"Of love it may be said, the more unearthly, the more
invisible."--HARDY.
The first moment that escape was decently possible, Lady Forsyth left
the group under the pines and went straight to her bedroom. Mark
would follow her, of course, but she had desperate need of a few
minutes' breathing space. She knew now that what Keith called "the
brave old wisdom of acceptance" was still far from her; that she had
not really faced the truth till she saw it in Mark's eyes. And while
her pulses still throbbed unevenly his voice sounded at the door.
"Mother, can I come in?" he asked; and the next moment stood before
her--a glowing embodiment of victory.
"Congratulate me, Mums," he said. "I've brought off the great event
with honours. Miss Alison--Bel has promised to be my wife."
"I know. I have known it--all day," she answered him, with a brave
attempt at a smile.
"More than I have! Hadn't the cheek to count on her. It was rather
sharp work, and I'm not what you might call a fascinating chap. But
I simply couldn't wait. It's the most amazing luck----"
He broke off as if he had come into actual collision with her
thought. For nearly half a minute she endured the challenging
scrutiny of his gaze. Then: "Mother, what's up?" he asked, in a
changed voice. "Aren't you going to congratulate me?"
She drew in a steadying breath. He had given her a cue that made
plain speaking a shade less difficult.
"My darling boy," she said quietly, "I've never played at pretences
with you and I can't do it now. You admit this has been sharp work.
And, honestly, I wish you had waited. I should have thought better
of your judgment and the quality of--your love."
He frowned sharply. "Oh Lord, I didn't come here for a preachment.
The last thing one would expect from you. I suppose it means you've
taken one of your prejudices against her."
"Dear, I don't _know_ her yet. No more do you."
"Well, anyway, I love her. Strikes me that's the straightest road to
knowledge. And as she loves me----"
"Did she tell you so, Mark--quite unmistakably?"
"Well, of course," he retorted with rising temper; and was suddenly
confronted by the realisation that Bel had done nothing of the kind.
The discovery made him angrier than ever; but there was no
untruthfulness in him. "I don't know about unmistakably. You don't
expect a girl to make passionate declarations. Isn't the fact of her
accepting me proof enough for any one?"
"_Is_ it?" Lady Forsyth had herself in hand now, and she could not
forego her one chance of candour even while she perceived the
futility of reasoning with a man in his exalted state. "Don't you
realise that, in your case, there are ... other factors? Your
position, your title..."
"My--? Great Scott!" He stood speechless. The thing had simply not
occurred to him. Title and position were, for him, as much a matter
of course as the hair on his head. Then, as surprise subsided, anger
flared up again. "Upon my soul, Mother, I don't know what's come to
you. One would hardly think it was from you I'd learnt to credit
people with the best motives. Are you trying to insinuate that she
may have fooled me? Accepted all my worldly goods under a pretence
of caring----?"
"No: not pretence," she interrupted, with a flash of impatience.
"How can I make myself clear to you if you won't let me finish a
sentence? I meant that your sudden infatuation--I can call it
nothing else--might very well turn any girl's head and tempt her to
imagine herself in love with you when she is really in love with the
whole thing--flattered--attracted----"
"Mother, be quiet! I _will_ not hear you!" There was pain as well
as anger in the cry. "You don't understand her. You won't try to
understand her. You're simply jealous--prejudiced. And I was
counting on you--oh, confound it all----"
He swung round on his heel and strode away from her that she might
not see how deeply he was wounded by the failure of one who had never
failed him yet.
And she, feeling suddenly exhausted, sank down on the sofa near which
she had been standing; her lips compressed, her face strained and
hard.
The silence lasted little more than a minute; but to both it seemed
interminable. Their deep and real devotion had never been less
apparent than now; yet, even in that antagonistic pause, each knew it
unshaken, unshakable, by anything that either might say or do. Hence
its infinite capacity for inflicting pain.
Mark remained standing by the window; and Lady Forsyth's answer, when
it came, was addressed to the unpromising outline of his back and
shoulders.
"If you won't hear me, Mark, there is no more to be said. It has
been difficult enough to speak at all at such a moment----"
"Then I wish to God you'd held your tongue," he flashed round upon
her. "You haven't succeeded in shaking my faith--in her. You've
only taken the shine out of the happiest day of my life. If that's
any consolation to you!"
Without giving her time to answer he swung out of the room; and the
trivial fact that he refrained from slamming the door seemed cruelly
to emphasise that his words had not been spoken in temper, but wrung
from him by the bitterness of disappointment and hurt pride.
For a time she remained as he had left her, sitting very still and
upright, looking into vacancy. Then she covered her face and bowed
her head upon the carved end of the sofa. But no tears came. She
would not suffer them. She was still too angry with Fate, with Mark,
and, above all, with the girl who had so transformed him. And tears,
after forty, hurt too poignantly to bring relief. She was suffering,
merely, and realising the power of those words, spoken by them both
in the heat of the spirit, to disfigure the finer fabric of their
lives. Between two natures equally frank and fiery, lightning
flashes of temper were inevitable; but never before had they revealed
such threatening depths of division. Worst of all, that division
could not be hidden from others. The fact and the reason would be
obvious to them all: a thought intolerable to her sensitive pride
that shrank from scrutiny even of sympathetic eyes.
And to-morrow--and to-morrow----?
The ghost of a shiver ran through her. Life with an estranged Mark
and an unloved daughter-in-law was the last impossibility. She was a
fool to have spoken while the ardour and thrill of possession were so
fresh upon him. Yet, had she kept silence, he would eventually have
forced the truth from her. It was the price of her proudest
achievement; but it cannot be said that she paid it willingly----
At this point her thoughts were checked by the sound of his footstep.
She might have known he would come. Instantly she was on her feet:
her heart too full of relief for any thought of what she should say.
Outside the door he paused--and she held her breath. Then, very
gently, he turned the handle and came in.
The temper had gone out of his face but not the pain. He came
straight up to her and set both hands on her shoulders. "Mother, I'm
sorry," he said simply. "I was a brute. But one doesn't expect
unfairness from you."
"Darling, it was clumsy of me--I didn't mean to be unfair," she
answered, grasping his wrists. "But it's always been the truth
between us. I couldn't insult you with empty insincerities."
"And it didn't strike you that you were insulting _her_?"
His fervent stress on the pronoun was indiscreet, to say the least of
it, and Lady Forsyth winced visibly.
"Mums, don't be a fool," he said, with gruff tenderness, gently
pressing her down on to the sofa. "If you're going to start with
being jealous----"
"It's not jealousy, Mark."
"Then what the deuce is it?"
One thought sprang to both their minds, but neither could or would
speak it.
"We've got to know where we stand about this business," Mark went on.
"If you're going to dislike and distrust her, the position's
impossible. The trouble is, she suspects something of the sort. But
of course I told her it was all rot. Mother, you simply must be good
to her. She seems to have had a pretty rank time of it with her own
people."
"In what way?"
"D'you really care to hear?"
"Of course I do, seeing how vitally her past concerns your future."
Mark grimaced indulgently. "Can't you drop me and take a little
decent interest in her?"
"I'll try--if you'll give me a chance! What about her people, and
this Miss O'Neill? I've often wondered----"
He told her, in clipped phrases, pacing to and fro, as his habit was
when moved or trying to express his thoughts. He seldom sat down
except to eat or read; and always seemed most completely himself when
squarely planted on his feet.
His version of Bel's very mixed experiences--glorified
inevitably--failed to dispel his mother's instinctive sense of
something lacking in the girl, precisely what, it was too soon to
tell.
"Poor child!" she said, when he had finished. "I wonder--how old is
she?"
Mark frowned. "I haven't the remotest. We didn't exchange birth
certificates. About five-and-twenty----"
"More than that."
"Well, if she was forty it would make no earthly difference," he
retorted. "The point is--will you be decent to her, if it's only for
my sake? She doesn't seem ever to have had a home worth mentioning.
I want her to feel she has a real one here."
She sighed and rose to her feet. "Darling, I'll do my best." A deep
metallic sound vibrated through the house--"Good gracious! There's
dinner and I haven't changed."
"Who cares? You look awfully sweet in that blue thing. Come along."
He slipped a hand through her arm and led her out on to the landing.
But at the head of the stairs he paused. A vision of Sheila skimming
down the lower flight reminded him sharply that there were others to
be told. There were also congratulations to be endured.
"I say, Mums, you might go ahead and break the ice," he said, giving
her a gentle forward push. "I feel most beastly shy of them all."
Shyness was the least part of her own acute discomfort; but the
obedience of a wife is as nothing to that of a well-trained mother.
So she went before to do his bidding; and, being a mother, she would
not have had it otherwise. Indeed the boyish request, following upon
his casual compliment, seemed to bring her nearer to him than she had
felt for days.
But in spite of her good services, Mark found dinner, flavoured with
discreet congratulations, a singularly unappetising meal. His
mother's doubtful attitude worried him more than he cared to confess.
Amongst the others also, he felt--or imagined--a lack of genuine
sympathy in the air; and the obvious word "congratulation" was
conspicuous by its absence. Pure accident, no doubt; but it jarred.
Of a sudden he felt vaguely "out of it," and more than a little
aggrieved that his happiness--which should have added the perfecting
touch to their summer party--seemed instead to have put things
indefinably out of gear.
Matters were not much better in the drawing-room after dinner--the
friendliest hour of the day at Inveraig. Keith took up a book. Lady
Forsyth obliterated herself behind the _Times_; and Sheila, soon
after the men came in, slipped quietly out of the room. Ralph,
kicking his heels on the window-seat, proposed Bridge. Mark refused
without ceremony; and Maurice proceeded to monopolise Miss Videlle,
by way of reward for duty done.
Mark, in his highly strung mood, felt unjustifiably annoyed with them
all, and the more he suspected their lack of sympathy the more his
chivalrous nature swerved towards Bel. He gave it up at last and
decided to go to The Rowans. There at least he would be welcome and
could talk naturally.
"I'm going for a stroll, Mother," he announced to the vast expanse of
the _Times_. "Leave something unlocked if I'm late."
He wondered--would Keith offer to accompany him? But Keith made no
move.
In the hall his happy impulse was checked by the recollection of
Harry--probably antagonistic and quite certain to speak her mind
without reserve. His unexpected appearance might only make things
difficult for Bel. He felt checked at every turn.
"Oh damn it all!" he muttered aloud, and in the same breath caught
sight of Sheila coming slowly downstairs.
The light falling on her from above burnished the outward sweeping
waves of her dark hair, made shadowed mysteries of her eyes, and
luminously caressed the curves of her face, that, like her voice, was
at once clear-cut and soft. Her high-waisted, silver-grey gown added
a cubit to her stature; and Mark, watching her unperceived, was
smitten afresh by her natural wild-flower grace, the very antithesis
of Bel's more exotic charm. Seen thus, Sheila looked no less than
beautiful; but Mark's mind, just then, was concentrated on Bel. If
only he could enlist Sheila's championship, the girl would have twice
the chance with his mother.
Straightway he resolved on a direct appeal, and going quickly
forward, planted himself on the mat, one hand grasping the balustrade.
She started and came to a standstill two steps above him, so that
their eyes were almost level.
"What is it? Mums wanting me?" she asked, and he thought she looked
paler than usual, but perhaps it was only the light.
"No. _I_ am though," he said, with his usual directness. "Are you
frightfully busy? Or frightfully bored with me and my engagement?"
"Neither," she answered, a smile flickering in her eyes. "Why?"
"Well, the rest seem to be. And mother was quite upset. I had no
end of a scene with her."
"Poor darling!" Sheila murmured distressfully, and Mark made a
whimsical grimace.
"Which? Her or me?"
Her pallor vanished. "Mums, of course. Still, I'm sorry all round.
It'll spoil things for you both."
"Rather! But I'm thinking you could do a deal to smooth matters,
Sheila--if you choose. It's Bel, I'm bothered about. I want you all
to make her feel welcome. And things don't look promising so far.
Come out for a stroll, will you! I've a lot to say."
"I'd love to."
He stood back to make way for her, and as she reached his side his
hand closed lightly on her arm. "Sure you'll be warm enough in
this?" he said.
She nodded and went rather quickly on before him into the garden.
Avoiding the terrace, they turned into a coppice of birch and pine,
and so passed out on to an open stretch of heather, duskily purple
and bronze in the fading light.
Mark did most of the talking, and--in the repetition of her story to
more sympathetic ears--Bel shone out with fresh lustre as the heroine
of a plucky, if somewhat erratic, fight against the tyranny of
circumstance and unfavourable early surroundings.
Sheila listened to it all in her quietly intent fashion that was balm
to the excitable natures of both mother and son. She had the true
gift for listening, which is even rarer than the gift of speech; and
for Mark her silence had a quality of its own. It was a living
thing, alert and aware. When a man felt worried it seemed to distil
a sympathy that called for no embarrassing response. And her brief
contributions to their talk were more than satisfactory.
Of course she would love his Bel as a sister, and "Mums" would be
sure to come round in time. To doubt it were a poor compliment to
Bel, she reminded him; and he wondered how he had overlooked that
obvious truth.
Only once she spoke of herself. "You know, I'm afraid," she said,
"however well things turn out, Mums will never quite be able to put
her in my place. And I'm also afraid...," she hesitated and looked
up at him, "that I wouldn't have it otherwise."
"No more would I," he agreed, with sudden fervour. "You belong--to
us both. And you always will."
When, at length, darkness and falling dew drove them in, she had
charmed him completely from his mood of vague doubt and irritation.
But for the new name on his lips, and the stir of excitement in his
veins, it was almost as if they were the Mark and Sheila of a month
ago: almost--but not quite.
In the hall he held out his hand. "I'd rather not go in there again.
Tell them I haven't gone out, will you?" He paused. "I'm a rotten
hand at saying things, Sheila. But, somehow, you've made everything
look different. And you'll square mother all right. I can trust
you."
He grasped her hand harder than he realised; but she bore it without
wincing.
"Yes, Mark," she said, "you can trust me. I'll do my very best."
And none knew better than he the measure of her very best. He ran
upstairs with a lighter heart. One could rely on Sheila, though the
heavens fell; and his doubts--as she had said--were an injustice to
Bel, who would probably twist them all--including his mother--round
her little finger, once she set herself to the task. His last
thought was of their meeting on the morrow. But it was Sheila's
face, softly radiant in the lamplight, that perversely haunted his
dreams.