TREATS OF THE FIRST MEETING BETWEEN CHARNOCK AND MIRANDA
Lady Donnisthorpe, with a sigh of relief, retired from her position at
the head of the stairs, and catching Charnock in the interval between
two dances:--
"You kept some dances free," she said, "didn't you? I want to
introduce you to a cousin of mine, Miranda Warriner, because she lives
at Ronda."
"At Ronda. Indeed?"
"Yes." Her ladyship added with a magnificent air of indifference, "She
is a widow," and she led Charnock across the ball-room.
Miranda saw them approaching, noticed an indefinable air of
expectation in Lady Donnisthorpe's manner, and smiled. A few
excessively casual remarks concerning one Mr. Charnock, which Lady
Donnisthorpe had dropped during the last few days, had not escaped the
notice of Miranda, who was aware of her cousin's particular weakness.
This was undoubtedly Mr. Charnock. She raised her eyes towards him,
and had her ladyship been less fluttered, she might have remarked that
Miranda's eyes lit up with a momentary sparkle of recognition.
"Mrs. Warriner--Mr. Charnock."
Lady Donnisthorpe effected the momentous introduction and felt
immediately damped. She had not indeed expected that her two newest
victims would at once and publicly embrace. But at all events she had
decked out her ball-room as the sacrificial altar, and had taken care
that a fitting company and cheerful music should do credit to the
immolation. This tame indifference was less than she deserved.
Miranda, to whom Lady Donnisthorpe was looking, made the perfunctory
dip of the head and smiled the perfunctory smile, and Charnock--why in
the world did he not move or speak? Lady Donnisthorpe turned her eyes
from Miranda to this awkward cavalier, and was restored to a radiant
good-humour. "Dazzled," she said to herself, "absolutely dazzled!" For
Charnock stood rooted to the ground and tongue-tied with amazement.
It was fortunate for Lady Donnisthorpe that at this point she thought
it wise to withdraw. Otherwise she would surely have remarked an
unmistakable look of disappointment which grew within Charnock's eyes
and spread out over his face. Then the disappointment vanished, and as
he compared programmes with Miranda, he recovered his speech.
Four dances must intervene before he could claim her, and Charnock was
glad of the interval to get the better of his bewilderment. Here was
the woman whom his mirror had shown to him! After all, his nocturnal
fancy was fulfilled, or rather part of it, only part or it. He had met
her, he was to dance with her. Some miracle had brought them together.
From the corner by the doorway he watched Miranda, he remarked an
unaffected friendliness in her manner towards her partners. Candour
was written upon her broad white forehead and looked out from her
clear eyes. He had no doubt it was fragrant too in her hair. There
were heavy masses of that hair, as he knew very well from his mirror,
but now the masses were piled and woven about her head with a cunning
art, which to be sure they deserved. There was a ripple in her hair,
too, which caught the light--a most taking ripple. Here was a woman
divested of a girl's wiles and vanities. Charnock, without a scruple,
aspersed all girls up to the age of say twenty-four, that he might
give her greater praise.
He fell to wondering, not how it was that her face had appeared to
him, nor by what miracle he was now enabled to have knowledge of her,
but rather by what miracle of forgetfulness he had allowed her face,
after he had seen it that one time six years ago, ever to slip from
his thoughts, or her eyes after that one time he had exchanged a
glance with them.
The whirl of the dance carried her by his corner. She swung past him
with the lightest imaginable step, and he was suddenly struck through
and through with a chilling apprehension that by some unconscionable
maladroitness he would surely tread upon her toes.
At once he proceeded to count over the dances in which he had borne
himself with credit. He had danced with Spanish women, he assured
himself, and they had not objected. He was thus consoling himself when
the time came for him to lead her out. And the touch of her hand in
his, he remembers, turned him into a babbling idiot.
He recollects that they danced with great celerity; that they passed
Lady Donnisthorpe, who smiled at him with great encouragement, and
that he was dolefully humorous concerning Major Wilbraham and his
exchanges of cards, though why Major Wilbraham should have thrust his
bald head into the conversation, he was ever at a loss to discover.
And then Miranda said, "Shall we stop?"
"Oh, I didn't, did I?" exclaimed the horror-stricken Charnock, as he
looked downwards at her toes.
"No, you didn't," Miranda assured him with a laugh. "Do you usually?"
"No," he declared vehemently, "believe me, no! Never, upon my word! I
have danced with Spanish women,--not at all,--no--no--no--no."
"Quite so," said Miranda.
And they laughed suddenly each to the other, and in a moment they were
friends. Conversation came easily to their tongues, and underneath the
surface of their light talk, the deeps of character called steadily
like to like.
"I have seen you once before, Mrs. Warriner," said Charnock, as they
seated themselves in an alcove of the room.
"Yes," she returned promptly, "at Monte Carlo, six years ago," and her
face lost its look of enjoyment and darkened with some shadow from her
memories. The change was, however, unremarked by Charnock.
"It seems strange," he said in an absent voice, "that we should meet
first of all in a gambling-room, and the next time at a ball."
"Why?"
The question could not be answered. Charnock had a real but
inexplicable feeling that Miranda and he should have met somewhere
amidst the grandeur of open spaces, in the centre of the Sahara, and
for the moment he forgot to calculate the effect of the sand upon
Miranda's eyes. This feeling, however, he could hardly express at the
present point of their acquaintanceship; and, indeed, he immediately
ceased to be aware of it.
"Do you actually remember our meeting in that way six years ago?" he
exclaimed. "How wonderful of you!"
"Why?" again asked Mrs. Warriner. "Why is it wonderful, since you
remember it?"
"Ah, but I didn't remember it until"--he paused for a second or
two--"until I saw your face in a looking-glass."
Miranda glanced at him in considerable perplexity. Then she said with
a demure smile, "I have at times seen it there myself."
"No doubt," he replied with a glance at the cunning arrangement of her
hair.
"My maid does that," said she, biting her lip.
"No doubt, but you sit in front of the glass at the time. You're in
the room," he continued hastily; "but when I saw your face in my
mirror, you couldn't be. I was in bed,--I mean,--let me tell you!" He
stopped, overwhelmed with embarrassment. Miranda, with an air of
complete unconsciousness, carefully buttoned her glove; only the glove
was already buttoned, and her mouth twitched slightly at the corners.
"It was just a week ago to-day," Charnock began again. "I got home to
my hotel late."
"Ah!" murmured Mrs. Warriner, as though the whole mystery was now
explained to her.
"I assure you," he retorted with emphasis, "that I dined in the train
and drank nothing more serious than railway claret."
"I made no accusation whatever," Miranda blandly remarked, and seemed
very well pleased.
"After I had fallen asleep, I began to dream, but not about you, Mrs.
Warriner; that's the strange feature of the business. It wasn't that I
had been thinking of you that evening, or indeed, that I had ever been
at all in the habit of thinking--" Again Charnock was utterly
confused. "I don't seem to be telling the story with the best taste in
the world, do I?" he said ruefully.
"Never mind," she said in a soothing voice.
"Of course, I could have turned it into a compliment," he continued.
"Only I take it you have no taste for compliments, and I lack the
experience to put them tactfully."
"For a novice," said she, "you seem to be doing very well." Charnock
resumed his story. "I dreamt solely of people I had seen, and
incidents I had witnessed during the last week, at Tangier and at
Plymouth. I dreamed particularly of a man I quarrelled with at
Plymouth, and I suddenly woke up and saw your face in the mirror."
"As you fancied."
"It was no fancy. It was no dream-face that I saw--dream-faces are
always elusive. It was no dream-face, it was yours."
"Or one like mine."
"There cannot be two."
"For a novice," repeated Miranda, with a smile, "you _are_ doing very
well."
Charnock had watched her carefully while he told his story, on the
chance that her looks, if not her lips, might give him some clue to
the comprehension of his mysterious vision. But she had expressed
merely an unconcerned curiosity and some amusement.
"Shall I explain your vision?" said she. "You must have seen me in
London during the day: the recollection that you had seen me must have
lain latent, so that when you woke up you saw me in your mirror and
did not remember that you had seen me during the day."
"Were you at any theatre this day week?"
"No," said Miranda, after counting over the days.
"You did not see _Macbeth_ that night?"
"No."
"Then it is impossible I should have seen you. For I came up from
Plymouth only that afternoon. I drove from Paddington to my hotel;
from the hotel I went to the theatre; from the theatre I walked back
to the hotel. It is impossible."
"It is very strange," said Miranda, whose interest was increasing, and
whose sense of amusement had vanished; for she saw that her companion
was moved by something more than curiosity. It was evident to her from
his urgent tones, from the eagerness of his face, that he had some
hidden reason for his desire to fathom the mystery. It seemed to her
that he nourished some intention, some purpose in the back of his
mind, which depended for fulfilment upon whether or no there was any
feasible solution.
"Tell me your dream," she said.
"It was the oddest jumble,--it had neither sense nor continuity. Moors
figured in it, ships, Lady Macbeth, the Major with his card-case, and
the stranger who swore at me through the cab-window at Plymouth. The
phrases that man used came into it."
"What phrases?"
"I couldn't repeat to you the most eloquent. There were milder ones,
however. He called me a fair red-hotter amongst other things," said
Charnock, laughing at his recollections, "and expressed a wish that I
might--well, sit in that cab until I ante'd up in kingdom come."
Miranda leaned back in her seat and opened and shut her fan. "He was a
stranger to you, you say?"
"Quite."
"You are sure?"
"Quite."
"You had never seen him anywhere--anywhere? Think!"
Charnock deliberated for a few seconds. "Never anywhere," he replied.
There was a moment's silence. Mrs. Warriner gently fanned herself as
she leaned back in the shadow of the alcove. "Describe him to me," she
said quietly.
"A man of a slight figure, a little under the middle height, fair
hair, bright blue eyes, an open, good-natured face, and I should say a
year or so under forty. I took him to be a sailor."
The fan stopped. Miranda let it fall upon her lap. That was the only
movement which she made, and from the shadow of the recess, she said:
"There is no explanation."
Charnock drew a breath and leaned forward, his hands clasped, his
elbows on his knees. It seemed he had been waiting for just that one
sentence. As he sat now his face was in the light, and Miranda
remarked a certain timidity upon it, as though now that he had heard
the expected words, he dared not after all reply to them. He did not
look towards her. He stared at the dancers, but with vacant eyes. He
saw nothing of their jewels, or their coloured robes, or the flash of
their silver feet, and the noise of their chatter sounded very dimly
in his ears. He was quite occupied, indeed, with the hardihood of what
he had it on his tongue's tip to say--when he had gained sufficient
courage.
Miranda moved restlessly, unbuttoned a glove, drew it off her wrist
unconsciously, and then was still as Charnock began to speak.
"Is there no explanation?" he asked. "I imagined one. You know how
fancies come to one in the dark. That night I imagined one. I laughed
at it the next morning, but now, since I have talked with you, I have
been wondering whether by any miracle, it might be true. And if
there's an infinitesimal chance that it's true, I think that I ought
to tell you it, even though it may seem merely ridiculous, even though
it may offend you. But I have lived for the most part of my time,
since I was a man, in the waste places of the earth, and what may well
be an impertinence--for we are only these few minutes acquainted--you
will perhaps pardon on that account."
He received no encouragement to continue; on the other hand he
received no warning to stop, for Miranda neither spoke nor moved. He
did not look at her face lest he should read the warning there; but
from the tail of his eye, he could see the fan, the white glove lying
idle upon the black satin of her dress. The skirt hung from her knee
to her foot without a stir in its folds, nor did her foot stir where
it showed beneath the hem. She remained in a pose of most enigmatical
quietude.
"The face which my mirror showed to me," he went on, "was your face,
as I said; but in expression it was not your face as I see it
to-night. It was very troubled, it was very pale; the eyes haunted me
because of the pain in them, and because of--something else beside. It
was a tortured face I saw, and the eyes seemed to ask--but to ask
proudly--for help. Is it plain, the explanation which occurred to me?"
His voice sank; he went on, slowly choosing every word with care, and
speaking it with hesitation. "I imagined that out of all the millions
of women in the world, here was one who needed help--my help, who was
allowed to appeal to me for it, without, if you understand, making any
appeal at all, and the explanation was not ... unpleasant ... to a man
who lives much alone. In fact it has been so pleasant, and has become
so familiar during this last week, that when I saw you to-night
without a care, just as I saw you that night at Monte Carlo," and
indeed it seemed to Charnock that the black dress she wore alone
marked the passage of those six years,--"I am ashamed to say that I
was disappointed."
"Yes," said Miranda. "I noticed the disappointment, but there's a
simpler explanation of the troubled face than yours. You had been to
_Macbeth_ that evening; Lady Macbeth played a part in your dreams.
What if Lady Macbeth lent her pallor and her distress to the face
which you saw in your mirror?"
Charnock swung abruptly round towards her. It was not the explanation
which surprised him, but the altered voice she used. And if her voice
surprised him, he was shocked and startled by her looks. She was still
leaning back in the shadow of the alcove, and her head rested against
the dark wood-panels. She did not move when he looked towards her.
"My God," he said in a hushed and trembling whisper, and she gave no
sign that she heard. She might have fainted, but that her eyes
glittered out of the shadow straight and steadily into his. She might
be dead from the whiteness of her face against the panels, but that
her bosom rose and fell.
"What can I do?" he exclaimed.
"Hush!" she replied, and rose to her feet. "Here is Lady
Donnisthorpe." She walked abruptly past him across the room to the
open window. Charnock remained nailed to the ground, following her
with his eyes. For in that alcove, leaning against the dark panels, he
had seen not merely the features, but the expression on the features,
he had seen exact in every detail the face which he had seen in the
polished darkness of his mirror. The sheen of the dark polished panels
helped the illusion. His fancy had come true, was transmuted into
fact. Somewhere, somehow, he was to meet that woman. He had met her
here and in this way, and her eyes and her face uttered her distress
as with a piercing cry. Her eyes! The resemblance was perfect to the
last detail. For Charnock ventured to surmise in them the same
involuntary appeal which he had seen in the eyes that had looked out
from his mirror. What then if the rest were true? What if his
explanation was as true as the true facts which it explained? What if
it was given to him and to her to stand apart from their fellows in
this mysterious relation?...
He saw that Miranda was already near the window, that Lady
Donnisthorpe was approaching him. He followed instantly in Miranda's
steps, and Lady Donnisthorpe, perceiving his attention, had the
complaisance to turn aside. For the window opened on to a balcony
wherein discreet palms sheltered off a nook. There was one of Lady
Donnisthorpe's guests who did not share her ladyship's complacency. A
censorious dowager sitting near to the window had kept an alert eye
upon the couple in the recess during the last three dances; and each
time that her daughter--a pretty girl with hair of the palest possible
gold, and light blue eyes that were dancing with a child's delight at
all the wonders of a first season--returned to the shelter of her
portly frame, the dowager drew moral lessons for her benefit from the
text of the oblivious couple. She remarked with pain upon their
increasing infatuation for each other; she pointed out to her daughter
a hapless youth who tiptoed backwards and forwards before Mrs.
Warriner, with a dance-card in his hand, too timorous to interrupt the
intimate conversation; and when Mrs. Warriner dropped a glove as she
stepped over the window-sill on to the balcony, the dowager nudged her
daughter with an elbow.
"Now, Mabel, there's a coquette," she said.
Charnock was close behind, and overheard the triumphant remark.
"I beg your pardon," he said politely, "it was the purest accident."
The dowager bridled; her face grew red; she raised her tortoiseshell
glasses and annihilated Charnock with a single stare. Charnock had the
audacity to smile. He stooped and picked up the glove. Mrs. Warriner
had indeed dropped the glove by accident; but since it fell in
Charnock's way and since he picked it up, it was to prove, like the
handbill at Gibraltar and the draft on Lloyd's bank, a thing trivial
in itself, but the opportunity of strange events.