Chapter IX: A Rider Into Bath

It is not quiet, is not ease,
But something deeper far than these:
The separation that is here is of the grave.
—WORDSWORTH (_Elegiac Poems_).

If a woman, being in love, gain thereby a certain intuition into the character of the man she loves, the thousand contradictory emotions of that unrestful state, its despairs, angers, jealousies, its unreasonable susceptibilities, all combine to obscure her judgment; so that, at the same time she knows him better than anyone else can, and yet can be harsher, more unjust to him than the rest of the world.

Thus Ellinor understood exactly what was now causing the metamorphosis of David. She alone guessed the struggle of his week’s seclusion, from which he had emerged armoured, as it were, to face the slings and arrows of the new turn of fate. She alone knew the inward shrinking, the sick distaste which were covered by this polished breast-plate of sarcastic reserve; knew that this deadly courtesy was the only weapon to his hand, and that he would not lay it aside for a second in the enemy’s presence. At that moment when she had seen him read in the child’s face the image of its father, she had read in his own eyes the irrevocable truth of those slow words of his under the night sky: “He who remembers never forgives.”

She felt, too, that his very regard for her made it incumbent on him to treat her now as ceremoniously as his other guest; that to have openly singled her out for notice, or privately to have indulged himself with her company, would have been alike tactless and ungenerous. But in spite of all reason could tell her, she felt hurt, she was chilled, she gave him back coldness for coldness and mocking formality for his grave courtesy.

Now and again his eyes would rest upon her, questioning. But shut out from his night watch on the tower; shut out by day from their former intimacy by his every speech and gesture, Ellinor’s feminine sensibility always overcame her clear head and her generous heart.

A few days dragged by thus; slow, stiff, intolerable days. At last Lady Lochore threw off the mask insolently. Towards the end of their late breakfast, after an hour of yawns and sighs and pettish tossing of the good things upon her plate, she suddenly requested of her brother, in tones that made of the request a command, permission to invite some guests.

“Bindon shrieks for company,” said she, “and, thanks as I understand, to Mrs. Marvel, it is fairly fit to receive company. And, I know you like frankness, brother, I will admit I am used to some company.”

She flung a fleering look from Ellinor’s erect head to the alchemist’s bent, rounded crown. (Master Simon was deeply interested in Lady Lochore’s case, and as he entertained certain experimental schemes in his own mind, sought her company at every opportunity: hence his unwonted appearance at meals.) Sir David slowly turned an eye of ironic inquiry upon his sister; but his lips were too polite to criticise.

“Anything that can add to your entertainment during your short stay here,” said he, “must, of course, commend itself to us.”

Had Ellinor been less straitened by her own passionate pride, she might have stooped to pick up solace from that little plural word.

“Then I shall write,” said Lady Lochore, with her usual toss of the head. “If you’ll kindly send a rider into Bath—there are a few of my friends yet there, I learn by my morning’s _courier_—I’ll have the letters ready for the mail.”

Sir David went on slowly peeling a peach. For a while he seemed absorbed in the delicate task. Then, laying down the fruit, but without looking up from his plate, he said:

“I presume, before you write those letters that you intend to submit the names of my prospective guests to me.”

Lady Lochore flushed. She knew to what he referred; knew that there was one guest to which the doors of Bindon would never be opened in its present master’s lifetime. She was angry with herself for having made the blunder of allowing him to imagine for a moment that she was plotting so absurd a move. She hesitated, and then, with characteristic cynicism:

“What!” she cried, “do you think I want that devil here? No more than you do yourself.”

“Hey, hey!” cried Master Simon, startled from some abstruse cogitation.

Still Sir David looked rigidly down at his plate.

“God knows,” pursued the reckless woman, “it’s little enough I see of him now—but that is already too much!”

She paused, and yet there was no answer. Then with her scornful laugh:

“There’s old Mrs. Geary, the Honourable Caroline—you remember her, David?—the Dishonourable Caroline, as they call her in the Assembly Rooms; whether she cheats or not is no business of mine, but she is the only woman I care to play piquet with. There’s Colonel Harcourt and Luke Herrick—they make up the four, and I don’t think you’ll find anything wrong with their pedigree. Herrick’s too young for you to know. Priscilla Geary is in love with him—he’s a _parti_, as rich as he is handsome—and I’ll want a bait to lure the old lady from the green cloth at Bath. And if we have Herrick we must have Tom Villars too, else Herrick will have no one to jest at. And besides, the creature is useful to me.”

Sir David interrupted her with a sudden movement. He pushed his chair away from the table and, looking up from the untouched fruit, fixed for a second a glance of such weary contempt upon his sister that even her bold eyes fell.

“A Jew, a libertine, an admitted cheat—oh yes, I remember Mr. Villars, Colonel Harcourt, and Mrs. Geary. The younger generation, of whose acquaintance I have not yet the honour, will no doubt prove worthy of such elders!” He paused again, to continue in his uninflected voice: “Since these are the sort of guests you most wish to see at Bindon, you have my permission to invite them.”

He rose as he spoke, giving the signal for the breaking up of the uncomfortable circle. As Lady Lochore whisked past Master Simon, in his antiquated blue garment, she paused. She had a sort of liking for the old man, odd enough when contrasted with the deadly enmity she had vowed his daughter.

“Could you not discover,” she whispered, “a leaf or a berry that might take some effect upon the disease of priggishness? That new plant of yours. Did you not say ... didn’t you call it the Star-of-Comfort? I am sure it would be a comfort.”

The effect of the whisper told upon a chest that occasionally found the ordinary drawing of breath too much for it. She broke off to cough, and coughed till her frail form seemed like to be riven. Master Simon watched her gravely.

“I could give you something for that cough, child,” said he. Then his withered cheek began to kindle, “Something to soothe the cough first, and then, perhaps, I—I—that restless temperament of yours, that dissatisfied and capricious disposition—the Star-of-Comfort, indeed——”

She shook her hand in his face.

“Not I,” she gasped. “No more quackery for me! Lord, I’m as tough as a worm, Simon.” She laughed and coughed and struggled for breath. “I believe if you were to cut me up into little bits, I’d wriggle together again, but I’ll not answer for poison.”

She flung him a malicious look and flaunted forth, ostentatiously oblivious of Ellinor—her habitual practise when not openly insulting.

When Sir David and Master Simon were alone together the old man went solemnly up to his cousin, and laid his hand upon his breast.

“David,” said he, “that sister of yours won’t live another year unless she gives up the adverse climate of Scotland, the impure air of the town and the racket of fashionable life.”

“Tell her so, then,” said Sir David.

Master Simon drew back and blinkingly surveyed the set face with an expression of doubt, surprise and unwilling respect.

“The woman’s ill,” he ventured at last.

“Shall I bid her rest? Shall I cancel those letters of invitation?” asked Sir David ironically.

THE STAR DREAMER