WHILE CHARNOCK BUILDS CASTLES IN SPAIN,
MIRANDA RETURNS THERE
The anxious dowager, who was preparing to depart with her daughter,
had just risen from her seat by the window as Miranda stepped over the
sill into the ball-room. She sat down again, however, for she had a
word or two to say concerning Miranda's appearance.
"Muriel," she observed, "take a good look at that woman, and remember
that if ever you sit out with one man for half-an-hour on a cool
balcony you can make no greater mistake than to return with a flushed
face."
"Thank you, mother," said Muriel, who was growing restive under this
instructional use of an evening party. "I will take the first
opportunity of practising your advice."
At this moment Charnock stepped over the sill. He stepped up to Mrs.
Warriner's side and spoke to her. Mrs. Warriner stopped within a
couple of yards of the dowager and gave her hand, and with her hand
her eyes, to her companion.
"Muriel, look!" said the censorious one. "How vulgar!"
"Shall I listen too?" asked Muriel, innocently.
"Do, my child, do!" said the dowager, who was impervious to sarcasm.
What was said, however, did not reach the dowager's ears. It was,
indeed, no more than an interchange of "good-nights," but the dowager
bridled, perhaps out of disappointment that she had not heard.
"An intriguing woman I have no doubt," said she, as through her
glasses she followed Miranda's retreat.
"Surely she has too much dignity," objected the daughter.
"Dignity, indeed! My child, when you know more of the world, you will
understand that the one astonishing thing about such women is not
their capacity for playing tricks but their incredible power of
retaining their self-respect while they are playing them. Now we will
go."
The dowager's voice was a high one. It carried her words clearly to
Charnock, who had not as yet moved. He laughed at them then with
entire incredulity, but he retained them unwittingly in his memory.
The next moment the dowager swept past him. The daughter Muriel
followed, and as she passed Charnock she looked at him with an
inquisitive friendliness. But her eyes happened to meet his, and with
a spontaneous fellow-feeling the girl and the man smiled to each other
and at the dowager, before they realised that they were totally
unacquainted.
Lady Donnisthorpe was lying in wait for Charnock. She asked him to
take her to the buffet. Charnock secured for her a chair and an ice,
and stood by her side, conversational but incommunicative. She was
consequently compelled herself to broach the subject which was at that
moment nearest to her heart.
"How did you get on with my cousin?" she asked.
Charnock smiled foolishly at nothing.
"Oh, say something!" cried Lady Donnisthorpe, and tapped with her
spoon upon the glass plate.
"Tell me about her," said Charnock, drawing up another chair.
Lady Donnisthorpe lowered her voice and said with great pathos: "She
is most unhappy."
Charnock gravely nodded his head. "Why?"
Lady Donnisthorpe settled herself comfortably with the full intention
of wringing Charnock's heart if by any means she could.
"Miranda comes of an old Catholic Suffolk family. She was eighteen
when she married, and that's six years ago. No, six years and a half.
Ralph Warriner was a Lieutenant in the Artillery, and made her
acquaintance when he was staying in the neighbourhood of the Pollards,
that's Miranda's house in Suffolk. Ralph listened to Allan Bedlow's
antediluvian stories. Allan was Miranda's father, her mother died long
ago. Ralph captured the father; finally he captured the daughter.
Ralph, you see, had many graces but no qualities; he was a bad stone
in a handsome setting and Miranda was no expert. How could she be? She
lived at Glenham with only her father and a discontented relation,
called Jane Holt, for her companions. Consequently she married Ralph
Warriner, who got his step the day after the marriage, and the pair
went immediately to Gibraltar. Ralph had overestimated Miranda's
fortune, and it came out that he was already handsomely dipped; so
that their married life began with more than the usual disadvantages.
It lasted for three years, and for that time only because of Miranda's
patience and endurance. She is very silent about those three years,
but we know enough," and Lady Donnisthorpe was for a moment carried
away. "It must have been intolerable," she exclaimed. "Ralph Warriner
never had cared a snap of his fingers for her. His tastes were
despicable, his disposition utterly mean. Cards were in his blood; I
verily believe that his heart was an ace of spades. Add to that that
he was naturally cantankerous and jealous. To his brother officers he
was civil for he owed them money, but he made up for his civility by
becoming a bully once he had closed his own front door."
"Yes, yes," interrupted Charnock, hurriedly, as though he had no heart
to hear more; "I understand."
"You can understand then that when the crash came we were glad. Two
years after the marriage old Allan Bedlow sickened. Miranda came home
to nurse him and Ralph--he bought a schooner-yacht. Allan Bedlow died;
Miranda inherited, and the estate was settled upon her. Ralph could
not touch a farthing of the capital, and he was aggrieved. Miranda
returned to Gibraltar, and matters went from worse to worse. The crash
came a year later. The nature of it is neither here nor there, but
Ralph had to go, and had to go pretty sharp. His schooner-yacht was
luckily lying in Gibraltar Bay; he slipped on board before gunfire,
and put to sea as soon as it was dark; and he was not an instant too
soon. From that moment he disappeared, and the next news we had of him
was the discovery of his body upon Rosevear two years afterwards."
Charnock hunted through the jungle of Lady Donnisthorpe's words for a
clue to the distress which Miranda had betrayed that evening, but he
did not discover one. Another question forced itself into his mind.
"Why does Mrs. Warriner live at Ronda?" he asked. "I have never been
there, but there are no English residents, I should think."
"That was one of her reasons," replied Lady Donnisthorpe. "At least I
think so, but upon that too she is silent, and when she will not speak
no one can make her. You see what Ralph did was hushed up,--it was one
of those cases which are hushed up,--particularly since he had
disappeared and was out of reach. But everyone knew that disgrace
attached to it. His name was removed from the Army List. Miranda
perhaps shrank from the disgrace. She shrank too, I think, from the
cheap pity of which she would have had so much. At all events she did
not return home, she sent for Jane Holt, her former companion, and
settled at Ronda." Lady Donnisthorpe looked doubtfully at Charnock.
"Perhaps there were other reasons too, sacred reasons." But she had
not made up her mind whether it would be wise to explain those other
reasons before her guests began to take their leave of her; and so the
opportunity was lost.
Charnock walked back to his hotel that night in a frame of mind
entirely strange to him. He was inclined to rhapsodise; he invented
and rejected various definitions of woman; he laughed at the worldly
ignorance of the dowager. "A woman, madam "--he imagined himself to be
lecturing her--"is the great gift to man to keep him clean and bright
like a favourite sword." He composed other and no less irreproachable
phrases, and in the midst of this exhilarating exercise was struck
suddenly aghast at the temerity of his own conduct that night, at the
remembrance of his persistency. However, he was not in a mood to be
disheartened. The dawn took the sky by surprise while he was still
upon his way. The birds bustled among the leaves in the gardens, and a
thrush tried his throat, and finding it clear gave full voice to his
song. The blackbirds called one to the other, and a rosy light struck
down the streets. It was morning, and he stopped to wonder whether
Miranda was yet asleep. He hoped so, intensely, for the sake of her
invaluable health.
But Miranda was seated by her open window, listening to the birds
calling in the Park, and drawing some quiet from the quiet of the
lawns and trees; and every now and then she glanced across her
shoulder to where a torn white glove lay upon the table, as though she
was afraid it would vanish by some enchantment.
But the next day Miranda packed her boxes, and when Charnock called
upon Lady Donnisthorpe, he was informed that she had returned in haste
to Ronda. Charnock was surprised, for he remembered that Mrs. Warriner
had expressed a doubt whether she would ever return to Ronda, and
wondered what had occurred to change her mind. But the surprise and
bewilderment were soon swallowed up in a satisfaction which sprang
from the assurance that Miranda and he were after all to be
neighbours.