CHAPTER XXV—ARRANGED BY TELEPHONE

THE visit to London, if it had not been prolific in the results which Lady Anne had hoped for, had at least accomplished certain things.

It had acted as a brake upon the swiftly turning wheels of two lives precariously poised at the top of that steep hill of which no traveller can see the end, but which very surely leads to heartbreak and disaster, and had sufficed, as Jean had suggested that it might, to restore Nick to a more normal and temperate state of mind.

He and Claire had passed a long hour alone together the day after his return to Staple, and now that the first violent reaction, the first instinctive impulse of unbearable revolt from Sir Adrian’s spying and brutality had spent itself they had agreed to shoulder once more the burden fate had laid upon them, to fight on again, just holding fast to the simple knowledge of their love for one another and leaving the ultimate issue to that great, unfathomable Player who “hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,” not with the shadowed vision of our finite eyes but with the insight of eternity.

Jean had seen them coming hand in hand through the cool green glades of the wood where the great decision had been taken, and something in the two young, stern-set faces brought a sudden lump into her throat. She turned swiftly aside, avoiding a meeting, feeling as though here was holy ground upon which not even so close a friend as she could tread without violation.

To Jean herself the week in London had brought a certain, new tranquillity of spirit. Quite ordinarily and without effort—thanks to Lady Anne’s skilful stage-management—she and Blaise had been constantly in each other’s company, and, with the word “Beloved” murmuring in her heart like some tender undertone of melody, the hours they had shared together were no longer a mingled ecstacy and pain, marred by torturing doubts and fears, but held once more the old magic of that wonder-day at Montavan.

Somehow, the dividing line did not seem to matter very much, now that she was sure that Blaise, on his side of it, was loving her just as she, on hers, loved him. Indeed, at this stage Jean made no very great demands on life. After the agony of uncertainty of the last few months, the calm surety that Blaise loved her seemed happiness enough.

Other sharp edges of existence, too, had smoothed themselves down—as sharp edges have a knack of doing if you wait long enough. Burke seemed to have accepted her last answer as final, and now spared her the effort of contending further with his tempestuous love-making, so that she felt able to continue her friendship with Judith, and her consequent visits to Willow Ferry, with as little g锚ne as though the episode at the “honeymooners’ inn” had never taken place. She even began to believe that Burke was genuinely slightly remorseful for his behaviour on that particular occasion.

Apparently he had not made a confidant of his sister over the matter, for it was without the least indication of a back thought of any kind that she approached Jean on the subject of spending a few days with herself and Geoffrey at their bungalow on the Moor.

“Geoff and I are going for a week’s blow on Dartmoor, just by way of a ‘pick-me-up.’ Come with us, Jean; it will do you good after stuffy old London—blow the cobwebs away!”

But here, at least, Jean felt that discretion was the better part of valour. It was true that Burke appeared fairly amenable to reason just at present, but in the informal companionship of daily life in a moorland bungalow it was more than probable that he would become less manageable. And she had no desire for a repetition of that scene in the inn parlour.

Therefore, although the Moor, with its great stretches of gold and purple, its fragrant, heatherly breath and its enfolding silences, appealed to her in a way in which nothing else on earth seemed quite to appeal, pulling at her heartstrings almost as the nostalgia for home and country pulls at the heartstrings of a wanderer, she returned a regretful negative to Judith’s invitation. So Burke and Mrs. Craig packed up and departed to Three Fir Bungalow without her, and life at Staple resumed the even tenor of its way.

The weather was glorious, the long, hot summer days melting into balmy nights when the hills and dales amid which the old house was set were bathed in moonlight mystery—transmuted into a wonderland of phantasy, cavernous with shadow where undreamed-of dragons lurked, lambent with opalescent fields of splendour whence uprose the glimmer of half-visioned palaces or the battlemented walls of some ethereal fairy castle.

More than once Jean’s thoughts turned wistfully towards the Moor which she had so longed to see by moonlight—Judith’s “holy of holies that God must have made for His spirits”—and she felt disposed to blame herself for the robust attack of caution which had impelled her to refuse the invitation to the bungalow.

“One loses half the best things in life by being afraid,” she told herself petulantly. “And a second chance to take them doesn’t come!”

She felt almost tempted to write to Judith and propose that she should join her at the bungalow for a few days after all if she still had room for her. And then, as is often the way of things just when we are contemplating taking the management of affairs into our own hands, the second chance offered itself without any directing impulse on Jean’s part.

The telephone bell rang, and Jean, who was expecting an answer to an important message she had ’phoned through on Lady Anne’s behalf, hastened to answer it. Very much to her surprise she found that it was Burke who was speaking at the other end of the wire.

“Is that you, Geoffrey?” she exclaimed in astonishment. “I didn’t know your bungalow was on the telephone. I thought you were miles from anywhere!”

“It isn’t. And we are,” came back Burke’s voice. From a certain quality in it she knew that he was smiling. “I’m in Okehampton, ’phoning from a pal’s house. I’ve a message for you from Judy.”

“Ye-es?” intoned Jean enquiringly.

“She wants you to come up to-morrow, just for one night. It’ll be a full moon and she says you have a hankering to see the Moor by moonlight. Have you?”

“Yes, oh yes!”—with enthusiasm.

“Thought so. It certainly does look topping. Quite worth seeing. Well, look here, Judy’s got a party of friends, down from town, who are coming over to us from the South Devon side—going to drive up and stay the night, and the idea is to do a moonlight scramble up on to the top of one of the tors after supper. Are you game?”

“Oh! How heavenly!” This, ecstatically, from Jean.

“How what?”

“Heavenly! Heavenly!”—with increasing emphasis.

“Can’t you hear?”

“Oh, ‘heavenly’—yes, I hear. Yes, it would be rather—if you came.”

Even through the’phone Burke’s voice conveyed something of that upsettingly fiery ardour of his.

“I won’t come—unless you promise to behave,” said Jean warningly.

Bubbling over with pleasure at the prospect unfolded by the invitation, she found it a little difficult to infuse a befitting sternness into her tones.

“Do I need to take fresh vows?” came back Burke’s answer, spoken rather gravely. “I made you a promise that day—when we drove back from Dartmoor. I’ll keep that.”

“I’ll never hiss you again till you give me your lips yourself.”

The words of the promise rushed vividly into Jean’s mind, and now that steady voice through the’phone, uttering its quiet endorsement of the assurance given, made her feel suddenly ashamed of her suspicions.

“Very well, I’ll come then,” she said hastily. “How shall I get to you?”

“It’s all planned, because we thought—at least we hoped—you’d come. If you’ll come down to Okehampton by the three o’clock train from Coombe Eavie, I’ll meet you there with the car and drive you up to the bungalow. Judy is going to drive into Newton Abbot early, to do some marketing, and afterwards she’ll lunch with her London people—the Holfords. Then they’ll all come up together in the afternoon.”

“I see. Very well. I’ll come to Okehampton by the three train to-morrow afternoon”—repeating his instructions carefully.

“Right. That’s all fixed, then.”

“Quite. Mind you also fix a fine day—or night, rather! Good-bye.”

A murmured farewell came back along the wire, and then Jean, replacing the receiver in its clip, ran off to apprise Lady Anne of the arrangements made.

Lady Anne looked up from some village charity accounts which were puckering her smooth brow to smile approval.

“How nice, dear! Quite a charming plan—you’ll enjoy it. Especially as there will be nothing to amuse you here to-morrow. I have two village committees to attend—I’m in the chair, so I must go. And Blaise, I know, is booked for a busy day with the estate agent, while Nick is going down to South Devon somewhere for a day’s fishing. I think he goes down to-night. Really, it’s quite unusually lucky that Judith should have fixed on to-morrow for her moonlight party.”