Meanwhile, Richard received a sealed and perfumed note from Miss Jilian
bidding him visit her at last at Hardacre. Jeffray, who felt cold and
reluctant when he read the letter, did not guess how much plotting and
planning, how many fears and heart-searchings had been squandered over
that simple sheet of paper. Poor Jilian had been pressed by Lot to send
for Jeffray before her inclination was mature. She had desired to wait
till her face was fairer, but her Ulysses of a brother willed it
otherwise, being suspicious of Richard’s faith. He argued that it would
be better for the lad to see Jilian soon and be impressed by the trouble
he had brought on her. Jeffray was an amiable fellow with a wealth of
sentiment in his blood. And then when Miss Hardacre’s looks improved, as
improve they would, her cousin might be so charmed with the change as to
fall in love with the betterment of the bargain. There would have been
much wisdom in Lot’s strategy had he not been ignorant of the subtle
undercurrent in the romance. He counted on his cousin’s impressionable
good-nature, and he might have counted on it with some confidence but
for the existence of Bess of the Woods.
It was as unpropitious a moment as fate could have found for thrusting
him back upon his allegiance to poor Jilian.
Miss Hardacre had spent two hours at her toilet that morning, and had
warred with nature to the best of her ability. She had crimped her short
aureole of hair, daubed her cheeks, salved her lips, and used pearl
powder for her neck and arms. She wore a green gown that morning covered
with red carnations, a red silk hoop, and a band of black velvet about
her throat. In the dusk she might have passed for a comely woman, but
the full glare of day dissolved the dream.
Jilian chose the red parlor for the receiving of her betrothed, since
the coloring of the room was red, damask curtains tempering the white
light and diffusing a glow over her face. Seated on a high-backed chair
before the harpsichord, she let her fingers idle over the keys, while
she listened every now and again for the sound of hoofs on the gravel
space before the house. It was a little before noon when she heard the
clangor of hoofs passing under the gate-tower into the paved court-yard.
To ease her nervousness and the sense of tightness over her heart, she
broke into a ditty from the “Beggar’s Opera,” her eyes brightening with
the fever of waiting. She heard Lot’s voice rising from the hall below,
the sound of footsteps on the stairs, a quiet knocking at the door. The
handle rattled. Pushing back the chair, she stood up, trembling, her
hands opening and closing, her lips dry. She saw Jeffray standing on the
threshold, one hand on his sword-hilt, the other holding the lappet of
his coat.
“Richard!”
Unconsciously, Jilian had put all the strained self-shame of her poor
soul into the cry. She took two steps forward, holding out her hands.
Jeffray closed the door slowly, like a man seeking to compose his
thoughts. He turned and looked at Jilian. Unwittingly, in her agitation,
she had taken her stand where a sunbeam slanted full upon her face,
disclosing all its seamed and pitted ugliness with a brilliance that was
almost brutal.
A woman’s eyes are quick in piecing together the emotions on a man’s
face. She saw Jeffray start, saw him catch his breath, saw the critical
yet instinctive repulsion in his eyes. He appeared to conquer himself by
an effort, yet the smile he gave her was soulless and unreal. She said
nothing as he came forward, bent, and kissed her hand.
“Richard, mon cher, and are you glad to see me?”
She spoke very softly to him, as she turned aside and walked a little
unsteadily to a settle standing by the harpsichord. Jeffray felt a great
flush of shame and a miserable sense of reluctance that made him gauche
and clumsy. He followed her as though under compulsion, and sat down
beside her on the settle.
“Of course I am glad to see you, Jilian,” he said.
Miss Hardacre’s hands were fidgeting in her lap. She had prepared a gay
and airy part, but all her brave impudence and coquetry seemed to have
deserted her. She was too conscious of her ugliness; the inspiration of
vanity was dead within her. The pretty puppet could no longer ply her
fan, flash her gray eyes, simper, and show her teeth. She seemed to
realize of a sudden that courteous pity alone could make a man look
kindly at her face. Jeffray’s first stare had told her that.
“I have been very ill, Richard,” she said, almost humbly, looking at him
a moment as for sympathy, and then lowering her eyes.
Jeffray was sitting very stiffly on the settle, looking like a man who
had been offered a cup of poison or the renunciation of his faith.
“I know; I am sorry; it was all my fault,” he answered her.
There was a lack of tone and of vitality about the reply that made
Jilian shrink.
“I am not what I was, Richard,” she said, pressing her handkerchief
against her lips and leaving a vermilion stain on the cambric; “no doubt
you find me greatly changed.”
Her eyes challenged him with the shallow despair of a vain woman.
Jeffray reddened, and could not meet her look as he stammered out feeble
contradictions.
“You are not recovered yet, Jilian, and Lot hinted that I might find you
a little changed. I am sorry; believe me, I am. Why, you don’t look so
pale as I expected, nor yet so thin. We shall soon have you well and
handsome again, and all the women round about will be for envying you.”
It was a poor and jerky apology enough, and Miss Hardacre was not for
one moment deceived by it. The boy was shocked, disgusted, even as she
had feared he would be, and no doubt he was wondering how he could marry
such a painted hag. Jilian imagined that she understood the whole of
Jeffray’s heart, and that he shrank from her just as the rest of the
world might shrink. From humiliation her mood turned suddenly towards
impatience, and from impatience to reproachful bitterness.
“It is very hard, Richard,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed upon her
satin slippers.
“Hard, Jilian?”
She flashed up petulantly, her eyes beginning to glitter.
“To be sure, I am ugly now, an old fright; I shall never be pretty
again. Don’t deny it, Richard; I saw it all in your eyes from the first
moment. Yes, I am ugly, and very miserable, and it is hard and bitter
and cruel. I am beginning to hate myself just as everybody else will
hate me.”
Jeffray hung his head, looked as ashamed and contrite as though every
word accused him of dishonor. Yet for the life of him he could not
forget Bess Grimshaw’s face, the scent of her clothes, the glimmer of
her hair. The generous hypocrisies died unuttered on his tongue. His
sincerity grappled him; he was sorry for Jilian, but he could not do his
pity justice.
“It is all my fault,” he said, dejectedly.
Miss Hardacre’s fingers were crushing her handkerchief into a ball. The
interview was proving too bitter to her, and she was beginning to revolt
against Jeffray’s apathy. Why did he not try to comfort her? She would
never have believed that Richard had so hard a heart.
“You are very cold, cousin,” she said.
Jeffray blushed, and looked almost afraid to meet her eyes.
“Of course, men change. They only care for a pretty face, and love only
so long as the woman pleases them. Is not that so, Richard?”
“For God’s sake, Jilian, don’t talk like this—”
“Yes, yes, that is very well, but can I—a woman—help seeing the
truth?”
Jeffray drew a deep breath and leaned back against the harpsichord.
“I know it is all my fault,” he said, “and I am very miserable over what
has happened. Leave me alone a moment, and let me take it all in. I am
just as unhappy as you are, Jilian; it is no use my pretending that I do
not see the change in you.”
Jeffray, full of the egotism of a man in love, could not have spoken
more biting words. Jilian started as though he had struck her, rose up
from the settle with a sudden dignity and restraint that made Richard
appear wholly in the wrong. She made him a slight courtesy, turned on
her heel, and walked towards the door.
“To be sure, you must think it over, cousin,” she said, with a vicious
sneer; “remember that I am ugly, and remember also that you have told me
so.”
“Jilian!”
“Think it over, sir, but do not imagine that I am going to be thrown
aside like a soiled shoe. I have more pride, more conceit, than that.
No, I have no wish to have all the women jeering and laughing behind my
back. You understand me, Richard, eh? Very good. Think it over, by all
means, but remember that we are betrothed.”
“I have not forgotten it, Jilian.”
“Very good, cousin. I will excuse you from the discomfort of studying my
ugliness any further to-day. Sir Peter and Lot will be glad to see you
to dinner.”
When Jeffray left Hardacre House that afternoon, after enduring a
somewhat embarrassing interview with Sir Peter and Mr. Lot, he was
filled with mingled feelings of recklessness and shame. He almost
detested Jilian for her reproachful bitterness and her threats,
forgetting to pity her now that she had shown the will to govern him.
Moreover, Lancelot, who had seen his sister in one of the galleries
after her meeting with Richard, had treated his cousin with ominous and
threatening courtesy. Three months ago Jeffray would have blushed
crimson at the thought of wounding the sensibilities of his kinsfolk.
Any suggestion of personal dishonor that his conscience might then have
flung at him would have brought him to the penitential kissing of Miss
Jilian’s hands. Now, the swarthy splendor of a single face had blinded
him to all else as a great light blinds the eyes. He hated Sir Peter, he
hated Lancelot, he hated his old self, he almost hated Jilian. Was he
not to see Bess that very evening? Was not Pevensel before him with all
its mystery, its glamour, its romance?
But Jeffray did not find Bess in the valley of yews that evening. She
had been unable to escape Dan’s vigilance and had bided at home, hoeing
the weeds in the garden sullenly. As for Richard, he rode back to
Rodenham very sad and weary, and feeling sick and faint as though he had
overtaxed his strength.