Chapter VII (2)

“Good God!” the profanity was wrung from him, but had he thought of it he would have considered it justified, for the face at which he was staring was the beautiful tormented face of a fallen angel. He looked with a kind of horror at the hungry passionate eyes fierce with unsatisfied longing, shadowed with terrible memory, tortured, hopeless; at the set mouth, a straight grim line under the trim golden brown moustache; at the bitterness and revolt expressed in all the deep cut lines of the tragic face. He laid it down with a feeling of repulsion. She saw him like that! The pain of it was intolerable.

He laughed with a harsh mirthlessness that made her quiver.

“It is a truer estimation of my character than the one you gave me a few minutes ago,” he said bitterly, “and you may thank heaven I am your husband only in name. God keep you from a nearer acquaintance with me.” And turning on his heel he left her. Long after he had gone she sat on motionless, her fingers picking mechanically at the chintz cover of the sofa, staring into space with wide eyes brimming with tears. She knew it was a cruel sketch, but she had never meant him to see it. It had taken shape unconsciously under her hand, and while she hated it she had kept it because of the remarkable likeness and because it was the only picture she had of him.

The dreams of a better understanding seemed swept away by her own thoughtlessness and folly. She had hurt him and she could never explain. To refer to it, to try and make him understand, would do more harm than good. With a pitiful sob she covered her face with her hands, and, beside her, Mouston the pampered cringed and whimpered unheeded and forgotten.

She had looked forward to his return with such high hopes and now they lay shattered at her feet. During a brief hour that might have drawn them nearer together they had contrived to hurt each other as it must seem to both by deliberate intent. For herself she knew that she was innocent of any such intention--but was he? He had never hurt her before, even in his most difficult moods he had been to her unfailingly kind and considerate. But to-day--shudderingly she wondered did it mark a new era in their relations? And in miserable futile longing she wished that this afternoon had never been.

After what had occurred the thought of facing him across a table during an interminable dinner and sitting with him alone for the long hours of a summer evening drove her to a state bordering on panic. She pushed the thick hair off her forhead with a little gasp. It was cowardly--but she could not, would not. Despising herself she crossed the room to the telephone.

At the Hermitage Peters was indulging in a well-earned rest after a long hot day that had been both irksome and tiring. Wearing an old tweed coat he lounged comfortably in a big chair, a couple of sleepy setters at his feet, a foul and ancient pipe in full blast. The room, flooded with the evening sun, was filled with a heterogeneous collection of books and music manuscript, guns, fishing rods and whips. The homely room had stamped on it the characteristics of its owner. It was a room to work in, and equally a room in which to relax. The owner was now relaxing, but the bodily rest he enjoyed did not extend to his mind, which was very actively disturbed. His usually genial face was furrowed and he sucked at the old pipe with an energy that enveloped him in a haze of blue smoke. The ringing of the telephone in the opposite corner of the room came as an unwelcome interruption. He glared at it resentfully, disinclined to move, but at the second ring rose reluctantly with a grunt of annoyance, pushing the drowsy setters to one side. He took down the receiver with no undue haste and answered the call gruffly, but his bored expression changed rapidly as he listened. The soft voice came clearly but hesitatingly:

“Is that you, David? Could you come up to dinner--if--if you're not going anywhere else--I've got a tiresome headache and it will be so stupid for Barry. I don't want him to be dull the first evening at home. So if you could--please, David--”

His face grew grim as he detected the quiver in the faltering indecisive words, but he answered briskly.

“Of course I'll come. I'd love to,” he said, with a cheeriness he was far from feeling. He hung up the receiver with a heavy sigh. But he had hardly moved when the telephone rang again sharply.

“Damn the thing!” he muttered irritably.

This time a very different voice, curt and uncompromising:

“--that you, Peter?--Yes!--Doing anything tonight?--Not?--Then for God's sake come up to dinner.” And then the receiver jammed down savagely.

With grimmer face Peters moved thoughtfully across the room and touched a bell in the wall by the fireplace. His call was answered with the usual promptness, and when he had given the necessary orders and the man had gone he laid aside his pipe, tidied a few papers, and went slowly to an adjoining room.

The Hermitage was properly the dower house of the Towers, but for the last two generations had not been required as such. The room Peters now entered had originally been the drawing room, but for the thirty years he had lived in the house he had kept it as a music room. Panelled in oak, with polished floor and innocent of hangings, the only furniture a grand piano and a portrait, it was at once a sanctuary and a shrine. And during those thirty years to only two people had he given the right of entrance. To the woman whose portrait hung on the wall and, latterly, to the girl who had succeeded her as mistress of Craven Towers. To this room, to the portrait and the piano, he brought all his difficulties; it was here he wrestled with the loneliness and sadness that the world had never suspected. To-night he felt that only the peace that room invariably brought would enable him to fulfil the task he had in hand.

* * * *

Craven was alone in the hall when he arrived, and it was not until the gong sounded that Gillian made a tardy appearance, very pale but with a feverish spot on either cheek. Peters' quick eye noticed the absence of the black shadow that was always at her heels. “Where is the faithful Mouston? Not in disgrace, surely--the paragon?” he teased, and was disconcerted at the painful flush that overspread her face. But she thrust her arm through his and forced a little laugh. “Mouston is becoming rather incorrigible, I'm afraid I've spoiled him hopelessly. I'll tell him you inquired, it will cheer him up, poor darling. He's doing penance with a bone upstairs. Shall we go in--I'm famished.”

But as dinner progressed she did not appear to be famished, for she ate scarcely anything, but talked fitfully with jerky nervousness. Craven, too, was at first almost entirely silent, and on Peters fell the main burden of conversation, until by a direct question he managed to start his host on a topic that was of interest to both and lasted until Gillian left them.

In the drawing room, after she had finished her coffee, she opened the piano and then subsided wearily on to the big sofa. The emotions of the day and the effort of appearing at dinner had exhausted her, and in her despondency the future had never seemed so black, so beset with difficulties. While she was immeasurably thankful for Peters' presence to-night she knew it was impossible for him to act continually as a buffer between them. But from the problem of to-morrow, and innumerable to-morrows, she turned with a fixed determination to live for the moment. _A chaque jour suffit sa peine_.

She lay with relaxed muscles and closed eyes. It seemed a long while before the men joined her. She wondered what they were talking about--whether to Peters would be imparted the information that had been withheld from her. For the feeling of a nearly impending calamity was strong within her. When at last they came she looked with covert anxiety from one to the other, but their faces told her nothing. For a few minutes Peters lingered beside her chatting and then gravitated toward the piano, as she had hoped he would. Arranging the heaped up cushions more comfortably around her she gave herself up to the delight of his music and it seemed to her that she had never heard him play so well.

Near her Craven was standing before the fern-filled fireplace, leaning against the mantel, a cigarette drooping between his lips. From where she lay she could watch him unperceived, for his own gaze was directed through the open French window out on to the terrace, and she studied his set handsome face with sorrowful attention. He appeared to be thinking deeply, and, from his detached manner, heedless of the harmony of sound that filled the room. But her supposition was soon rudely shaken. Peters had paused in his playing. When a few moments later the plaintive melody of an operatic air stole through the room she saw her husband start violently, and the terrible pallor she had witnessed once before sweep across his face. She clenched her teeth on her lip to keep back the cry that rose, and breathlessly watched him stride across the room and drop an arresting hand on Peters' shoulder. “For God's sake don't play that damned thing!” she heard him say in a voice that was almost unrecognisable. And then he passed out swiftly, into the garden.

A spasm of jealous agony shook her from head to foot. With quick intuition she guessed that the air that was unknown to her must be connected in some way with the sorrow that darkened his life, and the spectre of the past she tried to forget seemed to rise and grin at her triumphantly. She shivered. Would its power last until life ended? Would it stand between them always, rivalling her, thwarting her every effort?

For a long time she dared not look at Peters, who had responded without hesitation to Craven's unceremonious request, but when at length she summoned courage to glance at him it seemed as if he had already forgotten the interruption. His face wore the absent, almost spiritual look that was usual when he was at the piano and his playing gave no indication of either annoyance or surprise. She breathed a quick sigh of relief and, slightly altering her position, lay where she could see the solitary figure on the terrace. Erect by the stone ballustrade, his arms folded across his chest, staring intently into the night as if his gaze went far beyond the confines of the great park, he seemed to her a symbol of incarnate loneliness, and her heart contracted at the thought of the suffering and solitude she might not share. If he would only turn to her! If she had only the right to go to him and plead her love, beg the confidence she craved, and stand beside him in his sorrow! But he stood alone, beyond her reach, even unaware of her longing.

The slow tears gathered thick in her eyes.

For long after the keyboard became an indistinguishable blur Peters played on untiringly. But at last he rose, closed the piano and turned on an electric lamp that stood near.

“Eleven o'clock,” he exclaimed contritely. “Bless my soul, why didn't you stop me! I forget the time when I'm playing. I've tired you out. Go to bed, you pale child. I'm walking home, I'll see Barry on the terrace as I pass.”

She slid from the sofa and took his outstretched hands.

“Your playing never tires me!” she answered, with a little upward glance. “You've magic at the ends of your fingers, David dear.”

She went to the open window to watch him go, and presently saw him reappear round the angle of the house and join Craven on the terrace. They stood talking for a few minutes and then together descended the long flight of stone steps to the rose garden, from which, by a short cut through a little copse, could be reached the path that crossing the park led to the Hermitage. It was the habit of Peters when he had been dining at the big house to walk home thus and, as to-night, Craven almost always accompanied him.

Gillian had long known her husband's propensity for night rambling and she knew it might be hours before he returned. Was he angry with her still that he had omitted the punctilious good-night he had never before forgotten? Her lips quivered like a disappointed child's as she turned back slowly into the room. But as she passed through the hall and climbed the long stairs she knew in her heart that she had misjudged him. He was not capable of petty retaliation. He had only forgotten--why indeed should he remember? It was a small matter to him, he could not know what it meant to her. In her bedroom she dismissed her maid and went to an open window. She was very tired, but restless, and disinclined for bed. Dropping down on the low seat she stared out over the moonlit landscape. The repentant Mouston, abject at her continued neglect, crawled from his basket and crept tentatively to her, and as absently her hand went out to him gained courage and climbed up beside her. Inch by inch he sidled nearer, and unrepulsed grew bolder until he finally subsided with his head across her knees, whining his satisfaction. Mechanically she caressed him until his shivering starting body lay quiet under her soothing touch. The night was close and very silent. No breath of wind came to stir the heavily leafed trees, no sound broke the stillness. She listened vainly for the cry of an owl, for the sharp alarm note of a pheasant to pierce the brooding hush that seemed to have fallen even over nature. A coppery moon hung like a ball of fire in the sky. At the far end of the terrace a group of tall trees cast inky black shadows across the short smooth lawn and the white tracery of the stone balustrade. The faint scent of jasmine drifted in through the open window and she leaned forward eagerly to catch the sweet intermittent perfume that brought back memories of the peaceful courtyard of the convent school. A night of intense beauty, mysterious, disturbing, called her compellingly. The restlessness that had assailed her grew suddenly intolerable, and she glanced back into the spacious room with a feeling of suffocation.

The four walls seemed closing in about her. She knew that the big white bed would bring no rest, that she would toss in feverish misery until the morning, and she turned with dread from the thought of the long weary hours. Night after night she lay awake in loneliness and longing until exhaustion brought fitful sleep that, dream-haunted, gave no refreshment.

Sleep was impossible--the room that witnessed her nightly vigil a prison house of dark sad thoughts. Her head throbbed with the heat; she craved the space, the freshness of the moonlit garden.

Rousing the slumbering dog she went out on to the gallery and down the staircase she had climbed so wearily an hour before. By the solitary light still burning in the hall she knew that Craven had not yet returned. Through the darkness of the drawing room she groped her way until her outstretched hands touched shutters. Slipping the bar softly and unlatching the window she passed out. For a moment she stood still, breathing deeply, drinking in the beauty of the scene, exhilarated with the sudden feeling of freedom that came to her. The silent garden, beautiful always but more beautiful still in the mystery of the night, appealed to her as never before. It was the same, yet wonderfully, curiously unlike. A glamour hung over it, a certain settled peace that soothed the tumult of her mind and calmed her nerves. Surrendering to the charm of its almost unearthly loveliness she slowly paced the long length of the terrace, the wondering Mouston pressing close beside her.

Then when her tired limbs could go no further she halted by the steps and leant her arms on the coping of the balustrade. Cupping her chin in her hands she looked down at the rose garden beneath her and smiled at its quaint formality. Running parallel with the terrace on the one side the three remaining sides were enclosed by a high yew hedge through which a door, facing the terrace steps, led to a path that gave access to the copse that was Peters' short cut. The shadow of the high dense yew stretched far across the garden and she gazed dreamily into its dusky depths, conjuring up the past, peopling the solitude about her with forgotten ghosts who in the silks and satins of a bygone age had walked those same flagged paths and talked and laughed and wept among the roses. Poor lonely ghosts--were they lonelier than she?

The silence broke at last. Far off from the trees in the park an owl called softly to its mate and the swift answering note seemed to mock her desolation. Her whole being shuddered into one great soundless cry of utter longing: “Barry! Oh, Barry, Barry!”

And as if in answer to her prayer she heard a sound that sent the quick blood leaping to her heart.

In the deep shadow of the yew hedge the door that had opened shut with a sudden clang. Her hands crept to her breast as she strained her eyes into the darkness. Then the echo of a firm tread, and Craven's tall figure emerged from the surrounding gloom. With fluttering breath she watched him slowly cross the bright strip of moonlight lying athwart the rose garden and mount the steps. Only when he reached the terrace did he seem aware of her presence, and joined her with an exclamation of surprise, “You--Gillian?”

“I couldn't sleep--it was so hot--the garden tempted me,” she faltered, in sudden fear lest he might think she spied on him. But the fascination of the night was to Craven too natural to evoke comment. He lit a cigarette and smoked in a silence she did not know how to break, and a cold wave of chill foreboding passed over her as she waited with nervous constraint for him to speak. He turned to her at last with a certain deliberation and spoke with blunt directness.

“I have been asked to lead an expedition in Central Africa. It is partly a hunting trip, partly a scientific mission. They have approached me because I know the country, and because I am interested in tropical diseases and am willing to defray a proportion of the expense which will be necessarily heavy--I should gladly have done so in any case whether I went with the party or not. The question of leading the expedition I deferred as long as I could for obvious reasons.--I had not only myself to consider. But I have been pressed to give a definite answer and have agreed to go. There are plenty of other men who would do the job better than myself but, as I said, I happen to know the locality and speak several of the dialects, so my going may make things easier for them. But that is not what has weighed with me most, it is you. Do you think I don't know how completely I have failed you--how difficult your life is? I do know. And because I know I am going. For I see no other way of making your life even bearable for you. It has become impossible for us to go on as we are--and the fault is mine, only mine. You have been an angel of goodness and patience, you have done all that was humanly possible for any woman to do, but circumstances were against us. I had no right to ask you to make such a marriage. I cannot undo it. I cannot give you your freedom, but I can by my absence make your life easier than it has been. I have arranged everything with the lawyers in London and with Peters, here to-night. If I do not return, for there are of course risks, everything is left in your control--it is the only satisfaction in my power. If I do return--God give me grace to be kinder to you than I have been in the past.”

The blow she had been waiting for had fallen at last, in fulfilment of her premonition. In her heart she had always known it would come, but its suddenness paralysed. She had nothing to say. Silently she stood beside him, her hands tight-locked, numbed with a desperate fear. He would go--and he would never return. It hammered in her brain, making her want to shriek. She felt to the full her own powerlessness, nothing she could say would turn him from his purpose. It was the end she had always foreseen, the end of all her dreams, the end of everything but sorrow and pain and loneliness unspeakable. And for him--danger and possibly death. He had admitted risk, he had set his house in order. From Craven it meant much. She had learned his complete disregard for danger from the men who had stayed with them in Scotland; his recklessness in the hunting field, which was a by-word in the county, was already known to her. He set no value on his own life--what reason was there to suppose that, in the mysterious land of sudden and terrible death, he would take even ordinary precautions? Was he going with a pre-conceived determination to end a life that had become unbearable? In agony that seemed to rive her heart she closed her eyes lest he might see in them the anguish she knew was there. How long a time was left to her before the parting that would leave her desolate? “When do you go?” The question burst from her, and Craven glanced at her keenly, trying to read the colourless face that was like a still white mask. He fancied he had caught a tremor in her voice, then he called himself a fool as he noted the composure that seemed to argue indifference. Her calmness stung while it strengthened him. Why should she care, he asked himself bitterly. His going could mean to her only relief. And disappointment made his own voice ring cold and distant. “Within the next few weeks. The exact date is not yet fixed,” he said evasively. Again she was silent while he wondered what were her thoughts. Suddenly she turned to him, words pouring out in stammering haste, “While you are away--may I go to France--to Paris--to work? This life of idleness is killing me!”

He looked at her in amazement, startled at her passionate utterance, dismayed at a suggestion he had never contemplated. To think of her at the Towers, in the position he would have her fill, watched over by Peters, was the only comfort he could take away with him. For a second he meditated a refusal that seemed within his right, arbitrary though it might be. But the promise he had made to leave her free stayed him. He could not break that promise now. “As you please,” he said, with forced unconcern, “you are your own mistress. You can do whatever you wish.” And with a slight shrug he turned toward the house. She walked beside him in a tumult of emotion. He would now never know the love she bore him, the aching passion that throbbed like a living thing within her. She could not speak, the gulf between them was too wide to bridge, and he would leave her, thinking her indifferent, callous! Tears blinded her as she stumbled through the dark drawing room. In the dimly lit hall, standing at the foot of the staircase with his hand clenched on the oaken rail, Craven watched with tortured eyes the slender drooping figure move slowly upward, battling with himself, praying for strength to let her go--for he knew that if she even turned her head his self-control would shatter. It was weakening now and the sweat broke out in heavy drops on his forehead as he strove to crush an insidious inward voice that bade him forget the past and take what was his. “Only one life,” it seemed to shout in mocking derision, “live while you can, take what you can! What is done, is done; only the present matters. Of what use is regret, of what use an abstinence that mortifies yet feeds desire? Fool, fool to set aside the chance of happiness!”

With a deep breath that was almost a groan he sprang forward. Then, in deadly fear, he checked himself, and wrenching his eyes away from the woman he craved fled out into the night.