Greatheart

by Ethel M. Dell

  CHAPTER IV

  THE NEW HOME

  A small figure was already standing outside the station when the car SirEustace drove whirled round the corner of the station yard. He wasgreeted by the waving of a vigorous hand, as he dashed up, grinding onthe brakes in the last moment as was his impetuous custom. Everyone knewhim from afar by his driving, and the village children were wont toscatter like rabbits at his approach.

  Dinah however stood her ground with a confidence which his wildperformance hardly justified, and the moment he alighted sprang to meethim with the eagerness of a child escaped from school.

  "Oh, Eustace, it is fun coming here! I was so horribly afraid somethingwould stop me just at the last. But everything has turned out all right,and we are going to have ever such a fine wedding with crowds and crowdsof people. Did you know Isabel wrote and said she would give me mywedding dress? Isn't it dear of her? How is she now?"

  "Where is your luggage?" said Eustace.

  She pointed to a diminutive dress-basket behind her. "That's all thereis. I'm not to stay more than a week as the time is getting so short Idon't feel as if I shall ever be ready as it is. I've never been sorushed before. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be almost better to putit off a few weeks."

  "Jump up!" commanded Eustace, with a curt sign to a porter to pick up his_fiancee's_ humble impediments.

  Dinah sprang up beside him and slipped a shy hand onto his knee. "Youlook more like Apollo than ever," she whispered, awe-struck, "when youfrown like that. Is anything the matter?"

  His brow cleared magically at her action. "I began to think I should haveto come down to Perrythorpe and fetch you," he said, grasping the littlenervous fingers. "I thought you meant to give me the slip--if you could."

  "Oh no!" said Dinah, shocked at the suggestion. "I wanted to come;only--only--I couldn't be spared sooner. It wasn't my fault," she urgedpleadingly. "Truly it wasn't!"

  He smiled upon her. "All right,--Daphne. I'll forgive you this time," hesaid. "But now I've got you, my nymph of the woods, I am not going topart with you again in a hurry. And if you talk of putting off thewedding again, I'll simply run away with you. So now you know what toexpect."

  Dinah uttered her giddy little laugh. The excitement of this visit--thefirst she had ever paid to anyone--had turned her head. "Do you knowRose is actually going to be my chief bridesmaid?" she said. "Isn'tthat--magnanimous of her? She is pretending to be pleased, but I know sheis frightfully jealous underneath. The other bridesmaid is the Vicar'sdaughter. She is quite old, nearly thirty but I couldn't think of anyoneelse, except the infant schoolmistress, and they wouldn't let me haveher. I shall feel rather small, shan't I? Even Rose is twenty-five. Iwonder if I shall feel grown up when I'm married. Do you think I shall?"

  "Not till you cease to be--Daphne," said Sir Eustace enigmatically.

  He started the car with the words, and they shot forward with asuddenness that made Dinah hold her breath.

  But in a few moments she was chattering again, for she was never quietfor long. How was Scott? Was he at home? And Isabel--he hadn't told her.She did hope dear Isabel was keeping better. Was she? Was she?

  She pressed the question as he did not seem inclined to answer it, andsaw again the frown that had darkened his handsome face upon arrival.

  "Do tell me!" she begged. "Isn't she so well?"

  And at last with the curtness of speech which always denoted displeasurewith him, he made reply.

  "No, she has gone back a good deal since she got home. She lies on a sofaand broods all day long. I am looking to you to wake her up. For heaven'ssake be as lively as you can!"

  "Oh, poor Isabel!" Quick concern was in Dinah's voice. "What is it, doyou think? Doesn't the place suit her?"

  "Heaven knows," he answered gloomily, "I have a house down atHeath-on-Sea where we keep the yacht, but I doubt if it would do hermuch good to go there this time of the year. She and Scott might tryit later--after the wedding."

  "Couldn't we all go there?" suggested Dinah ingenuously.

  He gave her a keen glance. "For the honeymoon? No I don't think so," hesaid.

  "Only for the first part of it," said Dinah coaxingly; "till Isabel feltbetter."

  He uttered a brief laugh. "No, thanks, Daphne. We're going to bealone--quite alone, for the first part of our honeymoon. I am going totake you in this car to the most out-of-the-way corner in England,where--even, if you run away--there'll be nowhere to run to. And thereyou'll stay till--" he paused a moment--"you realize that you are allmine for ever and ever, till in fact, you've shed all your baby nonsenseand become a wise little married woman."

  Dinah gave a sudden sharp shiver, and pulled her coat closer about her.

  He glanced at her again. "You'll like it better than being amaid-of-all-work," he said, with his swift, transforming smile.

  She smiled back at him with ready responsiveness. "Oh, I shall! I'm sureI shall. I've always wanted to be married--always. Only--it'll seem alittle funny, just at first. You won't get impatient with me, will you,if--if sometimes I forget how to behave?"

  He laughed and abruptly slackened speed. They were running down a narrowlane bordered with bare trees through which the spring sunshine filtereddown. On a brown upland to one side of them a plough was being driven.On the other the ground sloped away to deep meadows where wound awillow-banked river.

  The car stopped. "How pretty it is!" said Dinah.

  And then very suddenly she found that it was not for the sake of the viewthat he had brought her to a standstill in that secluded place. For hecaught her to him with the hot ardour she had learned to dread and kissedwith passion the burning face she sought to hide.

  She struggled for a few seconds like a captured bird, but in the end sheyielded palpitating, as she had yielded so often before, mutely bearingthat which her whole soul clamoured inarticulately to escape. When he lether go, her cheeks were on fire. He was laughing, but she was on theverge of tears.

  He started on again without words, and in a very brief space they wereracing forward at terrific speed, seeming scarcely to touch the ground sorapid was their progress.

  Dinah sat with her two hands clutched upon her hat, thankful for the coldrush of air that gave her relief after the fiery intensity of thoseunsparing kisses. Her heart was beating in great thumps. Somehow thefierceness of him always exceeded either memory or expectation. He was soterribly strong, so disconcertingly absolute in his demands upon her. Andevery time he seemed to take more.

  She hardly noticed anything further of the country through which theypassed. Her agitation possessed her overwhelmingly. She felt exhausted,unnerved, very curiously ashamed. It was good to have so princely alover, but his tempestuous wooing was altogether too much for her. Shewondered how Rose, the sedate and composed beauty, would have met thosewild gusts of passion. They would not have disconcerted her; nothing everdid. She would probably have endured all with a smile. No form ofadoration could come amiss with her. She did not fancy that Rose's heartwas capable of beating at more than the usual speed. Her very blushessavoured of a delicate complacency that enhanced her beauty withoutdisturbing her serenity. A great wave of envy went through Dinah. "Ah,why had she not been blessed with such a temperament as that?"

  His voice broke in upon her disjointed meditations. "Well, Daphne?Feeling better?"

  She glanced at him with the confused consciousness that she dared notmeet his eyes. She was glad that he was laughing, but the turbulentfeeling of uncertainty that his nearness always brought to her was withher still. She was as one who had passed by a raging fire, and thescorching heat of the flame yet remained with her. Breathlessly shespoke. "I can't think--or do anything--in this wind. Are we nearlythere?"

  "We are there," he made answer.

  And she discovered that which in her distress of mind she had failed tonotice. They were running smoothly along a private avenue of fir-treestowards an old stone mansion that stood on a slope overlooking the longriver valley.

  She drew
a hard breath. "But this is better--ever so much--than theCourt!" she said.

  "Your future home, my queen!" said Sir Eustace royally.

  She breathed again deeply, wonderingly. "Is it real?" she said.

  He laughed. "I almost think so. You see that other house right away inthe distance, across that further slope? That is the Dower House whereIsabel and Scott are to live when we are married."

  "Oh!" There was a quick note of disappointment in Dinah's voice. "Ithought they would live with us."

  "I don't know why," said Sir Eustace with a touch of sharpness, and thensoftening almost immediately, "It's practically the same thing, my spriteof the woods. But I wish you to be mistress in your own home--when we dosettle down, which won't be at present. For we're not coming back fromour honeymoon till you have learnt that I am the only person in the worldthat matters."

  Again a slight shiver caught Dinah, but she repressed it instantly. "Iexpect it won't take me very long to learn that, Apollo," she said, withher shy, fleeting smile.

  And then they glided up to the wide steps of his home and the door openedto receive them, showing Scott--Scott her friend--standing in theopening, awaiting her.