Having come from a town, he could not be speaking of the same wonderful God she knew in the woods and fields—the God so loving and tender in the springtime to the budding flowers, so gorgeous in the summer and autumn and so pure and cold in the winter. With all that to attend to He could not possibly stoop to punish ignorant people and harbor anger and wrath against them. He was the sunlight and the moonlight and the starlight. He was the voice which talked in the night and made her never lonely. And all the other things of nature and the universe were gods, also—lesser ones obeying the supreme force and somehow fused with Him in a whole, being part of a scheme which He had invented to complete the felicity of the world He had created—not beings to be prayed to or solicited for favors, but just gentle, glorious, sympathetic, invisible friends. She was very much interested in Christ; He was certainly a part of God, too—but she could not understand about His dying to save the world, since the God she heard of in the church was still forever punishing and torturing human beings, or only extending mercy after His vanity had been flattered by offerings and sacrifices. "I expect," she said to herself, coming home one Sunday after one of Mr. Miller's lengthy discourses upon God's vengeance, "when I am older and able really to understand what is written in the Bible I shall find it isn't that a bit, and it is either Mr. Miller can't see straight or he has put the stops all in the wrong places and changed the sense. In any case I shall not trouble now—the God who kept me from falling through the hole in the loft yesterday by that ray of sunlight to show the cracked board, is the one I am fond of." It was the simple and logical view of a case which always appealed to her. "Halcyone" her parents had called her well—their bond of love—their tangible proof of halcyon days. And always when Halcyone read her "Heroes" she felt it was her beautiful father and mother who were the real Halcyone and Ceyx, and she longed to see the blue summer sea and the pleasant isles of Greece that she might find their floating nest and see them sail away happily for ever over those gentle southern waves. CHAPTER III Mr. Carlyon—for such was Cheiron's real name—knocked the ashes from his long pipe next day at eleven o'clock in the morning, after his late breakfast and began to arrange his books. His mind was away in a land of classical lore; he had almost forgotten the sprite who had invaded his solitude the previous afternoon, until he heard a tap at the window, and saw her standing there—great, intelligent eyes aflame and rosy lips apart. "May I come in, please?" her voice said. "I am afraid I am a little early, but I had something so very interesting to tell you, I had to come." He opened wide the window and let in the May sunshine. "The first of May and a May Queen," he told her presently, when they were seated in their two chairs. "And now begin this interesting news." "Aunt Ginevra has promised to write to my step-father at once, and suggest that no more governesses are sent to me. Won't it be perfectly splendid if he agrees!" "I really don't know," said Cheiron. Halcyone's face fell. "You promised to teach me Greek," she said simply, "and I know from my 'Heroes' that is all that I need necessarily learn from anyone to acquire the other things myself." This seemed to Mr. Carlyon a very conclusive answer—his bent of mind found it logical. "Very well," he said. "When shall we begin?" "Perhaps to-morrow. To-day if you have time I would like to take you for a walk in the park—and show you some of the trees. The beeches are coming out very early this year; they have the most exquisite green just showing, and the chestnuts in some places have quite large leaves. It is damp under foot, though—do you mind that?" "Not a bit," said Cheiron. And so they went, creeping through the hole in the paling like two brigands on a marauding expedition. "There used to be deer when I first came five years ago," Halcyone said. "I remember them quite well, and their sweet little fawns; but the next winter was that horribly cold one, and there was no hay to be put out to them—my Aunts La Sarthe are very poor—and some of them died, and in the summer the Long Man came and talked and talked, and Aunt Roberta had red eyes all the afternoon, as she always does when he comes, and Aunt Ginevra pretended hers were a cold in her head—and the week after a lot of men arrived and drove all the tender, beautiful creatures into corners, and took them away in carts with nets over them—the does—but the bucks had pieces of wood because their horns would have torn the nets." Her delicate lips quivered a moment, as though at a too painful memory—then she smiled. "But one mother doe and her fawn got away—and I knew where they were hiding, but I did not tell, of course—and now there are four of them, or perhaps five. But they are very wild and keep in the copses, and fly if they see anyone coming. They don't mind me, of course, but strangers. The mother remembers that awful day, I expect." "No doubt," said Cheiron; "and who is the 'Long Man' you spoke of as having instigated this outrage?" "He is the man of business, he was the bailiff once, but is a house agent now in Applewood. And whenever he comes something has to go—we all dread it. Last Michaelmas it was the Chippendale dining-room chairs—" "I know him then—I bought my cottage from him. I suppose all this is necessary, because he seemed an honest fellow." "Someone long ago made it necessary—it is not the Aunts' fault—" and then Halcyone stopped abruptly and pointed to the beech avenue which they were approaching now through the bracken, brown and crisp from last year, with only here and there a green shoot showing. "Queen Mab and the elves live there in May and early June," she said. "They dance every afternoon as the sun sets, and sometimes in the dawn, too, and the early morning. You can see them if you keep quite still." "Naturally," said Cheiron. "Do you know, since last winter I have had a great pleasure," and Halcyone's grave, intent eyes looked up into the old gentleman's face. "There was a terrible storm in February—but can you really keep a secret?"—and then, as he nodded his head seriously, she went on. "It blew down a narrow piece of the paneling in the long gallery—it is next to my room, you know—and I heard the noise in the night and lit a candle and went to see. Some of the window panes are broken, so it is very blustery there in storms. Well, there was a door behind it—a secret door! I was so excited, but I could not keep the candle alight and it was very cold. I saw nothing was broken—only the wind had dislodged the spring. I was able to push it back and pull a little chest against it, and wait till morning. And then what do you think I found?—it led to a staircase in the thickness of the wall, which went down and down until it came to a door right below the cellar—it took me days of dodging Mademoiselle and Priscilla to carry down oil and things to help me to open it— and then it came out in a hollow archway on the second terrace, which has a stone bench in it, and is where old William keeps his tools. It is so cleverly done you could never see it; it looks just as if it was no door, but was only there for ornament. You may fancy I never told anyone! It is my secret—and yours now—and it enabled me to do what I have always longed to do—go out in the night!" "You go out in the night all alone!" exclaimed Cheiron, almost aghast. "But of course," said Halcyone. "You cannot think of the joy when there is a moon and stars; and some of the night creatures are such friends—they teach me wonderful things. Only the dreadful difficulty is in avoiding Priscilla—she sleeps in the dressing-room next me. I love her better than anyone else in the world, but she could never understand— she would only worry about the wet feet and clothes being spoilt. I always think it is so fortunate though, don't you, that servants—even a dear like Priscilla—sleep so soundly. Aunt Ginevra says they can't help it, every class has its peculiarity." Mr. Carlyon was extremely interested—he wanted to hear more of these adventures. "How do you avoid Priscilla seeing your things in the morning then?" he asked. "I have got a pair of big gutta-percha boots—they were my father's waders once, and I found them, and have hidden them in one of the chests, and I tuck everything into them—so there are no marks. It is enchanting." "And do you often have these nocturnal outings, you odd little girl?" Cheiron said, wonderingly. "Not very. I have to be so careful, you see—and I only choose moonlight or starlight nights, and they are rare—but when the summer comes I hope to enjoy many more of them." Then Mr. Carlyon's old eyes looked away into distance and seemed to see a slender shape wrapped in a spotted fawn's skin, its head crowned with leaves, joining the throng of those other early worshipers of Dionysus as they beat their weird music among the dark crags of Parnassus—searching for communion with the spiritual beyond in the only way they knew of then to reach it, through a wild ecstasy of emotion. Here was the same impulse, unconscious, instinctive. The probing of nature to discover her secrets. Here was a female thing with a soul unafraid in her pure innocence, alone in the night. Halcyone did not interrupt his meditations, and presently they came to the broken gate close to the house. Cheiron paused and leaned on the top bar. "Is this the elves' home?" he asked. "Yes," she answered gravely. "But so late in the day you cannot see them. You must wait again until the sun is setting; and I expect when it is warm they come in the moonlight, too, but I have not been able to get a fine enough night—as yet. This avenue is the most beautiful of all, because a hundred years ago the La Sarthes had a quarrel with the Wendovers, whose land just touches at the end of it, and they closed the gate, and so the turf has covered the gravel. And look at the tree—you can see the fairy ring where they dance, and I always fancy they sup under the one with the very low branch at the side—but I don't believe I should like 'marrow of mice,' should you?" "Not at all," said Cheiron. Then they wandered on. Halcyone led him to each of the favorite points of view, and he became acquainted with the great serpent, and so vivid was her picturing that he almost fancied he saw the Golden Fleece, nailed to the tree beyond, and heard Orpheus' exquisite melodies charming the reptile to sleep while Jason stepped over his slumbering coils. "But I do not have Medea here," she said; "I play her part myself, and I make her different. She was too cunning and had wicked thoughts in her heart, and so the poor Heroes suffered. If she had been good and true and had not killed Absyrtus, things might have had a different ending. I never like to think of Absyrtus in any case—because, do you know, I once hated my baby brother, and would have been glad if anyone had killed him." Her eyes became black as night with this awful recollection. "It was very long ago, you understand—when I was quite a little girl before I knew the wonderful things the wind and the flowers and the stars tell me." Cheiron did not ask the cause of this hate; he reserved the question for a future time, and encouraged her to tell him of her discoveries in wonderland. Some trees had strange personalities, she said. You could never guess the other side of their heads, until you knew them very well. But all had good in them, and it was wisest never even to see the bad. "I always find if you are afraid of things they become real and hurt you, but if you are sure they are kind and true they turn gentle and love you. I am hardly ever afraid of anything now—only I do not like a thunderstorm. It seems as if God were really angry then, and were not considering sufficiently just whom He meant to hit." Justice to her appeared to hold chief place among the virtues. "Do you stay here all the year round?" asked Cheiron, presently, "or do you sometimes have a trip to the seaside?" "I have never been away since I first came—I would love to see the sea," and her eyes became dreary. "I can just remember long ago with my mother, we went once—she and I alone—" then she turned to her old companion and looked up in his face. "Had you a mother? Of course you had, but I mean one that you knew?" The late Mrs. Carlyon had not meant anything much to her son in her lifetime, and was now a far-off memory of forty years ago, so Cheiron answered truthfully upon the subject, and Halcyone looked grave. "When we have been friends for a long time I will tell you of my beautiful mother—and I could let you share my memory of her perhaps—but not to-day," she said. And then she was silent for a while as they walked on. But when they were turning back towards the orchard house she suddenly began to laugh, glancing at the old gentleman with eyes full of merriment. "It is funny," she said, "I don't even know your name! I would like to call you Cheiron—but you have a real name, of course." "It is Arnold Carlyon, and I come from Cornwall," the old gentleman said, "but you are welcome to call me Cheiron, if you like." Halcyone thanked him prettily. "I wish you had his body—don't you? How we could gallop about, could we not? But I can imagine you have, easily. I always can see things I imagine, and sometimes they become realities then." "Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Cheiron. "What would my four legs and my hoofs do in the little orchard house, and how should I sit in my armchair?" Halcyone pealed with merry laughter; her laughs came so rarely and were like golden bells. The comic side of the picture enchanted her. "Of course it would only do if we lived in a cave, as the real Cheiron did," she admitted. "I was silly, was not I?" "Yes," said Mr. Carlyon, "but I don't think I mind your being so—it is nice to laugh." She slipped her thin little hand into his for a moment, and caught hold of one of his fingers. "I am so glad you understand that," she said. "How good it is to laugh! That is what the birds sing to me, it is no use ever to be sad, because it draws evil and fear to yourself, and even in the winter one must know there is always the beautiful spring soon coming. Don't you think God is full of love for this world?" "I am sure he is." "The Aunts' God isn't a very kind person," she went on. "But I expect, since you know about the Greeks, yours and mine are the same." "Probably," said Cheiron. Then, being assured on this point, Halcyone felt she could almost entrust him with her greatest secret. "Do you know," she said, in the gravest voice, "I will tell you something. I have a goddess, too. I found her in the secret staircase. She is broken, even her nose a little, but she is supremely beautiful. It is just her head I have got, and I pretend she is my mother sometimes, really come back to me again. We have long talks. Some day I will show her to you. I have to keep her hidden, because Aunt Ginevra cannot bear rubbish about, and as she is broken she would want to have her thrown away." "I shall be delighted to make her acquaintance. What do you call her?" "That is just it," said Halcyone. "When I first found her it seemed to me I must call her Pallas Athené, because of that noble lady in Perseus—but as I looked and looked I knew she was not that; it seems she cannot be anything else but just Love—her eyes are so tender, she has many moods, and they are not often the same—but no matter how she looks you feel all the time just love, love, love—so I have not named her yet. You remember when Orpheus took his lyre and sang after Cheiron had finished his song—it was of Chaos and the making of the world, and how all things had sprung from Love—who could not live alone in the Abyss. So I know that is she—just Love." "Aphrodite," said Cheiron. "It is a pretty name. If that is what it means, I would call her that." "It will do," said Cheiron. "Aphrodite—Aphrodite," she repeated it over and over. "It must mean kind and tender, and soft and sweet, and beautiful and glorious, and making you think of noble things, and making you feel perfectly happy and warmed and comforted and blessed. Is it all that?" "It could be—and more," said Cheiron. "Then I will name her so." After this there was a long silence. Mr. Carlyon would not interrupt what was evidently a serious moment to his little friend. He waited, and then presently he turned the channel of her thoughts by asking her if she thought he might call on her Aunts that afternoon. Halcyone hesitated a second. "We hardly ever have visitors. Aunt Ginevra has always said one must not receive what one cannot return, and they have no carriage or horses now, so they never see anyone. Aunt Roberta would, but Aunt Ginevra does not let her, and she often says in the last ten years they have quite dropped out of everything. I do not know what that means altogether, because I do not know what there was to drop out of. I have scarcely ever been beyond the park, and there do not seem to be any big houses f...