The abominable and discourteous indifference displayed by the master of
Rodenham would have been sufficient to incense a less selfish person
than Miss Jilian Hardacre. Three days had passed since Jeffray had
returned from The Wells, and yet he had not so much as presented himself
at the house of his betrothed. No gentleman’s behavior could have been
more deserving of censure, and Miss Hardacre had shed angry tears over
the indecent remissness of her lover. As for Brother Lot, the gathering
cloud of thunder on his face would have honored the solemn temper of an
Epic. Sir Peter and his son took counsel together in the dilemma, and
the elder restrained his hot-headed Rupert of a son from galloping
straightway to the charge. Sir Peter declared against an immediate
recourse to methods of moral torture lest Mr. Richard should complain of
provocation. A letter should be despatched from the fair Jilian,
requiring Jeffray to pay his respects to her or challenge the peril of
her severe displeasure.
When Jeffray returned from the yew valley that night, he found that a
servant had left a letter for him from Hardacre. From the warm fragrance
of the summer twilight he came into the old library where Gladden had
lit the candles in the silver candlesticks. Jeffray threw open the
window and stood for a moment looking out into the night. A myriad stars
were shining in the dusky vault of blue; dew was in the air; a faint,
fresh perfume ascended out of the earth. In the thickets nightingales
were singing, and a streak of gold still gleamed in the west.
Jilian’s letter was in his hand. He turned back from the window with a
great sigh, and sat down before the bureau where the candles were
burning. It was no desire of his to read what was written in his
betrothed’s letter. He could picture the bitter words it might contain,
and his own conscience hinted at reproaches. Why had Jilian written to
him that night, the night of all nights, when the stars seemed afire and
the earth smelled of love? Could not the rich joy of it have been his
without this note of discord?
Almost savagely he broke the seal and tore open the covering. There was
no tremor about his hands as he held the sheet towards the light of the
candles.
“RICHARD,—I am amazed that you have not disturbed yourself to
visit me, though three days have passed since your return from
Tunbridge. Such discourtesy stands in need of explanation. I
desire your presence at Hardacre to-morrow before noon. Do not
presume to disappoint me.
“JILIAN.”
Jeffray read the letter through twice, and then, holding it for an
instant in the flame of one of the candles, tossed it burning on to the
polished floor, and saw it blacken to a film of quivering ash. A grim
yet half-humorous smile hovered about his mouth. On the morrow he would
tell Jilian the truth, and if the noble Lot desired a quarrel, the
sooner the feud were recognized the better.
At Hardacre the red may and the laburnum’s gold shone out from dewy
depths of green. The white may and the mountain-ash were covered as with
driven snow. In the park the chestnuts stood like huge green pinnacles
crocketed with ivory and coral. Copper beeches gleamed in the sun.
Peonies and poppies were in flower below the terrace, and the walls of
the old house itself were red with a hundred roses.
As before, Jilian received Richard in the red parlor, dressed in her
best silks and damasks, and looking more the great lady now that her
pride had entered zealously into the play. Her complexion appeared to
have improved under the arts of the toilet, but the scars and the seams
could not be hid. She had made her father and Lancelot promise that they
would leave Jeffray to her devices that day. She desired to treat with
him at her own discretion, and to leave male blusterings and
high-handedness to the future.
Jilian rose from her chair when Richard was announced, swept him a fine
courtesy, and then seated herself on a settle by the harpsichord. She
noticed that the man looked sad and sullen, stiff and constrained, with
no brightening of the eyes. He stood before her with his hat under his
arm, fingering the silver buttons on his coat, and staring at her in
melancholy silence. He was thinking how strange and elusive a thing was
personality, in that a peevish and swarthy face should have changed the
temper of his life within three months.
“You have sent for me,” he said, quietly.
The crude formality of these opening words enlightened Miss Hardacre as
to the sentiments she might find in him. His face was firm and immobile
as marble, and an extreme and studied dignity chastened his habitual and
good-natured grace.
“Yes, I have sent for you, Richard,” she said, eying him critically. “It
is time that I received some consideration at your hands.”
Jeffray flushed slightly and bowed to her. For the moment there was an
uncomfortable and unnerving pause. Jilian was playing irritably with her
fan, an indescribable expression of restrained impatience on her face.
“Well, sir, have you nothing to say for yourself?”
Jeffray appeared to straighten his body, brace back his shoulders for
the inevitable confession. He looked straight at Jilian, as though
compelling himself to the uttermost candor.
“I have something to tell you, Jilian,” he said.
Miss Hardacre was alert on the instant, an unenviable glint in her eyes,
one satin slipper tapping on the floor.
“Ah, yes, Richard, I know quite well what you are going to say to me.
And so you think, sir, that you can toss me aside like a soiled shoe!”
A shadow as of pain passed across Jeffray’s face.
“Jilian! Believe me, it is no easy thing for me to speak of what has
been working in my mind.”
The lady tossed her head, sneered till her teeth showed, and then broke
out into a titter.
“And so, Richard, you find that you have been mistaken.”
“That is the truth, Jilian.”
“And do you not think it a pity, sir, that you did not discover
this—some months ago?”
Jeffray, hanging his head and looking very miserable, walked to the
window and stood staring out of it in silence. The landscape stretched
gray and meaningless before his eyes, so hustled was he by his own
thoughts. Jilian was watching him with a rapacious air, her painted face
looking old and almost shrewish. Truth, like the shield in the fable,
bore a different blazoning to these two who studied it from opposing
situations.
Presently Jeffray turned from the window, walked back into the middle of
the room, with the look of a man determined to speak the last word.
“It is not easy,” he began, “to confess that one has been mistaken.”
“Not easy, Richard, eh?”
“My sense of honor—”
“Your sense of honor, Richard, compels you to make excuses.”
Jeffray colored at the taunt.
“Jilian, I have not come to make excuses.”
“Ah, no, of course not!”
“My conscience will not let me play the hypocrite.”
“Your conscience, Richard! Ah, this is beautiful!”
It was easy to see that the man’s attitude of tragic self-righteousness
roused all the scorn in the woman’s nature. Jeffray did not appear to
realize how dishonorable his sentiments were when viewed in the calm
light of impartial reason. He was disgustingly confident of his own
honor. His smug conceit exasperated the lady.
“Richard,” she said, her voice sounding harsh and strained.
Jeffray faced her steadily.
“You have come to tell me that you are not going to marry me. That is
so, is it not?”
“I have come to confess that my love is no longer what it was.”
“Did I not say so, cousin? What is the use of our clipping and trimming
our phrases? To put it bluntly, you are sick of me.”
Jeffray regarded her as though trying to read her thoughts.
“I can only acknowledge my own guilt,” he said.
Miss Hardacre’s mouth gave a vicious twist.
“Then I may as well warn you, Richard,” she retorted, “that you must
consult Sir Peter in the matter.”
“Sir Peter?”
“Of course.”
Richard gave a frank shrug of the shoulders.
“What has Sir Peter to do with our marriage?” he said. “It is no
business compact. I cannot promise things to your father which I cannot
promise here to you.”
Such dignified innocence became more exasperating each moment to the
lady by the harpsichord. Yet she still smiled scornfully at her
betrothed as though her superior knowledge of the world justified her in
despising him.
“You misunderstand the whole matter, Richard,” she said. “You have
promised to marry me, and you gained my father’s consent to the
marriage. His authority must be consulted, though I can assure you, sir,
he is not the man to suffer his daughter’s affections to be trifled
with. I am a weak woman, Richard, and my honor, since you seem so
careless of it, had better remain in my father’s keeping.”
Jeffray, looking white and stern, understood whither Miss Hardacre’s
strategy was tending. He rallied himself, made her a polite bow, and
confessed that he could suffer no parental interference.
“I have nothing to discuss with Sir Peter,” he said.
“Nothing!”
“I cannot recognize his authority, Jilian, nor can your father coerce my
conscience. It is a miserable business, but one cannot save the wine
when the flask is broken.”
This last sally dissipated the lady’s remaining self-control. Was there
ever such a puritanical and canting young hypocrite? He would be quoting
the Bible and the marriage service to her in a moment to prove that his
dishonor was a commendable virtue. Quivering with the impatience of her
spite, she started up, and flashed a look at Jeffray that was more
significant than a judicial ruling.
“Drat your conscience, Richard,” she said. “I tell you, sir, that you
are fickle and dishonorable, and that you have trifled with my
affections. I may have lost some of my good looks, sir, but I am still a
woman, to be treated with courtesy and not with cowardly lies and
excuses.”
“Jilian!”
“Do not call me Jilian, sir. I refer you instantly to my father. And if
you slink and dare not face him, I can promise you that my brother is a
man of courage. I may be a weak woman, Mr. Jeffray, a woman who has
treated you too kindly, and worn her heart upon her sleeve, but I am not
to be trifled with as though I were some common farmer’s daughter. I
tell you that you have insulted my affections, sir, compromised my honor
and the honor of my family.”
Jeffray stood stock-still in the middle of the room, staring at Miss
Hardacre’s red and angry face. Her fury had transfigured her, as though
some witch’s wand had changed her from smiling youth into a fierce and
scolding shrew. Few women look well when they are the creatures of
wrath, and Jeffray was astonished and repelled by the transformation he
beheld before him. Three months ago he would have been on his knees at
Jilian’s feet. Now he realized that she could look old, vixenish, and
ugly.
“I am sorry you have spoken like this,” he said.
“Sorry, sir—sorry! Nonsense; you don’t care the price of a new pin. I
am disgusted, sir—disgusted at the miserable lies you have the
impudence to throw at me. I thought you a gentleman, sir. I find that
you are a villain.”
Jeffray crushed his hat between his hands, restrained himself by a great
effort, and bowed to her with all the dignity he could command.
“I think that I had better take my leave of you,” he said, coldly.
“Ah, do so, by all means. Your righteous self-conceit sickens me.”
“Madam, I came to try and tell you the truth as courteously as I could.”
Miss Hardacre pointed him to the door.
“Tell me no more lies,” she said; “as for your conscience—I snap my
fingers at it.”
Jeffray, mortified and not sorry to escape, bowed once more to the lady,
and left her to her tears, her smelling-salts, and her brother.