Missing | Page 5

21st Lanchesters? All right--I'll see to it!'
And he ran back to his car, while the young people disappeared into the little entrance hall of the lodging-house, and the door shut upon them.
Miss Farrell received her brother with gibes. Trust William for finding out a beauty! Who were they?
Farrell handed on his information as the car sped along the Keswick road.
'Going back in a week, is he?' said the convalescent officer beside him. Then, bitterly--'lucky dog!'
Farrell looked at the speaker kindly.
'What--with a wife to leave?'
The boy, for he was little more, shrugged his shoulders. At that moment he knew no passion but the passion for the regiment and his men, to whom he couldn't get back, because his 'beastly constitution' wouldn't let him recover as quickly as other men did. What did women matter?--when the 'push' might be on, any day.
Cicely Farrell continued to chaff her brother, who took it placidly--fortified by a big cigar.
'And if she'd been plain, Willy, you'd never have so much as known she was there! Did you tell her you haunted these parts?'
He shook his head.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the bride and bridegroom had been met on the lodging-house stairs by the bride's sister, who allowed herself to be kissed by the bridegroom, and hugged by the bride. Her lack of effusion, however, made little impression on the newcomers. They were in that state of happiness which transfigures everything round it; they were delighted with the smallest things; with the little lodging-house sitting room, its windows open to the lake and river; with its muslin curtains, very clean and white, its duster-rose too, just outside the window; with Mrs. Weston, who in her friendly flurry had greeted the bride as 'Miss Nelly,' and was bustling to get the tea; even, indeed, with Bridget Cookson's few casual attentions to them. Mrs. Sarratt thought it 'dear' of Bridget to have come to meet them, and ordered tea for them, and put those delicious roses in her room--
'I didn't!' said Bridget, drily. 'That was Milly. It didn't occur to me.'
The bride looked a little checked. But then the tea came in, a real Westmorland meal, with its toasted bun, its jam, and its 'twist' of new bread; and Nelly Sarratt forgot everything but the pleasure of making her husband eat, of filling his cup for him, of looking sometimes through the window at that shining lake, beside which she and George would soon be roaming--for six long days. Yes, and nights too. For there was a moon rising, which would be at the full in two or three days. Imagination flew forward, as she leant dreamily back in her chair when the meal was over, her eyes on the landscape. They two alone--on that warm summer lake--drifting in the moonlight--heart against heart, cheek against cheek. A shiver ran through her, which was partly passion, partly a dull fear. But she banished fear. Nothing--nothing should spoil their week together.
'Darling!' said her husband, who had been watching her--'You're not very tired?' He slipped his hand round hers, and her fingers rested in his clasp, delighted to feel themselves so small, and his so strong. He had spoken to her in the low voice that was hers alone. She was jealous lest Bridget should have overheard it. But Bridget was at the other end of the room. How foolish it had been of her--just because she was so happy, and wanted to be nice to everybody!--to have asked Bridget to stay with them! She was always doing silly things like that--impulsive things. But now she was married. She must think more. It was really very considerate of Bridget to have got them all out of a difficulty and to have settled herself a mile away from them; though at first it had seemed rather unkind. Now they could see her always sometime in the day, but not so as to interfere. She was afraid Bridget and George would never really get on, though she--Nelly--wanted to forget all the unpleasantness there had been,--to forget everything--everything but George. The fortnight's honeymoon lay like a haze of sunlight between her and the past.
But Bridget had noticed the voice and the clasped hands,--with irritation. Really, after a fortnight, they might have done with that kind of demonstrativeness. All the same, Nelly was quite extraordinarily pretty--prettier than ever. While the sister was slowly putting on her hat before the only mirror the sitting-room possessed, she was keenly conscious of the two figures near the window, of the man in khaki sitting on the arm of Nelly's chair, holding her hand, and looking down upon her, of Nelly's flushed cheek and bending head. What a baby she looked!--scarcely seventeen. Yet she was really twenty-one--old enough, by a long way, to have done better for herself than this!