WHEREIN THE HERO'S PERPLEXITIES INCREASE
Charnock, however, learned nothing the next morning, except perhaps a
lesson in patience. For the greater part of his visit was occupied in
extracting a thorn from one of Mrs. Warriner's fingers. They chanced
to be alone in the garden when the accident occurred, and Miranda
naturally came to him for assistance. She said no word about the
glove, nor did he; it was part of the compact that he should be
silent. He came the next day, and it seemed that there was something
amiss with Miranda's hairpins, for the coils of her hair were
continually threatening to tumble about her shoulders; at least, so
she said, complaining of the weight of her hair. But again there was
no mention of the glove. That afternoon Charnock was introduced to
Miss Holt, whom Miranda kept continually at her side, until Charnock
took his leave, when she accompanied him across the patio.
"We never seem to get an opportunity of talking to each other," said
she, with the utmost innocence. "Will you ride with me to-morrow? Say
at two. We might ride as far as Ronda La Viega."
Charnock, who within the last half-hour had begun to consider
whether it would not be wise for him to return to Algeciras, eagerly
accepted the invitation. To-morrow everything would be explained. They
would ride out together, alone, and she would tell him of the dragon
he was required to slay, and no doubt explain why, for these last two
days, she had been marketing her charms. That certainly needed
explanation--for even at this moment in the patio, she was engaged in
kissing a kitten with too elaborate a preparation of her lips to avoid
a suspicion that the pantomime was intended for a spectator.
Charnock was punctual to the minute of his appointment, and in
Miranda's company rode through the town. As they passed the hotel,
Major Wilbraham came out of the doorway. He took off his hat. Charnock
nodded in reply and turned towards Miranda, remembering his suspicions
as to whether Wilbraham was concerned in the mysterious peril which he
was to combat. To his surprise Miranda instantly smiled at the Major
with extreme friendliness, and markedly returned his bow.
"Clever, clever!" muttered the Major, as he bit his moustache and
commended her man[oe]uvre. "A little overdone, perhaps; the bow a
trifle too marked; still, it's clever! Ambrose, you will have that
thousand."
Charnock was perplexed. "How long have you known Wilbraham?" he asked.
Miranda stammered, bent her head, and smiled as it were in spite of
herself.
"A long while," she answered, and then she sighed. "A long while," she
repeated softly. Charnock was exasperated to a pitch beyond his
control.
"If you want to make me believe that you are in love with him," he
returned sharply, almost roughly, "you will fail, Mrs. Warriner. I
should find it hard to believe that he is even one of your friends."
The words were hardly out of his lips before he regretted them. They
insulted her. She was hardly the woman to sit still under an insult;
but her manner again surprised him. He was almost prepared to be sent
curtly to the right about, whereas she made no answer whatever. She
coloured hotly, and rode forward ahead of him until they were well out
of the town and descending the hill into the bottom of the valley.
Then she fell back again by his side, and said: "Why is your face
always so--illegible?"
"Is it?" he asked.
"It's a lid--a shut lid," she said. "One never knows what you think,
how you are disposed." She spoke with some irritation perhaps, but
sincerely, and without any effort at provocation.
"I was not aware," returned Charnock. "You must set it down to habit,
Mrs. Warriner. I was brought up in a hard school, and learned, no
doubt, intuitively the wisdom of reticence."
"Is it always wisdom?" she asked doubtfully, and it seemed a strange
question to come from her whose business it was to speak, just as it
was his to listen. But very likely her doubt was in this instance
preferable to his wisdom. Some word of surprise at the change in her,
perhaps one simple gesture of impatience, would have broken down the
barrier between them. But he had taken the buffets of her provocations
and her advances with, as she truly said, an illegible face.
"Is it always wisdom?" she asked, and she added: "You were not so
reticent when I first met you;" and just that inconsistency between
his bearing at Lady Donnisthorpe's ball, and his inexpressive
composure of these few last days, might have revealed to her at this
moment what he thought, and how he was disposed, had she brought a
cooler mind to consider it. For the man was not chary of expression
when the world went well with him; it was only in the presence of
disappointments, rebuffs, and aversions that his face became a lid.
They left their horses at a farm-house, and climbed up the rough,
steep slope to the windy ridge on which the old Roman town was built.
They sat for a while upon the stones of the old wall, looking across
the great level plain of olive trees, and poplars, and white villages
gleaming in the sunlight. Here was a fitting moment for the story to
be told, Charnock thought, and expected its telling. But he only saw
that Miranda scrutinised his looks, and he only heard her gabbling of
this triviality and that with a feverish vivacity. And no doubt his
face betrayed less than ever what he thought and felt.
"Shall I see you to-morrow?" she asked as they parted that afternoon
outside her door.
"I will come round in the morning after lunch," he replied, and she
uttered a quick little sigh of pleasure, which made Charnock turn his
horse with a sharp, angry tug at the rein, and ride quickly away
across the bridge.
That first impulse to leave Ronda had gone from him. He was engaged,
through his own wish and action, to serve Mrs. Warriner, and he was
resolved to keep the engagement to the letter. But he was beginning to
realise that he should be serving a woman whom in the bottom of his
heart he despised. The message of his mirror became a fable; he
recalled what Miranda herself had suggested, that the look of distress
which he had seen upon the face was due to his chance visit to
_Macbeth_; and certain words which a woman had spoken at Lady
Donnisthorpe's dance as she sat by the window recurred to him.
"There's a coquette" was one phrase which on this particular evening
recurred and recurred to his thoughts.
However, he returned to the house upon the rim of the precipice the
next morning, and being led by a servant through the patio into the
garden, came upon Miranda unawares. She was busy amongst her flowers,
cutting the choicest and arranging them in a basket, and she did not
notice Charnock's appearance. Charnock was well content with her
inattention. For in the quiet grace of her movements, as she walked
amongst her flowers, he caught a glimpse of the Miranda whom he knew,
the Miranda of the balcony. The October sunlight was golden about
them, a light wind tempered its heat, and on the wind were borne
upwards to his ears the distant cries of peasants in the plain below.
He had a view now and then of her face, as she rose and stooped, and
he remarked a gentleness and a simplicity in its expression which had
been foreign to it since he had come to Ronda.
But the expression changed when she saw Charnock standing in the
garden.
"Who do you think I am cutting these flowers for?" she asked with an
intolerable playfulness. "You will never guess."
Charnock stepped over to her side.
"Mrs. Warriner," said he, "will you give me one?"
She looked at him with a whimsical hesitation.
"They are intended for Gibraltar," she said, as she caressed the bunch
which she held--but she spoke with a great repugnance, and the
playfulness had gone from her voice before she had ended the sentence.
"For Gibraltar?" he exclaimed, remembering the gentle look upon her
face as she had culled them. "For whom in Gibraltar? For whom?" He
confronted her squarely; his voice commanded her to answer.
She drew back from him; the colour went from her cheeks; her fingers
were interclasped convulsively; it seemed as though the words she
tried to speak were choking her. But her emotion lasted for no more
than a moment, though for that moment Charnock could not doubt that it
was real. He took a step forwards, and she was again mistress of
herself.
"Yes, I will give you one," she said hurriedly. "I will even fix it in
your button-hole. Will you be grateful if I do? Will you be very
grateful?" Charnock neither answered nor moved. He stood in front of
her with a face singularly stolid. But Miranda's hands touched his
breast, and at the shock of her fingers he drew in his breath, and his
whole body vibrated.
And how it came about neither of them knew, but in an instant the
flowers were on the ground between them, and her hands gripped his
shoulders as they stood face to face and tightened upon them in a
passionate appeal. He read the same passionate appeal in her eyes,
which now frankly looked up to his.
"You don't know," she cried incoherently, "you don't know."
"But I wish to know," he exclaimed, "tell me;" and his arms went about
her waist. She uttered a cry and violently tore and plucked his arms
from her.
"No," she cried, "no, not now," and she heard the latch of the door
click. Charnock heard it too.
"When?" said he, as he stood away, and the door opened and Major
Wilbraham with his hat upon his heart bowed, with great elegance, upon
the threshold. Miranda started. She looked from Charnock to Wilbraham,
from Wilbraham to Charnock.
"So he is one of your friends," said Charnock.
"Have you the right to choose my friends?" she asked, and she greeted
Wilbraham warmly.
The Major seemed very much at his ease. It was the first occasion on
which he had had the effrontery to push his way into the house, but
from his manner one would have judged him a family friend. He waved a
hand to Charnock.
"So you are there, dear old darling boy!" he cried. His endearments
increased with every meeting. "I saw you come in and thought I might
as well call at the same time, eh, Mrs. Warriner? So pleasant, I meet
Charnock everywhere. Destiny will have us friends. That dear Destiny!"
And as Charnock with an ill-concealed air of distaste turned from them
towards the valley, Wilbraham whispered to Miranda, "You need have no
fear. I shall not say a word--unless you force me to."
Miranda drew back. She stood for a moment with her hands clenched, and
her eyelids closed, her face utterly weary and ashamed. Then with a
gesture of revolt she turned towards Charnock.
Instantly the Major stepped in front of her.
"May I beg one?" said he, pointing to the basket of flowers. It was
all very well for him to threaten Miranda that he would tell Charnock
of her husband; but it would not suit his purpose at all for her
actually to tell him on an impulse of revolt against the deception and
the hold he himself had upon her. So he fixed his eyes steadily upon
her face.
"May I beg one?" and he bent towards the stool on which the basket was
set.
"Not of those!" she cried, "not of those!" and she snatched up the
basket and held it close.
"But you shall have one," she continued with a forced laugh, as over
Wilbraham's shoulder she saw Charnock watching them, and she snapped
off some flowers from their stems with her fingers until she held a
bunch. "There! Make your choice, Major. A flower sets off a man."
"Just as a wife sets off a husband, eh, Mrs. Warriner?" returned
the Major, with a sly gallantry, as he fixed the flower in his
button-hole. "Eh, Charnock, did you hear?"
He joined Charnock as he spoke, and Miss Holt coming from the house,
the talk became general. But Charnock noticed that at one moment
Miranda moved carelessly away from the group, and leaning carelessly
over the wall, carelessly dropped down the face of the cliff the whole
bunch of flowers from which Wilbraham had chosen one. As she lifted
her eyes, however, she saw Charnock watching her, and at once and for
the rest of the time during which her guests remained, she made her
court to Wilbraham with a feverish assiduity. She laughed immoderately
at his jokes, she was extremely confused by his compliments, she
displayed the completest deference to his opinions; so that even the
unobservant Miss Holt was surprised.
Charnock was the first to break up the gathering.
"I must be going," he said curtly to Miranda.
"It would almost seem that you were displeased with us," she answered
defiantly.
"I beg your pardon," said he, coldly. "I do not claim the privilege to
be displeased."
"Jolly afternoon," murmured the Major, in a cheery desire to make the
peace, "good company, dear old friends"--and he saw that Miranda was
unmistakably bowing good-bye to himself. He took the hint at once. The
Major was in a very good humour that afternoon, and as the party
walked back to the house, he fell behind to Miranda, who had already
fallen behind.
"Clever, clever," he remarked encouragingly, "to play me off against
the real man. A little overdone perhaps, but clever. I trust I did my
part. We'll make it a thousand per annum."
Miranda quickened her pace and took her leave of her visitors at the
door of the garden. Wilbraham was in no particular hurry to settle his
business; he was quite satisfied for that afternoon, and he entered
genially into conversation with Miss Holt upon the subject of her
grievances.
Thus Miss Holt and Wilbraham crossed the patio and entered the passage
to the outer door. Charnock followed a few steps behind them; and just
after Miss Holt with her companion had entered the passage, while he
yet stood in the patio, he heard a door slam behind him.
He turned, and walked round the tiny group of tamarisks in the centre
of the patio. It was not the door into the garden which had slammed,
because that now stood wide open, whereas he remembered he had closed
it behind him; and the only other door in that side of the house was
the door of Miranda's parlour. He had left Miranda in the garden; it
was plainly she who had slammed the door, and had slammed it upon
herself.
Charnock was alone in the empty patio. It was very quiet; the sunshine
was a steady golden glow upon the tiled floor, upon the tiled walls;
above in the square of blue there was no scarf of cloud. He stood in
the quiet empty patio, and the touch of her fingers tingled again upon
his breast. Again he saw her drop the flowers she had culled for
Wilbraham down the cliff. Amongst his doubts and perplexities those
two recollections shone. They were accurate, indisputable. Her
feverish vivacity, her coquetries, her friendliness to Wilbraham, her
silence towards himself, the basket of flowers for Gibraltar--these
things were puzzles. But twice that afternoon she had been true to
herself, and each time she had betrayed the reality of her trouble and
the reality of her need.
It was very still in the patio. A bee droned amongst the tamarisks. It
seemed to Charnock that, after much sojourning in outlandish corners
of the earth, he who had foreseen his life as a struggle with the
brutality of inanimate things was, after all, here in the still
noonday, within these four walls, to undergo the crisis of his
destiny. He gently turned the handle of the door and entered the room.