I
THE HURRICANE
Isma sat by the window in her cool drawing-room, looking out into
the glaring, dust-laden atmosphere. A hot wind was blowing, bending
the flowers in the garden and bruising them against one another. The
scorching breeze rushed noisily through leaves, shook slender branches,
made palm-trees rattle in angry defiance, and lifted grit and small
pebbles high into the air and hurled them rudely at window-panes and
doors.
But the girl scarcely noticed the fierce tempest. Her eyes were fixed
on the road leading over the northern cape, where dense columns of
sandy dust whirled along the track and finally hurled themselves over
the steep bank sloping down toward the beach.
The girl watched the road expectantly.
Would Falcon come to see her to-day? She wanted him to come, and yet
she shrank from meeting him. What did he think of her now, after
the confession she had made him as they stood by the gate in the
moonlight? He had been most kind, not uttered one word of reproach, yet
she knew what such a disclosure would mean to a nature like his. He
had shown signs of terrible agitation, her words had moved him deeply;
but--had his emotion been merely due to wounded pride? It must have
been a painful ordeal to listen to her degrading experience; yet had
his agonized concern only been caused by anxiety for the family honor?
What about the burning kiss still scorching her fingers?
The hot blood mounted to her face and her heart beat in a queer, uneven
way.
Could he care, after all? But if so, why had he not told her before?
They were both free and could have been happy years ago. The rich color
in her cheeks paled a little. No, he could not love her. Still, why
that desperate agitation?
Another thought darted into her mind. There had been a difference in
his attitude toward her since the night of the ball. Could it be that
she had betrayed her feelings to him then and that he was moved with
deep pity for her?
She started visibly.
Could that be the reason for the change in him? She was painfully aware
that for a short time she had lost control of her emotions during their
one dance together. After those weeks of cold aloofness, the blinding
sweetness of being so close to him, feeling his strong arm round her,
had unnerved her and made her momentarily forget everything but the
tortuous joy of his nearness! And during that brief yielding had he
seen and understood?
She leaned suddenly back in her chair, her whole body aflame with shame.
If he had cared, he would have told her then--must have told her; it
would have been inhuman to leave her in the throes of her emotion
without relieving her by laying bare his own. No, it was clear he did
not love her; he only pitied her and was distressed on her account.
She sat up straight again. She had been appallingly wanting in dignity
and reserve; however, she must make amends immediately; she must drive
her love into the background and show Falcon she cared for him only as
a cousin who had been wonderfully kind to her and to whom she owed a
debt of gratitude. Yes, she owed him much--what had he not saved her
from the night before!
The awful scene by the river and everything connected with Lord
Berriedale came back to her. He had written that morning and actually
been thoughtless enough to send the letter by his impudent secretary
and allowed such a man to know that he had private important
communication with her. Had he not the least mercy, not the slightest
consideration for her name!
The letter had been apologetic enough; still, of course, she could not
trust him any more, and she had made up her mind never to enter The
Bluff again. It would not be safe, for he would only trap her at the
first opportunity.
Suddenly the toot of a motor-horn made her start. Could it be Falcon
coming now? He had not come down the cliff road, but perhaps he had
gone to The Bluff first and was calling at The Palms on his way back.
She rose tremblingly.
A machine crunched heavily on the gravel as it swung up to the front
door. Falcon would be in the room in a moment. She sat down again,
feeling choked with the violent throbbing of her heart.
The door opened, somebody entered. The turmoil within suddenly ceased
and she felt herself turning to stone. The man coming into the room was
not Falcon, but Lord Berriedale.
Miss Folkestone rose mechanically. She did not move toward her visitor,
but stood motionless, measuring him with proud, angry eyes.
“How dare you come here!” she said, in tones quivering with suppressed
fury.
“Isma,” began the man, his face white with tense emotion, “Beatrice is
very ill. Something has happened this morning. I don’t know what it
is, only it has upset her horribly and made her look awful. She was
coming to see you this afternoon, but she nearly fainted at luncheon
and had to be taken to bed at once. She wouldn’t let me touch her or do
anything for her.”
“I am very sorry for Beatrice. Why didn’t you send for the doctor?”
“Send for the doctor, as if that would do any good! It is not medical
treatment she needs. She looked much better this morning; but since
then something has happened which is worrying her. It would be useless
to try and make her confide in me at present. However, I am sure she
would tell you all about it, and you could talk to her and put things
right the way you always do and she would soon be better again.”
“There are some things I could never talk her out of--” said the girl,
regarding him with cold, accusing eyes.
“You mean that she has found out--that she suspects--?”
“Very likely.”
“But it can’t be--that.” The man was gently caressing his short
mustache.
“And why not--?”
“Because, Isma, I have taken special care that she should not be
worried with--this. However, even if she imagines something is wrong,
you could easily set her mind at rest.”
“Put her mind at rest--that she has a faithful husband?” Her eyes
blazed out her contempt for him.
“Isma--don’t. I may deserve your scorn; still, this is hardly the time
to express it--every moment is of importance.”
“But you don’t seriously think that I would ever enter your house
again?”
“Isma, don’t waste time. Can’t you realize how every second might--?”
“And how am I to know this is not merely another trap you are setting
for me?”
“Your own heart will tell you that I am sincere,” he replied, with
profound earnestness. “I am not now pleading for myself, but for
another who is in terrible need of you. Isma, you who are so strong
and well, have pity on your suffering friend! Come at once. If you
wait--you may be too late,” he urged, a tremor in his tones.
The girl wavered. “Is it really as serious as--that?”
“It may be. When any one in Beatrice’s state of health becomes as upset
as she is at present one cannot be sure what will happen.”
Miss Folkestone did not answer at once. She stood looking up toward the
big headland veiled in a glaring haze. What was she to do? Merciful
Heavens! why was she always placed in these impossible situations! Was
she never to be freed from the sordidness she loathed? Why must she,
who had fought so desperately for security, be constantly plunged into
new danger?
And if Falcon should come, what would he think if he were told she had
gone to The Bluff again and with the man who had insulted her the night
before? He could draw only one conclusion from such a course of action.
But Beatrice was ill and in trouble. Her frail body was already
ravished with a dreadful disease and a worse calamity hung over her.
What if she were already on the point of discovering her husband’s
unfaithfulness? No, no, such a catastrophe must be prevented at all
costs! She must go and avert this disaster. Surely, there was yet time
to stay the hand of Fate? She must go to The Bluff--there was no help
for it.
Lord Berriedale watched the silent girl as she gazed intently at the
haze-covered cliff, and in his eyes smoldered a suppressed eagerness
which was not unlike the glitter in the eyes of some jungle animal as
it stalks its prey and watches its every movement from under cover.
“Isma,” he said, at length, “come! Don’t be afraid of me. The chauffeur
is there. In any case, if you prefer it, I will walk back. Only come
quickly, before it is too late!” he pleaded, with fevered anxiety.
“Very well, I will come this once,” replied the girl, very gravely,
“but remember, it is only because Beatrice is so ill, and my coming
does not mean that I will ever forgive last night.”
* * * * *
Half an hour after Isma and Lord Berriedale had gone another car sped
up the avenue and stopped at the front door of The Palms.
Captain Folkestone sprang up the steps and pressed the bell
emphatically.
As the maid opened the door the hot wind rushed into the hall and set
the pictures rattling against the walls.
“Isn’t Miss Folkestone at home?” asked the visitor, as the servant did
not invite him to enter the house.
“No, she went away with Lord Berriedale half an hour ago,” replied the
maid, holding the door open with one hand and vainly trying to keep
strands of hair from blowing across her eyes with the other.
A great change came over the soldier’s face. However, the girl was
too much blinded by hair and wind to notice any difference in his
appearance.
“Perhaps you would like to see Miss Livingston?” she asked, anxious to
put an end to the interview and be able to close the door.
“No, thanks, I will not trouble her,” said Captain Folkestone, moving
away.
After the door had closed the man stood by the car irresolute for a
moment.
Good God! Had Isma taken leave of her senses or was she, after all--?
He murmured something inarticulate under his breath and leaped into
the motor. Then he plunged into the furnace-like breath of the gale. A
cloud of dust enveloped him, showers of grit pelted him; but, heedless
of the onslaught, he dashed down the avenue at a reckless speed, and
when he reached the road he turned the car toward The Bluff.
II
PAYING TOLL
Miss Folkestone did not speak to Lord Berriedale during their drive
to The Bluff. She sat away from him in a corner of the car, closely
veiled, aloof and dignified. The hood of the motor was up and the
side-curtains fastened, yet the hot, stifling air was laden with dust.
When they reached the house Isma went up to the invalid at once.
The green blinds were half drawn in Lady Berriedale’s room and below
them a fiery glare came into the apartment, mixing oddly with its
prevailing gloom.
The patient lay very still in the large blackwood bedstead; her face
was pale and her lips compressed; one transparent hand clutched
nervously at the embroidered counterpane and the dark eyes turned
restlessly toward Isma as she entered.
“Are you better?” asked the elder woman, holding out her hand in a
formal way.
Isma took the proffered hand and at the same time bent over the invalid
and kissed the wasted cheek. “Yes, much better, thank you; but you are
not well, dear. Tell me, what has gone wrong? Why are you so strange?
You are not a bit glad to see me!” There was gentle hurt in the low,
musical voice.
Instantly the face among the lacy pillows changed. “Oh, Isma, kiss me
again! I know I am perfectly hateful and you are a saint to come to me.
Darling, I am not worthy of your love!” she broke out, clasping the
girl to her convulsively.
Miss Folkestone stroked the burning forehead soothingly. “Deary, what
has upset you so?”
“I am really ashamed to tell you, for now when I hear your dear voice
and look into your true, beautiful eyes I cannot forgive myself for
having doubted you.”
“You have doubted me, Beatrice?” asked the girl, the pink bloom fading
from her cheeks.
“Yes, I have been perfectly wicked all the morning. I have doubted both
you and--”
Her companion drew back slightly.
The patient noticed the movement. “Sit down, please. You must not stand
any longer; the heat is very trying to-day. Sit down; then we can talk.”
Miss Folkestone dropped into a chair, feeling suddenly limp with
apprehension. So the blow she had paid such a price to avert was about
to fall, after all! What evil powers had been at work? Who had sown
these seeds of distrust and suspicion? But she would know all too
soon. The thin voice trailed on.
“Isma, I feel so horrid, so absolutely brutal, telling you this. Still,
it is best you should know; then you will see how nasty I really am and
not a bit like what you and dear Neville think me--”
She stopped. How strange her companion looked! She was leaning back,
with her eyes closed and lips set, as if preparing for some terrible
ordeal.
When Lady Berriedale ceased speaking the girl looked up and in her eyes
burned a pain which smote her friend with new penitence.
“Dearest, don’t look like that!” she exclaimed, beseechingly. “I know
it has been most cruel to doubt you and no one hates hurting you more
than I; but when I have told you all and you have denied it I will
be so contrite and do all in my power to make up to you both for my
horrible suspicions.”
Miss Folkestone leaned over the bed quickly. Perhaps the calamity could
yet be prevented; perhaps even now, on the brink of disaster, there
might be a way of escape. “Beatrice,” she said, grasping at the straw,
“wouldn’t it be much better for you not to talk about it? It will only
upset and exhaust you, and, now that you are feeling all right about
it--”
“No, dear, I would much rather tell you,” replied her friend, firmly,
“for then it gives you the opportunity of denying everything. It
is not for my sake I want to give you this chance, but for your own
and--his.”
The room all at once swam before Isma. So there was no escape, after
all! The trusting little woman looking up at her with large, beseeching
eyes must have her heart lacerated by the cruel truth she would have
given life itself to keep from her! But, merciful God, why should she
be called on to strike the death-blow to such confiding trust! Why must
women always bear the brunt of men’s misdoings? Why had Beatrice not
faced her husband with the slander? Why did she spare him and tax her,
the innocent victim, with his cruel wrong?
“Isma,” went on the high-pitched voice, “I have been told
that--that--Neville is not true to me and that--he cares for you.” She
finished with an effort. “Of course it cannot be true, but Isma--tell
me it is not?” and her eager black eyes looked pleadingly into the gray
ones.
“Beatrice, why did you listen to such horrible gossip? Whoever could
have told you such a thing?” replied the girl, desperately avoiding the
direct denial.
Her friend noticed the evasion and her lips stiffened. “I have been
told,” she continued, in more even tones, “that on the night of the
ball you and Neville were seen on the landing after the rest of us had
gone to bed, and he was pressing your hand to his heart.”
Miss Folkestone sat rigid in her chair. Whoever could have seen them?
The world seemed to be tumbling about her. She glanced down at the rich
peacock-green carpet, aghast.
“So you can’t deny it,” said the cold voice from the bed.
The girl pulled herself together quickly. She must say something to
soothe the woman hiding her wounds under this icy exterior.
“Beatrice, I was coming up late after seeing to things down-stairs and
we accidentally met on the landing. Lord Berriedale admired my gown.
Oh, Beatrice, you know that men are often impulsive if one looks nice,
just the way we are about flowers--”
“Yes, you looked bewildering that night. I don’t wonder you turn the
head of every man who comes near you, and of course my husband admired
you, too; he danced with you and talked to you a good deal. Still,
there is a great difference between admiring a girl and--making love to
her on the stairs late at night. You cannot deny that he pressed your
hand to his heart?” her friend concluded, in a hard voice.
“Beatrice, such things may mean absolutely nothing,” said Isma,
suddenly thinking of the way Falcon, who did not love her, had kissed
her hand the night before.
“Very well, then, we will let that pass. But what about last evening?
You certainly look tired to-day, but not ill. Were you ill? Was that
the reason you went home? Isma, tell me honestly?”
The girl’s eyes wavered before the searching dark ones. “No,” she
stammered, at last, “that was not the reason.”
“Why, then, did you go home? Tell me that?”
Miss Folkestone turned a full, large gaze upon her friend. “Beatrice,”
she said, in gentle tones, “please don’t ask me all these questions. I
would gladly tell you everything, only, believe me, it is far better
not.”
“Better not tear the veil from my eyes and let me see I have lived on
illusions all this time? But,” her voice became strangely weary, “I am
tired of this hoodwinking. I would rather know the truth--rather hurt
me, _my friend_, than _deceive_ me.”
Isma winced. Lady Berriedale had emphasized the words “my friend” and
“deceive.” The situation was horrible--gruesome.
“Beatrice,” began the girl, her golden-gray eyes looking with desperate
sincerity at her companion, “I am not deceiving you--truly I am not.”
“Then tell me what happened last night. Tell me why Neville wrote to
you this morning, a letter so important that Rex had to be despatched
with it before breakfast. What was in that letter?”
“Lord Berriedale had hurt me last night and he apologized this
morning,” replied Isma, gazing steadily into the flushed face on the
pillow.
“Have you destroyed that letter?”
“Not yet.”
“Will you let me see it?”
“No, I cannot do that; it wouldn’t be-- You wouldn’t understand.”
“Don’t you think it would be more correct to say that I would
understand too well?” said the invalid, a grim smile twisting her thin
lips.
“Beatrice, if only you would trust me!” Miss Folkestone had risen and
stood, tall and beautiful, her face glowing with pitying love and
yearning anxiety.
“Trust you, indeed! Haven’t I trusted you, and what is the result, that
I have been most grossly, most appallingly deceived!”
“No, Beatrice, no!” cried the girl, in agony. Then, sinking on her
knees beside the bed, she put out her arms to clasp her friend to her,
but she drew coldly away. “Beatrice, I have not deceived you--I have
not!” she protested, appealingly.
“Very well, if you are truly innocent, then look at me and swear by
your mother’s memory that there never has been any talk of love between
you and Neville.”
The kneeling figure drew a shuddering breath, but made no reply.
“Oh, I thought so,” muttered the harsh voice from the pillows. “You are
guilty, terribly guilty, and--I trusted you so!”
For a moment Isma raised her head and opened her lips to speak--how
easily she could clear herself! She need only tell Beatrice the whole
truth, that Neville loved her and had pursued her with his devotion,
but that she did not care for him and had never for a moment been
disloyal to her friend. How easy to lay the blame on the one to whom
it belonged! However, such a disclosure would only mean deeper anguish
to his wife, so it was better she should think the guilt lay with her,
Isma, and that her husband was not much to blame. The girl closed her
lips again and her head sank dejectedly down on the bed. She would not
speak, would not clear herself.
There was a pause so chilly that it seemed as if a wall of ice had
risen up between them; then the invalid said: “Isma, I could have
forgiven you more easily if you had come and told me the truth
yourself. However, to deceive me and let others inform me, that is--
But never mind. I know at last. Still, to think that I, poor fool,
who thought myself loved by husband and friend,” she went on, in a
different tone, “should have thrown you together--how ludicrous! To
think that I was actually encouraging you both, drawing you to him and
almost pushing you into his arms--I, his devoted wife, who thought
myself so secure in his love, who adored him with a passion which would
have died a dozen times for him if it had been possible--I, who doted
on every line of his form and the least touch of his hand--that _I_
should actually have been the one to keep you near him and put such a
temptation in his way! Can’t you see the ghastly humor of it?” and Lady
Berriedale laughed an ugly, harsh laugh which sounded hollow and weird,
like the echo of footsteps in a vault.
Miss Folkestone shivered. She put her hand across her eyes as if
something had blinded her. “Don’t!” she whispered, faintly; “don’t!”
“Surely, Isma, you see the comedy it has been, don’t you?” Beatrice
added, with the same mirthless laughter.
Her companion lifted her head with a proud little movement. The red
glare from the window fell on her wonderful hair. She stood tall,
lovely, her face burning with a wordless pain and in her large eyes
glistened a dumb agony.
“Good God! you are beautiful, Isma--your worst enemy could not deny
that! I don’t wonder poor Neville has succumbed! However, I know now
that your lofty beauty is only a shell and below it you are heartless,
cruel, and false! But you are clever--oh, how clever! What a feat to
accomplish, to make the husband your ardent lover and his wife your
trusting friend--”
The girl had suddenly reeled, but she straightened quickly and stood
motionless for a moment, her face ashen and her eyes looking long and
intently at the woman who derided her. Then, without a word, she turned
and walked slowly out of the room.
She saw nothing as she made her way down the thickly carpeted stairs.
On reaching the hall she was not even aware that Falcon was there
talking to Miss Brentford, that Lord Berriedale came out from the
library and spoke to her. She did not notice that he opened the door
for her and followed her to the motor. She was oblivious to everything
but the cruel fact that up-stairs lay her friend, facing the worst
agony any woman is called upon to bear, and that she, Isma, could do
nothing to comfort her.
She sank down among the cushions in the car and was barely aware that
the machine darted forward into the teeth of the fiendish hurricane.
Falcon had gone into the sitting-room and had been watching her from
the nearest window. When Lord Berriedale helped Isma into the motor the
man looking on clenched his hands and ground his teeth. What had they
done between them to make his cousin look like that! He choked back the
angry words rising to his lips.
He would follow her presently, after she had recovered a little from
the ordeal she had been through up-stairs.
Captain Folkestone stood for some time looking out at the great
dust-clouds flying before the pursuing blast. His face was set and
grim, and though his blue eyes were following the dust-columns among
the fig-trees of the avenue, yet Miss Brentford knew he did not see
them, but that his brain was preoccupied, busily working at something
which filled her with instinctive dread.
III
BARRED GATES
“I suppose Isma is in now?” inquired Captain Folkestone when he arrived
at The Palms an hour after his cousin had returned from The Bluff.
“I am afraid you are going to be disappointed again,” replied Miss
Livingston, sympathetically. “Something has upset Isma dreadfully this
afternoon. She looked awfully white when she came home. I thought at
first that the wind and heat had knocked her up, but it must have been
something worse, for she would hardly say a word and went straight to
her room, locked the door, and wouldn’t even have tea sent up to her.
By the way,” she added, “you must need some refreshment after your hot
drive in the gale. Would you like an iced drink or shall I get you some
tea?”
“No, thank you, I had tea at The Bluff,” replied the soldier, and
continued, in a different tone: “I am grieved--very grieved, about
Isma. But would you mind telling her I am here and that I want to see
her most urgently? And while you are away may I go and have a wash? I
feel too horribly grimy and gritty to talk to either of you at present.”
When Falcon returned to the sitting-room some minutes later the
governess told him that Isma was sorry, but she could not possibly see
him that day.
Captain Folkestone stroked his smooth cheek thoughtfully, then he said:
“I feel horribly selfish giving you all this trouble, Miss Livingston,
but might I ask you to take my cousin one other message? Tell her that
I am not in a hurry and if she wants to rest I can wait for hours.
However, I must see her before I return home to-night.”
The old lady went up-stairs once more, and the second message had the
desired effect, for Isma said she would be down presently.
When she entered the room a little later Falcon was alone.
“I am sorry to bring you down against your will,” he began, looking at
the girl’s pale, set face, “but there is something I must say to you at
once--it can’t even wait till to-morrow.”
“Yes,” replied Isma, listlessly, taking the chair by the window she
had occupied earlier in the afternoon and glancing out into the hazy,
dust-laden atmosphere.
Her companion regarded her gravely from the hearth-rug, and his somber
expression deepened as he noticed the red rims round her eyes and that
her curving lips were pressed together as if she were making some
colossal effort to keep them from quivering.
The man standing by the mantelpiece breathed unevenly. For some moments
there was a deep silence in the room, only broken by the rustle of
leaves, the creaking of bending trees, and the muffled sobs of breaking
waves.
Then Falcon went over to a small table, picked up a glass of egg and
milk and passed it to his cousin as he said: “Drink this, Isma; it will
do you good. You used to like that sort of thing when you were a little
girl.”
She waved it aside, but he held it to her. “You must take it. I can’t
talk to you till you do,” he persisted.
With a weary little sigh she took the glass and drank its contents.
When she had finished Falcon sat down on a small divan a short distance
away from her. For some seconds he did not speak, but sat leaning
forward, knees apart, looking thoughtfully at the carpet between his
feet. Then he straightened suddenly and began: “I am not going to worry
you by asking what took place this afternoon. Miss Brentford gave me
some hints, and I can guess the rest.”
The girl by the window moved restlessly.
So Falcon knew already! Still, of course, he was bound to know in the
end. Everybody would soon be told; Miss Brentford and Rex would see
to that. Her character would be in shreds. If anything happened to
Beatrice, it would be given out that the trusting wife had at last
discovered her friend’s deceit and the shock had killed her. In any
case her illness would be laid at her, Isma’s, door as a result of her
heartless behavior. It would be said that-- The girl shivered visibly.
She knew her world, knew what scandal it would make of the things which
had happened, and that the name Falcon loved would be dragged into the
mire! Society had not had any proof before; gossip had been started on
surmises; but now when evidence was available it would not spare her.
Every one knew of Beatrice’s devotion to her, and if she cast her off
it could only be for most serious misconduct. There was no hope for her.
It would be terribly humiliating for Falcon, too, and he would feel the
disgrace keenly. Of course he would try to vindicate the family honor.
She was sure he had come to make some suggestion which he thought might
mitigate the evil which had befallen her. But it would be useless;
nothing could save their name now.
She turned and gazed into the wind-blown garden. How ugly it looked
to-day! The leaves were all showing the wrong side; the flowers were
disheveled and out of shape. Everything looked tattered and faded in
the descending gloom. The sun had not yet set, but the haze hung like
a glowering, hideous twilight. Life seemed all at once to have become
ugly, colorless, and dark. It had been turned inside out and was
showing seams, stains, and frays.
But her cousin’s voice roused her from her dismal thoughts.
“Isma, something must be done at once. Things can’t go on like
this--they can’t.”
“No, I suppose you mean that I ought to go away, somewhere out of
reach--in the jungle of Africa or in the desert, anywhere out of
sight,” she replied, tonelessly, her eyes on the swaying branches
beating against the window-panes.
“No, I did not mean that.”
“Anyhow, I think that is the best thing I can do; hide in a place where
no one shall be able to find me.”
“That is impossible. There is no such place, for I know one man who
will follow you wherever you go.”
Of course Falcon was thinking of Lord Berriedale.
“He will get tired in time, when he sees it is absolutely useless,” she
said, a little coldly.
The man on the divan rose and went over to the mantelpiece again. “Is
it really quite useless, Isma?” he asked, in a voice which sounded hard
by the restraint he put on it.
“Of course it is--quite,” she answered, with decision.
There was rather a lengthy pause. Her cousin had turned away and picked
up a small bronze elephant which he pulled at ferociously.
After some moments he put the ornament down and looked narrowly at his
companion. Could this be the same woman who had driven beside him on
the moonlit road the night before, who had leaned against his shoulder,
spoken to him in rich, warm tones, looked at him with eyes so tender
that they seemed to melt into utter yielding under his gaze, who now
sat aloof and cold with scarcely a glance at him and told him, without
a tremor of compunction, that it was absolutely useless to care for her!
He swallowed hard.
However, though Captain Folkestone was extremely sensitive, he was not
easily thwarted, and to-day he was doubly determined, for his cousin’s
honor as well as his own happiness was at stake.
“Very well,” he said, in a cool, measured way, “it is just as well to
be clear on those points first.”
Isma turned and looked at him. But he did not see her glance. He was
gazing across the room through an eastern window at the wind-swept,
foam-flecked ocean.
His cold, distant manner gave her the impression he had not believed
her. A sudden fire flashed into her eyes, but died away almost
instantly. Could she blame him, after all? Had she not by her own
actions that day made it impossible for him to believe in her? So,
forcing back an angry retort, she said, quietly:
“But, Falcon, don’t you think you should have known before? I wanted
you to understand, so that you would not-- I am so sorry if--”
“Don’t worry about that,” he replied, bruskly. “To be frank with you,
I was not quite clear. Certain little things had made me think that
perhaps--” He broke off, then after a slight pause he added, “Still, of
course, I shall take your word for it.”
As he stood on the hearth-rug, his shoulders squared and hands clasped
behind his back, his face white and lips set, he looked very much like
a man who had just received a stunning blow and was taking it without
flinching. But Isma’s senses were too numbed by all she had been
through to comprehend.
“Well, I am glad you understand at last,” she said, still feeling
uncomfortably certain he did not believe her and only out of pity made
a pretense of thinking her innocent.
Falcon made no reply. He still gazed out of the window with narrowed,
half-closed eyes.
“But if you don’t think it best for me to go away, what else am I to
do?” asked Isma, breaking the lengthy pause.
Her companion suddenly braced himself as if preparing for some ordeal;
then he said, in a low, even voice, “There is one thing you can do
which will at once ease Lady Berriedale’s mind and remove all slander
from you--”
“Yes?” she inquired, as he stopped.
Falcon turned and looked at her narrowly through half-closed lids as
he had looked at the sea a moment ago, and said, with visible effort,
“You can become engaged to--me.
“Isma,” he urged, “if you become engaged to me, I think we can
save--the situation. There will be no scandal then; you will at once
set your friend’s mind at rest and give me the chance to protect you
better than I can do at present.”
The girl was still silent and she had turned her face quite away so
that he could not see the expression in her eyes and the bitter smile
curving her lips.
So her heart’s desire had come to her at last! After years of waiting
the thing she most desired was within her reach. But, great Heavens!
what a mangled, distorted thing it proved to be! It came to her shorn
of beauty, a worn, wizened, lifeless thing! The man she loved was
asking her to become engaged to him, in an unemotional, business-like
way, without one thought of love, not even thinking it necessary to
apologize for its absence, expecting her to understand he was making
the proposal for her sake, to save her from an appalling situation, yet
making it clear she must not expect any sentiment from him! The cruel,
mocking irony of fate!
“Well?” he said, at last, as she still did not speak.
“You must know that such a thing is quite impossible,” she said, in a
hard voice, her face still averted.
“Why impossible?”
“I simply couldn’t do it.”
No, she could not. This was too much to expect from her! Engaged to
Falcon under such circumstances, being daily confronted with the
meaningless, loveless bond, being hourly reminded of all it should
have meant, moment by moment tortured by it, tantalized by it. No, no!
she could not accept release on such terms. Rather a thousand times be
disgraced and banished!
“I cannot, Falcon--I cannot,” she repeated, in broken tones.
Her companion winced. So that was the way she felt about becoming
engaged to him! It was an intolerably painful thing--too horrible to be
endured!
He winced again. Did not this indicate that she must be in love with
some one else and found it abhorrent that another man should take
his place? Did she care for Lord Berriedale, after all, and was she
desperately fighting against this treacherous affection? Captain
Folkestone clenched his hands and the veins in his neck swelled. For
a moment he was tempted to walk out of the room and never again look
on the woman who had brought this terrible thing into his life. But he
fought back the temptation, for was there not an added reason why he
must not forsake her, if this conjecture was right? He must stand by
her and help her fight the awful odds against her.
“Isma,” he began, crushing back the vibration in his voice, “even if
it is hard for you, try and put up with it. Can’t you see that it would
set everything right? Think what poor Lady Berriedale is suffering at
this moment. Do it to relieve her!”
The girl tossed her head in hot rebellion. Must she always suffer
for this friend, always be called on to make greater and yet more
impossible sacrifices for her sake!
“O God!” moaned Isma, half aloud, dropping back in her chair and
closing her eyes.
The soldier changed color and bit his lip. He was at least finding
out the truth now when she was off her guard, thrown off her balance
by the terrible events of the day. The softness in her eyes and voice
the evening before had meant nothing! Her show of emotion when his
arm had held her as they danced together two nights ago had also been
meaningless! All his dreams mere foam and bubble bursting into a
stinging emptiness!
For some seconds the room reeled round him; then he pulled himself
together sharply and said, “Isma, don’t you think you are just
a little--needlessly--ungracious about it?” Though his tone was
restrained, it held the merest suggestion of pain, which made the
girl turn and look at him at once. However, the increased density of
the atmosphere had made the room dusky, so she could not see that the
handsome face was pale and drawn. Still, her voice was very gentle as
she said:
“Falcon, I am sorry I have seemed so--ungrateful. Of course I know how
noble you are in making such an--offer. Only you would have thought
of such a thing! And believe me I value greatly your kind thought in
wanting to help me. Still, of course, you must know I could not allow
you to make such a--sacrifice.”
“How can you call it a--sacrifice?” he asked, almostly roughly.
“Of course it must be--under the circumstances, and I cannot let you
make it--it would be too much for us both.”
“But, Isma, it is absolutely necessary. It is the only way out of the
difficulty. Can’t you see that for yourself? Still, of course, our
engagement can be just as--you like. We need not--treat each other any
differently from--what we do now.”
The bitter smile came back to her lips. Falcon could be satisfied
with--_that_! How little he cared! It was only the family name he was
anxious to save. Well, she owed him her help in that. She was too tired
to think out other plans, so there seemed nothing else to do but submit
to his suggestion. Her cousin had a reputation for such punctilious
honor that every one would know there could be no flaws in the
character of the woman he intended to marry. And poor Beatrice would be
comforted. Yes, it seemed the only solution of the difficulty. She must
submit to the inevitable, even if it tore her heart to shreds.
“What is it to be?” asked Captain Folkestone, as he had not received
any reply. “Of course you know,” he went on, as Isma still did not
speak, “that you are not obliged to--marry me afterward.”
“No, of course not,” came the scornful rejoinder.
“Well, then?”
“I suppose I might as well consent. The farce need not last--long.”
“No, not very long,” he agreed, with a strange flatness in his voice.
Another silence fell between them.
Then Falcon said, “I may announce our--engagement?”
“If you like.” She was still peering into the red dusk in the garden.
“Very well. I must go now. I want to ring up Miss Brentford and tell
her at once.”
Isma started. She knew how such news would affect Rita. “No, no, not
to-night!” she pleaded, turning to him.
“For Lady Berriedale’s sake it ought to be done as soon as possible. If
I tell Miss Brentford, she can pass the news on to--the others.”
Isma sighed in resignation.
Her cousin held out his hand. “Good-by, Isma,” he said, in a strained,
low voice, his eyes upon her face in the gloom.
“Good-by,” she replied, tonelessly, placing a cold, lifeless hand in
his.
She watched him walk across the room, listened to his footsteps in the
hall, the opening and shutting of the front door. She heard his car
leap into panting life and its crunching on the gravel as it sped down
the drive, and then there was only the mournful soughing of the wind
as, exhausted by its savage onslaughts, it sank moaningly to rest among
the trees.
Isma left the window.
Falcon had come to the rescue again. Her reputation would be saved,
Beatrice comforted, Lord Berriedale forced to retreat; but--but-- She
groped her way blindly to the door and crept up-stairs to the sultry
loneliness of her room.
IV
TRAMPLED FRIENDSHIP
When Miss Folkestone had left The Bluff Lord Berriedale went into his
study and stood for some time looking up the dusty road as if his eyes
were still following the car which had vanished from view some minutes
before. After a while he turned from the window and began to pace the
floor with even, regular steps. Between his brow was a deep furrow and
now and again he stopped for a moment and listened, but no one came to
summon him to his wife, and he continued to walk up and down the room
with well-controlled restlessness.
What had happened between Beatrice and Isma? Evidently his wife had
suspected something was wrong. Had she charged the girl with treachery?
It was apparent when she came down-stairs a few minutes ago that she
had been through a terrible ordeal. Why had Beatrice not sent for him?
Had Isma told her the truth, that she was innocent and he alone guilty?
No, she would not clear herself at his expense; she was too noble for
that!
But how was it all going to end?
The furrow on his brow deepened and he stroked his fair mustache as he
slackened his pace and listened again.
Up-stairs, Lady Berriedale lay in her elaborate bed, her narrow face
pinched and ashen, her thin lips tightly drawn together, and a terrible
light burning in her deep brown eyes. She was absolutely still. Only
her eyes flitted from one object in the room to another, yet seeing
none of them.
At times her furtive gaze strayed to the windows, and under the
half-drawn blinds she could see the crumpled ocean which in the gale
looked like a huge sheet of creased brown paper. She glanced absently
at the stunted trees on the nearest cliff, their stems now bent and
their leaves looking like tattered rags in the ferocious storm. She
heard the weird moans of sea-gulls half stifled by the tempest and saw
fragments of clouds flying toward the horizon as if they were being
swept ruthlessly into the sea.
But Lady Berriedale had no thoughts for clouds, waves, wailing birds,
or whining trees. Her whole consciousness was drawn within, centered
on some awful theme which made her oblivious to everything else, and
sometimes her lips moved as if she were talking inaudibly to herself.
At last she sat up very slowly and glanced furtively toward the door,
then she very deliberately put on a pair of rose-red slippers, and
with wavering footsteps crossed the floor and stood still before
a full-length mirror, looking long and intently at herself in the
glass. A bitter smile played about her rigid lips as she surveyed the
reflection of her shriveled form in its rose-tinted _crêpe-de-Chine_
night attire. How pitiful that the luxurious elegance should only cover
such an unsightly object! She picked at the ribbons at her breast as if
she would have torn them to pieces. What business had such a creature
with embroidered silks and dainty ribbons! She looked mercilessly at
her scraggy neck, the wizened pallor of her skin, and her dark, sunken
eyes encircled by those ghastly shadows.
Then suddenly she turned away from the mirror with a hasty, nervous
movement, and her fevered glance sought a large photograph of Isma in
a solid-gold frame standing in the center of the broad mantelpiece. It
was a lifelike portrait, picturing the girl in all her subtle, vital
loveliness. The camera had caught the full, rich gaze of her wonderful
eyes, their lofty calm, undaunted courage, and tender sweetness.
Lady Berriedale stood transfixed, staring at the picture with sharp,
severe scrutiny.
All at once she dashed across the room, tore down the picture, and
threw it violently to the floor, the heavy frame and glass crashing
loudly as they struck the tiled hearth.
Beatrice looked with defiant scorn at the splintered glass and Isma’s
eyes with their magnificent tranquillity gazing at her now from the
peacock-green tiles.
“False!” cried the angry woman, her cheeks ablaze and her white hands
clenched; “utterly false! Your beauty is a mask--a mask,” she shrieked,
“and you still dare to look me in the face with those deceptive eyes
of yours. You are bold and heartless, you cruel, horrible creature!”
and one of the small rose-slippered feet stamped all at once across the
face of the lovely girl who still looked with untroubled serenity at
the excited woman insulting her.
“How dare you look at me like that!” cried the shrill voice in
suffocating fury, stamping on the photo again and again. “How--dare--”
Her words were suddenly choked by a violent fit of coughing, and a gush
of warm fluid forced itself between her lips, poured down her gown,
staining it with a streak of deeper red and running into a dark-crimson
pool on the carpet.
A look of horror came into the wide, dark eyes. Was she bleeding to
death?
She gasped noisily and turned a ghastly white. She was strangling.
Again she gasped, then swayed and fell heavily against the mantelpiece.
The blow against the hard wood roused her for a moment and she stood
half dazed, leaning against the shelf, her eyes stiff and glassy. Good
God! Was she--dying here alone!
Suddenly the black cross she had seen illumined in the picture the
first morning they had spent at The Bluff flashed into her mind. She
could see it standing out from the canvas, moving toward her. Yes, it
was coming; it had been waiting for--her grave!
She gave a piercing shriek of terror.
Then something numbed her senses and everything began to fade from
her consciousness. She scarcely noticed the door opening, her husband
springing to her side and snatching her to him just as she was slowly
sinking to the floor.
When she became conscious again it was evidently night, for the gas was
alight. There were strangers in the room, a nurse in uniform, and a man
came quickly toward her as she moved, bent over her, and she felt a
prick in her arm. Then she caught sight of her husband standing at the
foot of the bed, his face looking anxious and haggard, and farther away
still Rita was huddled wearily in a low chair.
She glanced up at the man who had removed the needle from her forearm
and recognized him. He was the doctor she had consulted in Sydney and
who had arranged to come to The Bluff if she needed medical attention.
It must be very late if he had come all the way from town.
She tried to think what made her ill, but a strange stupor began to
steal over her. Why were all these people in her room? Why didn’t they
go to bed and sleep? Sleep was so delicious--sleep--
The next time she woke there was faint daylight in the room. The people
had all gone--no, the nurse was still there, sitting beside the bed
with her eyes closed and her cap a little to one side. She must be
asleep; it would be a pity to disturb her.
Lady Berriedale glanced about her wonderingly and gradually memory
returned. She remembered Isma’s visit--everything. Her life was at a
complete standstill--nothing would ever set it moving again.
She shuddered.
The nurse opened her eyes and spoke in a kind, gentle voice; then
she went over to a small table and came back to the bed. There was
another prick in her arm and soon afterward the ghastly thing which
had happened did not matter, after all. Nothing mattered; the only
important thing was this long, delicious sinking into oblivion.
* * * * *
In another wing of the house stood a slender, white-robed form by
an open window, looking out into the stirring dawn. There was no
wind; only a cool breath came from the pansy-colored hills. Beyond
the grounds of The Bluff the long, wide plain lay wrapped in mystic
shadows, but trees and bushes were beginning to disentangle themselves
from the dusky meshes of night.
Rita Brentford laid her cool cheek against the window-frame and closed
her tired eyes. The pale-gray light creeping into the room fell on her
white, drawn face. What a night she had spent! A shudder ran through
her. How had she lived through this ghastly nightmare! However, dawn
had come at last and the black hours were ended, but what about the
nightmare? She shivered again--that had not left her; it would never
leave her. She knew it would follow her, dodge every footstep for the
rest of her days. It seemed as if she had entered into a league with
it, made a compact with it, by which she had given this phantom monster
the right to shadow her life forever.
One of her cold, limp hands moved across her brow, yet it could not
brush away the thing which tortured her. Though her body was weak
and spent, her brain worked with pitiless activity. It was like the
electric advertisements she had seen from the Sydney harbor flashing
out one announcement after another with unvarying precision. Her mind
worked with the same ruthless automacity; it brought one scene before
her after another. She heard again the piercing shriek, felt herself
rushing to her sister’s room, just in time to see Neville gathering the
fainting, blood-stained figure in his arms. She could still see the big
blotch of dark red on the green carpet, she lived again the endless,
merciless hours before the doctor arrived, felt again the nerve-racking
waiting for his verdict--hemorrhage of the lungs combined with a severe
heart attack. Beatrice’s heart had been weak for some years, but it had
never before given any active trouble; the syncope had been brought on
by shock.
Rita leaned her head more heavily against the woodwork and a tremor
passed through her closed eyelids; her face in the weird light of early
dawn looked old and gray.
Her sister was still in a precarious condition; the doctor was not at
all hopeful about saving her.
The girl at the window suddenly opened her eyes and there was a
terrible glitter in the shadowy orbs. She had nearly killed Beatrice.
The news she had imparted to her the day before might yet do the deadly
work of taking her life.
A luminous rim appeared over the far-off horizon and gilded the trees
and shrubs on the plain. The gold on the flats deepened, leaves shone,
grass blades shimmered, and the flowers in the garden received color.
But daylight brought no joy to the heart of the girl standing mute and
limp, looking into its new-born radiance.
She pressed her hands against her throbbing eyes.
She was a murderess, a black, guilty murderess! She knew her sister
could not stand shocks, yet she had deliberately imparted news which
she knew might have a fatal effect, and all because-- Yes, she saw her
action in its hideous selfishness, now the dark hours had revealed her
deed in its naked ugliness and shown her that she had sacrificed her
sister’s life for the sake of separating Captain Folkestone from his
cousin and securing him for herself!
Beatrice still lingered, but she might yet die. In any case she,
Rita, had committed the crime which could take her life. Murderess!
Murderess! The dreadful word tolled in her brain with maddening
persistence.
She lifted her arms as if to ward off a blow. Then she sank into a
chair and closed her eyes. But instantly she opened them again and a
malicious gleam shot into them. Her cold, proud rival was disarmed at
last--her words had at least accomplished that! Captain Folkestone
would never have any more to do with her when he knew all that had
happened.
Yesterday he had not allowed her to say all she had meant to tell him.
He had courteously, yet decidedly, changed the subject. Still, she had
been able to throw out enough hints to show him how treacherous Isma
had been to her friend!
However, even the thought that Miss Folkestone could no more stand in
her way had no power to comfort her now. Her conscience cried loudly,
vehemently, and would not be silenced. Again Rita could see the livid
face with its gruesome, deathlike calm resting on the pillow. Would no
smile again soften the tightly compressed lips? And would the shrunken
form in a few days be laid under--
No! no! She could bear no more. Her thoughts in the lonely room would
drive away her reason! She must get away from the stillness which held
these awful specters. She would go to the sea, the ever-stirring,
restless ocean. It was never silent, always roaring or muttering under
its breath. Was it always noisy because, like herself, it could not
endure the austere, accusing silence?
She snatched up a long coat, made her way hurriedly out of the house,
down the garden path, till she reached a small track which led past the
cliff to the beach.
As she approached a belt of weather-worn she-oaks she came upon Rex
sitting on a bench, one knee across the other, and a cigarette between
his lips.
His presence brought her a sudden sense of relief.
“Rex,” she exclaimed, stopping in front of him, “whatever brings you
out so early?”
“My dear Miss Rita, I should be absolutely heartless if I could sleep
when her ladyship is dy--so ill.” He corrected himself.
The girl winced, but sat down beside him.
“Rex, isn’t it appalling! I haven’t slept, of course, not closed my
eyes once, and I didn’t sleep the night before, either. It is all too
dreadful!” Her horror was beginning to find vent in words.
“Yes, indeed! But have you heard how the patient is this morning?”
“No, not yet. Nurse promised to let me know if there was any change, so
apparently there is not.”
“That is a good sign. She is holding her own at present, then. All we
can expect, isn’t it? I wonder,” he continued, with puckered brow,
“what _could_ have given her such a nasty turn! Something must have
done the mischief. I wonder could some meddling gossip have--”
He stopped and glanced at his companion, who had gripped the seat for
support. “Miss Rita, I do believe you are ill, too!”
“Nonsense, Rex! I’m all right.”
He looked at her with indolent scrutiny as he added: “I suppose his
lordship hasn’t told you the news yet. He wouldn’t have the heart. I
mean he would not be able to think of such things just now--”
“What news?” asked the girl, sitting up quickly.
“Captain Folkestone rang up last night and asked for you, but as you
were with her ladyship I couldn’t disturb you. However, Lord Berriedale
was down-stairs just then, so I asked him to come to the ’phone, and
Captain Folkestone evidently told him about his engagement, for I heard
his lordship congratulate him--”
“Engagement!” stammered Miss Brentford, her pale face becoming grayer.
“Who--?”
“Is there any need to ask? His beautiful cousin, of course. Who else
could it be?”
Rita sank back against the seat, her bloodless lips uttering an
inarticulate cry.
“Great Cæsar!” exclaimed the man beside her. “I believe you are going
to faint. Let me take you indoors.”
“Don’t be an ass, Rex,” Rita almost screamed at the secretary. “Of
course I am not going to faint. Still, are you really in earnest?
Aren’t you just--?”
“As if I should joke on such a solemn subject--at such a serious time,
I mean. How could you suggest I should be so brutal? But as soon as you
can you must ring up the happy man and tell him how delighted you are.
He will be in the tenth heaven to-day. Think what times they will have
together now. Shouldn’t like to come upon them unexpectedly under the
palms on a moonlit--”
He stopped suddenly, for the girl had risen and stood livid
and trembling before him. “Rex, if you say another word,
I’ll--I’ll--strangle you,” she shrieked.
Then the white, shaking form with the desperate black eyes turned
suddenly and fled back to the house. She made her way hastily to her
own room, locked the door, and, moaning loudly, threw herself on the
bed.
So she had committed that hideous crime--for nothing! Her sister lay at
death’s door--for nothing! Her life was endangered to no purpose! Her
own nightmare, her future sufferings, would be for nothing! All her
plans had been thwarted while the unscrupulous Miss Folkestone with her
siren-like charm robbed her of the man she had become a--murderess to
obtain!
V
THE FATAL KEY
A week after Lady Berriedale’s collapse Isma entered The Bluff once
more. She mounted the wide staircase quickly. Her friend was much
better and had sent for her. The rose-pink in her cheeks deepened.
The past week had been a ghastly one. Falcon had brought her the news
of Lady Berriedale’s seizure the day after it had taken place, and the
same afternoon a note had come from Lord Berriedale telling her of
his wife’s critical condition and adding more details than her cousin
could supply. The letter also told her that the patient had to be
kept absolutely quiet; that she was under the influence of narcotics
and asleep most of the time. Two days afterward Lord Berriedale had
written again to say that his wife seemed to be rallying, her pulse was
much stronger, and that as soon as she could bear his confession he
was going to make a clean breast of everything, of course as briefly
and mercifully as possible. He was very anxious Isma’s name should be
cleared with his wife for the patient’s sake as well as her own, for
he felt sure, once she knew her friend had been true and he only was
to blame, the invalid would wish to have the girl beside her again and
Isma’s presence would help her greatly to regain her hold on life. Lord
Berriedale implored her to forgive and be merciful.
He did not know what had occurred that fatal afternoon, but he pleaded
with her not to judge Beatrice’s words and actions too hardly.
That morning another note from him had arrived, saying he had told his
wife everything, that she had most generously forgiven him, and that
she sent a message asking the girl to come to her at once, as she was
longing to see her and ask for her forgiveness. Lord Berriedale had not
congratulated her on her engagement or made the slightest allusion to
it in any of his letters.
Falcon had come over immediately after breakfast to take her to The
Bluff. He always rang up early to inquire after Lady Berriedale, and
when he was told she was much better that morning and had sent for Miss
Folkestone he had gone to The Palms at once to drive his cousin to the
invalid.
Now the girl entered her friend’s room, her face flushed and her eyes
shining.
The nurse glanced with tense curiosity at the beautiful visitor and
then quietly withdrew.
“Isma, you are a saint!” cried Lady Berriedale, stretching out her arms
and pressing the girl to her heart. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“Don’t, Beatrice, don’t,” whispered Isma, trying to keep the patient
from becoming excited. “There is nothing to forgive, deary. You simply
made a mistake, and even the wisest and best make mistakes sometimes.”
“Darling, you are too good to me!” There were tears in the high-pitched
voice.
“Beatrice dear, please don’t get upset, or nurse will never allow me to
sit with you again.”
The elder woman made an instant effort to calm herself and said, in a
different tone: “Neville has told me everything, and I know now how
true and good you have been. But Isma”--the large black eyes looked up
at her wistfully--“he loves you deeply--”
Miss Folkestone put out her hands protestingly.
“Beatrice, it can’t really be love--only a slight infatuation--”
“No, you are wrong about that,” replied the solemn voice from the
pillows. “It is real love. He doesn’t only admire your outward beauty,
but your nobility, courage, your intense sincerity and marvelous
generosity. He--” She stopped suddenly and looked up at the girl with
deep pain in her glance. “But how terrible of me to talk to you like
this, when I ought to be congratulating you! Isma”--she stretched out
her arms again--“kiss me and let me wish you all the happiness you so
richly deserve--”
Her companion stooped over her quickly, interrupting the words with a
caress.
“Darling, what is the matter? Why are you trembling so?” asked the
elder woman, pushing the girl a little away from her so that she might
look into her face. “Why, there are tears in your eyes, tears when you
ought to be all smiles and joy. Why--?” she persisted, regarding the
long, moist lashes with deep concern. Then all at once she exclaimed:
“Oh, Isma, I know what has made you sad in the midst of your happiness.
It is I--”
Her companion silenced the words with another kiss. “Beatrice, don’t
let us speak of it again.”
“But now that everything is right between us and I am much better you
won’t grieve any more, will you?”
“No, no; I shall feel much happier now.”
Still her friend missed the note of conviction in the voice and looked
at Isma with troubled scrutiny.
The girl colored painfully and her head dropped.
“Isma,” began Lady Berriedale, with strange solemnity, “are you quite
sure that you love Captain Folkestone?”
Instantly the flaxen head lifted and two steady gray eyes looked at her
with intense sincerity from under the wet black lashes. “I love him
with all my heart. I have never loved another man.”
The patient breathed a sigh of relief. “You have always loved him?”
“Yes, ever since I met him in London, when I came out and hadn’t seen
him for some years.”
“So that is why no other man has been able to make an impression on
you, why you have been immune to all love and wooing! But,” she went
on, a little perplexedly, “why didn’t you marry him before? This long
delay seems an awful waste!”
“He didn’t--care.”
“Not care! How absurd! But is it really only lately that he--?”
The fair head sank down on her friend’s breast. “I don’t know. I have
not--asked him.”
“You strange girl! Fancy not asking your lover such an important
question. I should have wanted to know the exact moment when he fell
in love with me. I should like to know when your cousin first began to
care; and if you won’t ask him I will.”
Her companion started. “Beatrice, for Heaven’s sake don’t do such a
thing. Promise me you will not!” she cried, in panic.
“My dear child, you are quite incomprehensible. I believe you are
afraid of him. But of course I won’t do it if you would rather I
didn’t. By the way, I suppose he drove you over this morning?”
“Yes, and he is coming back for me presently.”
“What a dear he is to spare you! Darling,” she continued, looking up at
her friend with a tremulous tenderness in her gaze, “I do hope you will
be happy--as happy as I thought--I was.”
Miss Folkestone’s arms enfolded the shrunken form. “Beatrice, don’t
say _was_--for you are going to be just as happy as you thought.”
Lady Berriedale looked away into space. “How do you think there could
be any joy for me, when my husband cares for--another woman?”
“Deary, that is only a passing fancy. It is nothing, and, now that I am
engaged, he will not think of--me at all. If only you knew how deeply
distressed he has been during your illness you would know how much he
really cares!”
The nurse came in just then. It was time for medicine and the patient
was not allowed to talk any more.
The next morning Isma found her friend much better and awaiting her
eagerly.
“Darling, I feel so much stronger to-day, and I am so glad, for I am
longing to have a good talk.”
“Yes,” said the girl, settling down by the bedside when the nurse had
left the room, “now we can enjoy ourselves.”
“Isma,” began the rasping voice, “I have been thinking such a lot
lately--that is, of course, when I have not been under the influence of
drugs.”
“Yes? What have you been thinking about?”
“Do you remember I told you that Neville and I were standing on the
balcony on the first morning after our arrival, looking out on the
great plains? It seemed to me then that this vast country was a place
which compelled one to pray--no, not the stale, lifeless prayers
so often uttered in churches, or the sentimental ones prompted by
beautiful music, but the impetuous, volcanic prayers bursting from
exploding souls. It seemed to me that souls living in this vastness
would be strong, lofty, great, capable of majestic passion, and I felt
my own life had been so small and mean by comparison. I longed for
gigantic strength, to be able to pray like that, and I had a feeling
that in this country I should learn. Isma,” she turned her face
slightly away and her tones lowered as she said, “I am learning. The
explosion has taken place--”
Her companion looked at her with troubled sympathy.
“Oh, Beatrice, if only I could have spared you--that!”
The black eyes looked up at her steadily.
“No, dear, it is a good thing you could not. You have been an angel
standing between me and sorrow all this time, yet believe me it is
best--this should have come. My soul was so weak and flabby before, it
had no strength to rise, no power to look beyond the dust-heap on which
it lay. It was a heap of gold-dust, still a dust-heap all the same.
However, now, though the explosion has shattered my heart, it has shot
my soul out of the dust, given it wings, and though it may still be in
a feeble way, yet it is beginning to rise, beginning to mount with its
own prayers, and no prayer can go very far unless the soul who prays
ascends with it.”
“I am afraid I have never prayed like that,” murmured Isma, with
downcast lashes.
“Then the explosion in your life has not taken place.”
“The explosion not taken place!” Miss Folkestone closed her eyes and
her cheeks paled. Could her heart be more cruelly shattered than it was
at present? She had prayed, too, at times, but prayer had seemed so
useless, so ineffective; perhaps that was because, as Beatrice said,
her own soul had not risen with the petitions. But her friend was
speaking again.
“Isma,” she was saying, “I thought I was--dying--that afternoon. It
really seemed as if I were; and even though I may get over this attack,
still,” she added, in almost a whisper, “I shall not be--here for long.”
The girl pressed her hand silently; she could not speak.
“And, deary, I have been wondering where I am--going. It is so strange
to think of leaving all which is familiar and known and not have the
faintest idea where one is going and what the next life will be like. I
have thought so much about it and wondered--”
“Perhaps the next world will not be very different from this.”
“In some respects perhaps not. It must at least have as many varieties
of existence as this, only each one magnified in the same proportion as
eternity is larger than time.”
“Do you mean to say you believe there would be as many grades of joy
and happiness, sorrow and misery, as here, and each state magnified by
the huge scale of eternity?”
“Yes, surely. Life there will be of colossal dimensions, whether it be
a state of joy or--anguish.”
“That is very terrible to contemplate.”
“Everything can be terrible. Eternity is vaster than anything we have
ever known, anything we could imagine, and its sorrows and joys must be
on the same enormous scale.”
“In that case, it would be an appalling thing to strike a state of
misery.”
“You say ‘strike’; do you really think it would be a case of chance, a
mere coincidence, what state we reach? That would be too haphazard to
fit in with the laws of a universe where everything is worked out with
mathematical precision.”
“No, I don’t for a moment suppose our ultimate fate will be determined
by chance; still, I wonder what will decide it?”
“It seems to me that in this life we must find the key which will
unlock our destiny for us. And Isma,” the invalid turned to her
quickly, “do you remember our talk some time ago about Death being an
executioner and that only criminals are executed? If that is so, we
shall have a very poor chance. Fancy entering eternity as criminals--”
The door opened quietly and the nurse entered.
“I suppose you have come to send me away?” queried Miss Folkestone.
“I am afraid so,” the woman in uniform replied, smilingly.
The girl stooped over her friend and kissed her.
“Don’t worry,” and lowering her voice, so that the nurse, who had gone
to the other end of the room, could not hear her words, she added,
“remember you can pray, and that will help you to find the right key.”
* * * * *
Every morning Falcon called for his cousin and drove her to The Bluff.
He either returned to his own home and came for Isma late in the
afternoon or he spent the day at The Bluff and waited till she was
ready to go back to The Palms.
Lady Berriedale made rapid progress, and having Isma with her
constantly helped her greatly toward recovery. She deeply regretted
depriving Captain Folkestone of so much of his fiancée’s society;
still, she comforted herself with the thought that the engaged couple
would spend their evenings together, and she would have been greatly
surprised had she known that Isma and her cousin separated as soon as
they reached her gates, and that even during the brief drives they
spoke very little to each other.
As strength returned the patient was able to walk into the
drawing-room, where she and Isma spent long days together. Frequently
Captain Folkestone joined them. He did not always take part in the
conversation, but often sat at the other end of the room, occupied with
a book or papers.
It was after Lady Berriedale had seen Isma and her cousin together
in this way for nearly a week that she began to feel that all was
not right between them. They treated each other with every courtesy,
of course, still they seemed to avoid talking to each other, and
the girl especially fought shy of being alone with her lover. Lady
Berriedale had several times suggested they should go for a walk
together. However, Isma always declined and insisted on remaining with
her friend. Of course that might have been merely an act of unselfish
devotion on her part; still, there were other disturbing symptoms
which made the elder woman uneasy. The thing which troubled her most
was that neither of them looked happy, and she could not understand
why. She did not doubt that a deep love existed between them. Had not
the girl herself told her how much she cared for the man whose ring
she was wearing, and had she not sometimes surprised an expression in
the soldier’s eyes when he looked at his fiancée and thought himself
unobserved, which told her plainly enough that there was no lack of
love on his side? Still, if they both really cared, why did they not
seem happy?
One day Lady Berriedale thought she had discovered the reason. Isma was
so reserved and she had such strict notions of propriety that perhaps
she did not allow the man to whom she was engaged a lover’s privilege,
and that this restraint was causing their unnatural attitude toward
each other. The more she thought of this explanation of the difficulty
the more she felt sure it was the correct one, and, being certain she
had come to the right conclusion, she made up her mind to speak to the
girl about it at once. So the same day, when the afternoon-tea things
had been cleared away, and Captain Folkestone sat reading at the other
end of the room, Lady Berriedale began:
“Isma, I am going to give you a good lecture. Do you know your lover
does not look a bit happy, and as an engaged man he ought to be
brimming over with happiness! I believe it is because you are too
prudish and you won’t allow him to show you any--”
She stopped abruptly, for her companion made a violent gesture to
silence her as she looked with a terrified expression toward Falcon,
who, to her relief, was still reading and had apparently not heard the
embarrassing words.
Lady Berriedale continued: “He can’t possibly hear over there, and I
must say this, it is not right you should put such a strain on him. If
a man loves a woman he naturally wants to--”
“Don’t--don’t--” cried the girl, in a frantic whisper, interrupting her
again.
Still her hostess would not be silenced. “It is even hard on
yourself--far too great a strain on you both; but on the man it is
specially--”
“Beatrice, do be quiet. You don’t know what you are talking about.
It is quite all right, I assure you. Falcon doesn’t like that sort
of thing,” Isma murmured, in a frenzied undertone, looking fearfully
toward her cousin, who was still so absorbed in his book that he did
not appear to notice what was going on at the other end of the room.
“Nonsense!” replied Lady Berriedale, emphatically, lowering her voice
a little, but its high-pitched quality still striking terror into the
embarrassed girl beside her. “Now you are talking rank nonsense. All
men like that ‘sort of thing,’ as you call it, when they are in love.
Do you mean to tell me that you don’t let your fiancé kiss you when you
are alone and--”
“Beatrice,” implored the distracted girl, “for Heaven’s sake don’t talk
like that! He will hear you--”
“It doesn’t matter if he does. Isma, don’t be so absurd. I never heard
anything like it. You are really most unnatural! When you are engaged
to a man you certainly ought to allow him a lover’s privileges. It is
cruel not to. Now don’t try to interrupt me all the time. Do you know
the best thing to cure you of this silly shyness,” she added, with a
flash of mischief in her dark eyes, “would be for me to ask your lover
to kiss you here before me--”
There was a movement at the other end of the room. Falcon had risen and
looked out of the window, contemplating the weather thoughtfully.
“Isma, if you are ready, I think we had better make a start. I have
one or two things I must attend to before dinner. I believe this dry
weather is going to last for ages,” he added, joining the ladies.
The girl rose quickly and left the room.
When she had gone Lady Berriedale said: “Isma will be glad to get
away from me this afternoon. I have been lecturing her and she did
not like it. On the way home you might ask her what I was scolding
her about, I believe you will agree with me on the subject. But,” she
continued, in a different tone, “I am afraid I have been horribly
selfish keeping Isma so much with me. However, now that I am better you
must assert your rights and see more of her; you have been far too kind
and generous! Now I am going to suggest that you have her to yourself
to-morrow; then you can take her out and have a good time together.”
On the way home Falcon did not ask Isma any questions about the
lecture; he was rather more silent than usual. He had evidently not
heard the embarrassing conversation, for he did not make the slightest
reference to it, and his companion was greatly relieved. Not till
they approached The Palms did he tell Isma that Lady Berriedale had
suggested he should take her for a trip the following day, and added:
“You have been in the house far too much lately; it will do you good
to have a day in the open air. So may I call for you to-morrow morning?”
It seemed impossible to refuse, for Beatrice would be sure to ask when
next they met if they had been out together, and if she had not it
would only rouse her friend’s suspicion afresh. So she accepted the
invitation and arranged that Falcon should call for her soon after
breakfast the following day.
VI
THE FLAME GOD
“Are you quite sure you would like the same run we did before?” asked
Captain Folkestone, when he and his cousin left The Palms the next
morning.
“Yes. It was so beautiful. I should like a whole day exactly like the
last one.”
“Exactly like it?” he inquired. “Don’t you think we might improve on it
to-day?”
“I am afraid that is impossible.”
“Why it was only spring then; now it is summer.”
“Would that make any difference?”
“Certainly, for spring is only the promise; summer is the fulfilment.”
Isma did not answer, but looked doubtfully into the white haze
quivering over the road.
Last time she and Falcon had driven this way together they had both
been exuberantly happy; they had talked freely and looked at each other
with shiny eyes. It was spring then. Nature had throbbed with vital
life; it had been so gay, so irresponsible, so youthfully joyous, and
she and her companion had been joyous, too. Hope had pulsated through
her being. She had loved sitting next to her cousin while they were
whirled into the radiant sunlight. Of course she still loved being
beside him, yet there was a terrible difference in her feelings to-day,
for there was no hope in her heart; youth and spring seemed to have
died out of her life. Since that other delicious day together ghastly
things had happened, and among them there was the farcical engagement
to the man beside her. Now she knew for certainty that he did not care.
He had made that quite clear on the afternoon when they had entered the
meaningless bond; there could be no hope of happiness for her now.
Still, as she gazed into the illumined atmosphere the sorrow in her
soul lightened.
It was a typical Australian summer day, both ethereal, mystically
unreal, and at the same time throbbing with a sensuous, vital life.
The golden sunlight of spring had ripened into the white radiance of
summer, a radiance which had condensed into haze and hung shimmering
over the road, between trees and bushes, as if it were a living,
palpable thing.
“It is going to be very hot to-day,” observed Falcon, after a short
pause. “I hope you will not mind.”
“No, not at all. I love the heat,” replied the girl, looking dreamily
at the cliffs half hidden by the wistaria-tinted gossamer veil of
summer.
Through the glimmering haze the sun peered down on the earth, its face
strained and white with vehement intensity.
Isma looked up toward the pallid ball of fire and caught her breath a
little. Yes, summer was the mysterious fulfilment of spring. The gay,
hilarious season of youth had matured into this tense, pale thing.
There was no light-hearted laughter in summer, no mischievous banter,
no childish glee, but there were blinding heat, unswerving purpose,
blazing passion.
Isma breathed more quickly. Summer held deeper joys than spring. She
had never understood summer before. However, she was beginning to
understand it now.
A strange elation began to stir within her. Sorrow and trouble fell
away; there was no room for sadness in this vast whiteness. But there
was room for joy. She was all at once aware that a fiery joy burned
everywhere about her. It was not an exuberant, buoyant gladness, but a
still, concentrated ecstasy, so fierce that it had blanched the earth
and made it gasp by its violent intensity.
The day was passionately virile, it was pale with emotion, yet
audaciously triumphant!
Isma felt its hot, tenacious life, and as she became aware of it, it
seemed as if its trembling fingers touched chords in her being which
had not been touched before.
She was suddenly conscious that she had been waiting as winter waits,
as spring waits, and now all at once summer had come to her, bringing
with it this luminous heat, breathless excitement, and luxuriant
maturity. She felt something within her expand and enlarge, as life
expands and enlarges under the powerful rays of the sun. What an
extraordinary effect summer had on her to-day! It thrilled her and
filled her with a peculiar anticipation.
She and the man she loved were going out together into this white
beauty of the sun. They were going into the fiery radiance. They would
be alone in the world which was heated and set throbbing by the great
Flame God riding in majestic insolence through the burnished heavens!
It was wonderful! The thought that Falcon did not care for her did not
trouble her now. It was cast into the background, pushed out of sight,
and with her was only the consciousness that she was near him, that
they were speeding together into the burning splendor of summer!
They had driven in silence for some miles, but the silence between
them held no embarrassment now; rather it appeared to hold a mute
understanding. It seemed as if barriers, reserves, and the terrible
constraint their empty engagement had caused had vanished and that they
were now free to enjoy the long day which lay before them.
And what would this summer day bring?
Surely it could not pass without laying some gift at their feet. It was
too vital, too richly laden with mystic treasures, for that!
Isma glanced again at the pulsating splendor enveloping the distant
hills, half veiling the sea, descending on breakers and headlands,
penetrating jungles, caressing leaves and flowers, folding trees in
smothering embraces, and lying, panting and mute, on crescent beaches.
“Isma, what are you thinking about?” asked her companion, at last.
“I don’t know that I was thinking at all,” she replied. “I have
just--_lived_.”
“Lived? What have you lived?”
“I am not sure, but just--summer.”
Her cousin glanced at her quickly. “Summer is the time when nature
lives its hottest, its intensest, life. Were you living like that just
now?” There was a peculiar quiet in his tone like the breathless quiet
around them.
“One could not help it--to-day.”
“Isma”--he bent toward her--“I want us both to live like that to-day.”
“Yes,” she answered, with averted face and a curious softness in her
voice.
For a while they sped on without speaking. It was exquisite to fly
together through the illumined spaces by the glimmering, half-hidden
sea!
After a time they left the coast-line and turned inland, dashing
through great stretches of sun-bleached country, which gleamed in the
fierce light like wastes of shimmering stars.
“Our sun-bleached Australia!” murmured the girl, her eyes on the creamy
white plains. “Green fields are very good to look at, only they always
seem to me very earthy and substantial. These,” she pointed to the
grass-covered flats, “look so ethereal and spiritual--as if they were
all soul.”
“Their greenness had been consumed by the sun. They are bleached with
the pallor of death. Summer has done that.”
“Yes, I know the sun’s power can be terrible as well as beautiful.
Still, it seems to me there is something grand about this bleaching
into ethereal whiteness.” She spoke with exaltation. To her it appeared
just then wonderful to be consumed by the hot passion of the sun. It
seemed to her that the devouring heat was cleansing, that it had power
to purify and make spiritual.
Her companion turned and looked at her. “You really think so?”
She did not meet his glance. “I do.”
He sighed a little. “You evidently don’t know how it can--hurt.”
She looked away into the luminous haze.
Not know how it could hurt--how little he understood! Was not her heart
like these great sun-bleached plains, parched, laid waste by scorching
powers! But she was not sorry; to-day she felt strangely glad because
of it. It seemed a superb thing to be dominated by, wholly yielding to,
these fiery emotions!
The elation within her increased. It was wonderful to feel her whole
being aflame with the fire which burned in the dazzling splendor about
her! And the warmth in her was all for the man beside her. She felt
herself opening out to him in a new, extraordinary way, as if she had
all at once received a wonderful gift for loving. She was nothing but
love, every part of her a burning cinder, body and soul one leaping
flame of love! Everything else had fallen away from her; the past was
forgotten, the future did not exist; all beings save the man at her
side had been wiped off the face of the earth; only Falcon and her
great love lived; she herself did not exist any more except as one big,
blazing fire.
The mortification she had felt before because of her emotion had died
out of her heart. There was no need of shame for this exalted thing;
she wondered now that she could ever have felt shame because of this
heat that purified, that burned away not only selfishness, but the
whole of the self-life with its detailed sordid smallness. It was
something to revel in, feel proud of, even if the man she cared for
should have discovered its existence.
But the more she was subjected to this immense power the more she was
conscious that it would bring greater suffering into her life. It must
bring deepest sorrow. Falcon did not love her, would never really care.
She would have to love alone, suffer alone, feel parched with her need
of him.
Still, even with this anguish staring her in the face, she was
unspeakably glad she loved him. No thought of future pain could daunt
her elation now.
They had turned toward the coast again, and all at once Falcon stopped
the car.
“Look!” he cried; “there is a rifle-bird on that low branch over
there,” and he leaned over Isma and directed her gaze to a bird the
size of a magpie sitting on a low bough close to the road.
“Oh, isn’t it lovely!” exclaimed the girl, in an excited undertone so
as not to frighten the gorgeous, timid thing. “I have never seen one
before.”
“It is one of our birds of paradise.”
“What a wonderful black! It is like the richest plush and satin rolled
into one, and look how it gleams fiery purple and emerald green--”
The bird suddenly moved from under some shading leaves into the
opening, and the half-veiled sunlight fell on its plumes. It preened
its feathers, opened and shut its wings, its luster varying with each
new movement from a red metallic purple to the richest shades of green,
and each riotous hue a mere ethereal sheen on its plushy black plumage.
Then, uttering a strange note, the winged thing of color and velvet
flew away.
When Falcon had started the engine again he said, “Isma, do you know it
is a good omen to see a bird of paradise?”
“Is it? Why?”
“Because it indicates you are close to--Eden.”
“Summer is generally close to Paradise, isn’t it?”
“Yes, except when it takes the wrong turning and leads to--drought.”
“It very often seems to do that. Still, if one has had the beauty
of summer even for a little while, one oughtn’t to mind about the
drought--afterward.” There was strong conviction in her voice.
“I quite agree with you--only, when Eden is so close, why not go
straight on and reach it?”
“If it were possible, yes.”
“Isma, it is possible, and I hope to prove it to you before the day is
over.” He spoke with sudden earnestness.
She looked away into the bush. What did he mean? Could he know what
Paradise meant to her? Perhaps he only thought it meant giving her an
enjoyable day!
However, it did not matter. Nothing mattered but being with him, being
together, speeding into summer, losing themselves in the filmy haze
which enveloped the hills, the bush, the sea, the breakers, and made
all seem peculiarly soft and unreal.
Then through the veil of heat the hotel where they were to lunch
appeared, the morning had already passed.
Captain Folkestone stopped the motor and once more they made their way
into the quaint, long dining-room to the small table where they had sat
before, which was now decorated with greeny-white flannel-flowers.
Isma took her seat as in a dream. Still, her dreamy state did not last
long, for now when she sat opposite her cousin, when he looked full
into her face and she met the strong light in his eyes, the elated
loftiness she had felt out in the dense sunlight vanished. She became
human again. Little things returned to her life. She was conscious of
embarrassment once more. One look from Falcon could set her face aflame
and make her strangely, sweetly confused. It had been glorious to feel
the exaltation dominating her during the morning, but it was even more
exquisite to realize how Falcon’s every glance, his movements, the
least inflection of his voice, affected her. During the drive she had
been wholly absorbed by her love for him; now she was wholly dominated
by himself, and her joy was intensified.
* * * * *
After dinner they drove farther north till they reached the beach they
had visited before.
They walked along the sand, looking for the spot where they had rested
on their previous outing. It was not long before they found it.
However, this time they went higher up among the sand-dunes in the
shade of a thicket of bottle-brushes.
Isma did not want to lie down, but sat leaning against a sand-bank,
while her companion threw himself down close beside her. He lay on his
side, gazing at her with intent blue eyes.
She had thrown back her long, golden veil, and her hair, under the wide
brim of her black hat, looked weighted with gold; her skin, fair as
the petals of white magnolia-flowers, was strangely radiant, and her
eyes, very golden in the suffused brightness, burned with a dazzling
intensity. She seemed curiously, vitally alive as the day was fiercely,
hotly alive.
She sat with her hands clasped round her knees, looking at the incoming
waves breaking languidly on the shore.
The haze had thickened. It shut out the horizon, the hills and bush,
everything, except the immediate foreground, and it gave the man and
woman on the sands a sense of being peculiarly isolated and alone.
Through the dense layers of gossamer the sun burned down with violent
persistence, all the more powerful, perhaps, because the Fire God was
entirely obscured from view and attacked from its safe fort in the
heavens.
“Isma, tell me,” said Falcon, after a lengthy pause, “are you not
happier to-day than you were--last time we were here?”
The girl began to sift the sand through her fingers. “Yes, I think so.”
“I wonder why?”
“I suppose because it is--summer.”
“Not because of--anything else?”
“Isn’t that enough? Summer means so much.”
“I wonder what it really means to you?”
She smiled as she picked up another handful of sand and allowed it to
trail slowly back to the beach.
“Could one explain?”
“I think you could if you tried.”
She made no reply, and her companion, still regarding her intently,
began to play with one end of her long veil.
After a while he released the silken texture, moved restlessly, and,
turning over on his back, lay for some time with closed eyes.
Isma could feast her eyes on him now. She loved looking at his well-cut
features, his firm but tender mouth, the resolute chin, his delightful
hair. He was so close to her she could have stretched out her hand and
touched him--if only she had the right! A great stillness crept into
her soul, a wonderful awe. If only their engagement had been real, then
at this very moment she might have-- But her thoughts were interrupted
by a sudden smile curving the well-formed lips she was watching.
“Falcon, why are you smiling?” she asked, the sense of the intimacy
which might have been still strong upon her.
He looked up at her quickly.
“Would you really like to know?”
“Yes. You looked as if your thoughts were interesting.”
“They were, I assure you,” he replied, the twinkle still in his eyes.
“Then tell me.”
He turned on his side again, facing her. “I was just wondering what
would have happened if Lady Berriedale had carried out her threat
yesterday afternoon--”
For a moment the girl did not stir. Yesterday was so far away it almost
seemed as if it had not been. Whatever did Falcon refer to? She glanced
at him wonderingly. “What--threat?” she asked, a sudden instinctive
fear sending the blood to her cheeks.
“Why, the threat Lady Berriedale made, when I stood up and rescued you
by asking if you were ready to go home-- Have you forgotten so soon?”
So Falcon had heard those awful remarks, after all! A wave of heat
surged through her. She did not speak, but her eyes fell before his
disconcerting gaze.
“I was wondering just now what you would have done if Lady Berriedale
had asked me to--” He stopped a moment before adding, “For of course I
should have had to do it--just to save the situation, you know.”
Isma turned her face away hastily. Still, he saw the deep flush
creeping over her white throat and dyeing her perfectly shaped ear a
vivid pink.
“I can’t make out what made you say I did not like that sort of thing.
I never remember telling you that I did not.”
“No--but of course you wouldn’t,” she stammered, confusedly.
“I wouldn’t be quite so sure about that if I were you. By the way, I
hope you have taken your friend’s advice to heart and that you will act
on it.”
The girl made no reply; her face was still averted, but the color in
her adorable ear had grown pinker.
Captain Folkestone sat up now. “Isma,” he said, in low tones, “you
are wearing my ring. Don’t you think you might give me a few of the
privileges such a ring generally bestows?”
She started, and the soft, rich curves of her breast rose and sank in
fluttering confusion.
The light in his eyes deepened. He looked very alert, every muscle
tense, ready to move at the least sign from her.
“Isma, tell me, would it really be so hateful to you if I--kissed you?”
In spite of her overwhelming shyness, she glanced up at him. It seemed
as if he compelled her. But her eyes dropped instantly before his and
she felt herself tremble as if he were already touching her lips. A
dreadful weakness came over her. Falcon’s lips against her own, his arm
round her folding her to him--
She turned giddy. It seemed impossible not to yield. She was almost
swaying toward him, making the one movement, however slight, he was
waiting for, watching for.
Then an awful thought arrested her. He had not spoken of love: he was
merely asking for her kisses. Did he only ask because it was summer
and the world was astir with passionate abandonment, because she was
beautiful and her beauty appealed to him? Even in the days when he
hated her her beauty had strangely affected him. Now when he no longer
disliked her did he feel it would give him pleasure to caress her
and enjoy her physical charm? After all he had done for her, did he
consider she might grant him this intimacy? Were these his only reasons
for wanting her kisses? Surely, for if he had cared would he not have
told her that first?
She straightened involuntarily.
The man watching her with alert scrutiny paled as he saw the movement.
Or perhaps Falcon was testing her, the girl continued to reason.
Perhaps he only wanted to see if she held her caresses cheap and was
ready to give them to any fascinating man audacious enough to ask for
them. Was he trying to see if she were temptable?
If this were so, good Heavens, what cruelty! How could any man be so
merciless! But of course he could not know how desperately she cared;
could not know that her whole being was quivering to give him what he
desired.
She pulled frantically at some grass blades and broke them into small
pieces. Then she made a colossal effort to speak calmly:
“You have no right to ask--under the circumstances--”
“Under the circumstances I have. We are engaged.”
“You know quite well that does not mean anything. It is only--”
There was a short, sharp pause.
The face of the man had undergone a great change. All at once he jumped
up, took a few steps, bent down and examined a shell, straightened
again, and walked still farther away.
Isma watched him with strange, wide eyes; her face, too, had become
colorless.
Was he angry with her? No, he did not seem annoyed. He walked about as
if leisurely contemplating the bunches of coral seaweed and the various
flotsam on the beach.
The girl gazed after his tall, splendid form hungrily. Why had he left
her--oh, why? Was he displeased in spite of his apparent nonchalance?
Had he expected her to yield, to understand that he was a man and that
he wanted what other men coveted? Somehow she had never thought of
this before. Falcon had always seemed to her a being apart--made of
different material from the other men she had known, a man who lived up
to a punctilious standard of conduct; but did he, after all, yearn for
the warm, soft things women could give? Of course if only he had cared,
how gladly she would have given what he asked!
After a while he came back and suggested it was time to start for home.
As they got into the motor he said, “On the whole the advice Lady
Berriedale gave you was excellent, and if you were wise you would take
it.” With that he closed the subject and did not refer to it again.
On the way home Falcon talked in his brightest, most entertaining way.
But he sat well away from her, and their shoulders did not touch as
they had frequently done during the morning.
That was the worst of her cousin, he was such an adept at covering his
tracks. If he retreated, no one knew if it were a retreat or if the
move had not been part of his original plan.
As Isma listened to his easy conversation she felt confused and
puzzled. Was this really the man who had asked for her kisses, whose
eyes had looked so irresistibly into her own, who now talked in this
nonchalant way as if nothing unusual had happened? But his eloquence
saddened her, his amusing stories hurt her.
She looked at the many sand-dunes bordering the seaward side of the
road with pensive eyes. She remembered that in the morning as they
passed them they had seemed glimmering mountain-tops aglow with an
exultant peace; now they appeared to her mere grotesque shapes,
gloating monsters watching by the shore for prey.
The whole world had changed. The great white radiance round them held
no breathless ecstasy now; it was only a huge, opaque void holding
nothing but smarting disappointment.
Falcon had said earlier in the day that spring was the promise and
summer the fulfilment--where was the fulfilment? The bird of paradise
had not brought them to Eden. There was no Paradise; summer only led
to--drought.
All at once the haze warmed and reddened as if some huge fire burned
behind its gauzy entanglements. In the bush the white sheen had
deepened to lavender and purple and hung with caressing softness
between majestic trees and matted undergrowth. Opaline sun glints
dipped into the reed-edged pools and motionless lagoons.
Then a faint breath of air came in from the sea. It blew very gently
against the filmy, iridescent haze, which shivered perceptibly, then
slowly drifted toward the heavily timbered hills.
Isma watched its hesitating, retreating footsteps. She saw the trees
and shrubs creep out from the violet sheen in the forest and stand out
with definite clearness. The red disk of the sun became visible in the
smoky heavens and hung as a huge round furnace dropping slowly toward
the western hills.
The breeze from the ocean gained strength; it grew cooler and stilled
the throbbing fever in the sweltering atmosphere.
The cliffs near Isma’s home were in sight now and stood out, bulky,
plum-colored shapes against the pale lavender-tinted distance.
As the car approached the last plain the girl could see the breeze
moving among the trees and bushes. It appeared to her as if it were
some distraught, demented thing let loose on the flats, seeking
frantically for a lost treasure in the wild chaos of shrubbery.
The waves on the beach had grown noisy and hoarse and sounded as if
moaning in sudden pain.
Isma became silent.
Did her companion notice her short replies or their entire absence? If
so, he did not betray his observation by look or word.
They had crossed the plain and were ascending the last cliff. Would
Falcon stop the motor where he had stopped it the other day? Surely he
would give her another chance before they parted! If only he would, how
gladly she would yield to him now!
But no, he rushed on without even glancing at the spot where they had
stood together and watched the scenery and she had hummed to him “The
Little Winding Road.”
Isma’s heart contracted in a suffocating anguish and her eyes filled
with blinding tears. She turned her face away quickly, still not till
her companion had seen something moist drop from her lashes to her
cheeks. He paled and bit his lip, but a moment afterward he continued
the conversation.
As they came in sight of her gates a terrible desperation seized her.
It made her almost cry out for mercy, implore him to take what she so
frantically yearned to give--for, after all, even if he had not spoken
of love, were not her lips his? Had they not been kept for him all
these years! Of course he had a right to them. How foolish she had been
not to have realized this before!
However, he evidently did not want her kisses now. But was he so
capricious that he ceased to wish for a thing if he could not have
it the moment he asked for it? No, that was impossible; he must have
merely been testing her. Still, why had his smiling eyes gazed so
irresistibly into her own? Why had he said earlier in the day he wished
them both to live summer, that they were on the road to Paradise?
The car stopped.
Her cousin helped her to alight. She thanked him for the beautiful
drive, and then, as in some ghastly trance, she found herself walking
away from him. But even as she went some awful power tugged at her and
almost compelled her to return to him. She walked with difficulty; the
violent force dragging at her made it almost impossible to proceed.
Then she heard the hum of the motor--he had gone! She stood still,
feeling suddenly faint with longing and disappointment.
She had refused his request; but, merciful God, how he had punished
her--how he had revenged himself!
As the man drove up the steep ascent he caught a glimpse of Isma among
the palms, standing perfectly still, her head thrown back and her hands
tightly clasped.
He gripped the steering-wheel ferociously and looked for a place to
turn the car. However, what would be the use of going back? Hadn’t she
already refused his love that day? Of course she knew that he cared,
yet she chose to put this terrible strain on him. He gave up the idea
of returning and proceeded up the headland, his face ashen and grim.
But on the other side of the cliff he stopped the machine and, suddenly
covering his face with his hands, groaned aloud.
“Great God! Isma,” he muttered under his breath, “why are you torturing
me like this--making us both suffer! You do care, I know it now--but
why in Heaven’s name do you pretend you don’t! Is it your pride
standing in the way, your shyness, or--what--? Isma, if you go on like
this you will drive me to distraction--”
He sat for a long time bowed and unmovable; then at last, with another
ejaculation, he set the motor throbbing down the headland.
VII
THE STARING CLIFF
Isma passed a wakeful, restless night.
When she came down to breakfast, rather late the next morning, she
found a note from Falcon saying there had been serious trouble on one
of his northern stations; that he would have to go and settle the
difficulty himself, and would therefore be unable to see her that day.
He also said that he had rung up and inquired after Lady Berriedale
and explained that he and his cousin would be unable to see her till
the following morning. In conclusion he begged her on no account to go
to The Bluff in his absence. The note was very brief; he had evidently
written it in a hurry before starting on his long journey, and sent it
over by a special messenger.
The girl strolled out under the palms and read the letter again.
So she would not see Falcon for a whole day! The news brought a
sickening dullness to her heart. How colorless the day stretched
out before her! It seemed as if all light and warmth had gone out
of it--it would only be to her now a succession of weary hours of
clamoring emptiness. She looked into the sunlit atmosphere, which
seemed to have paled. The world around her had all at once faded,
its brightness departed; the big, fan-shaped palm leaves had grown
uninteresting and dull; even the profusion of roses in the garden
looked colorless and without beauty.
And Falcon’s absence had caused this terrible change in everything!
She rose suddenly, as if she would have fled from something which
filled her with panic. But she sat down again. What was the use of
running away? She could not escape. Months ago it had been possible to
take flight. It had been awful to cut herself away from Falcon, but it
had been possible--now it could no longer be done. The color ebbed away
from her cheeks as she realized this. If her life depended on it she
could not go away, could not leave him now. If even one day without the
sound of his voice, the touch of his hand, a look into his dear eyes,
was a hideous blank, what would a lifetime away from him be like!
She shivered.
She could not live without him; he had become an absolute necessity.
He was to her what the sun was to the world, the giver of light,
warmth, and life itself. Falcon had become her _life_; she was utterly
dependent upon him for everything which made existence tolerable.
She looked down on the diamonds glittering on the third finger of her
left hand. She was wearing his ring. At present she and her cousin met
constantly; they drove together to and from The Bluff, saw each other
daily--the engagement which had caused her so much pain had at least
brought her that; but this state of things could not go on forever.
Some day soon she would have to return his ring. After that, of course,
they would not meet. People who had been engaged and broken it off
could not go on seeing each other; that was impossible. And even if in
the distant future they might resume the intercourse afforded by their
relationship, what comfort could such a cold, lifeless thing bring her?
She sat, pale and wide-eyed, looking unseeingly at the radiant world
about her.
She thought again of the previous day--how beautiful it had been
and how terrible! Every detail came back to her--her fancies, the
deep exaltation she had felt as she and the man she loved sped into
the quivering white heart of summer! Her own heart had been aflame
with a heat as intense and white as the blazing force throbbing in
the illumined spaces, and even when the thought came to her that it
might bring anguish which blistered and blighted, her elation had not
diminished. She had felt strong and able to bear, if need be, a sorrow
which could crush a world. But Falcon had been with her then, and that
had made all the difference!
She remembered, too, when they passed the sun-scorched plains she
had remarked that it seemed a grand thing to be bleached into that
spiritual whiteness, and her cousin had said, with a little sigh, that
she could not know how such a scorching hurt. All at once it struck
her, though it had not occurred to her at the time, that Falcon had
spoken as if he knew, knew only too well what an experience of that
kind meant. So Falcon had cared--cared like that!
She sat up quickly.
Of course she was quite aware he could not have reached his mature
manhood without love having come into his life. She was used to seeing
him extremely nice to women, and she had guessed that some one must
at some time or other have touched his heart; but that he should have
felt any emotion strong enough to make him connect it with powers that
bleached and scorched had not suggested itself to her, and the thought
made her suddenly feel cold.
Who could the woman be he had loved like that? Her mind ran quickly
over his women friends in London; but she could not recall any one
he had specially singled out. However, Falcon was so reserved and
sensitive he would not show his feelings to others. In any case, the
affair must have ended in disappointment, as he had not married. She
had often wondered why he had remained single; this must be the reason.
Poor Falcon, so he, too, had undergone this awful scorching, and was
evidently suffering still, or why had he sighed? Yet, why had he spoken
to her yesterday about Paradise and summer in the way he did? Why had
he asked for her kisses? Why the burning kiss on her fingers weeks ago?
Why so many other things?
She was deeply perplexed.
Perhaps he was trying to fill the aching void, trying to see if she
could not bring him comfort and teach him to forget! There could be no
other explanation of his conduct.
Isma drew a gasping breath. The pain within almost strangled her.
She got up and began to walk about among the palms; it was impossible
to keep still.
And he was her summer, her light, warmth, her life--everything! She
could not do without him, she could not! She clasped her hands together
in anguish. What was she to do?
Her wonderful eyes looked suddenly blank with agony. Falcon loving
another woman--like that! She felt giddy and faint.
She sank down on the seat in a heap, her face deathly white, her
nostrils quivering. A half-stifled moan escaped her trembling lips. She
could not bear this blinding pain--
She looked up as one dazed and stunned.
She was like the plains they had passed yesterday, helpless and
powerless, lying passive and defenseless while the Flame God scorched
her by his cauterizing power.
She groaned aloud and closed her eyes.
“Love bleached--love bleached,” she murmured under her breath in
suffocating tones.
She had admired the spiritual whiteness of the flats yesterday. Green
fields had seemed earthly and material in comparison with them. Falcon
was right: the bleaching hurt, it was death-agony to have the green
changed to white!
Then she suddenly thought of Beatrice. That frail little woman had
suffered--this; had even said she was glad the grief had come, for it
had been the explosion to propel her spirit upward; that before it came
her soul had lain on a dust-heap, but the dynamite of sorrow had shot
her out of the dust.
All at once Isma realized that her soul had also lain in the dust. It
had reared its head once or twice and looked up wonderingly, but had
soon lain down again and forgotten. However, was this splintering agony
the explosion which would send her soul on its upward flight?
* * * * *
That night Isma went up to her favorite cliff.
She stood for some time gazing out to sea over the great expanse of
soft, lilac-colored water, toward the misty, opal-tinted horizon.
Ocean and sky seemed peculiarly blended into one. It looked as if the
sky had descended and that the ocean was slowly rising out of itself,
spiritualized into the unexplored dome of heaven.
The girl watched absently. Then she turned a little and glanced up
the coast-line and caught sight of the distant bluff with its tinted
face and its half-blind eyes gazing out to sea. She remembered watching
it some months ago. Had it been lying staring into space ever since?
Why was it so preoccupied? Other headlands stood complacently absorbed
in themselves. But this far-away block of stone had turned its back
entirely on earth and gazed beyond the coast-line and the heaving waves
into the unfathomable spaces above.
Isma looked toward it with deeper interest. Had that silent, rocky
monster found what it was seeking, what it had stared itself half blind
to find, or was it still pursuing its quest with undaunted persistence?
How bare, how uncompromising it looked! It seemed as if it had worn
off every blade of grass, every vestige of foliage, in its relentless
search.
Its crude barrenness suddenly fascinated her. She saw in it a
resemblance to her own life. Had she not been stripped of everything
that was dear to her, everything that could make her life glad and
beautiful? She had possessed so much, but gradually everything had been
torn from her till, naked and bare, her soul stood alone in a vast
desolation.