Part 17

This was not Mrs. Paragon's last visit to Claridge's. In the days between her discovery of Miranda and Peter's dinner she talked with Miranda frequently and long. Miranda learned the whole story of Peter's life; learned also to sound every deep place in his mother.

Of Miranda there was less to tell than the change in her seemed to require. Her father and mother had drowned fighting for life in the sea. She had waited on deck to the last, calmly accepting her fate. The terrible scenes about her of people huddled to a brutal end had not shaken her spirit. At the last moment she was pulled on to a raft, and made fast by the man who had found it. They passed through the night together, and he said she had saved him from despair. He was a Canadian farmer of French extraction. She passed for two years as his daughter, and at his death inherited his fortune. He had made her love the French, and she had lived mainly in France for the last three years.

Thus had Miranda been kept, aloof and free; and thus wonderfully restored. There were a hundred prosaic ways in which her rediscovery might have been arranged; but for Peter, because Peter was young, the incredible was achieved. Chance had waited for her most effective moment, and was resolute that it should not be marred. Miranda's coming, like all true miracles, could only grow more wonderful the more it was explained.

Upon the evening of Peter's dinner, Mrs. Paragon found Miranda serenely ready. She admitted to no excitement.

"You need not look at me like that," she said to Mrs. Paragon when they met. "I am going to be introduced to a strange young man. It is not at all disturbing."

A few minutes later she passed into the room where Peter's friends were waiting. Atterbury claimed her at once. Then it came to a meeting. She caught Peter in the flash of his discovery. The sudden glory of his lighted face blinded her to the years between them. She felt her pulses leap eagerly at her sovereign peace, but outwardly she was still. She calmly ignored his recognition. She bowed to him as a stranger, and passed in to dinner with Atterbury.

XLII

Peter at dinner was next Vivette, and Atterbury, with Miranda, was at the far end of a long table. He heard only snatches of their talk, enough to show that Miranda entirely outmatched him in conversation and address. She was complete mistress of herself. She had put away all sense of crisis, ignoring the tumult of her late encounter. Atterbury loved all things French, and Peter had many opportunities to notice their enthusiastic agreement.

Peter could not so well recover. Miranda's return had blotted out the last five years. He saw no change in her. She was the woman he had always divined her to be. He had never seen in her the awkward girl whose disappearance Mrs. Paragon had noted. Her refusal to accept him at once and take up their life from the point at which they had parted became increasingly absurd as in numberless gestures, in the play of her spirit made visible, he recognised ever more clearly the girl he had lost. His wonder grew, equally, at the way in which for five years he had ignored her existence. These years now seemed unreal. Surely he had loved her always, and always had been full of her.

If only he called to her in the old familiar way, surely she would no longer play the stranger. She would recognise their bond, and all this pageant, holding them absurdly apart, would disappear.

Miranda knew how Peter watched her; how he was living himself back into the past; how he was seeking for a sign that she admitted their union. But she would not yet confess that between them a secret current ran even as she talked and laughed and accepted Atterbury's vivacious gallantry. She had yet to hear from Peter why for five years he had made no sign. He deserved at any rate to be put on his defence.

Peter's wonderful last adventure returned upon him in waves of uphappy consciousness, to be decently put away in heroic efforts to entertain his guests, and be the companion of Vivette. But it was always with a start of the mind that he returned to his duties.

Vivette was deeply offended. Peter was again on fire. She had seen him leap into flame at the sight of a stranger. She had not expected her warning to Peter to be so quickly justified. His behaviour to-night, to put it no higher, was a breach of manners. She had taken Peter very seriously, and he now was doing his best to show she had been mistaken. Her face visibly burned when she remembered how intimately she had abased herself. He had touched a deeper vein in her than she had known, but now he was turning her late act to ridicule.

She talked to him only in answers, and several times he found her distastefully watching the absorbed trend of his attention towards Miranda. Peter was now wholly wretched. Between himself and Miranda a gulf was fixed, and Vivette's hostility aggravated his misery.

At last Vivette and Peter were isolated from the conversation. Their neighbours were each talking on the other side. Peter felt the strain was becoming intolerable. He had turned from watching Miranda to Vivette, and her contemptuous amusement whipped him to a defence.

"This is not what it seems," he said in a low voice.

"Perfection at last," Vivette contemptuously suggested.

"I have known her for years," he pleaded, glancing towards Miranda.

"Really I can't listen. Let us at least bury our own affair."

"I am speaking the literal truth."

Vivette was surprised at his vehemence.

"I am not good at riddles," she said, looking at him closely.

"You don't know what has happened."

"I know," Vivette retorted in a voice that cut him, "that you have had the discourtesy to be smitten with a strange woman within a week of making love to me."

"She is the first woman I ever knew."

Vivette looked closely at Peter.

"It is the literal truth," he said. "Five years ago."

Vivette looked from his face, blazing with veracity, to the very sociable stranger at the other end of the table.

"She does not seem to remember," she objected incisively.

Peter followed Vivette's glance towards Miranda, radiantly responding to the talk of Atterbury.

Conversation broke out again on either side, claiming them. Vivette had seen the truth in Peter's face. Her hostility was checked. She felt another kind of interest in Miranda, watching her carefully. When next she had an opportunity of speaking in a personal way to Peter she had discovered that Miranda was less remote from Peter's excitement than she seemed. Her mind rapidly and generously took in the new position.

"What is her name?" she abruptly asked when they were free to talk.

"Her name was Miranda. Her other name was not Le Roy. I had lost sight of her."

"Had you also forgotten her?"

"Till to-night."

"And now," said Vivette, not without sarcasm, "you think you have always remembered."

"How do you know that?" Peter asked.

Vivette looked at his poor face and smiled. "She remembers you, Peter," she said. "She remembers you very well."

"She is utterly absorbed," objected Peter.

"It is overdone," Vivette decided.

"Why should she do it at all?"

"You best know if it serves you right."

"She must think I have never cared."

"Your mother arranged this meeting," said Vivette in meditation.

"She must have recognised Miranda from the sketch," Peter explained.

"How did your mother know you would remember her?"

"She knows everything," said Peter simply.

Mrs. Paragon sat quietly with Haversham. Haversham had noticed Peter's strange behaviour, and Mrs. Paragon had already told him the whole tale. The dinner proceeded to an end, its essential currents moving beneath the surface. Miranda, with veiled eyes, admitted by no sign that they in the least affected her. But she was gradually flooded with a tide of happiness. She held it off, allowing it only to polish further the glitter of her surface.

Peter's crowning misery that night was the speeches. Atterbury, proposing him, was unaware of any need for discretion. He tactfully and wittily pinned the toast to his caricature, already famous, of Peter as the Pilgrim of Love. The table roared with delight, and, finding Peter's response lacking in conviction, was more delighted at this further proof that Atterbury's barbs had stuck.

At last the party broke up. Vivette had by that time carefully measured Miranda.

"This is good-bye, indeed," she said to Peter at parting. Peter had taken her home to the flat in Soho. His mother had gone with Atterbury and Miranda.

"I'm not sure that I shall go," answered Peter obtusely, thinking of his desolate voyage.

"Precisely," said Vivette. "That is why I am saying good-bye."

Vivette held out her hand. Peter dubiously held it a moment.

"I have treated you very badly, Vivette."

"I am well pleased."

"I owe you so much," he insisted.

She put her free hand on his shoulder and lightly kissed him.

"How good you are, Vivette," Peter fervently exclaimed.

"You're spoiling it, as usual," said Vivette, softly writhing. "Please go at once. I am in the mood to part with you."

XLIII

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 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 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:

"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. 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.

XLIV

Peter and Miranda were looking out over the selfsame burning water into which she had lately dismissed him. Six to seven months had passed, and on the morning of that day they had quietly been married in London. Now they stood high upon the cliffs overhanging a small western bay.

It was early September, and the night was warm. The water was lightly wrinkled. It shimmered from the extreme height at which they viewed it, like beaten metal. The light rapidly died down, and already the lit rooms of a house were brighter than the sky. The house was beneath them, alone upon the side of a steep hill, its windows wide to the sea.

Peter was alone with Miranda for the first time that day. Hardly a week ago he had been eagerly looking each morning towards England. From the time he had landed, and Miranda had seen in him a soul swept clean, a will straining towards her, he had lived in the clutch of preparation and routine. All was now ready, every unessential thing put away.

In long days upon the deck of his yacht Peter had come to distinguish between the physical unrest of his late years--vague and impersonal, afflicting him like hunger or the summer heat--and the perfect passion of his need for Miranda.

Gradually, too, in these long weeks upon the sea Peter began to see steadily things which hitherto had wavered. He had touched reality at last. He overleaped the categories in a burning sense that life was very vast and very near; that the virtue of men could not easily be measured and ranked; that the wonder of existence began when it ceased consciously to confront itself, to probe its deep heart, and absurdly to appoint itself a law. He went through his adventures of the last few years with a smile for his ready infatuation with small aspects of men and things. He had attempted to inspect the discipline of the world, calling mankind to attention as though it were a regiment. He had been a Socialist, and then very nearly a Tory. Now, between sky and water, he vainly tried to constrain things to a formula. He found that he no longer desired to do so. He began to understand his mother's deep, instinctive acceptance of time and fate. All now seemed unreal, except the quiet, happy, and assured act of life itself. Craning at the Southern stars, he no longer desired to measure or to track their passage. He felt them rather as kindred points of energy. The pedantry and pride of knowledge, the ambition to assess, the need to round off heaven, to group mankind in a definite posture and take for himself a firmly intelligible attitude in his own time and way--these things had suddenly left him. Life was now emotionally simple, and it therefore had ceased to be intellectually difficult. He had found humour and peace--an absolute content to receive the passing day. Life itself mattered so much to him--so brimmed him with the passion of _being_--that all he had thought or read was now rebuked as an insolent effort to contain the illimitable.

Interminably, of course, he thought of his personal quest. It all seemed very simple now. He had had some unhappy and trivial adventures. Their sole importance was to make him measure truly the high place of love. In the beginning was blind desire. Then the soul, with eyes for beauty and the power to elect, turned an instinct of the herd to a passion of the individual will--a passion whose fruit was loyalty and sacrifice, the treasures of art and the face of nature wrought into a countenance friendly and beautiful. So mighty had this passion grown that now it could command, as an instrument, the need out of which it came.

Love was now the measure of a man. Either it put him among creatures, groping uneasily till driven by appetite or fear, or it lifted him among the inheritors of passion, a gift rare as genius, a sanctuary from the driven flesh.

To-night, as Peter sat with Miranda looking towards the sea, the substance of these thoughts lay under the surface of his joy. He wondered if for ever he could beat his wings so high. Surely to die soon would be the perfect mating. They were now upon a peak whence it was only possible to come down.

They sat quietly as the moments drifted. Words between them suddenly broke upon notes trembling on the edge of silence. To the passion of his adolescence--the passion of five years ago, recovered in Indian seas and among lonely islands of the Pacific--was added now something so intimate and personal that Peter saw in the fall of Miranda's dress and the poise of a comb in her hair syllables to make him wise. Her beauty had seemed, moments ago, to fill him, but still it poured from her.

He feared to think that this was only a beginning. How could he suffer more happiness and live? He could dwell for ever upon the line of her throat; and when he took her hands it seemed as if she gave to him all he could endure to possess. He feared to be stunned and blinded with her light, and he felt in himself an equal energy to dazzle and consume. It must surely be death to touch her to the heart, to pierce rashly to the secret of her power.

Into his happiness there intruded, when it gave him leave, a profound gratitude. He felt the need of a visible Power to thank. Almost it seemed he had supernaturally been led to this perfect moment, to encounter it perfectly. All his youth was gathered up. He would plunge at once to the heart of love, his soul unblunted, no step of his adventure known. Many times, during his days at sea, he had trembled to think how near he had come to losing the unspoiled mystery of the gift Miranda kept. He had marvelled at the delicate justice and complete right of her wish that he should clear his soul of all memories they did not share before they intimately met.

Now in the falling dark they sat looking sometimes to sea, sometimes to the light that beckoned them home, sometimes to the secret which ever more insistently urged and troubled them. They felt the call of their marriage, bidding them closer yet. It shone upon them out of Miranda's window in the house below. To this window he had sailed alone in his ship for long nights. Now that it shone so near, imperiously beckoning, it hardly seemed an earthly lamp, but one that, when he stepped towards it, must suddenly go out or move away.

But the lure was true, for he found it also in Miranda--the look he had seen in her eyes years ago when first he had kissed her. She seemed to be giving herself to him--to give and give again, with treasures uncounted to follow. Yet it was not mere giving, but a passing of virtue from one to the other.

"I am glad we waited until now," Peter said in a note so low that it hardly reached her. "Why were you so wise to send me away? Each day has added to you. I cannot believe I shall ever hold you. It seems like wanting the whole world." He waved his hand at the sea.

"I could not endure to be less than the whole world," she quickly answered.

"I could die with you now. Life can never again be so wonderful."

Then, suddenly, words were foolish, and he abruptly ceased.

The last light of a day, which to-night had lain very late upon the water, had gone quite out. Hardly could they see each other; and missing the lost message of their eyes they pressed closely together. The beckoning window shone more brightly in the dark. Soon it put out land and sky. It could not be avoided. Together they read and answered the steady call. It put between them a growing distress.

"Kiss me, my husband, and let me go."

Her heart, as Peter took her in his arms, was beating like a creature caught and held.

She almost disappeared into the dark as she went down; but he followed her with his eyes, alert for every step of her passage. At last she had reached the house, and soon Peter could see the light of her room waver with her moving to and fro.

Only Miranda's window was shining now.

Then, with a swiftness that struck mortally at his heart, Miranda's window also was dark, or so it seemed, for the light went down.

Peter spread his arms and stood full breathing for a moment, fighting desperately with an unknown power. He had a swift vision of her waiting. Then he went down the hill, and felt the earth like a carpet spread for his marriage. He turned once only at the door to take, as he felt, a last look at the stars. They seemed like a handful of dust he had flung at the sky.

XLV

Peter did not know that happiness could be so tranquil till in the morning he floated with Miranda upon the quiet sea. It seemed that only now did he have peace and time to realise that the miracle of their love was complete. It flooded him slowly in the silence of the dawn, as, waking to the chatter of birds, he lay without stirring, fearing to shake the comfort of a perfect memory. Miranda, waking soon, had answered his thought with only a pressure of the hand. The slow opening of her eyes, deep with fulfilment, sealed their marriage in the sun, assuring him it was not a passing ecstasy of moonlight and dark hours.