CHAPTER IV.
THE FOURTH CHEQUE.
Peter Tourmalin enjoyed his honeymoon extremely, in a calm, sober, and rational manner. Sophia discouraged rapture; but, on the other hand, no one was better fitted to inspire and sustain an intelligent interest in the wonders of Geology; and, catching her scientific enthusiasm, Peter spent many happy hours with her along the cliffs, searching for fossil remains. In fact, the only cloud that threatened to mar their felicity at all was an unfortunate tendency on his part to confuse a trilobite with a graptolite, a blunder for which Sophia had no tolerance. He was hazy about his periods, too, until she sent up to town for Lyell's great work on the subject as a birthday surprise for him, and he read it aloud to her on the sands. Altogether, it was a peaceful, happy time.
And never once in the whole course of his honeymoon did he seriously entertain the possibility of making any further use of his book of blank Time Cheques. If he had contemplated it, no harm would have been done, however, as the book was lying among his neglected papers at his former chambers.
He felt no poignant regret when the month came to an end, and they returned to town to take possession of their Marylebone flat: for what was it but shifting the scene of their happiness? And after this had taken place, Peter was still too much occupied to have leisure for idle and mischievous thoughts. Marrying Sophia was, indeed, like loving Sir Richard Steele's fair lady, "a liberal education;" and Peter enjoyed the undivided benefit of her rare talent for instruction.
He had been giving his attention to Astronomy of late, an unguarded remark of his having betrayed to Sophia the extreme crudity of his ideas respecting that science, and she had insisted upon his getting a popular primer, with diagrams, and mastering it as a preliminary to deeper study.
One evening he was in the smaller room of the two that, divided by an arch, served for study and drawing-room combined; and he was busily engaged in working out a simple practical illustration, by the aid of one of the aforesaid diagrams. The experiment required a lamp, a ball of cotton, and an orange transfixed by a knitting-needle, and it had something to do with the succession of the seasons, solar and lunar eclipses, and the varying lengths of day and night on different portions of our globe, though he was not very clear what.
"Don't you find you understand the inclination of the moon's orbit to the plane of the ecliptic better now?" said Sophia, as she came through the arch.
"I think I shall, as soon as I can get the moon to keep steadier," he said, with more hope than he felt; "and it's rather hard to remember whereabouts I am supposed to be on this orange."
"I must get you something to make that clearer," she said; "and you haven't tilted the orange nearly enough. But leave it for a moment; I've brought you in this packet of letters and things the people at your old rooms have just sent down. I wish, while I am away—I shall be back in a minute—you would just run over them, and tell me if there are any papers you want kept, or if they may all be burnt."
While she was gone, he undid the string which fastened the packet, and found, at the bottom of a mass of bills and documents of no value, the small oblong cheque-book which he had vowed never to see again. Somehow, as his eyes rested on its green cover, the old longing came upon him for a complete change of air and scene. He felt as if he must get away from that orange: there were no lamps but electric lights, and no oranges, on board the Boomerang.
But then, his last visit had not turned out a success: what if he were to find he had drawn another quarter of an hour with that irate matron of the music-room?
However, he had left her, as he remembered, in a comparatively pacific mood. She understood him better now; and besides, thanks to the highly erratic system (if there was any system) on which the payments were made, the chances were immensely against his coming across the same old lady twice running. He thought he would risk that.
It was much more likely that he would meet Miss Tyrrell or Miss Davenport, or it might even be another person to whom he was unconsciously allied by the bond of dear friendship. The only question was, how far he could trust himself in such companionship. But here he felt himself guilty of a self-distrust that was unworthy of him. If, on the two previous occasions, he could not call to mind that he had entertained any deeper sentiment for either young lady than a cordial and sympathetic interest, was it likely that, now he was a married man, he would be more susceptible? He was as devoted to his Sophia as ever, but the wear and tear of several successive evenings spent in elementary Astronomy were telling upon his constitution. Such high thinking did not agree with him: he wanted a plainer mental diet for a change. Fifteen minutes spent in the society of someone with a mind rather less cultivated than his wife's would be very restful. Then, when he came back, he would give his whole mind to the orange again.
In short, all Peter's good resolutions were thrown overboard once more, and he wrote out a cheque for the usual amount in desperate fear lest Sophia might return before he could get it honored. He felt a certain compunction, even then, in presenting it to the severe and intensely respectable black marble timepiece which recorded the flying hours of his domestic bliss. He almost doubted whether it would countenance so irregular a proceeding; but, although it was on the verge of striking nine, it cashed the cheque without hesitation. …
It was midday: Peter was sitting on a folding seat, protected from the scorching sun by the awning which was stretched above and along the exposed side of the deck, and, to his great satisfaction, he found Miss Tyrrell reclining in a deck chair between himself and the railing, and a pleasant picture of fresh and graceful girlhood she presented.
As usual, he was not in time for the beginning of the conversation, for she was evidently commenting upon something he had said.
"How delightful it sounds!" she was saying, "and what a free, unfettered kind of life yours must be, Mr. Tourmalin, from your description!"
Now, this was awkward; because he must have been giving her an airy description of his existence as the bachelor and butterfly he had ceased to be. He answered guardedly, awaiting his opportunity to lead up to a disclosure of the change in his circumstances since they had last met.
"It is pleasant enough," he said. "A little dull at times, perhaps," he added, thinking of the orange.
She laughed.
"Oh, you mustn't expect me to pity you!" she said. "I don't believe you need ever be dull, unless you choose. There must always be friends who are glad to see you."
"I am glad to think," said Peter, "that, when I do feel dull, I have at least one friend—one dear friend—from whom I may count upon a welcome!"
He accompanied this speech with such a look, that she could not well pretend to mistake his meaning; and the next moment he regretted it, for he saw he had gone too far.
"That is a very pretty speech," she said, with a faint flush; "but isn't it a little premature, Mr. Tourmalin, considering that we have scarcely known one another two days!"
For the moment, Peter had forgotten the want of consecutiveness in these eccentric Time Cheques. This interview should by rights have preceded the first he had had with her. He felt annoyed with himself, and still more with the unbusinesslike behaviour of the Bank.
"I—I was anticipating, perhaps," he said. "But I assure you that we shall certainly be friends—I may even go so far as to say, dear friends—sooner or later. You see if I am not right!"
Miss Tyrrell smiled.
"Are you sure," she said, with her eyes demurely lowered—"are you sure that there is nobody who might object to our being on quite such intimate terms as that?"
Peter started. Could she possibly have guessed, and how much did she know?
"There could be nothing for anybody to object to," he said. "Are you—er—referring to any person in particular?"
She still kept her eyes down, but then she was occupied just at the moment in removing a loose splinter of bamboo from the arm of her chair.
"You mustn't think me curious or—or indiscreet, if I tell you," she said; "but before I knew you to speak to, I—I couldn't help noticing how often, as you sat on deck, you used to pull something out of your pocket and look at it."
"My watch?" suggested Peter, feeling uncomfortable.
"No, not your watch; it looked more like—well, like a photograph."
"It may have been a photograph, now you mention it," he admitted. "Well, Miss Tyrrell?"
"Well," she said, "I often amuse myself by making up stories about people I meet—quite strangers, I mean. And, do you know, I made up my mind that that photograph was the portrait of some one—some lady you are engaged to. I should so much like to know if I was right or not?"
Here was Peter's opportunity of revealing his real status, and preventing all chance of future misunderstanding. It was not too late; but still it might be best and kindest to break the news gradually.
"You were partly right and partly wrong," he said: "that was the portrait of a lady I was—er—once engaged to."
Unless Peter was very much mistaken, there was a new light in her face, an added brightness in her soft gray eyes as she raised them for an instant before resuming her labors upon the wicker-chair.
"Then you mean," she said softly, "that the engagement is broken off?"
Peter began to recognize that explanation was a less simple affair than it had seemed. If he said that he was no longer engaged but married to the original of that photograph, she would naturally want to know why he had just led her to believe, as he must have done, that he was still a careless and unattached bachelor: she would ask when and where he was married; and how could he give a straightforward and satisfactory answer to such questions?
And then another side of the case struck him. As a matter of fact he was undeniably married; but would he be strictly correct in describing himself as being so in this particular interview? It belonged properly to the time he had made the voyage home, and he was certainly not married then.
In the difficulty he was in, he thought it best to go on telling the truth until it became absolutely impossible, and then fall back on invention.
"The fact is, Miss Tyrrell," he said, "that I can't be absolutely certain whether the engagement is ended or not at this precise moment."
Her face was alive with the sweetest sympathy.
"Poor Mr. Tourmalin!" she said, "how horribly anxious you must be to get back and know!"
"Ah!" said Peter, "yes, I—I shall know when I get home, I suppose."
And he sighed; for the orange recurred once more to his reluctant memory.
"Don't tell me if it pains you too much," she said gently. "I only ask because I do feel so sorry for you. Do you think that, when you do get home, you will find her married?"
"I have every reason for believing so," he said.
"That will be a terrible blow for you, of course?"
"A blow?" said Peter, forgetting himself. "Good gracious me, no! Why should it be? I—I mean, I shall be prepared for it, don't you know!"
"Then it's not so bad after all?" she said . "It's not at all bad!" said Peter, with a vague intention of loyalty to Sophia. "I like it!"
"I think I understand," she said slowly: "you will not be sorry to find she has married; but she may tell you that she never had the least intention of letting you go so easily?"
"Yes," said Peter, "she may tell me that, certainly"—("if she finds out where I've been," he added, mentally).
"And," she continued, "what would you do then?"
"I suppose," he said—"I suppose I should have to do whatever she wished."
"Yes!" she agreed warmly, "you will do that, even if it costs you something, won't you? Because it will be the only right, the only honorable course to take—you will be the happier for it in the end, Mr. Tourmalin, I am sure you will!"
After all, it seemed to him that she must understand about the Time Cheques—or, why should she urge him to give them up if Sophia demanded such a sacrifice?
"No, I shall not," he said; "I shall miss these times terribly. You don't know what they are to me, or you wouldn't speak like that!"
"Mr. Tourmalin!" she cried, "I—I must not listen to you! You can't possibly mean what you seem to mean. It is wrong—wrong to me, and wrong to her—to say things that—that, for all you know, you are not free to say! Don't let me think badly of you!"
Peter was absolutely horrified! What had he said to agitate her like that? He had merely meant to express the pleasure he found in these brief and stolen visits to the Boomerang; and she had misconstrued him like this! At all hazards, he must explain now, if it took him days to make it clear.
"My dear Miss Tyrrell," he protested earnestly, "you quite misunderstood me—you did, indeed! Pray be calm, and I will endeavor to make my position a little clearer than I'm afraid I have done. The worst of it is," he added, "that the whole thing has got into such a muddle that, for the life of me, I can't exactly make out what my position is at the present moment!"
"You can if you will only recollect that you are this mourning-pin," said a familiar voice; and, with the abruptness characteristic of the Time Cheque system, he was back in his study, staring at the ground glass globe of the lamp and the transfixed orange. The clock behind him was striking nine, and Sophia was offering him a pin with a big black head.
"Oh! am I the mourning-pin?" he repeated, helplessly.
"Really, Peter," said Sophia, "I think the pin, just at this moment, has the more intelligent expression of the two. Do try to look a little less idiotic! Now, see; you stick the pin into the orange to represent your point of view, and then keep on twirling it slowly round."
So Peter twirled the orange slowly round for the remainder of the evening, though his thoughts were far away with Miss Tyrrell. He was wondering what she could have thought of him, and, worse still, what she would think if she could see him as he was employed at that moment?
"I tell you what we must do, Peter—when you get a little more advanced," said Sophia, enthusiastically, that evening, "we must see if we can't pick up a small second-hand orrery somewhere—it would be so nice to have one!"
"Oh, delightful!" he said, absently.
He was not very clear as to what an orrery was, unless it was the dusty machine that was worked with handles at sundry Assembly-room lectures he had attended in early youth. But of one thing he felt grimly certain—that it was something which would render it necessary to draw more Time Cheques!