It was Christmas Eve and the Cove lay buried in snow. The sea was grey like steel, and made no sound as it ebbed and flowed up the little creek. The sky was grey and snowflakes fell lazily, idly, as though half afraid to let themselves go; a tiny orange moon glittered over the chimneys of “The Bended Thumb.”
Harry came out of the Inn and stood for a moment to turn up the collar of his coat. The perfect stillness of the scene pleased him; the world was like the breathless moment before some great event: the opening of Pandora’s box, the leaping of armed men from the belly of the wooden horse, the flashing of Excalibur over the mere, the birth of some little child.
He sighed as he passed down the street. He had read in his morning paper that the Cove was doomed. The word had gone forth, the Town Council had decided; the Cove was to be pulled down and a street of lodging-houses was to take its place. Pendragon would be no longer a place of contrasts; it would be all of a piece, a completely popular watering-place.
The vision of its passing hurt him — so much must go with it; and gradually he saw the beauty and the superstition and the wonder being driven from the world — the Old World — and a hard Iron and Steel Materialism relentlessly taking its place.
But he himself had changed; the place had had its influence on him, and he was beginning to see the beauty of these improvements, these manufactures, these hard straight lines and gaunt ugly squares. Progress? Progress? Inevitable? — yes! Useful? — why, yes, too! But beautiful? — Well, perhaps ... he did not know.
At the top of the hill he turned and saluted the cold grey sky and sea and moor. The Four Stones were in harmony to-day: white, and pearl-grey, with hints of purple in their shadows — oh beautiful and mysterious world!
He went into the Bethels’ to call for Mary. Bethel appeared for a moment at the door of his study and shouted —
“Hullo! Harry, my boy! Frightfully busy cataloguing! Going out for a run in a minute!” — the door closed.
His daughter’s engagement seemed to have made little difference to him. He was pleased, of course, but Harry wondered sometimes whether he realised it at all.
Not so Mrs. Bethel. Arrayed in gorgeous colours, she was blissfully happy. She was at the head of the stairs now.
“Just a minute, Harry — Mary’s nearly ready. Oh! my dear, you haven’t been out in that thin waistcoat ... but you’ll catch your death — just a minute, my dear, and let me get something warmer? Oh do! Now you’re an obstinate, bad man! Yes, a bad, bad man” — but at this moment arrived Mary, and they said good-bye and were away.
During the few weeks that they had been together there had been no cloud. Pendragon had talked, but they had not listened to it; they had been perfectly, ideally happy. They seemed to have known each other completely so long ago — not only their virtues but their faults and failures.
With her arm in his they passed through the gate and found Robin waiting for them.
“Hullo! you two! I’ve just heard from Macfadden. He suggests Catis in Dover Street for six months and then abroad. He thinks I ought to pass easily enough in a year’s time — and then it will mean Germany!”
His face was lighted with excitement.
“Right you are!” cried Harry. “Anything that Macfadden suggests is sure to be pretty right. What do you say, Mary?”
“Oh, I don’t know anything about men’s businesses,” she said, laughing. “Only don’t be too long away, Robin.”
They passed down the garden, the three of them, together.
In Norfolk a woman sat at her window and watched the snow tumbling softly against the panes. The garden was a white sea — the hills loomed whitely beyond — the sky was grey with small white clouds, hanging like pillows heavily in mid-air.
The snow whirled and tossed and danced.
Clare turned slowly from the windows and drew down the blinds.
THE END