monday was the day of the great deliverance, the day that was fixed for frida tancred's flight. and, as if it meant to mark an era and a hegira and the beginning of revolution, it distinguished itself from other days by suitable signs and portents. it dawned [pg 302] through a brooding haze that threatened heat, then changed its mind, thickened and massed itself for storm. while he was dressing, durant was made aware of the meteorological disturbance by an incessant tap-tap on the barometer as the colonel consulted his oracle in the hall. the official announcement was made at breakfast.
"there is a change in the glass," said the colonel. "mr. durant brought the fine weather with him and miss chatterton is taking it away."
"i'm taking something else away beside the weather," said she.
but the spirit of prophecy was upon him.
"to judge by to-day's forecast, i think we shall see frida back again before the fine weather."
whereupon durant smiled and miss chatterton laughed, which gave him an agreeable sense of being witty as well as prophetic.
by ten o'clock the hand of the barometer had crept far past "change"; by noon it had swung violently to "stormy, with much rain"; by lunchtime a constrained and awkward dialogue was broken by the rude voice of the thunder. the colonel took out his watch, timed the thunder and lightning, and calculated the approaches of the storm. "seven miles away from us at present," said he.
it hung so low that the growling and groaning seemed to come from the woods round coton manor; the landscape darkened to a metallic purplish green, then paled to the livid color of jade under a sallow sky. there was a swift succession of transformation scenes, when, between the bursts of thunder, the park, swathed in sheet lightning, shot up behind the windows, now blue, now amethyst, now rose, now green. then the storm suddenly shifted its quarters and broke [pg 303] through a rampart of solid darkness piled high in the southwest.
"fifteen seconds," said the colonel, "between that flash and the thunder."
among these phenomena the colonel moved like a little gentleman enchanted; he darted to and fro, and in and out, as if the elements were his natural home; his hurried notes in the little memorandum book outsped the lightning. for the last thirty years there had not been such weather in the meteorological history of wickshire.
but the storm was only in its playful infancy; the forked lightning and the rain were yet to come. the last train up, timed to meet the express at the junction, left whithorn-in-arden at 3.10, and it was a good hour's drive to the station. as they toyed with the lightning on their plates durant and miss chatterton looked at frida. fate, the weather, and the colonel, a trinity of hostile powers, were arrayed against her, and the three were one.
at the stroke of two the colonel remarked blandly, "there will be no driving to the station to-day, so i have countermanded the brougham."
they were dressed ready for the journey, and, as the colonel spoke frida got up, drew down her veil and put on her gloves.
"that was a pity," she said quietly, "seeing that we've got to go."
the colonel was blander than ever; he waved his hand. "go, by all means," said he, "but not in my brougham. there i put my foot down."
("not there, not there, oh, gallant colonel," said durant to himself, "but where you have always put it, on frida's lovely neck.")
she started, looked steadily at her father, then, to [pg 304] durant's surprise, she shrugged her shoulders; not as an englishwoman shrugs them, but in the graceful continental manner. the movement suggested that the foreign strain in her was dominant at the moment; it further implied that she was shaking her neck free from the colonel's foot. she walked to the window and looked out upon the storm. with the neck strained slightly forward, her nostrils quivering, her whole figure eager and lean and tense, she looked like some fine and nervous animal, say a deerhound ready to slip from the leash.
as she looked there was a sound as if heaven were ripped asunder, and the forked lightning hurled itself from that dark rampart in the southwest and went zig-zagging against the pane. "only ten seconds," said the colonel; "the storm is bursting right over our heads."
frida too had consulted her watch; she turned suddenly, rang the bell, and gave orders to a trembling footman. "tell randall to put polly in the dogcart. he must drive to the station at once."
the answer came back from the stables that randall had shut himself into the loose box and covered himself with straw, "to keep the lightning off of him. he dursn't go near a steel bit, not if it was to save his life, m'm, and as for driving to the station——"
it was too true; randall, horse-breaker, groom and coachman, excellent, invaluable creature at all other times, was a brainless coward in a thunderstorm.
"if we don't go to-day, we can't go till to-morrow," said georgie chatterton, and she nodded at durant to remind him that in that case his departure would be postponed till thursday.
frida too turned toward him. "if i don't go to-day, i shall never go." [pg 305]
he understood. she was afraid, afraid of what might come between her and her deliverance, afraid of her fate, afraid of the conscience that was her will, afraid of her own fear, of the terror that would come upon her when she realized the full meaning of her lust for life. to-morrow any or all of those things might turn her from the way; to-day she was strong; she held her life in her two hands. at any rate, she was not afraid of the weather. she would go straight to her end, through rain and lightning and thunderbolts and all the blue and yellow demons of the sky.
"are you afraid, georgie?"
"of thunder and lightning?" asked georgie pointedly. "no."
"all right, then. we've got forty-five minutes. i must put polly into the cart myself. five for that; forty to get to the station."
she strode off to the stables, followed by the footman and durant. among them they forced polly into the trap, and led her dancing to the porch, where miss chatterton stood, prepared for all weathers.
"i say," cried she, "this is all very well; but who's going to drive polly there and back again?"
"i am," said durant calmly. he had caught a furtive flash from frida's eyes that lighted upon, glanced off him and fell to the ground. the woman in her had appealed to his chivalry. at the same instant there was a swish, as if the skirts of heaven were trailing across the earth, and the rain came down. he hastily thrust miss tancred's arms into the sleeves of her mackintosh and wriggled into his own. the final speeches were short and to the point.
"mr. durant," said miss chatterton, "you are a hero."
"frida," said the colonel, "you are a fool." and [pg 306] for once durant was inclined to agree with him. the more so as miss tancred took advantage of his engagement with his mackintosh to enthrone herself on the driver's high seat. she said good-by to the colonel, and gathered up the reins; miss chatterton climbed up beside her; polly gave a frantic plunge and a dash forward; and the hero was obliged to enter the dogcart after the deft fashion of a footman, with a run and a flying leap into the back seat.
miss chatterton was unkind enough to laugh. "well done!" said she. "sit tight, and try to look as chivalrous as i'm sure you feel."
but it is hard to look or feel chivalrous sitting on a back seat in a wet mackintosh with a thunderstorm pouring down your neck and into your ears, and a woman, possessed by all the devils, driving furiously to an express train that she can never catch. in that lunatic escape from coton manor she had not looked back once; she left durant to contemplate a certain absurd little figure that stood under an immense doris portico, regarding the face of the sky.
the main thoroughfare of whithorn-in-arden was scored like the bed of a torrent, and fringed with an ochreish scum tossed up from the churning loam. the church clock struck three as they dashed through.
"you'll never do it," said durant; "it's a good twenty minutes from here."
"in the brougham it is. polly will do it in ten—with me driving her."
she did it in seven. durant had pictured the two ladies scurrying along the platform, and himself, a dismal figure, aiding their unlovely efforts to board a departing train; as it was, the three minutes saved allowed frida to achieve her flight with dignity.
for two out of those three minutes he stood outside [pg 307] their carriage window, beyond the shelter of the station roof, with the rain from the ornamental woodwork overflowing on to his innocent head. he was trying to smile.
"heroic," murmured miss chatterton; and her eyebrows intimated that she saw pathos in his appearance. as for frida, her good-by was so curt and cold that durant, who had suffered many things in redeeming the discourtesy of his former attitude to her, was startled and not a little hurt. his plain, lean face, that seemed to have grown still plainer and leaner under the lashing of the rain, set again in its habitual expression of repugnance; hers paled suddenly to a lighter sallow than before; the hand she had given to him withdrew itself in terror from his touch. he drew himself up stiffly, raising a hat that was no hat but a gutter, and the train crawled out of the station.
he stood yet another minute staring at the naked rails, two shining parallel lines that seemed to touch and vanish, over the visible verge, into the gray fringe of the infinite where the rain washed out the world.
and then he saw nothing but frida tancred, sitting on the edge of the fir plantation and gazing into the distance; he heard his own voice saying to her, "let yourself go, miss tancred; let yourself go!"
and she was gone.
