At Ridley Court and Peppingham all was serene to the eye. Letters had
come to the Court at least once every two weeks from Gaston, and the
minds of the Baronet and his wife were at ease. They even went so far as
to hope that he would influence his uncle; for it was clear to them both
that whatever Gaston’s faults were, they were agreeably different from
Ian’s. His fame and promise were sweet to their nostrils. Indeed, the
young man had brought the wife and husband nearer than they had
been since Robert vanished over-sea. Each had blamed the other in an
indefinite, secret way; but here was Robert’s son, on whom they could
lavish--as they did--their affection, long since forfeited by Ian.
Finally, one day, after a little burst of thanksgiving, on getting an
excellent letter from Gaston, telling of his simple, amusing life in
Paris, Sir William sent him one thousand pounds, begging him to buy a
small yacht, or to do what he pleased with it.
“A very remarkable man, my dear,” Sir William said, as he enclosed the
cheque. “Excellent wisdom--excellent!”
“Who could have guessed that he knew so much about the poor and the
East End, and all those social facts and figures?” Lady Belward answered
complacently.
“An unusual mind, with a singular taste for history, and yet a deep
observation of the present. I don’t know when and how he does it. I
really do not know.”
“It is nice to think that Lord Faramond approves of him.”
“Most noticeable. And we have not been a Parliamentary family since
the first Charles’s time. And then it was a Gaston. Singular--quite
singular! Coincidences of looks and character. Nature plays strange
games. Reproduction--reproduction!”
“The Pall Mall Gazette says that he may soon reach the Treasury Bench.”
Sir William was abstracted. He was thinking of that afternoon in
Gaston’s bedroom, when his grandson had acted, before Lady Dargan and
Cluny Vosse, Sir Gaston’s scene with Buckingham.
“Really, most mysterious, most unaccountable. But it’s one of the
virtues of having a descent. When it is most needed, it counts, it
counts.”
“Against the half-breed mother!” Lady Belward added.
“Quite so, against the--was it Cree or Blackfoot? I’ve heard him speak
of both, but which is in him I do not remember.”
“It is very painful; but, poor fellow, it is not his fault, and we ought
to be content.”
“Indeed, it gives him great originality. Our old families need
refreshing now and then.”
“Ah, yes, I said so to Mrs. Gasgoyne the other day, and she replied that
the refreshment might prove intoxicating. Reine was always rude.”
Truth is, Mrs. Gasgoyne was not quite satisfied. That very day she said
to her husband:
“You men always stand by each other; but I know you, and you know that I
know.”
“‘Thou knowest the secrets of our hearts’; well, then, you know how we
love you. So, be merciful.”
“Nonsense, Warren! I tell you he oughtn’t to have gone when he did. He
has the wild man in him, and I am not satisfied.”
“What do you want--me to play the spy?”
“Warren, you’re a fool! What do I want? I want the first of September
to come quickly, that we may have him with us. With Delia he must go
straight. She influences him, he admires her--which is better than mere
love. Away from her just now, who can tell what mad adventure--! You
see, he has had the curb so long!”
But in a day or two there came a letter-unusually long for Gaston--to
Mrs. Gasgoyne herself. It was simple, descriptive, with a dash of
epigram. It acknowledged that he had felt the curb, and wanted a touch
of the unconventional. It spoke of Ian Belward in a dry phrase, and it
asked for the date of the yacht’s arrival at Gibraltar.
“Warren, the man is still sensible,” she said. “This letter is honest.
He is much a heathen at heart, but I believe he hasn’t given Delia cause
to blush--and that’s a good deal! Dear me, I am fond of the fellow--he
is so clever. But clever men are trying.”
As for Delia, like every sensible English girl, she enjoyed herself in
the time of youth, drinking in delightedly the interest attaching
to Gaston’s betrothed. His letters had been regular, kind yet not
emotionally affectionate, interesting, uncommon. He had a knack of
saying as much in one page as most people did in five. Her imagination
was not great, but he stimulated it. If he wrote a pungent line on
Daudet or Whistler, on Montaigne or Fielding, she was stimulated to know
them. One day he sent her Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, which he had picked
up in New York on his way to England. This startled her. She had
never heard of Whitman. To her he seemed coarse, incomprehensible,
ungentlemanly. She could not understand how Gaston could say beautiful
things about Montaigne and about Whitman too. She had no conception how
he had in him the strain of that first Sir Gaston Belward, and was also
the son of a half-heathen.
He interested her all the more. Her letters were hardly so fascinating
to him. She was beautifully correct, but she could not make a sentence
breathe. He was grateful, but nothing stirred in him. He could live
without her--that he knew regretfully. But he did his part with sincere
intention.
That was up to the day when he saw Andree as Mademoiselle Victorine.
Then came a swift change. Day after day he visited her, always in the
presence of Annette. Soon they dined often together, still in Annette’s
presence, and the severity of that rule was never relaxed.
Count Ploare came no more; he had received his dismissal. Occasionally
Gaston visited the menagerie, but generally after the performance, when
Victorine had a half-hour’s or an hour’s romp with her animals. This was
a pleasant time to Gaston. The wild life in him responded.
These were hours when the girl was quite naive and natural, when she
spent herself in ripe enjoyment--almost child-like, healthy. At other
times there was an indefinable something which Gaston had not noticed in
England. But then he had only seen her once. She, too, saw something in
him unnoticed before. It was on his tongue a hundred times to tell her
that that something was Delia Gasgoyne. He did not. Perhaps because it
seemed so grotesque, perhaps because it was easier to drift. Besides, as
he said to himself, he would soon go to join the yacht at Gibraltar,
and all this would be over-over. All this? All what? A gipsy, a
dompteuse--what was she to him? She interested him, he liked her, and
she liked him, but there had been nothing more between them. Near as he
was to her now, he very often saw her in his mind’s eye as she passed
over Ridley Common, looking towards him, her eyes shaded by her hand.
She, too, had continually said to herself that this man could be nothing
to her--nothing, never! Yet, why not? Count Ploare had offered her his
hand. But she knew what had been in Count Ploare’s mind. Gaston Belward
was different--he had befriended her father. She had not singular
scruples regarding men, for she despised most of them. She was not a
Mademoiselle Cerise, nor a Madame Juliette, though they were higher on
the plane of art than she; or so the world put it. She had not known a
man who had not, one time or another, shown himself common or insulting.
But since the first moment she had seen Gaston, he had treated her as a
lady.
A lady? She had seen enough to smile at that. She knew that she hadn’t
it in her veins, that she was very much an actress, except in this man’s
company, when she was mostly natural--as natural as one can be who has
a painful secret. They had talked together--for how many hours? She
knew exactly. And he had never descended to that which--she felt
instinctively--he would not have shown to the ladies of his English
world. She knew what ladies were. In her first few weeks in Paris,
her fame mounting, she had lunched with some distinguished people, who
entertained her as they would have done one of her lions, if that
were possible. She understood. She had a proud, passionate nature; she
rebelled at this. Invitations were declined at first on pink note-paper
with gaudy flowers in a corner, afterwards on cream-laid vellum, when
she saw what the great folk did.
And so the days went on, he telling her of his life from his boyhood
up--all but the one thing! But that one thing she came to know, partly
by instinct, partly by something he accidentally dropped, partly from
something Jacques once said to him. Well, what did it matter to her? He
would go back; she would remain. It didn’t matter.--Yet, why should she
lie to herself? It did matter. And why should she care about that girl
in England? She was not supposed to know. The other had everything in
her favour; what had Andree the gipsy girl, or Mademoiselle Victorine,
the dompteuse?
One Sunday evening, after dining together, she asked him to take her
to see Saracen. It was a long-standing promise. She had never seen him
riding; for their hours did not coincide until the late afternoon
or evening. Taking Annette, they went to his new apartments. He
had furnished a large studio as a sitting-room, not luxuriantly but
pleasantly. It opened into a pretty little garden, with a few plants
and trees. They sat there while Jacques went for the horse. Next door
a number of students were singing a song of the boulevards. It was
followed by one in a woman’s voice, sweet and clear and passionate,
pitifully reckless. It was, as if in pure contradiction, the opposite of
the other--simple, pathetic. At first there were laughing interruptions
from the students; but the girl kept on, and soon silence prevailed,
save for the voice:
“And when the wine is dry upon the lip,
And when the flower is broken by the hand,
And when I see the white sails of thy ship
Fly on, and leave me there upon the sand:
Think you that I shall weep? Nay, I shall smile:
The wine is drunk, the flower it is gone,
One weeps not when the days no more beguile,
How shall the tear-drops gather in a stone?”
When it was ended, Andree, who had listened intently, drew herself up
with a little shudder. She sat long, looking into the garden, the cub
playing at her feet. Gaston did not disturb her. He got refreshments and
put them on the table, rolled a cigarette, and regarded the scene. Her
knee was drawn up slightly in her hands, her hat was off, her rich brown
hair fell loosely about her head, framing it, her dark eyes glowed under
her bent brows. The lion’s cub crawled up on the divan, and thrust its
nose under an arm. Its head clung to her waist. Who was she? thought
Gaston. Delilah, Cleopatra--who? She was lost in thought. She remained
so until the garden door opened, and Jacques entered with Saracen.
She looked. Suddenly she came to her feet with a cry of delight, and
ran out towards the horse. There was something essentially child-like
in her, something also painfully wild-an animal, and a philosopher, and
twenty-three.
Jacques put out his hand as he had done with Mademoiselle Cerise.
“No, no; he is savage.”
“Nonsense!” she rejoined, and came closer.
Gaston watched, interested. He guessed what she would do.
“A horse!” she added. “Why, you have seen my lions! Leave him free:
stand away from him.”
Her words were peremptory, and Jacques obeyed. The horse stood alone,
a hoof pawing the ground. Presently it sprang away, then half-turned
towards the girl, and stood still. She kept talking to him and calling
softly, making a coaxing, animal-like sound, as she always did with her
lions.
She stepped forward a little and paused. The horse suddenly turned
straight towards her, came over slowly, and, with arched neck, dropped
his head on her shoulder. She felt the folds of his neck and kissed him.
He followed her about the garden like a dog. She brought him to Gaston,
locked up, and said with a teasing look, “I have conquered him: he is
mine!”
Gaston looked her in her eyes. “He is yours.”
“And you?”
“He is mine.” His look burned into her soul-how deep, how joyful!
She turned away, her face going suddenly pale. She kept the horse for
some time, but at last gave him up again to Jacques. Gaston stepped from
the doorway into the garden and met her. It was now dusk. Annette was
inside. They walked together in silence for a time. Presently she drew
close to him. He felt his veins bounding. Her hand slid into his arm,
and, dark as it was, he could see her eyes lifting to his, shining,
profound. They had reached the end of the garden, and now turned to come
back again.
Suddenly he said, his eyes holding hers: “The horse is yours--and mine.”
She stood still; but he could see her bosom heaving hard. She threw up
her head with a sound half sob, half laugh....
“You are mad!” she said a moment afterwards, as she lifted her head from
his breast.
He laughed softly, catching her cheek to his. “Why be sane? It was to
be.”
“The gipsy and the gentleman?”
“Gipsies all!”
“And the end of it?”
“Do you not love me, Andree?” She caught her hands over her eyes.
“I do not know what it is--only that it is madness! I see, oh, I see a
hundred things.”
Her hot eyes were on space. “What do you see?” he urged. She gave a
sudden cry:
“I see you at my feet--dead.”
“Better than you at mine, Andree.”
“Let us go,” she said hurriedly.
“Wait,” he whispered.
They talked for a little time. Then they entered the studio. Annette was
asleep in her chair. Andree waked her, and they bade Gaston good-night.