And I believe Nan will be all the better for being dependent on her husband for--everything. At any rate, just at first."

Kitty looked somewhat dubious, but Mrs. McBain nodded her approval vigorously.

"That's sound common-sense," she said decidedly. "More than I expected of ye, St. John."

He smiled a little. Then, seeing the unspoken question in Kitty's eyes, he turned to her rea.s.suringly.

"No need to worry, Madame Kitty. Remember, I'm always there, if need be, with the money-bags. My idea is that if Nan doesn't like entire dependence on her husband, it may spur her into working at her music.

I'm always waiting for her to do something big. And the desire for independence is a different spur--and a better one---than the necessity of boiling the pot for dinner."

"You seem to have forgotten that being a professional musician is next door to a crime in Lady Gertrude's eyes," observed Kitty. "She doesn't care for anyone to do more than 'play a little' in a nice, amateur, lady-like fashion!"

"Then Lady Gertrude will have to learn better," replied St. John sharply.

Adding, with a grim smile: "One of my wedding-presents to Nan will be a full-sized grand piano."

So, in accordance with Eliza's advice, everyone refrained from "playing providence" and Nan's engagement to Roger Trenby progressed along conventional lines. Letters of congratulation poured in upon them both, and Kitty grew unmistakably bored by the number of her friends in the neighbourhood who, impelled by curiosity concerning the future mistress of Trenby Hall, suddenly discovered that they owed a call at Mallow and that the present moment was an opportune time to pay it.

Nan herself was keyed up to a rather high pitch these days, and it was difficult for those who were watching her with the anxious eyes of friendship to gauge the extent of her happiness or otherwise. From the moment of Mallory's departure she had flung herself with zest into each day's amus.e.m.e.nt behaving precisely as though she hadn't a care in life--playing about with Sandy, and flirting so exasperatingly with Roger that, although she wore his ring, within himself he never felt quite sure of her.

Kitty used every endeavour to get the girl to herself for half an hour, hoping she might be able to extract the truth from her. But Nan had developed an extraordinary elusiveness and she skilfully avoided tete-a-tete talks with anyone other than Roger. Moreover, there was that in her manner which utterly forbade even the delicate probing of a friend. The Nan who was wont to be so frank and ingenuous--surprisingly so at times--seemed all at once to have retired behind an impenetrable wall of reticence.

Meanwhile Fenton and Penelope had mutually decided to admit none but a few intimate friends into the secret of their engagement. As Ralph sagely observed: "We shall be married so soon that it isn't worth while facing a barrage of congratulations over such a short engagement."

They were radiantly happy, with the kind of happiness that keeps bubbling up from sheer joy of itself--in love with each other in such a delightfully frank and barefaced manner that everyone at Mallow regarded them with gentle amus.e.m.e.nt and loved them for being lovers.

Nothing pleased Nan better than to persuade them into singing that quaintly charming old song, _The Keys of Heaven_--the words of which hold such a tender, whimsical understanding of the feminine heart. Perhaps the refusal of the coach and four black horses "as black as pitch," and of all the other good things wherewith the lover in the song seeks to embellish his suit, was not rendered with quite as much emphasis as it should have been. One might almost have suspected the lady of a desire not to be too discouraging in her denials. But the final verse lacked nothing in interpretation.

Pa.s.sionate and beseeching, as the lover makes his last appeal, offering the greatest gift of all, Ralph's glorious baritone entreated her:

"Oh, I will give you the keys of my heart, And we'll be married till death us do part, Madam, will you walk?

Madam, will you talk?

Madam, will you walk and talk with me?"

Then Penelope's eyes would glow with a lovely inner light, as though the beautiful possibilities of that journey through life together were envisioned in them, and her voice would deepen and mellow till it seemed to hold all the laughter and tears, and all the kindness and tender gaiety and exquisite solicitude of love.

Sometimes, as she was playing the accompaniment, Nan's own eyes would fill unexpectedly with tears and the black and white notes of the piano run together into an oblong blur of grey.

For though Peter had given her the keys of his heart that night of moon and sea at Tintagel, she might never use them to unlock the door of heaven.

CHAPTER XVIII

"TILL DEATH US DO PART"

Within a fortnight of Mallory's departure from St. Wennys, the whole of the house-party at Mallow had scattered. Lord St. John was the first to go--leaving in order to pay a short visit to Eliza McBain before returning to town. Often though she might scarify him with her sharp tongue, she was genuinely attached to him, and her clannishly hospitable soul would have been sorely wounded if he had not spent a few days at Trevarthen Wood while he was in the neighbourhood. Ralph Fenton had been obliged to hurry north to fulfil an unexpected concert engagement; and on the same day Barry left home to join a shooting-party in Scotland. A few days later Nan and Penelope returned to London, accompanied by Kitty, who a.s.serted an unshakable determination to take part in the orgy of spending which Penelope's forthcoming wedding would entail.

Meanwhile Ralph, being "a big fish" as Penny had once commented, had secured his future wife's engagement as a member of the concert party--by the simple method of declining to accept the American tour himself unless she were included, so that to the joy of buying a trousseau was added the superlative delight of choosing special frocks for Penelope's appearances on tour in the States. Lord St. John had insisted upon presenting the trousseau, Barry Seymour made himself responsible for the concert gowns, and Kitty announced that the wedding was to take place from her house in Green Street.

For the first time in the whole of her brave, hard-working life, Penelope knew what it was to spend as she had seen other women spend, without being driven into choosing the second-best material or the less becoming frock for the unsatisfying reason that it was the cheaper.

The two men had given Kitty carte blanche as regards expenditure and she proceeded to take full advantage of the fact, promptly quelling any tentative suggestions towards economy which Penelope, rather overwhelmed by Mrs. Seymour's lavish notions, occasionally put forth.

The date on which the concert party sailed was already fixed; leaving a bare month in which to accomplish the necessary preparations, and the time seemed positively to fly. Nan evaded taking part in the shopping expeditions which filled the days for Penelope and Kitty, since each new purchase, each frail, chiffony frock or beribboned box which arrived from dressmaker or milliner, served only to remind her that the approaching parting with Penelope was drawing nearer.

In women's friendships there must always come a big wrench when one or other of two friends meets the man who is her mate. The old, tried friendship retreats suddenly into second place--sometimes for a little while it almost seems as though it had petered out altogether. But when once the plunge has been taken, and the strangeness and wonder and glory of the new life have become ordinary and commonplace with the sweet commonness of dear, familiar, daily things, then the old friendship comes stealing back--deeper and more understanding, perhaps, than in the days before one of the two friends had come into her woman's kingdom.

Nan sat staring into the fire--for the first breath of autumn had already chilled the air--trying to realise that to-day was actually the eve of Penelope's wedding-day. It seemed incredible--even more incredible that Kitty and she should have gone off laughing together to see about some detail of the next day's arrangements which had been overlooked.

She was suddenly conscious that if this were the eve of her own marriage with Roger laughter would be far enough away from her.

Regarded dispa.s.sionately, her decision to marry him because she couldn't marry the man she loved, seemed rather absurd and illogical.

It was like going into a library and, having discovered that the book which you required was out, accepting one you didn't really want instead--just because the librarian, who knew nothing whatever about your tastes in literature, had offered it to you. You always began the subst.i.tute hopefully and generally ended up by being thoroughly bored with it and marvelling how on earth anybody could possibly have found it interesting! Nan wondered if she would get bored with her subst.i.tuted volume.

She had rushed recklessly into her engagement, regarding marriage with Roger much as though it were a stout set of palings with "No Right of Way" written across them in large letters. Outside, the waves of emotion might surge in vain, while within, she and Roger would settle down to the humdrum placidity of married life. But the dull, ceaseless ache at her heart made her sometimes question whether anything in the world could keep at bay the insistent claim of love.

She tried to rea.s.sure herself. At least there would always remain her music and the pa.s.sionate delight of creative work. It was true she had written nothing recently. She had been living at too high an emotional strain to have any surplus energy for originating, and she knew from experience that all creative work demands both strength and spirit, heart and soul--everything that is in you, if it is to be worth while.

These and other disconnected thoughts flitted fugitively through her mind as she sat waiting for Penelope's return. Vague visions of the future; memories--hastily slurred over; odd, rather frightened musings on the morrow's ceremony, when Penny would bind herself to Ralph ". . .

_in the sight of G.o.d, and in the face of this congregation_."

Rather curiously Nan reflected that she had never actually read the Marriage Service--only caught chance phrases here and there in the course of other people's marriages. She switched on the light and hunted about for a book of Common Prayer, turning the pages with quick, nervous fingers till she came to the one headed: _The Solemnization of Matrimony_. She began to read.

"_I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed . . ._"

How tremendously solemn and searching it sounded! She never remembered being struck with the awfulness of matrimony when she had so light-heartedly attended the weddings of her girl friends. Her princ.i.p.al recollection was of small, white-surpliced choir-boys shrilly singing "The Voice that breathed o'er Eden," and then, for a brief s.p.a.ce, of a confused murmur of responsive voices, the clergyman and the bride and bridegroom dividing the honours fairly evenly between them, while the congregation rustled their wedding garments as they craned forward in their efforts to obtain a good view of the bride.

Followed the withdrawal into the vestry for the signing of the register, when everybody seemed to be kissing everybody else with considerable lack of discrimination. Finally, to the inspiriting strains of Mendelssohn--who evidently saw nothing sad or sorrowful in a wedding, but only joy and triumph and the completing of life--the whole company, bride and bridegroom, relatives and guests, trooped down the aisle and dwindled away in cars and carriages, to meet once more, like an incoming tide, at the house of the bride's parents.

But this! . . . This solemn "_I charge ye both . . ._"--Nan read on--"_If either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it_."

There would certainly be an impediment in her own case, since the bride was in love with someone other than the bridegroom. Only, in the strange world we live in, that is not regarded in the light of a "lawful" impediment, so she wouldn't need to confess it--at least, not to anyone except Roger, and her sense of fair play had already impelled her to do that.

Her eyes flew along the words of the service, skimming hastily over the tender beauty of the vows the man and woman give each other. For they are only beautiful if love informs them. To Nan they were rather terrifying with their suggestion of irrevocability.

"_So long as ye both shall live . . ._"

Why, she and Roger were young enough to antic.i.p.ate thirty or forty years together! Thirty or forty years--before death came and released them from each other.

"_Then shall the priest join their right hands together and say, Those whom G.o.d hath joined together, let no man put asunder._"

Nan stretched out a slender right hand and regarded it curiously. Some time to-morrow--at about half-past twelve, she supposed--the priest would join the hands of Penelope and Ralph and henceforth there would be no sundering "till death did them part."

Driven by circ.u.mstances, she had not stopped to consider the possible duration of marriage when she pledged her word to Roger, and during the time which had elapsed since she left Mallow the vision of the Roger who had sometimes jarred upon her, irritating her by his narrowed outlook and his lack of perception, had inevitably faded considerably, as the memory of temperamental irritations is apt to do as soon as absence has secured relief from them.

Latterly, Nan had been feeling quite affectionately disposed towards him--he was really rather a dear in some ways! And she had accepted an invitation to spend part of the winter at Trenby Hall.

The Seymours had planned to go abroad for several months and, since Penelope would be married and on tour, it had seemed a very natural solution of matters. So that when Lady Gertrude's rather stiffly-worded letter of invitation had arrived, Nan accepted it, determining in her own mind that, during the visit, she would try to overcome her mother-in-law's dislike to her. The knowledge of how much Roger loved her and of how little she was really able to give him in return, made her feel that it was only playing the game to please him in any way she could. And she recognised that to a man of Roger's ideas, the fact that his wife and mother were on good terms with one another would be a source of very definite satisfaction.