A minute after he was in the room where Lady Markland sat with her great
writing table against the light. He did not know how he got there. It
seemed impossible that it could have been by mere walking out of one
room into another in the ordinary mechanical way. She rose up, dark
against the light, when he went in, which was not at all her habit,
but he was not sufficiently self-possessed to be aware of that. She
turned towards him, which perhaps was an involuntary, instinctive
precaution, for against the full daylight in the great window he could
but imperfectly see her features. The precaution was unnecessary. His
eyes were not clear enough to perceive what was before him. He saw his
conception of her, serene in a womanly majesty far above his troubled
state of passion, and was quite incapable of perceiving the sympathetic
trouble in her face. She held out her hand to him before he could
say anything, and said, with a little catch in her breath, "Oh, Mr.
Warrender! I--Geoff--we were not sure whether we should see you to-day."
This was a perfectly unintentional speech and quite uncalled for; for
nobody could be more regular, more punctual, than Warrender. It was the
first thing she could find to say.
"Did you think I could stay away?" he asked, in a low and hurried tone,
which was not at all the beginning he had intended. Then he added, "But
I have given Geoff a holiday, if you can accord me a little time,--if I
may speak to you."
"Geoff is not like other boys," she said, with a nervous laugh, still
standing with her back to the light. "He does not rejoice in a holiday
like most children; you have made him love his work."
"It is not about Geoff," he said. "I have--something to say to you, if
you will hear me. I--cannot be silent any longer."
"Oh," she said, "you are going to tell me--I know what it is you are
going to say--that this cannot continue. I knew that must come sooner
or later. Mr. Warrender, you don't need to be told how grateful I am; I
thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You have done so much for us. It
was clear that it could not--go on for ever." She put out her hand for
her chair, and drew it closer, and sat down, still with her back to the
window; and now even in his preoccupation with his own overwhelming
excitement he saw that she trembled a little, and that there was
agitation in her tone.
"Lady Markland, it is not that. It is more than that. The moment has
come when I must--when I cannot keep it up any longer. Ah!" for she made
a little movement with her hand as if to impose silence. "Must it be
so? must I go unheard?" He came closer to her, holding out his hands
in the eloquence of nature, exposing his agitated countenance to the
full revelation of the light. "It is not much, is it, in return for a
life--only to be allowed to speak, once: for half an hour, for five
minutes--once--and then to be silent." Here he paused for breath--still
holding out his hands in a silent appeal. "But if that is my sentence I
will accept it," he said.
"Oh, Mr. Warrender, do not speak so. Your sentence! from me, that am so
deeply in your debt, that never can repay--but I know you never thought
of being repaid."
"You will repay me now, tenfold, if you will let me speak."
She put out her hand towards a chair, pointing him to it, and gave him
an agitated smile. "Of course you shall speak, whatever you wish or
please--as if to your mother, or your elder sister, or an old, old
friend."
She put up this little barrier of age instinctively, hastily snatching
at the first defensive object she could find. And he sat down as she
bade him, but now that he had her permission said nothing,--nothing with
his tongue, but with his clasped hands and with his eyes so much, that
she covered hers with an involuntary movement, and uttered a little
agitated cry. For the moment he was incapable of anything more.
"Mr. Warrender," she said tremulously, "don't, oh, don't say what will
make us both unhappy. You know that I am your--friend; you know that I
am a great deal older than you are; Geoff's mother, not a woman to
whom--not a woman open to--not a----"
"I will tell you," he said, "I know better; this one thing I know
better. A woman as far above me as heaven is above earth, whom I am not
worth a look or a word from. Do you think I don't know that? You will
say I ought not to have come, knowing what I did, that there was no
woman but you in the world for me, and that you were not for me, nor
ever would have any thought of me. I should have taken care of myself,
don't you think? But I don't think so," he added, almost with violence.
"I have had a year of paradise. I have seen you every day, and heard you
speak, and touched your hand. To-morrow, I will curse my folly that
could not be content with that. But to-day, I am mad and I cannot help
myself. I can't be silent, though it is my only policy. Morning and
night I think of nothing but you. When I go to sleep, and when I wake,
and even when I dream, I can't think of anything but only of what you
say. That is what I am going over and over all day long,--every little
word that you say."
He poured this forth with a haste and fluency utterly unlike his usual
mode of speech, never taking breath, never taking his eyes from her, a
man possessed; while she, shrinking back in her chair, her eyes cast
down, her hands nervously clasping and unclasping each other, listened,
beaten down by the tempest of an emotion such as she had never seen
before, such as she could scarcely understand. She had been wooed long
ago, lightly wooed, herself almost a child; the whole matter little more
than a frolic, though it turned into a tragedy; but she did not know and
had never met with anything like this. He paused a little to recover
his breath, to moisten his parched lips, which were dry and hot with
excitement, and then he resumed.
"You talk of a mother, a sister, a friend. I think you want to mock
me, Lady Markland. If you were to say a woman I ought to be content
to worship, then I could understand you. I know I ought to have been
content. Except that I have gone distracted and can't be silent, can't
keep quiet. Oh, forgive me for it. Here is my life which is all yours,
and my heart to put your foot on if you please; all of me belongs to
you; I wish no better, only forgive me for saying it--just once, once!"
In his vehemence he got down on his knees--not by way of kneeling to
her, only to get nearer, to come within reach. He touched her hand as if
it had been the sceptre of mercy. "Speak to me," he said, "speak to me!
even if to tell me that I am a castaway!"
Lady Markland got up quickly, with a look of pain at him, as if she
would have fled. "How could you be a castaway?" she cried. "Oh, Mr.
Warrender, have pity on me! What can I say? Why should not we live,
as we have been doing, in peace and quiet? Why should these dreadful
questions be raised? Listen to me a little. Can friends not be friends
without this? I am old, I am married! There never could be any question
of---- Oh, listen to me! All this that you have been telling me is pity:
yes, it is pity. You are so sorry for me. You think I am helpless and
want--some one to take care of me, like other women. Stop, stop! it is
not so! You must hear me out. I am not so helpless; and you are young:
and some one better than me, some fresh girl, some one like yourself
---- Theo!" This name came from her lips like a cry, because he had
drawn nearer as she drew away from him, and had got her hand in both
his and was kissing it desperately, as if he never would let it go. She
never had called him by this name, and yet it was so usual in the house
that it did not sound as does a man's Christian name suddenly pronounced
by the woman he loves, like a surrender and end of all contention. But
she did not, even when she made that cry, withdraw her hand from him.
She covered her face with the other, and stood swaying slightly backward
away from him, a figure full of reluctance, pain, almost terror; yet
without either word or gesture that should send him away.
"Some one," he cried, "like myself! I want no one, nothing in the world,
but you! It is not I that have raised the question, it is something
stronger than I. Pity! Oh, how dare you! how dare you!" He kissed her
hand with a kind of fury between every word. "I sorry for the woman whom
I worship--thinking she needs me! Good heavens! are you such a woman as
you are and know so little? Or is it true about women that they don't
know love, or want love, but only something tame, something quiet,
what you call affection?" He stopped with his voice full of scorn,
notwithstanding the paroxysm of passion, and looked up at her, though
on his knees, in the superiority which he felt. "You want a friend that
will be tame and live in peace and quiet; and I, you think, want a fresh
girl, like myself. Do you mean to insult us both, Lady Markland? Yes,
strike! Order me away from you; but don't mock me! don't mock me!" Then
out of scorn and superiority he sank again into the suppliant. "I will
be tame, if you like; anything that you like. Only don't send me away!"
She drew her hand away from him, at last, and sank into her chair, with
her heart in such a commotion, that she scarcely heard what he was
saying for the loud beating in her ears. Then she made a stand again,
having been, as it were, beaten from the first parallels; carried away
by that fiery charge. She recovered herself a little; controlled the
hurrying pulses; called back her strength. She said with a trembling
voice, "Oh, let us be calm, if we can! Think a little of my position,
and yours. Oh, Theo! think, besides, what I have said, that I am old.
How can I bid you go, I who owe to you--you will not let me say it, but
I feel it in my heart--so much, so much, of the comfort of my life! I
tell you again, you should have said what you have been saying to a girl
who would have put her hand in yours and that would have been all----"
He put out his hand to take hers once more, but this time she refused
him.
"Sit there and let us talk. If I had been that girl!--but I am not, I
never can be. I am a woman who have had to act for myself. I am Geoff's
mother. I must think of him and what has to be done for him. How can you
say I mock you? We are two reasonable beings. We must think; we cannot
be carried away by--by--by fancy, by what you call----"
Her voice broke, she could not go on, with the hurrying of her blood,
the scrutiny of his looks, the passion in him which infected her. She
waved her hand to him to sit down, to be calm, to listen, but she had
no voice to speak.
"I am not reasonable," he replied, "no, don't think it; there is no
reason in me. Afterwards, I will hear all there is to say. You shall
make conditions, explanations, anything you please. Now is not the time
for it. Tell me, am I to go or stay?" He was hoarse, while she was dumb.
With both the question had gone far beyond the bounds of that reason to
which she had appealed. "That is the only thing," he repeated. "Tell me:
am I to go or stay?"
Looking forward to this, it had seemed that there was so much to be
said: on his side all the eloquence of passion; on hers the specious
arguments of a woman who thinks she may still be able to withhold and
restrain. All these possibilities had fled. They looked at each other,
almost antagonists, because of being so much the reverse. She drew back,
holding herself apart, unwilling to accept that necessity of decision;
not knowing how to escape from it; holding her hands clasped together
that he might not secure them; her heart fluttering in her throat; her
head throbbing with pain and excitement. Ah, if she had been that girl!
If he had sought one like himself! He felt it too, even in the scorn
with which he repulsed the suggestion; and for a moment it hung on the
balance of a thought, on the turn of a look, whether his patience might
not give way; whether his fastidious temper might not take fire at the
aspect of that reluctance with which she held away from him, kept back,
would not yield. But, on the other hand, that very reluctance, was it
not a subtle attraction, a charm the more; giving a sweetness beyond all
speaking to the certainty that, underneath all that resistance, the real
citadel was won? After this momentary armistice and pause, in which they
both seemed to regain their hurried breath, and the mist of the combat
dispelled a little, he threw himself down by her again, and got both the
clasped hands into his own, saying with something between supplication
and authority, "I am to stay?"
"I cannot bid you go," she said, trembling, almost inaudible; and in
this way the long battle came to an end in a moment. They looked at each
other, scarcely believing it; asking each other, could it be so? Even he
scarcely ventured to presume that it was so, though he had forced it and
taken the decision into his own hands.
There ensued a half hour or so of bewildered happiness, in which it
seemed, to him at least, that the world had turned into a different
sphere, and to her that there was in life a sweetness which had come
to her too late, of which she could never taste the true flavour, nor
forget the bitterness behind; yet which was sweet and wonderful; too
wonderful, almost, to believe. She delivered herself over to listen, to
behold the flood of the young man's rapture. It filled her with a kind
of admiration and almost terror. She was like his mother, though with a
difference. She had not known what love was. It was wonderful to her to
see it, to know that she was the object of it; but as the warm tide
touched her, invaded her being, carrying her away, there was something
of fear mingled with her yielding to that delight. She had been so certain
that she would not yield; and yet had made so poor a resistance! It was
fortunate that he was so lost, on his side, in the wonder of the new
bliss, and had so much to pour forth of triumph and ecstasy, that he
accepted the silence on her part without comment even in his own mind.
It was too completely unhoped for, too extraordinary, what had already
happened, that he should ask for more. Her passive position, her
reticence, but added to the rapture. She was his almost against her
will, constrained by the torrent of love which was irresistible, which
had carried all her defences away. This gave her a sort of majesty in
the young man's dazzled eyes. He was giddy with joy and pride. It had
seemed to him impossible that he could ever win this queen of his every
thought; and it became her, as a queen still, to stand almost aloof,
reluctant, although in all the sweetness of consent she had been made to
yield. It was her part, too, in nature and according to all that was
most seemly, to bring him back to the consideration of that invading sea
of common life which surrounded his golden isle of happiness. She put up
her hand as if to stop his mouth. "Oh, Theo, there are so many things
which we must think of. It cannot be all happiness as you suppose. You
are not thinking how many troublesome things I bring with me."
"Let trouble be for to-morrow," he cried; "nothing but joy on this white
day."
She looked at him with a shiver, yet a smile. "Ah, you are so young!
your heart has no ghosts like mine."
"Speak respectfully of my heart, for it is yours. The ghosts shall be
laid and the troubles will fly away. What are ghosts to you and me? One
may be subject to them, but two can face the world."
"O dreamer," she cried, but the reflection of the light in his face came
into hers, almost against her will.
"Not dreamer: lover, a better word. Don't spend your strength for
nothing, my lady and mistress. Do you really believe that you can make
me afraid, to-day?"
She shook her head, not answering, which indeed he scarcely left her
time to do, he had so much to say. His very nature seemed changed, the
proud, fastidious, taciturn Warrender babbling like a happy boy, in the
sudden overflow of a bliss which was too much for him. But while he ran
on, a louder voice than hers interrupted him,--the bell that meant the
commonest of all events, the bell for luncheon. It fell into the soft
retirement of that paradise, which was something of a fool's paradise to
Theo, scaring and startling the pair. She made a start from his side
with a guilty blush, and even he for a moment paused with something
like a sense of alarm. They looked at each other as if they had been
suddenly cited to appear before a tribunal and answer for what they had
done. Then he broke into a breathless laugh. "I shall have to leave you.
I can't face that ordeal. Oh, what a falling off is here--luncheon! must
I leave everything for that?"
"Yes, go, go--it is too much," she murmured, like a culprit whose
accomplice may be saved, but who herself must face the judge. "I could
not bear it; I could not hold up my head, if you were there."
"One moment!" She was leaning towards him, when Geoff's hasty steps were
heard in the hall and his voice that seemed to sound sharp in her very
ears, "Where's mamma?" Lady Markland fell back with a face like a ghost,
covering it with her hands. Warrender felt as if a sudden flame was lit
in his heart. He seized her almost with violence. "I will come back
to-night, when he is in bed. Be in the avenue. I must see you again
to-day."
"I will, Theo."
"At nine o'clock." He pulled away the hand which still was over her
eyes. "You are mine, remember, mine first. I shall count the minutes
till I come back. Mine first, mine always."
"Oh, Theo, yes! for the love of heaven go!"
Was that how to conclude the first meeting of happy lovers? Warrender
rushed through the hall, with his blood on fire, almost knocking over
Geoff, who presented himself, very curious and sharp-eyed, directly in
the way.
"Oh, I say, Theo!" cried Geoff. "Where are you going, Theo? that's
lunch! lunch is on the table. Don't you hear the bell? Can't you stay?"
Warrender waved his hand, he could make no reply. He could have taken
the child by the collar and flung him far away into the unknown, if that
had been practicable. Ghosts, she had said: Geoff was no ghost, but he
was insupportable; not to be seen with composure at that tremendous
moment. The young man rushed down the steps and struck across the drive
at a pace like a race-horse, though he was only walking. He forgot even
the big black, munching his hay tranquilly in the stable and thinking no
harm.