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Updated: May 15, 2025
Then procure the fastest motor-car you can find, to run me over to Hollymead this afternoon. We can be ready to start in half-an-hour's time." Then she turned to her maid. "Jeffreys, we go home for Christmas after all. Mr. West has gone on by train. We must pack as promptly as possible, and start in half-an-hour. We may perhaps get home before him.
We felt sure of a complete recovery, and I always predicted that it would be sudden. But it is bound to take a little while to get all your surroundings readjusted. Why not go home at once? Pack up and go back to Hollymead this afternoon, and have a real jolly Christmas there you, and Helen, and the kid." "The kid?" queried Ronnie, perplexed. "What kid?
In the best of spirits, and looking the bronzed picture of perfect health, Ronnie returned to his club, lunched, showed his 'cello to two or three friends, then caught the three o'clock train to Hollymead. The seven months were over. All nightmares seemed to have cleared away. He was on his way to Helen. In an hour and a half he would be with her!
As the train slowed up for Hollymead, and the signal lights of the little wayside station appeared, Ronnie took the last dose of Dick's physic, and threw the bottle under the seat. Helen awaited in her sitting-room the return of the carriage. It had been a great effort to let it go to the station without her. In fact she had ordered it to the front door, and put on her hat and coat in readiness.
Ronnie caught the three o'clock train from town, at Huntingford, as the porter had predicted. No carriage was at the station, so he had a rather long walk from Hollymead to the Grange. It was a clear, crisp evening and freezing hard. He could feel the frost crackle under his feet, as he tramped along the country lanes.
Presently a page stepped up to her with a letter on a salver. Her heart stood still as she saw the stamp, the post-mark, and the writing. It was from Aubrey Treherne, forwarded from Hollymead. Helen was sorely tempted for a moment to burn it unread. She had suffered so much through a former letter in that handwriting.
I should dearly have liked to wait and wring his neck on arrival, but naturally Ronnie's welfare came first. I could not catch the night boat at the Hague, but I dashed off via Brussels, crossed from Boulogne this morning, reached London forty minutes too late for the 3 o'clock train to Hollymead. There was no other until five, and that a slow one.
He was practically unknown then, as a writer. No one but Helen believed in him, or understood what he had it in him to accomplish. Whereas Helen herself was the last representative of an ancient County family, owner of Hollymead Grange, and of a considerable income; courted, admired, sought after. Yet she gave herself to him, in humble tenderness. Helen had a royal way of giving.
But there is a way, by changing twice, which gets you across country, and you pick up the three o'clock all right at Huntingford, four ten." "Are you sure, my man? I was told there was no way across country." "The one fifty-five is the only train in the day by which you can do it, sir. I happen to know, because I have a sister lives at Hollymead, so I've done it m'self.
The old Grange was closing its eyes at last, and settling itself to slumber. One by one the brightly lighted windows darkened; the few remaining lights moved upwards. The Hollymead Waits had duly arrived, and played their annual Christmas hymns. They had won gold from Ronnie, by ministering to his new-found proud delight in his infant son.
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