"A woman thing who refrains from looking back!—Yes, I fear she has a soul."
Then he returned to his pipe and his Aristotle.
CHAPTER II
Halcyone struck straight across the park until she came to the beech avenue, near the top, which ran south. The place had been nobly planned by that grim old La Sarthe who raised it in the days of seventh Henry. It stood very high with its terraced garden in the center of four splendid avenues of oak, lime, beech and Spanish chestnut running east, west, north and south. And four gates in different stages of dilapidation gave entrance through a broken wall of stone to a circular drive which connected all the avenues giving access to the house, a battered, irregular erection of gray stone.
To reach the splendid front door you entered from the oak avenue and crossed the pleasance, now only an overgrown meadow where the one cow grazed in the summer.
Then you were obliged to mount three stately flights of stone steps until you reached the first terrace, which was flagged near the house and bordered with stiff flower-beds. Here you might turn and look back due west upon a view of exquisite beauty—an undulating fertile country beneath, and then in the far distance a line of dim blue hills.
But if you chanced to wish to enter your carriage unwetted on a rainy day, you were obliged to deny yourself the pleasure of passing through the entrance hall in state, and to go out at the back by stone passages into the courtyard where the circular avenue came up close to a fortified door, under the arch of which you could drive.
Everything spoke of past grandeur and present decay—only the flower-beds of the highest terrace appeared even partly cultivated; the two lower ones were a wild riot of weeds and straggling rose trees unpruned and untrained, and if you looked up at the windows in the southern wing of the house, you saw that several panes in them were missing and that the holes had been stuffed with rags.
At this time of the year the beech avenue presented an indescribably lovely sight of just opening leaves of tender green. It was a never-failing joy to Halcyone. She walked the few paces which separated her from it and turning, stood leaning against the broken gate now, drinking in every tone of the patches the lowered sun made of gold between the green. For her it was full of wood nymphs and elves. It did not contain gods and goddesses like the others. She told herself long stories about them.
The beech avenue was her favorite for the spring, the lime for the summer, the chestnut for the autumn, and the oak for the winter. She knew every tree in all four, as a huntsman knows his hounds. And when, in the great equinoctial storm of the previous year, three giant oaks lay shattered and broken, the sight had caused her deep grief, until she wove a legend about them and turned them into monsters for Perseus to subdue with Medusa's head. One, indeed, whose trunk was gnarled and twisted, became the serpent of the brazen scales who sleepeth not, guarding the Golden Fleece.
"As the tree falls so shall it lie," seemed to be the motto of La Sarthe Chase. For none were removed.
Halcyone stretched out her arms and beckoned to her fairy friends.
"Queen Mab," she called, "come and dance nearer to me—I can see your wings and I want to talk to you to-day!"
And as if in answer to this invitation, the rays of the lowered sun shifted to an opening almost at her feet, and with a cry of joy the child began to dance in the gorgeous light.
"Come follow, follow me, ye fairy elves that be," she sang softly.
And the sprites laughed with gladness, and gilded her mouse hair with gold, and lit up her eyes, and wove scarves about her with gossamer threads, and beneath her feet tall bluebells offered their heads as a carpet.
But Halcyone sprang over them, she would not have crushed the meanest weed.
"Queen Mab!" she said at last, as she sat down in the middle of the sunlight, "I have found an old gentleman—and he is Cheiron, and if one could see it in the right light, he may have a horse's body, and he is going to teach me just what Jason learnt—and then I shall tell it to you."
The rays shifted again to a path beyond, and Halcyone bounded up and went on her way.
Old William was drawing the elder Miss La Sarthe in a dilapidated basket-chair, up and down on the highest terrace. She held a minute faded pink silk parasol over her head—it had an ivory handle which folded up when she no longer needed the parasol as a shade. She wore one-buttoned gloves, of slate-colored kid, and a wrist-band of black velvet clasped with a buckle. An inverted cake-tin of weather-beaten straw, trimmed with rusty velvet, shadowed her old, tired eyes; an Indian shawl was crossed upon her thin bosom.
"Halcyone!" she called querulously. "Where have you been, child? You must have missed your tea."
And Halcyone answered:
"In the orchard."
For of what use to inform Aunt Ginevra about that enchanting visit to Cheiron! Aunt Ginevra who knew not of such beings!
"The orchard's let," grunted old William—"they do say it's sold—"
"I had rather not hear of it, William," said Miss La Sarthe frowning. "It does not concern one what occurs beyond one's gates."
Old William growled gently, and continued his laborious task—one of the wheels squeaked as it turned on the flags.
"Aunt Ginevra, you must have that oiled," said Halcyone, as she screwed up her face. "How can you bear it? You can't see the lovely spring things, with that noise."
"One does not see with one's ears, Halcyone," quavered Miss La Sarthe. "Take me in now, William."
"And she can't even see them with her eyes—poor Aunt Ginevra!" Halcyone said to herself, as she walked respectfully by the chair until it passed the front door on its way to the side. Then she bounded up the steps and through the paneled, desolate hall, taking joy in climbing the dog-gates at the turn of the stairs, which she could easily have opened—and she did not pause until she reached her own room in the battered south wing, and was soon curled up in the broad window sill, her hands clasped round her knees.
For this was a wonderful thing which had come into her life.—She had met someone who could see the other side of her head! Henceforth there would be a human voice, not only a fairy's, to converse with her. Indeed, the world was a very fair place!
Here, Priscilla found her when it was growing dark, still with the rapt expression of glad thought on her face. And the elderly woman shook her head. "That child is not canny," she muttered, while aloud she chided her for idleness and untidiness in having thrown her cap on the floor.
But Halcyone flung her arms round Priscilla's neck and laughed in her beard.
"Oh, you dear old goosie! I have been with the Immortals on the blue peaks of Olympus and there we did not wear caps!"
"Them Immortals!" said Priscilla. "Better far you were attending to things you can see. They'll be coming down and carrying you off, some of these fine nights!"
"The Immortals don't care so much about the nights, Priscilla—unless Artemis is abroad—she does—but the others like the sunlight and great white clouds and a still blue sky. I am quite safe—" and Halcyone smiled.
Priscilla began tidying up.
"Ma'm'selle's wrote to the mistresses to say she won't come back, she can't put up with the place any longer."
This sounded too good to be true! Another governess going! Surely they would see it was no use asking any more to come to La Sarthe Chase—Halcyone had