Chapter 43

Vivette did not without regret see Peter go. But she had seen enough to realise that his adventures were at an end. She surrendered him to a better claim, as always she had decided to do. Her comedy, she told herself, had on the whole finished happily. Vivette had the fortunate ability to be done for ever with things ended. She was too thoroughly a player to wish the curtain raised upon a story technically finished.

Peter, too, had rung down the veil on his pilgrimage. He wanted to take up his life from the moment at which he had looked for Miranda in an empty house. It all came vividly to his mind again. The short ride home was thronged with scenes from his life of a boy. They rose from the stirred pools of memory. He could see pale clusters of the evening primrose, and smell the laden air of a place where he had waited for her long ago. He saw a heap of discoloured paper dimly lit by a struck match, lying in a far corner of a raftered room where he had lost her.

How could this girl have become a stranger? It was impossible. Yet it was also impossible that he for five years had neglected to look for her. He had not remembered her for five years. He[Pg 325] could not now believe it. The five years confronted him, inexorably accusing.

He reached Curzon Street, and at once looked for his mother. She could tell him all there was to know of Miranda, and in the morning he would go to her. His mother came from her room as Peter arrived on the stairs.

"You are tired, mother. You want to sleep?"

"We will talk in the morning, Peter."

"Not to-night?"

"It is not necessary to-night."

Mrs. Paragon smiled mysteriously, and added:

"You will find her in the drawing-room."

Peter's heart bounded.

"She is here?" he breathlessly asked.

He looked at the door between them. Mrs. Paragon kissed him good night without a word, and went into her room.

When Peter went in to Miranda he saw himself explaining away the years in a rush of eloquence. He would torrentially claim Miranda. He would persuade and overwhelm her.

Miranda, for her part, waited eagerly upon the event. She had decided to be mistress of herself till for herself she had judged that Peter's mother was right. She pretended she was not yet sure that Peter had never ceased to care. She wanted to play delicately with her glad conviction.

But Peter could not speak, and Miranda could not play. He came towards her and stood a moment. His lips foolishly quivered, and the veil[Pg 326] upon Miranda was torn. Her hand went out to him. She saw she had moved only when Peter dropped beside her chair. There was nothing now to explain. He just crept to her heart and rested.

The meeting of their eyes was not yet to be endured. They came together in a darkness of their own.

Gradually the trouble went out of their passion—a stream, no longer broken, but running deep. To Peter it seemed that the tranquil rhythm of the bosom where he lay had never failed.

"Why have we waited till now?" Peter softly wondered. "It cannot be true. I have come to you from yesterday."

They were together a little longer, shyly approaching the wonder of their meeting, with broken words—fragments of speech pieced out with looks and touches.

When Miranda had left him, Peter pondered in her chair the things he had intended to say. He could not now believe they had so wonderfully taken everything for granted. Surely when morning came his peace and joy would vanish. Nothing would remain but his plans of yesterday for a holiday.

In the morning Miranda met him as a sensible woman with commonplaces to discuss. She had decided that Peter should carry out his plan for a voyage. She would stay in London, and be ready for his return. Peter demurred:

[Pg 327]

"Why should I go now?" he asked. "I have given all that up."

"I want you to go," she insisted.

"But you will come with me, Miranda?" pleaded Peter.

"I will come to the edge of your journey."

Peter felt that Miranda was right. He would come to her with a mind blown fresh by the sea. No wraith of an experience unshared would survive into the perfect day of their marriage. The scattered rays of his passion were to be focussed anew in a dedication absolute and untroubled. The present was haunted by the shadows he had pursued. They flitted between them, to be immediately recognised for shadows and to be put away; but, even so, their joy was faintly marred by the accusing years. Let them be utterly forgotten.

Miranda that evening went on board Peter's yacht. They lay till sunset off the Isle of Wight, till a red glow lit the western cliffs. Then Miranda went over the side, and from a small boat watched the beautiful ship vanish into the open sea. Peter stood to the last, erect and still, and as the distance widened between them Miranda wanted for a moment to call him back. Her sensitive idealism seemed out of reason now that her lover was disappearing into the haze.

Then she overcame her moment of regret. She had given him up to the burning sea, into whose spaces he sailed. He would come back to her inspired with the light and freedom of blue water.[Pg 328] He would find her each day in the triumphing sun, in the gleam of breaking surf, in perfume carried from an Indian shore, in the shining of far mountains. He would fling out his love to catch at all the loveliness into which he was passing. The coloured earth should paint and refashion her; the sea should consecrate her; permanent hills, seen far off, should invest her in queenliness. Her hand should be upon him in the velvet wind. Her mystery should fall upon him out of the deep sky.

Could she regret days which were thus to glorify her? Filled with happiness, exultant and sure, she strained no longer after the lost ship. Peter had disappeared into a yellow mist that girdled all the visible sea. But already she saw him returning to claim in her all the beauty into which he sailed.