“Stay here with me.”
Paddy lay on the drawing-room sofa at the Parsonage and watched the
birds skimming over the loch with a strained, anxious expression in her
usually laughing eyes. Her aunts had fetched her from Mourne Lodge that
morning, and there had been a great scene of general weeping and
embracing and exclaiming. The news had somehow got all round the
neighbourhood in an incredibly short time, and when Miss Mary was
watching casually for Paddy to come home on her bicycle about eleven,
there came instead a boy with the news that she and Lawrence had been
lost in the fog all night and carried home in the morning.
Instantly there was great consternation in the Parsonage, and the small
boy sent flying off for the one conveyance available in Omeath, in
which, immediately afterward, the two sisters set out for Mourne Lodge.
They found Paddy still a little dazed and shaken, but otherwise none
the worse for her adventure.
“Lawrence saved me,” she said as soon as they gave her time to speak.
“If it had not been for him, I should probably have died of cold. He
risked his life for me.”
That was quite enough, and away rushed Miss Jane, with Miss Mary
hurrying after her, to look for Lawrence. They found him in his den,
with newspapers lying round him, apparently reading calmly. Only could
they have looked in unobserved a moment sooner, they would have seen
the newspapers were all out of reach, and, with compressed lips and
knitted forehead he was staring gloomily at the floor lost in thought.
However, he heard footsteps, and snatched up a paper just as the door
opened, and neither of them had good enough eyesight to see that the
sheet he held before him was covered with advertisements for housemaids
and cooks.
Miss Jane came up to him with an almost sublime expression of
gratitude.
“Paddy says you saved her life, Lawrence,” she said simply. “I feel as
if I must go down on my knees to you.”
“Pray don’t,” he answered in his usual manner. “I won’t answer for the
floor being particularly clean. I simply hate the room being dusted,
you know.”
He got up, and with a little laugh tried to change the conversation.
But neither of the ladies had the least intention of being put off in
this manner, and they tried his patience considerably before they had
finished their outpouring of grateful thanks. Then they retired again,
and Lawrence closed the door after them with a momentary relief, only
to be quickly superseded by his previous gloom. It was as though he had
aged since yesterday. Several times last night, and again this morning
when he sat beside her a little while in her bedroom, his mother had
watched him covertly, and wondered what there was in his face that
seemed strange to her. Now, when left alone again, he threw the papers
aside and, sitting down at his writing table, buried his face in his
hands.
He had been up early in spite of his awful night, had seen George and
the other three men, and sat with his mother, and sent the loveliest
flowers Mourne Lodge could produce to Paddy’s bedroom; and now it was
only mid-day, though it seemed half a life-time since he had sat in the
hut holding Paddy, regardless of all things in heaven and earth but his
precious burden. He went over everything again and again, moment by
moment, unable to bring his mind to anything else. The night of such
horror to all others was already to him the most precious memory of his
life.
Only what was to come next? It was this thought that caused that moody,
unheeding stare into vacancy.
“I will not live without her—she shall come to me,” he muttered
half-fiercely, and dreamt of all he would say to win her when they met.
Meanwhile the aunties took Paddy back with them, insisting upon
watching over her as if she were an invalid, and finally inveigling her
to the drawing-room sofa to lie quietly with closed blinds.
In this Paddy was not sorry to acquiesce. She wanted to be alone, and
the shaded light was soothing. Through a dim sense of confusion—a
confusion that she felt incapable of unravelling as to what had, and
what had not, taken place—there were certain recollections that made
her cheeks burn, and caused her to hide shrinking eyes in the cushions.
How, oh how, was she ever to face him with those recollections lying
between them? She half knew that in the first moment she had clung to
him, and she had an indistinct remembrance that he had kissed her hair,
and spoken in a low, passionate voice, calling her soft, endearing
names.
Afterward, certainly, they had regained their old footing, but what
about that long sleep? Under what conditions had she been able to sleep
thus peacefully in the midst of such discomfort? That was the question
Paddy dare not face, remembering his pallid cheeks and blue lips, while
the old coachman brought the circulation back into his cramped limbs.
She half hoped he would come to-day, while she was lying in the
darkened room. It would be easier to get through the interview in the
dark. But he did not come, and she lay restlessly, puzzling out the
enigma in which their adventure had placed her.
What about that hate of hers! Can one—_may_ one—hate one’s preserver!
She half prayed he would let her thank him quietly, and then go away.
For hate or no hate, she perhaps owed him her life, and gratitude was
his due.
But two days passed, and Lawrence did not come, and as she recovered
further from the shock, she rallied herself, and felt more equal to the
interview. She believed it was consideration for her that kept him
away, and was grateful. In two days more her holiday would be up and
she must return to London, and once away the adventure could be put
aside. If only it had not been so hard to go—
On the afternoon of the third day Paddy wandered alone to a little
creek by the loch, and, sitting down on a fallen tree, sank her chin in
her hands and gazed across the water with a whole world of yearning
longing in her eyes at the thought of leaving it all and returning to
the streets, and chimney-pots, and smuts. So rapt was she that she did
not hear some one approach over the moss and stand silently beside
her—some one who saw the yearning, and read it aright with mingled
feelings of regret and gladness.
“I began to think I’d never find you,” he said at last in his quietest
way, and Paddy started violently, and flushed to the roots of her hair,
while she continued gazing across the loch, quite unable to meet his
eyes.
He sat down on the log beside her, and leaned forward with his arms
across his knees, playing idly with a twig he had picked up.
“I went to the Parsonage first,” he continued, “and they told me you
had gone out directly after lunch, and they believed you were sailing.
I went down to the beach and found the boat, and decided you had taken
a walk instead, and came to look for you. I was lucky to find you in
such an out-of-the-way corner. Are you quite all right again!”
He was still keeping his eyes from her, playing with the twig, and
Paddy unconsciously clenched her hands hard in her effort to feel
collected.
“Yes, thank you!” She hesitated, still looking hard at the loch. Then
she gulped down a long breath and took the plunge. “I am glad you have
come. I have been wanting to see you.” She noticed suddenly that he
looked white and ill, and his face was a little drawn. “Have you been
ill?”
“No, I have not been ill, only worried. I should have come
sooner—only—” he hesitated.
“I wanted to see you to thank you,” she interrupted. “Of course I know
you risked your life to save mine. I might easily have died up there
with the cold—and you might easily have slipped into a bog looking for
me. No—” as he tried to stop her, “I must go on. Don’t you see how it’s
just strangling me to remember that you risked so much—after—after—”
her voice died away, she could find no words. She knew all in a moment
that the casual acquaintance of the last three weeks was once more the
lover, and the further complication unnerved her.
“As if that made any difference,” a little harshly. “Haven’t I told you
that your scorn and threats cannot in any way change me—and never will.
Good God! do you suppose I care two straws about risking my
twopenny-halfpenny life when it is for you?”
She shrank away visibly, and he changed his manner.
“There, I don’t want to worry you—but for Heaven’s sake don’t thank me.
I can’t stand it. There can be no question of thanks between you and
me.”
“But how can I help it?” she cried a little piteously. “Don’t you
understand that I _must_ thank you—that it is the one and only return I
can make?”
He looked into her face a moment and decided to humour her.
“Very well, only let us consider it finished. If it eases your mind, I
will accept your gratitude; but I must be allowed to add it is
absolutely uncalled-for, seeing I would risk a dozen lives for you
cheerfully any day.”
Her eyes fell before his, and she clenched her hands yet harder. Then
he quite suddenly changed the subject.
“They tell me you are going back to London in two days. Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“How you must hate it?” He looked round at the gleaming, beautiful loch
and the mountains beyond. “It must be desperately hard to go back.” She
could not trust herself to speak, and he continued in a voice that had
suddenly grown dangerously sympathetic. “I always think it is harder
for you than the others. Your mother and Eileen always have each other,
and any one can see how much that means to both. But you, somehow—since
the dear old General died—seem to have had no one to take his place.”
Great tears gathered in her eyes, and fell on her clasped hands. Why,
or why, did he unman her! He was playing with the twig again, and
pretending not to notice. “Isn’t that so?” he asked.
She caught her breath and steadied her voice with an effort.
“I have been very fortunate,” she said. “I might have had to go right
away from everybody as a nursery governess, instead of having so many
friends, and such a nice post, and plenty of liberty.”
“But it is still London, isn’t it? And after all, even friends are
hardly to you what the mountains, and the loch, and the country life
were. Be honest, Paddy,” suddenly looking into her face. “Don’t you
just hate to have to go away and leave it all again?—don’t you just
hate it like the devil?”
She threw back her head with a sudden jerk, as if from some unendurable
thought.
“Oh, yes—yes,” she breathed, “like the devil, there is no other word.
But what of it? I am going—I must go—I am not the only one who has had
to give up a country home. Why do you make it harder for me? Why do you
remind me of it at all?”
He leaned toward her, and she felt his eyes looking through into her
soul. “I remind you, because I don’t want you to go. Do you think it
doesn’t hurt me too—_now_? I, with all that I have—you with nothing—not
even your own special chum since the General died.”
She drew her hand across her eyes hurriedly.
“And it isn’t as if you were obliged to go.” He was leaning
nearer—nearer. “Paddy, dear little woman, don’t go. Give it all up and
stay here with me.”
“No, no. It is impossible. Please leave off. Why won’t you understand?”
and she wrung her hands together.
“It is _not_ impossible,” resolutely, “and it must be. It has got to
be, Paddy. It is you who won’t understand.” Then he ran on whimsically,
giving her time to collect herself: “Good Lord! it seems only the other
day I was carrying you round on my shoulder, when I came home from Eton
for the holidays. I remember I thought, you were the ugliest little
creature I had ever set eyes on. You were so ugly, you fascinated; I
couldn’t take my eyes off you. But even then you had a way with you.
Every one always did exactly as you wanted. If they didn’t, you got
into no end of a fury, and hit out right and left. It was awful sport
making you wild, Paddy. Sometimes, when I’ve got hold of you, you’ve
kicked at me as hard as you could with your fat little legs, but I
always enjoyed the fun of it. I didn’t think I’d ever want to marry
you, though,” with a whimsical smile; “it would have seemed too much
like inviting a hurricane to one’s fireside. It’s quite the very last
thing that would ever have entered my head, until—until—” he paused. “I
don’t know when it began, Paddy, but now I want nothing else in heaven
or earth.”
“Please don’t go on,” she managed to say; “please don’t.”
“Ah, but I want to; and after all it needn’t hurt you. It’s so good to
have you all alone like this and tell you about it. Ever since the
night on the mountain, I’ve been talking and smiling in my usual inane
fashion, and all the time there was a seething volcano underneath. It
hasn’t been a pleasant two days; I wouldn’t care about having them over
again. Hour after hour I have longed to start off to the Parsonage;
sometimes I have got as far as the lodge. But I felt I ought to give
you time to recover thoroughly, and so I forced myself to turn back.
When I awoke this morning I knew I should come to day. I had reached
the utmost limit of my patience. Did you expect me? Did you, perhaps,
hope I should come to-day!” She had put her hands up to her face, and
now he tried to draw one of them away. “Why won’t you look at me,
Paddy! Why won’t you let me see your face! Come, be your own bright
self again. Chuck all this cursed nonsense about being impossible.
Don’t you know that my arms are aching for you? Do you hear,
Paddy!—_aching_ for you—and you sit there so silent and distant. Are
you thinking of London and that beastly dispensary! Why, it’s all done
with, little woman; your home is going to be here in the future. Mourne
Lodge is yours, and the horses are yours, and the boats, and the
shooting, and everything. Ah! I’ll make you so happy—”
She got up swiftly, suddenly, and thrust her hands out before her, as
if warding off something. Her face was deathly white, and she looked
only at the loch.
“Oh, stop! stop! Don’t you realise it is _impossible_?” He changed
colour visibly.
“Perhaps I have been too sudden after all,” he said. “Perhaps by and
by—”
“No, _newer_,” and she mustered all her powers for the final word.
He gave a queer little laugh.
“‘Never’ is a long time,” with a touch of the old cynical manner.
“I mean it,” resolutely.
“You mean you prefer London—and the dispensary—and the loneliness to
Mourne Lodge, and the loch, and the mountains?”
She was silent.
“Is that what you mean, Paddy!”
She tried to evade the question, but he would not let her. He stood up
close to her, his face a little stern, his lips rigid. “Look at me,
Paddy,” in a tone of command.
She hesitated a second, then once again summoned all her courage, and
looked steadily into his eyes.
“Now, why won’t you stay here and be happy, instead of going back?”
“Because I hate you,” and though her voice was low it contained no
shadow of faltering.
Lawrence turned away sharply, and stood looking at the loch. His face
grew, if anything, a little sterner, but showed no symptoms of defeat.
Paddy could only wait, feeling vaguely wretched.
When he spoke his voice had changed somewhat. “You are candid as ever,
but I am not convinced. It is because I believe I can turn your hate
into love, I will not give in. Tell me one thing—is it the old bone of
contention that stands between us!”
Paddy was silent.
“Tell me,” he reiterated.
She answered hesitatingly. “I—I—don’t want to be unkind after—”
“Spare me that,” with a slight sneer. “Try and pretend the mountain
incident is a myth.”
She looked wretched.
“Well, what were you going to say? You needn’t mind about being unkind.
You forget I am used to it.”
“I was going to say—” She hesitated again, searching about for words.
“Oh, don’t you realise that I don’t trust you? Why do you put me in the
difficult position of having to say this, just now of all times! Can’t
we leave it at that? Won’t you believe I am grateful for the other
night, and leave it there?”
“No. By God! I won’t,” and there was something almost fierce about him.
The very fact that she shrank from him, only seemed to madden him, and
it was as though he tried to soothe his own goaded feelings by goading
hers. “The other night has only made it more impossible to leave it
there. Why, when I found you, I took you in my arms—you know I did.”
The colour flashed in her cheeks, and he ran on: “Just as if—feeling as
I do—having once had you in my arms, I’m going to tamely let you go
again. Why, I never took my eyes off you the whole time. When I
couldn’t see your face, I watched your hair. It was freezingly cold,
and I never knew it. It might just as well have been overpoweringly
hot. I had got you—there—all alone—in my care—dependent on me—icebergs
and volcanoes themselves couldn’t have crushed me.” He stopped as if he
could hardly trust himself to say any more, and with a desperate
attempt to bring him back to a commonplace level she said, “Please
don’t go on. You’ve managed to be cold enough the last three weeks. Let
us go back to that again.”
“You silly little goose!”—and he laughed harshly—“cold—to you! ah, ah!
I was no more cold then than I am now, of course I wasn’t. When we have
been together you haven’t said a word that I have not heard, nor moved
an inch without my knowing. It was a subterfuge to see if you noticed;
and you did. Ah, ah, Paddy, that’s one to me. You know you wanted me to
quarrel, and I wouldn’t. Now own up.”
He tried to take her hand, but she drew away, and stood with them both
clasped behind her. She began to feel that the whole situation was
getting beyond her.
Then suddenly, with his customary variableness, Lawrence grew quiet
again.
“You say you don’t trust me. Well, I will show you I can be trusted. I
have never cared enough before. Is that altogether my fault? I care
enough now, and I will show you. Is it that alone that stands between
us? If you could trust me, you would let yourself go? Paddy!”—he moved
suddenly nearer, and looked squarely into her eyes—“just as if I didn’t
know that under ordinary circumstances I should win you easily enough.
I’m not bragging. Heaven knows I’ve faults enough, but bragging is not
among them. It’s because, somehow, I know that under ordinary
circumstances it would be natural for your love to surrender to mine,
before anyone else you know, that I snap my fingers when you protest
that you hate me, and refuse to be daunted. If I could slay the spectre
between us, and show you that I was to be trusted, would you marry me?”
Paddy looked hard at the loch, and said, “No.”
“Why not?”
“When I have said a thing, I have said it. I will not marry you,
because I hate you.”
“Now you are merely absurd. Why do you hate me?”
“Because I cannot forget the past.”
He gave an impatient gesture. “Heroics! Heroics!—_you_ were never hurt.
I tell you it is a spectre, and you ought to have the sense to slay it.
Instead, you enlarge on it—positively drape it in visionary attributes,
and offer yourself as a sort of burnt offering to it. You ought to have
lived a few hundred years ago. By Gad! Paddy, you’d have made a fine
Joan of Arc!” and he laughed with a touch of bitterness.
Paddy stared at the loch and remained silent.
“Patricia the Great at the head of an avenging army—leading on fools
and knights-errant—devastating a peaceful, harmless land for the sake
of a Dream—a Prejudice—a Chimera. I see it all.”
She looked helplessly unhappy, but he would not spare her.
“Listen to me, Patricia the Great. You shall keep your feud, and cling
to your prejudice a little longer, but _I will not give in_. I want
you. That at least is a plain, ungarnished truth. Perhaps if you knew
me as well as some, you would realise that it is the sort of truth I
have a little habit of making into a fact, in spite of dreams and
prejudices. This thing has got to be, Paddy. I repeat what I said
before. If I am worth my name, I will win you yet.”
“Ah, why will you talk like this, when it is so useless,” she cried.
“Why will you not be friends? Lawrence, let us be friends. Let me thank
you for the other night, and, for the sake of it, drop the old feud. I
will try to do this to show you I am sincere in my gratitude.”
His face grew suddenly whiter than ever with concentrated passion and
determination. “We will do nothing of the kind. I don’t want your
friendship. You can take it back. Do you hear? I refuse your kindly pat
on the shoulder, and your offer to be a good girl because you think you
owe me thanks. You can keep your feud and your hatred—anything is
better than a soppy middle course. It is my turn now, and I refuse your
offer of sisterly affection, which is what it amounts to. I will have
your love some day, but until then, your hate, please. As long as you
go on hating I shall know at least that you are not indifferent, and
that the sound of my name does not pass unheeded by your ears. And we
will continue to cross swords—we will be as we were before. If you want
to show this gratitude you talk of, show it that way; it is the only
thing I ask of you.”
She shrank from him a little bewildered. The strength of his passion
stirred every fibre of her being, and the thought crossed her—would she
be able to withstand him for long? But Lawrence cooled suddenly. He had
said his say; for the present, there was nothing further to be gained.
In two minutes his face was almost as impassive as of old, as he
remarked cynically:
“Trust an old fool for being a big fool. I am ranting like a street
preacher. Well, I will go home and find my level again. Good-by,
Paddy.” He gripped her hand with such force that she uttered a little
cry.
“There, I didn’t mean to hurt you, only to show you how I can grip, if
I make up my mind to anything. Remember I am your enemy. Go on hating
as hard as you like, until I make you love. We shall meet again soon in
London.”
Then he strode off through the wood, and left her by the loch alone.