"Behind no prison-grate, she said, Which slurs the sunshine half a mile, Live captives so uncomforted As souls behind a smile."
As to the Merrifields, there was no chance of seeing them, for Sir Richard had gone to India in some official capacity, and no doubt, as everyone said, they would take good care to marry Freda out there. Derrick had not seen her since that trying February at Bath, long ago. Yet I fancy she was never out of his thoughts.
And so the years rolled on, and Derrick worked away steadily, giving his books to the world, accepting the comforts and discomforts of an author's life, laughing at the outrageous reports that were in circulation about him, yet occasionally, I think, inwardly wincing at them, and learning from the number of begging letters which he received, and into which he usually caused searching inquiry to be made, that there are in the world a vast number of undeserving poor.
One day I happened to meet Lady Probyn at a garden-party; it was at the same house on Campden Hill where I had once met Freda, and perhaps it was the recollection of this which prompted me to enquire after her.
"She has not been well," said Lady Probyn, "and they are sending her back to England; the climate doesn't suit her. She is to make her home with us for the present, so I am the gainer. Freda has always been my favourite niece. I don't know what it is about her that is so taking; she is not half so pretty as the others."
"But so much more charming," I said. "I wonder she has not married out in India, as everyone prophesied."
"And so do I," said her aunt. "However, poor child, no doubt, after having been two years engaged to that very disappointing hero of Saspataras Hill, she will be shy of venturing to trust anyone again."
"Do you think that affair ever went very deep?" I ventured to ask.
"It seemed to me that she looked miserable during her engagement, and happy when it was broken off."
"Quite so," said Lady Probyn; "I noticed the same thing. It was nothing but a mistake. They were not in the least suited to each other. By-the-by, I hear that Derrick Vaughan is married."
"Derrick?" I exclaimed; "oh, no, that is a mistake. It is merely one of the hundred and one reports that are for ever being set afloat about him."
"But I saw it in a paper, I assure you," said Lady Probyn, by no means convinced.
"Ah, that may very well be; they were hard up for a paragraph, no doubt, and inserted it. But, as for Derrick, why, how should he marry? He has been madly in love with Miss Merrifield ever since our cruise in the Aurora."
Lady Probyn made an inarticulate exclamation.
"Poor fellow!" she said, after a minute's thought; "that explains much to me."
She did not explain her rather ambiguous remark, and before long our tete-a-tete was interrupted.
Now that my friend was a full-fledged barrister, he and I shared chambers, and one morning about a month after this garden party, Derrick came in with a face of such radiant happiness that I couldn't imagine what good luck had befallen him.
"What do you think?" he exclaimed; "here's an invitation for a cruise in the Aurora at the end of August--to be nearly the same party that we had years ago," and he threw down the letter for me to read.
Of course there was special mention of "my niece, Miss Merrifield, who has just returned from India, and is ordered plenty of sea-air."
I could have told that without reading the letter, for it was written quite clearly in Derrick's face. He looked ten years younger, and if any of his adoring readers could have seen the pranks he was up to that morning in our staid and respectable chambers, I am afraid they would no longer have spoken of him "with 'bated breath and whispering humbleness."
As it happened, I, too, was able to leave home for a fortnight at the end of August; and so our party in the Aurora really was the same, except that we were all several years older, and let us hope wiser, than on the previous occasion. Considering all that had intervened, I was surprised that Derrick was not more altered; as for Freda, she was decidedly paler than when we first met her, but before long sea-air and happiness wrought a wonderful transformation in her.
In spite of the pessimists who are for ever writing books, even writing novels (more shame to them), to prove that there is no such thing as happiness in the world, we managed every one of us heartily to enjoy our cruise. It seemed indeed true that:
"Green leaves and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, And singing and loving all come back together."
Something, at any rate, of the glamour of those past days came back to us all, I fancy, as we laughed and dozed and idled and talked beneath the snowy wings of the Aurora, and I cannot say I was in the least surprised when, on roaming through the pleasant garden walks in that unique little island of Tresco, I came once more upon Derrick and Freda, with, if you will believe it, another handful of white heather given to them by that discerning gardener! Freda once more reminded me of the girl in the 'Biglow Papers,' and Derrick's face was full of such bliss as one seldom sees.
He had always had to wait for his good things, but in the end they came to him. However, you may depend upon it, he didn't say much.
That was never his way. He only gripped my hand, and, with his eyes all aglow with happiness, exclaimed "Congratulate me, old fellow!"
