BERNARD MADDISON AND HELEN THURWELL
And so it was in Lady Meltoun's drawing-room that they met again, after
those few minutes in the pine plantation which had given color and
passion to her life, and which had formed an epoch in his. Neither were
unmindful of the fact that if they were not exactly the centre of
observation, they were still liable to it in some degree, and their
greeting was as conventional as it well could have been. After all, she
thought, why should it be otherwise? There had never a word of love
passed between them--only those few fateful moments of tragic intensity,
when all words and thoughts had been merged in a deep reciprocal
consciousness which nothing could have expressed.
He stood before her, holding her hand in his for a moment longer than
was absolutely necessary, and looking at her intently. It was a gaze
from which she did not shrink, more critical than passionate, and when
he withdrew his eyes he looked away from her with a sigh.
"You have been living!" he said. "Tell me all about it!"
She moved her skirts to make room for him by her side.
"Sit down!" she said, "and I will try."
He obeyed, but when she tried to commence and tell him all that she had
felt and thought, she could not. Until that moment she scarcely
realized how completely her life had been moulded by his influence. It
was he who had first given her a glimpse of that new world of thought
and art, and almost epicurean culture into which she had made some
slight advance during his absence, and it was certain vague but sweet
recollections of him which had lived with her and flowed through her
life--a deep undercurrent of passion and poetry, throwing a golden halo
over all those new sensations--which had raised her existence, and her
ideals of existence on to a higher level. How could she tell him this?
The time might come when she could do so, and if ever it did come, she
knew that it would be the happiest moment of her life. But it was not
yet.
"Tell me a little of yourself," she said evasively. "You have been
traveling, have you not?"
"Yes, I have been traveling a little!" he answered. "In Spain I was
taken ill, and Lady Meltoun was kind to me. That is why I am here."
"But you do not say how it was that you were taken ill," she said, her
cheeks suddenly glowing. "You saved her son's life. We saw all about it
in the papers, but of course we did not know that it was you. It was
splendid!"
"If you saw it in the papers at all, depend upon it, it was very much
exaggerated!" he answered quietly. "Your father received my letter, I
suppose?"
"Yes; the cottage has been shut up, just as you desired. Are you ever
coming to take possession again?"
"I hope so--some day--and yet I do not know. There are strange things in
my life, Miss Thurwell, which every now and then rise up and drive me
away into aimless wanderings. Life has no goal for me--it cannot have.
I stand for ever on the brink of a precipice."
There was a sadness in his voice which almost brought the tears into her
eyes--mostly for his sake, partly for her own. For, though he might
never know it, were not his sorrows her sorrows?
"Are they sorrows which you can tell to no one?" she asked softly. "Can
no one help you?"
He shook his head.
"No one."
"And yet no sorrow can last for ever that has not guilt at its root,"
she said.
"Mine will last while life lasts," he answered; "and there is--no guilt
at the root."
"You have taken up another's burden," she said. "Is it well? Do you owe
nothing to yourself, and your own genius? Sorrow may shorten your life,
and the world can ill spare your work."
"There are others who can do my work," he said. "No other can----But
forgive me. I wish to talk of this no more. Tell me of your life since I
left you. Something in your face tells me that it has been well spent.
Let me hear of it."
And, gathering up all her courage, she told him. Piece by piece she took
up the disconnected thoughts and ideas which had come to her, and wove
them together after the pattern of her life--to which he listened with a
calm approval, in which was sometimes mingled a deeper enthusiasm, as
she touched a chord which in his own being had often been struck to deep
tremulous music. And as she went on he grew sad. With such a companion
as this woman, whose sensibilities were his sensibilities, and whose
instincts so naturally cultured, so capable of the deeper coloring and
emotional passion which his influence could speedily develop--with such
a woman as this--whom already he loved, what might not life mean for
him? Well, it must pass. Another of those bright butterfly visions of
his fancy, gorgeous with hope and brilliancy--another one to be crushed
by the iron hand of necessity. He had gone away wounded, and he had come
back to find the wound still bleeding.
Gradually the rooms were thinning, and at last Lady Thurwell, impatient
of her niece's long absence, came to fetch her. When she found her
_tete-a-tete_ with the lion of the day, however, her manner was most
gracious.
"I hope you have been able to persuade Mr. Maddison to come and see us,"
she said to her niece. "We are at home on Thursdays at Cadogan Square,
and we lunch every day at two," she added, turning towards him. "Come
whenever you like."
"You are very good, Lady Thurwell," he said, accepting her offered hand.
"I am only passing through London, but if I have the opportunity I shall
avail myself of your kindness."
She left them together for a moment while she made her adieux to her
hostess. In that moment Helen found courage to yield to a sudden
impulse.
"Please come," she said softly.
He had no time to answer, for Lady Meltoun had come up to them.
"Miss Thurwell," she said good-naturedly, "I don't know when I shall
forgive you for monopolizing Mr. Maddison in this shameful manner. Why,
there were quite a crowd of people came this afternoon only to catch a
glimpse of him, and there was nothing to be seen but his boots behind
that screen. I am in terrible disgrace, I can assure you!"
"The fault was mine," he interposed, "altogether mine. In an
ungovernable fit of shyness, I took refuge with the only person except
yourself, Lady Meltoun, whom I was fortunate enough to know. I simply
refused to come away."
"Well, I suppose I must forgive you, or you won't come again," Lady
Meltoun said. "But now you are here, you must really stop and see Edgar.
When every one has gone we will go up to the nursery, and in the
meantime you may make yourself useful by taking Lady Thurwell out to her
carriage. I'm afraid there's rather a crush."
So they all three went out together, and while they stood waiting for
Lady Thurwell's victoria, he managed to say a word to her alone.
"I will come and see you," he whispered.
She looked up at him a little shyly, for in handing her into the
carriage he had assumed a certain air of proprietorship which had
brought a faint color into her cheeks.
"Come soon," she whispered. "Good-bye!"
She nodded brightly, and Lady Thurwell smiled as the horses started
forward, and the carriage drove away.
"I wonder who Mr. Maddison really is?" she said, half to herself, just
as they reached home.
Lady Thurwell shrugged her shoulders.
"Do you mean who his family are?" she asked. "My dear, it isn't of the
slightest consequence. Bernard Maddison is Bernard Maddison, and his
position would be just what it is, even though his father were a coal
heaver."
Which remark showed that Lady Thurwell, as well as being a woman of
society, was also a woman of sense. But Helen was not thinking of his
family.