Halcyone: Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The seasons came and went with peaceful regularity, unbroken by a
jarring note from the outside world. Mr. Anderton, being well assured by
the Misses La Sarthe that his stepdaughter was receiving a splendid
education, was only too glad to leave her in peace, and Mrs. Anderton
felt her duty achieved when at the beginning of each summer and winter
she sent a supply of what she considered suitable clothes. It took
Priscilla and Hester hours to alter them to Halcyone's slender shape.

Mr. Carlyon was seldom absent from his house during this period, only
twice a year, when he spent a fortnight in London in June, and another
week in November with his brother, a squire of some note in the Cornish
world. Halcyone made green his old age with the exquisite quality of her
opening mind. And deep down in her heart there always dwelt the image of
John Derringham, and whatever new hero she read about, he unconsciously
assumed some of his features or mien. She passed through enthusiasms for
all periods, and for quite six months was under the complete spell of
the "Morte d'Arthur" and the adventures of the knights contained
therein. She read voraciously and systematically, but her first love for
all things Greek regained its hold and undoubtedly colored her whole
view of life.

Her education was exotic and might have ruined a brain of lesser fiber.
But for her it seemed to bring forth all that was clear and fine and
polish it with a diamond luster. Twice a week alternately the French and
German master from the Applewood Grammar School came to her, and she
also learned to read music from the organist at the church, and then
played to herself with no technique but much taste.

And of all her masters, Nature and the fearless study of her night moods
molded her soul the most.

For the first few months after John Derringham's visit Mr. Carlyon often
spoke of him and read aloud bits of his letters, and Halcyone listened
with rapt attention, but she never embarked upon the subject
herself--and then the Professor had an accident to his knee which kept
him a prisoner for months. And somehow the interest of this seemed to
dwarf less present things, and as time went on, John Derringham grew to
be mentioned only by fits and starts, when his rapidly rising political
career called forth cynical grunts of admiration from his old master.
There had been a dissolution of Parliament and a short term of office
for the other side, and then at the General Election John Derringham's
Chief had come in again stronger than ever, and he himself had been made
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. It was a tremendous rise
for one so young. He was at that time not more than twenty-nine years
old--but two years before this happened, when Halcyone was about
fifteen, he came again to the orchard house for a short Saturday to
Monday visit.

From the moment that she knew he was coming a strange stillness seemed
to fall upon the child. She had grown long-legged and was at the
fledgling stage when even a pretty girl sometimes looks plain, and she,
who had as yet no claim to beauty, was at her worst. She was quite aware
of it, with her intense soul-worship of all beautiful things. Some
unreasoned impulse made her keep away from her master during the first
day, but on the Sunday he summoned her, and, as once before, she came
and poured out the tea, but it was a cold and windy autumn afternoon,
and it was not laid out of doors. John Derringham had been for a walk,
and came in while she sat in a shadowy corner behind the table, teapot
in hand.

He was greatly changed, she thought, in the three years. He had grown a
beard! and looked considerably older, with his thin commanding figure
and arrogant head. He was not handsome now, but peculiarly
distinguished-looking. He could very well be Pericles, she decided at
once. As for him, he had almost forgotten her. Life had been so full of
many things; but, seeing a pale, slender, overgrown girl with
mouse-colored clouds of hair now confined in a demure pigtail, it came
to his mind that this must be the Professor's pupil again. Had she not
been called Hebe or Psyche--or Halcyone--some Greek name? And gradually
his former recollection of her came back, and of their morning in the
tree.

"Why, how do you do," he said politely, and Halcyone bowed without
speaking. She felt much as Hans Andersen's Ugly Duckling used to feel,
and when John Derringham had said a few ordinary things about her having
grown out of all likeness, he turned to the Professor again, and almost
forgot her presence.

His talk was most wonderful to listen to, she thought, his language was
so polished, and there was a courtesy added to the former vehemence.
They spoke of nothing but politics, which she did not understand, and
Cheiron chaffed him a good deal in his kindly cynical way. He was still
fighting his chimeras, it seemed, and fighting them successfully. As he
spoke, Halcyone, behind the teapot, thrilled with a kind of worship. To
be strong and young and manful, and to combat modern dragons, appeared
to her to be a god-like task.

In the midst of a heated argument she rose to slip away. Her comings and
goings were so natural to the Professor that he was unaware that she was
leaving the room until John Derringham broke off in the middle of a
sentence, to rise and open the door for her.

"Good-by," she said. "Aunt Roberta is not very well to-day, so I must
not be late. Good night, Cheiron"--and she went out and closed the door.

"But it is quite dark!" exclaimed John Derringham. "Is there a servant
waiting? She can't go all alone!"

The Professor leaned back in his chair.

"Don't disturb yourself," he said. "Halcyone is accustomed to the
twilight. It is a strange night-creature--leave it alone."

John Derringham sat down again.

"She is not nearly so attractive-looking as she used to be. If I
remember, she was rather a weirdly pretty child."

"Just a chrysalis now," grunted the professor between [**TR Note: was
betwen in original; typesetter's error.] puffs of smoke. "But there is
more true philosophy and profound knowledge of truth in that little head

than either you or I have got in ours, John."

"You always thought the world of her, Master--you, with your
ineradicable contempt for women!"

"She is not a woman--yet. She is an intelligence and a brain--and a
soul."

"Oh, she has a soul, then!" and John Derringham smiled. "I remember once
you said when I should meet a woman with a soul I should meet my match!
I do not feel very alarmed."

One of the Professor's penthouse brows raised itself about half an inch,
but he did not speak.

"In which school have you taught her?" John Derringham asked--"you who
are so much of a cynic, Master. Does she study the ethics of Aristotle
with you here in this Lyceum, or do you reconstruct Plato's Academy? She
is no sophist, apparently, since you say she can see the truth."

Mr. Carlyon looked into the fire.

"She is almost an Epicurean, John, in all but the disbelief in the
immortality of the soul. She has evolved a theory of her own about that.
It partakes of Buddhism. After I have discussed metaphysical
propositions with her over which she will argue clearly, she will
suddenly cut the whole knot with a lightning flash, and you see the
naked truth, and words become meaningless, and discussion a jest."

"All this, at fifteen!" John Derringham laughed antagonistically, and
then he suddenly remembered her words to himself upon honor in the tree
that summer morning three years ago, and he mused.

Perhaps some heaven-taught beings were allowed to come to earth after
all, now and then as the centuries rolled on.

"She knows Greek pretty well?" he asked.

"Fairly, for the time she has learnt. She can read me bits of Lucian.
She would stumble over the tragedies. I read them to her." Then he
continued, as though it were a subject he loved, "She has a concrete
view upon every question; her critical faculty is marvelous. She never
lays down the law, but if you ask her, you have your answer in a
nutshell, the simplest truth, which it always appears to her so strange
that you have not seen all the time."

"What is her parentage? Heredity plays so large a part in these things,"
Mr. Derringham asked.

"The result of a passionate love-match between distant cousins of that
fine old race, I believe. Timothy La Sarthe was at Oxford before your
day, but not under me--a brilliant, enchanting fellow, drowned while
yachting when my little friend was only a few months old."

"And the mother?"

"Married again to pay his debts, to a worthy stockbroker, almost
immediately, I believe. She paid the debt with herself and died after
having three children for him in a few years."

"So your prot�g�e lives with those cameos of the Victorian era we dined
with, and never sees the outside world?"

"Never--from one year's end to another."

"What a fate!" and John Derringham stretched out his arms. "Ye gods,
what a fate!"

And again Cheiron smiled, raising his bushy left brow.

Halcyone, meanwhile, was walking with firm certain steps across the
park, where the dusk had fallen. The turbulent Boreas blew in her face,
and she stopped and took off her soft cap and unplaited her hair so that
it flew out in a cloud as the wind rushed through it. This sensation was
a great pleasure to her, and when she came to a rising ground, a kind of
knoll where the view of the country was vast and superb, she paused
again and took in great deep breaths. She was drawing all the forces of
the air into her being and quivered presently with the joy of it.

She could see as only those who are accustomed to the dark can. She was
aware of all the outlines of golden bracken at her feet and the head of
a buck peeping from the copse near. The sky was a passionate,
tempestuous mass of angry clouds scudding over the deep blue, where an
evening star could be seen peeping out.

"Bring me your force and strength, that I may grow noble and beautiful,
dear wind," she said aloud. "I want to be near him when he comes again,"
and then she ran and jumped the uneven places, while she hummed a
strange song.

And Jeb Hart and Joseph Gubbs, the poachers, saw her, as she passed
within a yard of where they lay setting their snares, and Gubbs, who was
a good Catholic from Upminster, crossed himself as he muttered in his
friend's ear:

"We'll get no swag to-night, Jeb. When she passes, blest if she don't
warn the beasts."

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