“Oh, Pirie never makes game of anybody but himself,” said Mrs. Macmanus,
soothingly.
“I beg your pardon, then, but it sounds pure gammon to me.”
“It does to many, dear madam.”
Mrs. Edis was staring straight before her, the company forgotten.
“Queen.” That still active brain, never rusty, nor clouded, had leaped
back to the night when she and old M’sieu had pored over Julia’s
horoscope. “Queen.” The word had almost been written. They had
compromised on a mere peerage, as the times no longer permitted the
marriage of a sovereign with a subject. But—times change—Julia had
unwittingly made her feel like an old crab—moreover, the twentieth
century was to witness the birth of a new solar year, the year of Man.
Might that be but a generic term? The woman’s movement had been
abhorrent to her, shocking every aristocratic instinct, much as she
despised men. But she had begun to realize that it was both portentous
and imperishable. If Julia was to lead it, if in it lay her child’s only
chance to achieve a vast and splendid distinction—well, she was not too
old to reconstruct her ideas, bury her inherited ideals, move, herself,
with the times.
She became aware that a pall-like silence had descended upon her guests.
“Pardon me,” she said more graciously. “I am an old woman and my mind
wanders. What you said startled me. A great future was predicted for my
child at birth—and the time came when I made sure that she was to be a
duchess—”
“Duchess!” cried Mrs. Morison. “Oh, dear me, a duchess isn’t in it these
days with a great public leader. Think of all the dukedoms that have
been bought with brand new American dollars. It’s now quite a
commonplace position.”
“Is this true?”
“True as Suffrage, dear madam,” said Mrs. Macmanus. “There are even
English duchesses that are nobodies. This is the day of the individual.”
Once more Mrs. Edis stared straight before her. “I see! I see!” she
muttered.
Tay sprang to his feet and bore down upon his sister.
“For God’s sake change the subject,” he said, in a tone of concentrated
fury. “Can’t you see what is going on in that old woman’s mind? I wish
you had stayed in New York.”
“I kept getting in deeper and deeper,” said Mrs. Morison,
apologetically, but enjoying herself, nevertheless. “That old woman
would rattle anybody. Here comes your Julia.”
Julia had hidden when she heard Fanny’s voice, but on second thoughts
had concluded not to arouse her mother’s suspicions. She had therefore
hastily put herself into a soft white house frock with a floating green
scarf, and looked little older than Fanny.
She barely glanced at Tay, but smiled brightly at the other guests.
“Good afternoon, everybody. How delightful to see the old house so gay.
A very strong cup, please, mother.”
“Oh, not so awfully gay,” cried Mrs. Morison. “We’ve been talking
Suffrage.”
“No more of that at present,” said Mrs. Edis, peremptorily. “Fanny, stop
trying to engage Mr. Tay’s attention. He came to Nevis to see your
grandaunt. Go and talk to Mrs. Macmanus. Young girls should always
strive to make themselves agreeable to elderly ladies.”
Fanny obeyed sulkily, and the company, now put completely at its ease,
fell upon the tea and cakes, which Mrs. Edis finally remembered to order
Denny to pass. Tay bent over Mrs. Winstone and shot a glance at Julia.
She was consumed with silent laughter. His eyes grew imploring, but he
moved them with a sudden sense of discomfort. Mrs. Edis looked as if
about to launch her cane at him.
Mrs. Macmanus, fearing they would all break into hysterical laughter,
addressed herself to Mrs. Edis. “We have been admiring your wonderful
old house. Would it be asking too much to let us see more of it?”
“And the delicious grounds,” cried Mrs. Morison, determined to acquit
herself and give Dan his opportunity to talk to Julia. “I’ve never seen
anything like those terraces rising up the mountain.”
Mrs. Edis rose. “Give me your arm, Julia. I shall be happy to show our
guests the house, and then you may take them up to the cone.”
“I’ll not go,” said Tay to Mrs. Winstone. “I shall stay here. Please get
Julia away from them and send her back.”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Winstone, good-naturedly. “Possess your soul in
patience!”
“I’ve a small stock left!”
VI
ALONE, a moment later, Tay was contemplating a short excursion into the
garden with the solace of a cigarette, when he heard light rapid
footsteps on the terrace flags. He turned eagerly. But it was Fanny who
came running in. Her face was flushed with triumph, and her eyes
sparkled under their heavy lids.
“I gave Granny the slip,” she exclaimed. “Let’s stay here and make Julia
jealous.”
“But your grandmother will be unmerciful—”
“Oh, she never knows whether I’m round or not.”
“You make me feel that you lead a most unnatural life.”
“You may just better believe I do—dodging Granny, and watching cane
grow. Oh, do make me feel like a girl in a book. You had just begun to
tell me about that wonderful San Francisco when Granny had to come in.
Tell me more. It will be something to dream of even if I never can see
it.”
Tay resigned himself and sat down.
“Oh, you’ll see it, all right. You will visit us.”
“But suppose Julia won’t become an American and divorce that lunatic of
hers.”
“But she shall, and you must help me. Will you?”
“If you will swear to take me away and find me a husband as perfectly
fascinating as yourself.”
“Good lord!” Tay almost blushed. Then he looked at her suspiciously. Was
the little devil as innocent as she pretended, or was this merely the
instinct of the born coquette, crudely expressing itself? “Oh, you’ll
meet a hundred far better worth your while than I am.”
“I don’t believe it,” announced Fanny, who had never removed her eyes
from his face. (“What’s an aunt?” she was thinking, “especially when
she’s old enough to be your mother?”) “And have they all got as much
money?” she added aloud.
This certainly was ingenuousness! “Oh, I’m a pauper compared with
several I could name. Any one of them will succumb at once.”
“Julia says she will take me back to London and ask a friend of hers,
Lady Dark, to give me a gay season, but San Francisco sounds even more
fascinating. Haven’t you any titles in America?”
“Oh, titles without number. Especially honorables. Every ex-official, if
he’s bagged a big enough office, expects ‘honorable’ on his letters for
the rest of his life. And once a judge always a judge. State senators
are addressed as if they were old Romans, and the militia turns out even
more life titles than the bench.”
But the American humor was beyond Fanny. She pouted. “Tell me something
really interesting. Tell me about a whole day of life in San Francisco.
Tell me everything you think and feel and do.”
“Great Scott!”
“Oh,” cried Fanny, throwing herself halfway across the little table. “If
you only knew how I want to know—everything! everything!”
“Oh, you’ll learn fast enough. Nevis will never hold you. But I’ll help
you out, by George! It would be some fun to turn you loose and watch you
make things hum.”
“How perfectly heavenly to hear some one talking about poor little me!
Tell me more about myself.”
Tay laughed indulgently. “You _are_ a baby!”
“Don’t laugh at me. Oh—I’m not a bit like Julia. I’d have killed that
husband of hers long before she shut him up. Queer how different people
in the same family can be. They all seem to think that Julia’s not much
changed—although she’s really quite old now. But it would have made a
devil out of me.”
“I believe you!” And he added unwillingly, “How interesting you will be
when you are a few years older.”
“Not if I stay on Nevis.”
“Oh, don’t let that worry you.”
She brought her face so close to his that he fancied he felt a light
shock of electricity. “Swear it!” she whispered eagerly. “You look as if
you could do anything you wanted to do. I haven’t felt a bit encouraged
by Julia’s promises, but if _you_ promise me—”
Tay stood up and put his hands in his pockets. “It’s a go,” he said.
“Trust me to turn you loose among our squabs the first chance I get—”
“Fanny, dear, will you show Mr. and Mrs. Morison the orchards? They are
waiting for you.”
Julia’s tones had never been so sweet, her large gray eyes so cool; but
as Fanny, with a sharp, “Oh, very well, _Aunt_ Julia,” went forth on a
leaden foot, both voice and expression changed.
“You were flirting with Fanny!”
“So I was,” said Tay, coolly. “That girl’s spoiling for a flirtation.
Well, I’ll gratify her if you leave me to my own devices on this beastly
island.”
“You’d never do such a thing! Destroy that child’s peace of mind—”
“Peace of mind nothing. That’s not the sort that gets hurt. If she
belonged to a lower walk of life, she’d be on the— Well, our Fillmore
precinct can show you dozens, walking the streets of an evening looking
for trouble. ‘Juicy peaches,’ as Pirie calls them, just waiting to be
plucked. Accident is about all that protects the Fannys. Few men are in
the seducing business when it comes to their own class.”
“Dan!” cried Julia, aghast. “You must be in a frightful temper to say
such things to me about my own niece.”
“She’s practically my niece. And I am in a frightful temper. Never
expect to be in a worse. Little good even this ruse has done me. Your
mother’s eyes could see through a stone wall.”
Women find few of man’s moods so attractive, before matrimony, as his
anger. It rouses their inherited instinct to placate, to submit. Julia
went to the terrace door and looked up and down. Her mother was sitting
in an arbor with Mrs. Macmanus and Pirie. She was also leaning back in
her chair, resigned, if not interested.
Julia went up to Tay and put her hand on his arm. “Don’t—please!—be
angry with me,” she whispered. “If you knew what a tumult I’ve been
in—finding you here—wanting to see you more than anything on
earth—but not knowing _what_ to do!”
Tay melted instantly, and took her in his arms and kissed her. “It’s all
simple enough. I’ll take the next American steamer if you insist upon
it, but that doesn’t come for eight days yet. Meanwhile I must see you.
I don’t like the tropics. They get on my nerves. Nothing doing, and the
air shot with a curious lazy electricity. And I’m by no means satisfied
with myself. I should be in California this minute. Love plays the devil
with a man!”
“But you would stay a month if I wanted you to!” said Julia,
triumphantly.
“Six months, let everything go hang!” he said savagely. “You’ve got me,
all right. But to waste my time—even for eight—nine days longer!
That’s a horse of another color. Am I to see you every day or not?”
“Oh, yes! Yes!” murmured Julia. “I have given up the struggle. The way
you got in—it was too funny! I saw at once that I might as well give up
first as last. You will always have your way. Besides, I want to. I’ll
meet you every day, three times a day. I couldn’t help myself if I
would.”
“Thank heaven. And don’t try being too strong again. It’s not the strong
women that men die for, Julia.”
He lifted his head with the uneasy sense of being watched. “Damn it!” he
thought. “Is that old witch—” But he could see nothing.
“Julia,” he said, lowering his voice, “I shall not come to this house
again. Meet me to-night—no, to-morrow morning—early—at nine
o’clock—over in that jungle.”
“I will! I will! Only promise never to be angry with me again.”
“That will depend entirely upon yourself. If you go back on your word—”
“As if I would! We’ll have long wonderful days together— Oh, dear, they
are coming.”
She broke away from him and smoothed her hair.
“It’s not so late,” said Tay, hurriedly, “only six. Couldn’t you come
for a spin in my motor boat? I’ll walk back, and wait for you at the
bend of the road.”
“I’ll try. If I don’t, it will be because I can’t get away from mother.
But I’ll be in the jungle to-morrow at nine.”
The guests entered with Mrs. Winstone.
“Southern California isn’t in it, Dan,” said his sister, mischievously.
“Such orange and lime groves. You must come again. Still, _I_ could
hardly tear myself away from this room—”
A door opened and Fanny burst in. She looked on the verge of hysterics.
“Oh, what do you think?” she cried. “What _do_ you think? Granny says I
can go to the party on Thursday night, and that I may go to Bath House
every day and see you, Mrs. Morison! She likes you so much. The skies
must be going to fall. You have bewitched her.”
“You are talking nonsense,” said Mrs. Winstone.
“Ask Granny. She was almost sweet. But who cares what’s come over her?
You will teach me to dance, won’t you, Mr. Tay? I could learn in five
minutes.”
“Charmed. Congratulate you—and ourselves. Is the carriage ready?”
“Oh, it is! I’ll go out with our guests. Don’t you bother, Julia. Aunt
Maria, you must be tired out. Oh, what a funny, funny day! I’ll never
sleep again.”
“Really, I do feel as if we had all gone mad,” said Mrs. Winstone, when
the good-bys had been said, and she and Julia were alone. “Jane must be
quite off her head. There’s a cruiser comin’ in to-morrow. Fanny’ll be
engaged to-morrow night. Perhaps, after all, Jane jumped at the chance
of gettin’ rid of her.”
“Oh, I was sure she would relent. And she could see to-day what company
means to a young girl.”
She ran away to her room to change her frock, for she had no intention
of incurring Tay’s wrath again. But as she was about to open her door
she saw Denny coming down the corridor waving two cablegrams.
“Oh, dear!” she thought. “Is this a summons? Well, thank heaven I can’t
get away for a fortnight yet.”
She took the cablegrams, half resolved, as she closed her door, not to
open them until her return. But of course she did nothing of the sort,
and read them promptly.
The first was from Ishbel:—
“All serene. Stay as long as you like.”
The second was from the duke:—
“Harold died this morning.”
“And he knows,” thought Julia, with instant conviction. “That is what
brought him here.”
VII
FORCED to the wall, Julia’s mind always became cool and practical. Tay
inspired her with a new fear. If he had come to Nevis to await her
husband’s death, he intended to marry her and take her away with him. It
was one more proof that he possessed that form of genius which makes
certain men the quick partner of circumstance and insures their mastery
of life. In his own phraseology, he never missed a trick. No doubt he
would take out a special license to-morrow.
But she had no intention of being rushed into marriage. The most
formidable barrier had been razed; her desertion of the women might
bring reprobation on herself, but not ridicule on the cause;
nevertheless, confronted with the necessity of an immediate decision,
she realized acutely that four years of devotion to a great impersonal
ideal had inspired her with a love for it of which she had barely been
conscious at the time. The idea of deserting this cause she had made her
own, or, at the most, giving it a divided homage in a distant land,
renewed that love with such a jealous intensity that for the moment she
hated Tay as the chief exponent of that ruthless male force which had
bred the revolt of Woman. His dash to Nevis was a declaration of war,
but a war which should bring defeat to her not to him. She buckled on
her own armor at the thought. It was possible that he would win, but not
without her full connivance. Nor should she see him again until she had
made up her mind with no assistance of his.
She had instantly abandoned the intention to meet him at present, and
sat down to compose a note to send him on the morrow. Many sheets went
into the waste-paper basket before this note was written to her
satisfaction. It was impossible to refer openly to her husband’s death,
nor, for the matter of that, was it necessary. Angry as she was, she
never for a moment forgot that his instant sympathy, his instinctive
comprehension of her, was the deepest of their bonds. A word would be
sufficient. He would understand, and wait.
“You must give me three or four days, possibly a week, to think it all
out,” she wrote finally. “_You_ think and strike like lightning, but my
mind is made on another plan. For me, all great crises must be
approached with deliberation, if only because nature made me the most
impulsive of women. I have learned to weigh, having a profound distrust
for those instincts upon which women pride themselves. But you always
understand. I could not love you if you did not. When I write next, my
mind will have been made up once for all.”
But unfortunately Tay was not in a position to understand. He had
received no second cablegram from Dark, for Dark knew nothing of
France’s death. The duke, by no means anxious to remind the world that
another member of the house of France had gone insane, made no
announcement in the London newspapers, and it was not until several days
later that Ishbel heard the news from Bridgit.
“That’s over, thank heaven!” said Mrs. Maundrell. “And I’m going to take
the bull by the horns and send Nigel to Nevis when he returns next week.
Happily, Mr. Tay is safe in California. What is the matter?”
“I was thinking how wonderful it would be if Nigel and Julia really
should marry, after all,” said Ishbel, without a blush. “But I must run,
dear. I’ve a dinner to-night.” And she hastened to the cable office and
sent a message to Tay; and another to Julia, warning her of the
threatened invasion.
But this was not until three days later, and meanwhile Tay received
Julia’s note. Nor was Denny the messenger.
The old servant had orders to take it to the hotel at seven o’clock in
the morning, and, if Tay had gone out (and even visitors rise early in
the tropics) to go to the jungle at nine. As Denny never hurried
himself, it was after seven when he started on his errand. Fanny was
mounting her horse for her daily ride over the estate when he passed
her. She saw the note, held respectfully in his hand, swooped down upon
it, and tucked it in her belt.
“You have too much to do to go on errands,” she said severely. “I will
give this note to Mr. Tay. Where shall I find him?”
Denny repeated his instructions, adding dubiously, “But you never go off
the estate alone, Missy.”
“I shall this morning, and see that you do not mention it. If you do,
you shall have no tobacco for a week.”
Fanny attended to her duties mechanically until a few minutes before
nine, then turned her horse in the direction of the jungle. She felt no
curiosity in regard to the contents of the note, but knew that it must
have been written to break an appointment. She hummed an old African
tune and felt that she held the apple of life in her hand. No scruples
disturbed her. Julia was thirty-four, quite old enough, as she had
frankly observed, to be her mother, certainly old enough to have done
with love, far too old to interfere with the preeminent rights of youth.
Nor had she the faintest misgivings as to her power to take any man from
any woman. Was she not eighteen? Was she not a beauty? Did not every
man’s eye fight a torch as it met hers? The arrogance of girlhood was
never more consummately realized than in Fanny Edis on that glorious
tropic morning as she rode to appropriate her aunt’s lover; and although
her intelligence was too undeveloped to reason, she subtly felt that
nature was always the ally of such fresh healthy young vehicles for the
race as she. Nor was she as innocent as Julia had been at her age. No
governess had ever been able to keep at her heels, and she had seen much
of life among the blacks.
She saw Tay walking restlessly up and down before a grove of banana
trees, and waved to him gayly, taking no notice of his apprehensive
frown.
“Here is a letter from Julia,” she said as she rode up. “I suspect she
can’t come. Granny told her last night that she wanted the whole history
of that Suffrage movement this morning.”
Tay barely heard her. He read with a sensation of amazement the brief
too carefully written message, which informed him that he was to waste a
week more of his precious time on this island. He had no key to the
riddle, and was astonished at this manifestation of caprice in a woman
who had always seemed to him to possess just enough of that charming
feminine quality; none of the stupid excess which made so many women
unreasonable. Moreover, she had deliberately broken her word. Anger
succeeded amazement, and if there had been a steamer leaving Nevis, he
would have taken it and flung the consequences in her face. But here he
was a captive for quite another week. He had no intention of betraying
his chagrin to this sharp-eyed girl, however, and he merely put the note
in his pocket and thanked her for bringing it.
But the eyes he met were not sharp. They were fixed on him in a large
appeal.
“Mr. Tay,” Fanny said, with charming hesitation, “I know that Julia
wouldn’t meet you this morning, and from something she said last night I
know that she does not intend to leave the estate for several days. She
made Aunt Maria promise to take me to the party at Bath House on
Thursday. She said she was too tired, but I am sure she is avoiding you.
It is too horrid of her, when you have come all this distance. But I
don’t fancy any one can unmake Aunt Julia’s mind. So—so—I have a plan
to propose.”
She blushed and looked handsomer than ever, and as she was a born
horsewoman, this was very handsome indeed. Her lids drooped, and she
drew a long breath, almost of ecstasy. “Oh, Mr. Tay!” she whispered
imploringly. “Make believe that I am Aunt Julia—_young_ again—while
you are here! Then I should have an imitation love affair, at least, and
it would be something always to remember. Will you?”
Tay stared at her; but balked, angry, helpless, his temper lashed with
the memory of cablegrams he had received that morning both from his
irate father and the Lincoln-Roosevelt League, he felt more than
inclined to accept this young coquette’s proposal, not only to punish
Julia, but to pass the time. Moreover, Julia had thrown her at his head.
He never doubted that she had given Fanny the note; and he wondered at
the fatuity of woman. Still, he hesitated.
Fanny pouted.
“You are afraid I will fall in love with you,” she said audaciously.
“More likely it would be the other way,” he replied with automatic
gallantry.
“Well—why not?”
“My dear Miss Edis, there is no more harrowing experience than being in
love with two women at once.”
“As if such a thing could be!”
“Common enough outside of books.”
“Well— You might love me on Nevis and keep Julia for London. That is
where she belongs.”
Again Tay stared at her. She had the heady magnetism of youth. She was a
part of the gorgeous tropic scene. He reflected that if he had met Fanny
first, and on Nevis, he certainly should have flirted with her. He did
not take girls very seriously, having been trained by the cool
flirtatious young heads of his own race. That Fanny was in love with him
never entered his mind. Little did he guess the pickle he was mixing for
himself when he finally raised that brown little hand to his lips.
“By all means let us have our comedy,” he said. “I am game if you are.”
Fanny gave a nervous laugh that might have warned him if anger and
disappointment had not made him reckless. She slid from her horse and
tied it to a tree.
“Now take me out in your motor-boat,” she said with a charming air of
authority. “That will be a real adventure.”
VIII
JULIA, grateful for any distraction after another sleepless night, went
to her mother’s room to relate the history of Woman’s Suffrage from its
incipiency in the United States of America down to the present moment,
when the English women, having been driven to adopt the methods of men,
were confident of victory for the first time.
Mrs. Edis, who rose late in these days, was propped up in bed, wearing
the expression of one who is about to enter a hospital and have the
operation performed which may give her a new lease of life.
“If I must hear this tiresome story, I must,” she said. “Tell it me in
as few words as possible, but leave out no detail which will make me
understand it fully. I read your horoscope again last night. Your
destiny is too plainly writ to admit of any doubt. And it was made three
times. I am an old woman to sever my mind from the ideals of a lifetime,
but those frivolous people opened my eyes yesterday. Moreover, you can
never be Duchess Kingsborough. You are not likely to have another
opportunity to marry, for no child of mine would disgrace herself in the
divorce courts.” Her sharp eyes never left Julia’s face. “Nor could you
obtain a divorce in England. Ring the bell. I wish another cup of tea.
Then you may convert me.”
Julia had made up her mind not to tell her family of France’s death
until she had reached her final decision, and felt reasonably certain
that Mrs. Winstone would not hear of it at Bath House. Tay would
understand her desire for secrecy, nor would he be eager to admit that
he had come to Nevis to await the man’s death. Even Mrs. Morison, she
felt sure, had not been taken into his confidence. That lively little
lady had prattled a good deal yesterday, while Julia was showing her the
gardens, and it was evident that she had leaped to the natural
conclusion that her brother was determined to persuade Julia to have her
marriage annulled in the United States without further delay.
Mrs. Edis having fortified herself with a cup of strong tea, Julia spent
the next three hours telling her story. When she had finished, her
mother did not speak for a few moments, then nodded her head
emphatically.
“I see! I see!” she said. “I shall never approve of those unladylike
demonstrations, but I admit that results have justified them. Your
destiny is clear to me now. You have only begun. I, in my limited
knowledge, read that you were to be the greatest lady in England.
Substitute the greatest woman in England and all is clear.”
“It might be in America,” said Julia, hesitatingly, but not turning her
eyes away. “They—they—have talked more than once of sending me there.”
“Nonsense!” Mrs. Edis reached for her stick that she might thump the
floor. “America! A nation of savages—”
“Good heavens, mother! America—the United States—is one of the great
countries of the earth, a world power. Must I give you its history,
too?”
“God forbid. It does not exist as far as I am concerned. Great Britain
is practically the earth. No other country is worthy of your horoscope.
And you must not stay here too long. Don’t fancy that men will hasten to
give you power. Not they! Men! How I should like to see them humbled to
the dust before I go. No, your time here must be short, and I want you
to promise to give it all to me.”
“Oh, I came to see you.”
“I shall claim you. Who is this Mr. Tay? Is he really in love with
Maria?” There was the ghost of a smile on her grim mouth, and her bright
little eyes explored the serene depths before her.
“Oh, Aunt Maria always has an infant-in-waiting. I doubt if she is ever
serious.”
“But who is he? Of course he has no family, as he is an American, but is
he respectable? Has he any fortune?”
“He is quite respectable, and I believe he is well off. His sister, Mrs.
Bode, is an old friend of Aunt Maria’s. She is received everywhere in
London.”
“Ah? So! Maria had better marry him. But I’ll not have him, nor any of
those people, here again. I have never needed society, and now!” Her
harsh dry face lit up. “My old science is restored to me. It will
companion me for the rest of my days. You need never fear that I am
lonely. A great science is all things to the mind that loves it. You
will visit me as often as you can. I need nothing further. When Fanny
marries—and I now hope she will find a husband at Bath House; I long to
be rid of her sulky discontented face—my lawyer will engage a suitable
overseer. Now go and send that lazy black-and-tan mustee to come and
dress me.”
Fanny came in late for lunch. She looked flushed and triumphant, and her
manner was subtly insulting. But nobody noticed her, nor that she left
the house as soon as the meal finished. Mrs. Edis talked of the new
central factory to be built on St. Kitts, and the significance of the
projected Government House for Nevis. Mrs. Winstone yawned, and Julia
was absorbed in her own thoughts. She longed to be alone, but she had
barely reached the shelter of her room when Denny knocked and handed her
a letter. She closed the door in his face, and her hand shook. But the
address was not in Tay’s handwriting, and she opened the letter with a
sensation of bitter ennui. It proved to be a circular communication from
the ladies of St. Kitts, begging her to speak to them at her convenience
on the subject of the Militant movement in England. It was couched in
formal terms, but enthusiasm exuded, and the word great, personally
applied, occurred no less than four times.
“Great!” thought Julia. “We that the world calls great know just how
great we are. Every man his own valet!”
Her impulse was to refuse, but on second thought she concluded to accept
the invitation, and for the morrow. Here was her opportunity to discover
if the great cause had taken irrevocable possession of her. She had
recited its history mechanically to her mother, but that, no doubt, was
owing to her mental and physical fatigue. She would sleep to-night, and
to-morrow, if she could feel the old thrill when talking to a rapt
audience, play upon them, sway them, rise to the heights of magnetic
eloquence which had made her famous, convert the cynical, then, surely,
her old enthusiasm would return. If not—
Denny had told her that the messenger awaited an answer. She went to the
living-room and read the letter to her mother.
“If you don’t mind my leaving you for one day—”
Mrs. Edis interrupted her. There was a slight flush on her face. “By all
means, accept,” she said. “And I, too, will go. It will be my only
opportunity to hear you, to witness one of your triumphs. Have you all
those newspaper articles about yourself that I have heard of?”
“I am afraid not. I kept a scrap-book for a year, but we soon get over
that.”
“Can you obtain them?”
“Oh, yes, it would be possible.”
“I wish them, and everything else that is written about you from this
time forth.”
“Very well, you shall have them.”
“Write your acceptance. To-morrow I shall go to St. Kitts for the first
time in sixteen years. And for the first time in forty years I shall see
that island bend the knee to an Edis.”
IX
THE next evening Julia sat in her room divided between consternation and
secret joy. The women of St. Kitts had given her a reception such as had
never been offered to another woman in the history of the island. A
military band had played a welcome as her boat approached the jetty, a
committee of representative women had met her, and all Basse Terre,
black as well as white, had turned out to escort her to the house of
Mrs. Ridgley, the first lady of St. Kitts, where a select few had been
invited to greet her at luncheon. The meeting itself had taken place in
the ball-room of Government House, and been attended by every man and
woman that could obtain entrance, irrespective of sympathies. All were
eager to be instructed, but far more eager to see and hear the famous
Julia France, to be able to talk about it for the rest of their lives.
Julia had talked to them for two hours. She instructed them to the full,
and she related many of her personal experiences in and out of Holloway
gaol. Never had she spoken more brilliantly, been more amusing and
witty, and never before had she spoken with an unremitting sense of
effort. Her speech had come from the head alone. It had felt like a
wound-up mechanical toy. The personal passion with which she had infused
her speeches and won her great following never stirred. It had retreated
to her depths, and taken her magnetism with it. She entertained her
audience and she converted no one. She concentrated her mind with a
determination almost vicious, but more than once it slipped its anchor,
and she failed utterly to reduce the brains below her into one relaxing
helpless whole for the planting of her suggestions.
She alone, however, realized her failure. St. Kitts was delighted with
the entertainment, to say nothing of the profound satisfaction of
listening to the woman who had been introduced to the world in this very
ball-room, and then gone forth to make their islands famous: St. Kitts
and Nevis had more than once been pictured in the weekly press of
England while Julia’s comet was playing about the heavens. As for Mrs.
Edis she swelled with pride and treated the ladies of St. Kitts, who
showed her almost as much honor as they did her daughter, with a haughty
urbanity that made them feel humble and insignificant.
When the lecture was over, there was an informal reception, during which
Julia had never been more gracious and talkative, while wishing them all
at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. Then the wife of the Administrator
had invited them into the dining-room for an elaborate tea; and it was
six o’clock before release was sounded, and Julia found herself in the
boat once more, listening to the congratulations and the rapt prophecies
of her mother.
At dinner Fanny had stared with open mouth at her grandmother’s almost
excited account of the day’s events, but she had finally turned to Julia
with a laugh.
“Really, my famous aunt,” she said, “there can be no doubt as to what
you were born for. It must be quite wonderful to have a career. Shan’t
you change your mind and speak at Bath House?”
“No,” said Mrs. Edis, sharply. “Julia will devote the rest of her visit
to me. It is quite enough to have two members of the family gadding at
Bath House.”
“Upon my word,” said Mrs. Winstone, languidly, “I didn’t come to Nevis
to chaperon a young girl. Chaperonin’s not my line. I think Julia had
better take Fanny to the party to-morrow night.”
“Oh, no, Aunt Maria! Julia—Julia needs a good long rest.”
Fanny stared apprehensively at her young aunt, but was immediately
reassured.
“I shall not go to Bath House at present. And you, Aunt Maria, you have
your two old cronies, and bridge. Mrs. Morison will look out for
Fanny—”
“All very well, but—ah—I shouldn’t advise you to stay away too long.
Mr.—ah—the Morisons are getting impatient—say they’ll leave by the
next steamer, if you don’t give them the benefit of your society. That,
it appears, is what they came for.”
Julia saw Fanny frown at Mrs. Winstone, but could only interpret her
aunt’s words as a warning that Tay was showing signs of impatience; by
no means unwelcome news. She answered lightly:—
“I didn’t ask them to come. They must take the consequences.”
Mrs. Winstone shrugged her shoulders. “I take very little interest in
other people’s affairs, as you know. And advice was always thrown away
on you.”
Mrs. Edis’s dry sarcastic tones interposed before Fanny could speak. And
Fanny’s breath was short, and her chair might have been sown with tacks.
“Really, Maria, you must grudge every moment spent away from Bath House
and that young fool of yours. I wonder you can still talk of coming to
your old home to rest.”
“Quite so!” Mrs. Winstone, recalled, fluttered her eyelashes, and
glanced into an old concave mirror. “He grows more devoted every minute.
One couldn’t imagine he had ever had a thought for another woman.”
“Good for you, Aunt Maria,” cried Julia, gayly, and escaped to her room.
Here she promptly forgot the conversation and sat down to face her own
problem once more. Was her love for the great impersonal cause, which
had commanded all the forces of her nature, extinct? Or was her
appalling coldness but the natural result of her present state of
mind—and the agitating nearness of the man? Surely, if she broke with
him definitely, returned to England, submerged herself in work, became a
part once more of the crowding incidents, triumphs, disappointments,
problems, of a cause that could never write finis, all her old
passionate interest would return.
But if they no longer needed her? She had inferred from Ishbel’s
cablegram that the Government was about to surrender. But it was hard to
believe that Mr. Asquith, in any circumstances, would become a convert
to a revolution he abhorred and sincerely disbelieved in; and as for
Lloyd-George, the cleverest man in England, it was far more likely that
he was playing for a long respite, hoping to relegate the women quietly
out of the public eye, to take the fight and courage out of them by
degrees, while pretending sympathy, promising his personal assistance,
advising them to abstain from demonstrations which forbade the
Government to capitulate in a manner inconsistent with its dignity. Of
course he would succeed for a brief interval only, for if he was clever
and subtle, the women were as clever—and alert; but—well—on the other
hand, did she care? From Nevis England looked like an old page of
written history, shut up between calfskin. Moreover, the cause was bound
to sweep on to victory with its own momentum—why should she—
Her subtle brain, unleashed, marched straight ahead, and in step with
her desires. How were women to improve the world, if they progressed to
that point of superiority and self-completion, of unity in the ego,
where they could no longer marry and produce a worthy race to complete
their work? Even to-day many a high-minded woman went through life
unwedded rather than degrade herself in marriage with a man whom she was
forced to admit her inferior in all but the common attraction of sex.
But she had no such excuse. And if her power to devote herself to this
cause, impersonally and wholly, had vanished, with her interest in it,
now that her mind was recentred; if she must, did she return to England,
resent her sacrifice, possibly with hatred, of what use her lip service?
If the experience of to-day were prophetic, she could give to the work
but a hypocritical shell, while her aching soul was on the other side of
the globe. On the other hand, with Tay, even in an alien land, there was
no question that she might be of service for the rest of her life.
And what of the immorality of loving a man irrevocably and not living
with him? Morality was still of higher account than politics. And
children? The inadequacy of Fanny, who almost repelled her, had renewed
her intense longing for children of her own. And if she so desired these
children, the children of one man out of all the millions of men on
earth, did not this mean that they were clamoring for their right to
live? What right hers to deny them, that being, after all, the first
reason for which she had received life herself?
But at this point she went to bed.
“What is the use?” she thought. “I’m going to marry him, and that is the
end of it. I’ll not give the matter another thought from this time
forth.”
And for the first time since her arrival on Nevis she slept soundly.
X
SHE awoke at dawn, and rose at once, remembering that she had not had a
walk since leaving the ship. No wonder these three long days of bodily
inactivity and mental turmoil had played havoc with her nerves. She
would walk for hours and then return and write to Tay, telling him that
she would marry him on the day the next American steamer arrived, but
begging him to make no attempt to see her until then. It was her duty to
devote the few intervening days to her mother, as well as to prepare her
by degrees for the staggering information that she intended to marry an
American and desert her country. But if she could convince the old lady
that the planets had reckoned with the United States of America, she
should, if not reconcile her to a son-in-law of a race she despised, at
least leave her with unbroken faith in a science full of compensations.
She went out to the kitchen and brewed herself a cup of coffee, then
started for a brisk walk round the island. The night’s refreshing sleep,
the strong drink, the awakening tropic morning, the peace of mind that
follows a momentous and final decision, made her feel as if dancing on
ether, almost as happy as if Tay were beside her. The sea was as blue as
liquid sapphire, save near the shore, where it was as green as the beryl
stone. The cloud that descends the slopes of Nevis at nightfall had
rolled itself upward and floated lightly above the cone. In the distance
were the outlines of other islands; and everywhere the royal palms with
their long bladelike leaves rattling in the rising trade-wind that gives
lightness to Nevis air on the hottest day, the bright green cane fields,
the heavy dark groves of banana trees, the lime and shaddock orchards.
Even the ruins of the deserted old estates, splendid masses of masonry
in their day, a day of coaches, and knee-breeches, and gay brocades, had
a new and more pictorial lease of life, for brilliant foliage burst from
every crevice.
The negroes began to sing in the cane fields, women in bright cotton
frocks, with brighter handkerchiefs about their heads, came from their
huts along the shore and cooked in the open, boats danced on the water.
She walked halfway round the island and was hungry once more. A little
black boy, tempted by a bit of silver, “skinned” up the slim shaft of a
tree and threw down a young cocoanut. She refreshed herself with its
“wine” and then started along the stretch of road that passed Bath
House, half hoping to meet Tay. In a moment she heard the sound of
galloping hoofs, eight at least, and averse from meeting any one else,
hid behind a clump of low palms.
The horses stopped abruptly, then struck the road more lightly as if
their riders had dismounted. She parted the palm leaves and looked out.
A man and a maid appeared round a bend of the road, each leading a
horse. The girl took the man’s arm with a little gesture of confidence
and looked up into his face, speaking rapidly. The man looked down at
her, smiling, admiring, indulgent. The girl’s face was flaming with
nothing short of adoration. They were Fanny Edis and Daniel Tay.
Julia, feeling as if she had received a blow in the pit of the stomach,
sank limply to the ground and stared out over the dazzling sea.
Monserrat quivered in its haze, and she wondered if it were in the
throes of an earthquake. It usually was. She remembered that Mont Pelée,
after untold years of “death,” had suddenly blown the lake from her
summit and suffocated thirty-five thousand people in four minutes. Would
that Nevis would awake, pour out her boiling lava, and extinguish her
wretched mortals. Julia beat her brow with one of those instinctive
gestures too natural for the modern stage; for perfect naturalism
borders upon farce.
Tay—Fanny. She took it in finally. He had fallen in love with Fanny,
the young, beautiful, glowing girl—What was it old Pirie had called
her—“volcanic product”? No doubt she was far more beautiful and
fascinating than any girl Tay had ever met,—and quite different from
American girls. Julia recalled many of them; they had always seemed to
her rather light; clever and charming, but scantily sexed. No wonder Tay
had succumbed to this gorgeous tropic flower. Fanny might be selfish,
soulless, brutal, but what man ever looked behind a beauty like that?
She was the siren born, and men have gone down before sirens since the
daughters of Eve came to rule the earth and laugh to scorn the god in
man.
Julia felt quite sixty. No doubt Tay had realized that she was all of
thirty-four the moment he had seen her beside Fanny. Men were always
fools about the mere youth in woman. Hadn’t she noticed that years ago,
before she had spent a week in London? No wonder Nature made women
brutal and wholly selfish during its brief possession. Tay had loved
her, oh, no doubt of that, but with his mind, with that greater half of
his being which he had shown her that day in the Bavarian wood; but men
are primal always and spiritual incidentally, when they are men at all;
and her hold had been a flimsy silken string that had snapped the moment
he met this radiant mate, unspoiled, untouched, awaiting him on a
tropical island. He had loved her, but he was madly in love with Fanny,
and that, after all, was the great passion mortals lived to experience,
if only because the poets had taught them to expect it. And she—she
must despise where she had almost worshipped. How did women survive the
death of illusions? Material death was something to pray for.
But Julia’s brain, stunned for the first time in its active life, soon
recovered its energies. She suddenly realized that she did not feel
sixty, no, not by any means. She felt very young and very angry. A
moment more and she sprang to her feet with a cry of fury. She fancied
she heard her flame-colored locks crackle. Her slim fine hands worked.
They looked like steel instruments of torture one may see among old
relics of the Inquisition. What right had this raw silly girl to take
her man from her? Tay was hers and she should have him. She should hold
him to his word, marry him, make him forget this passing infatuation. He
would not be long discovering that she had far more to give him than any
callow girl. If not! Once more her fingers opened and shut. Well for
Fanny that she was once more on her horse with a strong arm beside her.
Julia’s fingers were ready for the slender stem upholding that
triumphant arrogant head. Fanny! Why, Fanny was a fool. She would make
Tay the most miserable of men, understand not the least of his
ambitions, leave him, no doubt, for another the moment her passion had
cooled. He had insinuated that she was a born wanton, although he
appeared to have forgotten this virtuous impression.
Her next impulse was to run after Fanny, denounce her as a thief, a
pirate, force her to see the dishonor of her conduct. But this impulse
soon passed, for never would she, Julia France, make a fool of herself,
no, not if they laughed in her face. But what, in heaven’s name,
_should_ she do?
She peered out. The road was clear. She darted across it, and up into a
cane field. The negroes were far away by the mill. She threw herself
down in the dense green silence and wept a torrent. After all, what
could she do? She could only recognize that she had lost Tay, the one
man in the world for her; she, who had made herself so much more than
mere woman, and to a girl who was her inferior in everything but beauty.
She wept stormily for her lost lover, for love, for herself. Then, once
more, she despised him. Why should she regret a man who had proved
himself weak and contemptible? Why indeed? Ask womankind. She did. The
more convinced she grew that she had lost him, the more she wanted him.
She abhorred him, she loathed him, she had never despised any mortal so
utterly, and she loved him several thousand times more than ever.
She sat up and dried her eyes viciously. Why was she making a fright of
herself? She had always laughed at women that cried and spoiled their
eyes. He was not yet married to Fanny. Why should she not pretend to
release him, then subtly reënter the lists and win him again? How could
any girl survive in a close contest with a woman still young and
beautiful, and with experience and knowledge of men? But she stirred
uneasily. She had seen the automatic triumphs of girls more than once.
Nature was always on their side.
She fell back on the ground with a sensation of despair. “Oh, what shall
I do?” she thought in terror. “Have I come to this? How shall I live?”
But she sat up again in a few moments and deliberately composed herself,
ordering her powerful will to rise and perform its office. She must
return to the house before her mother sent servants in search of her,
and her eyes must not be red. Nor her hair look as if she had tried to
tear it out by the roots. She took down the braids, smoothed them with
her hands, pinned them up, and pushed the short locks under her hat.
Her mother. She had risen to her feet, but stood staring out over the
waving cane. Why had she given Fanny this sudden liberty, and not three
hours after announcing her decision, with all the force of her obstinate
old will, that Fanny should never marry, never be permitted even to
meet, a young man? And why had she insisted that Julia remain at her
side throughout her entire visit? Never was there a less sentimental
woman. And the conversation at the dinner-table last night? It sprang
vividly from her memory. She saw Fanny’s face, flushed, arrogant,
anxious, her aunt’s faint satiric smile, heard her covert words of
warning.
What a blind fool she had been.
“So,” she thought grimly. “We are all the victims of a plot, and one
quite worthy of my mother. I have been managed as easily as if I had but
a teaspoonful of brains in my head. And so has he. Idiots! Idiots!” And
she hated everybody on earth.
She walked rapidly home, slipped into the house unobserved, bathed her
eyes, until the outer signs of the most tempestuous hour of her life
were obliterated, powdered the black rings under her eyes, and made a
satisfactory appearance at the lunch table. Neither Mrs. Winstone nor
Fanny was present. Mrs. Edis talked of naught but Suffrage.
“Great heaven!” thought Julia. “That I should live to hate the word!”
XI
AFTER luncheon, she told her mother that the sun had given her a
headache, and that it was likely she should be obliged to go to bed for
the rest of the day; she had no intention of appearing at dinner. Her
own room seemed the one bearable spot on earth, and she was grateful
that it was far from the other bedrooms, at the opposite end of the long
house.
She locked her door, and ordered her brain on duty. This was no time for
throes—she had the rest of her life to mourn and rage in; now was the
time to act in a fashion that should be worthy of her, of all she had
tried to make of herself, of those three years in India, of the
succeeding four when she had risen so high above the mere female. She
must face with dignity, both in public and in private, whatever ordeal
still awaited her; that she owed to herself; and the best of all good
friends is pride. Nor should she condescend to fight or scheme for a
love that had turned from her, even for a moment. If it had turned once,
it would turn again. She had always despised men that could be
“managed,” and could imagine no happiness with a man who must inspire
her with recurring contempt.
If she loved Tay, it was her part to make him happy, not to force him
into a marriage with herself when he loved another woman. Of course he
would insist upon keeping his engagement with her, for he was honorable,
and, no doubt, as miserable at this moment as herself. But it had never
entered her plans to balk and torment the man to whom she had given her
love, and she could force his freedom upon him, persuade him that her
cause had conquered. As for Fanny, what right had she to assume that she
would make him unhappy? Were not all girls brutes? The most selfish and
heartless of them often made the best of wives when they got the man
they wanted. No doubt all that Fanny needed to become a good woman was a
baby. The vision of Fanny, a placid domestic cow, fat at thirty, gave
her comfort.
When a woman has made up her mind to be noble, she generally succeeds,
for a time, at least; she admires herself in the rôle, and
self-admiration giveth much consolation. But the duration of this
attitude varies in different people. Nobility as a fixed attitude of
mind is possible only to the stupid; it can find no vested place in the
subtle active intellect. Julia remained noble and sacrificing—even
unpacking her Koran and reading it diligently—until precisely eight
o’clock. At that hour she heard the rustle of skirts in the corridor,
then Fanny’s excited voice as she knocked on her door
“Oh, Julia! Julia! Look at me! I’m dressed for the party at Bath House.
Please let me in!”
Julia ground her teeth. Her eyes emitted steel sparks. Once more her
strong fingers opened and shut.
“Run along, dear,” she managed to articulate. “I have such a headache I
can’t see. I know you will be the belle.”
“Oh, I know I shall!” Julia saw that triumphant face above her best
gown. “Even Granny says I look beautiful and I can see it for myself.
I’m wild with excitement—and so happy!”
This was the last straw, but it braced instead of breaking. Julia rose
with the fixed smile of one who is walking to the scaffold, dignified to
the last, and opened the door. There stood Fanny, looking more beautiful
than any girl she had ever seen. Her hair was dressed high for the first
time, and in it was a string of her grandmother’s pearls and a flaming
hibiscus. The floating white gown was caught at her breast with another
flower, and her neck and arms and the soft rise of her bust were as
white as the cloud on Nevis. Her heavy eyes were glittering with
excitement, and her cheeks and lips made the tropic flowers look old and
wilted.
“I have never seen a girl as beautiful as you are,” said Julia,
deliberately, “and you will certainly make all the pretty girls from St.
Kitts turn green with envy. I don’t believe there is another West Indian
girl with color. Of course you will be the belle, and of many more
balls. What luck that a British cruiser is here.”
Fanny smiled, and a slight sarcastic inflection, not unlike her
grandmother’s, sharpened her rich contralto voice. “Well, if _you_ find
me beautiful, Julia, I must be. And I owe it all to you. Thank you again
for this lovely frock. Good night. I’ll tell you lots of things in the
morning.” And she lifted her head with a movement that would have been
fatuous if she had been a few years older, and almost smirked in her
proud satisfaction with herself and her looks, as she sailed off for
conquest.
Julia flung the Koran across the room, herself face downward on the
sofa, and wondered how on earth she was to stand it. “If it only were
over and they were married and gone,” she thought. “Or if only the Royal
Mail were due to-morrow instead of eleven days hence, and I could go! Or
if I could go out and kill somebody, or get drunk like a man! Passive
endurance! That is all the hell that any religion need promise us.”
She lay for three hours without moving, then heard the clatter of a
horse’s hoofs. A moment later Denny knocked and handed her a cablegram.
She opened it without interest. It was from Ishbel, and informed her
that Nigel might take the next steamer for Nevis. Julia broke into
hysterical laughter.
“Is my tragedy becoming a farce?” she thought. “But not if I can help
it!”
She answered the cablegram at once, that the messenger might take it.
“Tell Nigel am leaving immediately.”
Then she returned to her sofa, too indolent to go to bed, and this time
exhaustion gave her sleep.
XII
SHE was awakened by the rattling of her jalousie, and lifted her head,
wondering if a storm were rising.
“Julia! Julia!” called an imperative voice.
She sprang to her feet and held her breath, not believing herself awake.
“Julia!” This time the voice was savage. “If you don’t come out, I’ll
break in. What I’ve got to say won’t keep.”
Julia unfastened the jalousie. Tay stood there in his evening clothes,
and without a hat. His face was distraught.
“Dan!” gasped Julia.
He put his hands about her waist and lifted her down. “Now,” he said,
“take me to some place where we can talk, and as far from the house and
the gates as possible. They’ll be coming home presently.”
She walked swiftly down a path, turned to the right, and pushing aside
the heavy growth from an older path, long out of use, led the way to the
ruins of a bath-house in a corner of the garden. It was surrounded by
heavy palms, but its paneless windows admitted the full moon’s light.
Julia sat limply down on the circular seat before the empty pool.
Through the open doorway she could see and hear the sea. The moonlight
was dazzling, Nevis having forgotten to shake out her night-robes. Her
bewildered mind took note of details while Tay walked back a few steps
to make sure they had not been followed.
He came in and stood before her.
“There’s the devil to pay!” he exclaimed. “Did you get a cable last
Monday?”
“Yes. Didn’t you?”
“I did not, or I shouldn’t be wanting to shoot myself. Dark promised to
cable the moment it happened, and only to-night, half an hour ago, I got
a cable from Lady Dark telling me that France died last Monday, and that
she had only just heard it. Confound Dark! Talk about the wrath of God.
It’s chain lightning compared to an Englishman.”
“No doubt the duke suppressed the notice. It would be like him.”
“It was Dark’s business to find out. I should have employed a detective.
When a thing’s to do, do it. Well, here’s the result! I’ve got myself
into the devil of a mess—”
“You’ve been making love to Fanny.”
“I have—or rather—not been making love from my point of view—only she
doesn’t see it in that light. I’ve been flirting like the deuce. When I
got your note that morning, I took it for pure caprice. It seemed to me
totally without excuse. You had promised faithfully to meet me every
day. I had not a suspicion of the truth. Moreover, I had just received
cables from California that stirred me up. They couldn’t understand my
desertion at such a moment, and no wonder. To be told that I had come
here for nothing—to be coolly asked to wait a week—to know that I had
to stay whether I would or not—well, I felt as if hell had been let
loose inside of me. Fanny brought the note—”
“Fanny!” Julia sprang to her feet. “Fanny? I didn’t give it to her.”
“She brought it all the same, and she looked something more than ripe
for a flirtation, and beautiful—”
“You have fallen in love with her! I saw you this morning.”
“Oh, you did? Well, you didn’t see much. I am not in love with her,
but—well, it’s got to be said—she’s in love with me, or thinks she is.
I was treated to high tragedy an hour since in the garden of Bath House.
I never for a moment thought she would take the thing seriously—have
seen too many summer flirtations—American girls know exactly what that
sort of thing means—but this girl might have Nevis inside of her. She
wanted to elope with me to-night—threatens to drown herself—”
“Great heaven! What have you done?”
“I feel like Don Juan, of course, only as it happens I haven’t made
downright love to her. I was on the edge of it once or twice, she’s so
infernally pretty, but, well, hang it all, I’m in love with you to the
limit, all the more so that you’re not dead easy game. If I hadn’t been,
I’d have made love to her fast enough. But I flirted as hard as I know
how, and she took that for love-making, thought I held back because I
felt bound to you, and—well—it was the hateful things she said about
you to-night that put me in a rage and made me hustle her back into the
ball-room and into the arms of one of her other admirers. I had gone as
far as I intended, and made up my mind, not two minutes before I got
Lady Dark’s cable, to go to one of the other islands and wait for the
steamer. When I got that cable, of course I understood. Now are you
properly repentant? Why in thunder didn’t you tell me in your note—”
“Of course, I thought you knew—”
“Never take anything for granted where there are big things at stake.
But what are we to do? I’m going to marry you to-morrow evening at seven
o’clock over in Fig Tree Church, but what is to be done with Fanny?
She’s all fixed for tragedy, and there’s no knowing just what a girl of
that sort might do. I don’t care to begin our life with a horror. You
must take her in hand to-morrow morning and talk her into reason. I gave
her to understand that I didn’t love her, but a man has to say a thing
of that sort so decently that a girl never believes him—particularly a
girl like Fanny, who has a sublime confidence in herself I’ve never seen
equalled. What’s to be done? What’s to be done?”
“Are you quite sure that you love me, that you haven’t really wavered—”
“Oh, lord! I’m more mad about you than ever.”
“Would you have married Fanny if you had met her first?”
“There’s no woman on earth I should ever have wanted to marry but you.
Do you fancy a man thinks of marriage with every girl he puts in his
time with? I’ve had a dozen flirtations—as hard and a good deal longer
than this; and neither of us the worse, I may add. I’m no heart-breaker.
Our girls know the game too well.”
“If I thought you were merely bent upon being honorable—”
“Julia, if I didn’t love you, I’d tell you so. Do you suppose I’m the
man to jump into matrimony blindfolded? I’ve seen too many of my friends
marry—and divorce four years later. I’m no candidate for the divorce
court. What I want is a wife I can love and work with for the rest of my
life. That wife is you, or will be this time to-morrow night. So cut all
that out and set your wits to work.”
Julia moved her eager eyes from his face and looked out over the sea.
She did not speak for several moments, and Tay saw her face set and grow
whiter, her eyes shine until they looked like polished steel.
“Leave Fanny to me,” she said finally. “I’ll dispose of her. She will
give no further trouble.”
Tay stirred uneasily. “Oh—you don’t mean—That is hardly fair—”
“_Fair?_” asked Julia, with unmitigated scorn.
“Couldn’t you give her a good womanly talking-to?”
“And what good do you suppose that would do? Did you ever hear of love
being talked out of any woman?”
“I know—but you are clever enough without that—and after all it
_isn’t_ fair. It’s a violent assault on personality—”
Julia whirled about and confronted him with blazing eyes.
“_Fair? Fair?_” she cried. “And do you suppose I’d think twice about
what is fair with that treacherous little fool? Do you suppose I would
let any scruple weigh a feather with me when the happiness of my whole
life is at stake? If you didn’t love me, you could go and I’d not
condescend to lift a finger; but you do, you do, and nothing shall stand
between us; _nothing_, I tell you! If I could have caught her alone this
morning, I’d have twisted her neck and held her under the water until
she was dead. And yet you imagine I’d stop at hypnotizing her? For the
matter of that it will be treating her far better than she deserves, for
she will practically have forgotten you when I am finished with her. She
deserves to be left here in sackcloth—oh, she’s not the sort that kills
herself, she’s far too selfish and vain—but she’s noisy and stubborn
and the sort that calf-love makes ungovernable. She’d turn the island
upside down and run to my mother with the story that you had compromised
her—there’s nothing she wouldn’t tell her. My mother is a very old
woman. The excitement might make her so ill that I should be detained
here for months. And I won’t! I won’t! I’ll leave this island with you!”
Tay brought his hands down on her shoulders and gripped them. “By God,
Julia!” he said hoarsely, “you are the woman for me. Together we’ll
conquer the earth.”
“Oh, you’ll find me useful to you in many ways you barely suspect now. I
can do more than hypnotize! But I don’t wish you to misunderstand me.
What I do to Fanny will be nothing more than the reputable scientific
psychotherapeutists do every day to their patients. I shall give her an
immediate suggestion that her will shall not be weakened, that she shall
no longer be under my control after coming out of the hypnotic trance.
And as I said before, she will benefit equally with ourselves. We don’t
practise black magic, we initiates; not that we are above it, but
because we don’t dare. It rebounds like an arrow and strikes our greater
powers dead. I never have harmed any one and I never shall, but that
leaves an enormous field for action.”
“Good. And she’d not think of going to Bath House before to-morrow
night. She heard me accept an invitation to lunch on board the cruiser.
By the way, you might plant in that ill-regulated head the suggestion
that she be less anxious to fall in love. There are men of all sorts—”
“That would be unfair, if you like! Our impulses are our birthright. To
alter personality would be unjust, almost criminal, for the impulses
that make a fool or worse of us in certain circumstances may be
necessary for our happiness. Fanny must work out her own destiny. I
shall settle my income from France’s estate on her, and induce Aunt
Maria to take charge of her as far as England. There Ishbel will
introduce her—”
“That’s right!” interrupted Tay, viciously. “Turn her loose on Dark.
Serve him right.”
“Dark is the best-managed man in England. Fanny’ll not get a chance at
him. And she’ll have a husband before the season is over.”
“Good. But are you dead sure you can do it? You failed with me, you
know.”
“Because I hated to do it, and because—well, you are you. But Fanny!
To-morrow she’ll be sleepy and stupid from the excitement of to-night,
and she will eat an enormous lunch, as she always does. She is curious
about India. I’ll interest her in that subject at the table and then
invite her to my room, and interest her more. She’s never heard of
hypnosis. I’ll offer to put her to sleep. She’ll consent, not only
because she’s worn out, and yet too excited and disturbed for sleep, but
because I choose that she shall. I’ll tell her to fix her eyes on mine,
and the moment she does that she’s lost. In just three minutes she’ll be
a lump of wax. Now, are you satisfied? Why, if I had the least
misgiving, I’d summon Hadji Sadrä.”
Tay laughed. “Oh, Julia! Julia! You’re all right. Now listen to me.
To-morrow I shall take out a special license—”
“I’d rather you waited until just before we sail. My mother—”
“Don’t expect me to show any concern for your mother. She’s at the
bottom of all this trouble. She set Fanny on me. I had already begun to
suspect it before your aunt let it out—I have had more than one scene
to-night!—I feel sure she saw us together the day I called at the
house; at all events she got on to the facts. I didn’t suspect this
earlier because I hadn’t really believed that she had kept Fanny so
close—girls are always working on a man’s sympathies. Otherwise I
shouldn’t have fallen for it. Now, to continue. I shall marry you
to-morrow. You will meet me at Fig Tree Church at seven o’clock. Hardly
any one is abroad at that hour. You can keep it from your mother until
we are about to sail, if you choose. That is all one to me. But I’ll
take no more chances. Now give me your hands and say that nothing on
God’s earth shall prevent you from coming to Fig Tree Church to-morrow
evening at seven o’clock.”
Julia gave him her hands. “I’ll be there,” she said. “I, too, shall take
no more chances.”
* * * * *
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* * * * *
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* * * * *
_BY MRS. ATHERTON_
THE CONQUEROR
A FEW OF HAMILTON’S LETTERS
ANCESTORS
THE GORGEOUS ISLE
RULERS OF KINGS
THE ARISTOCRATS
THE TRAVELLING THIRDS
THE BELL IN THE FOG
PATIENCE SPARHAWK AND HER TIMES
SENATOR NORTH
HIS FORTUNATE GRACE
TOWER OF IVORY
_CALIFORNIA SERIES_
REZÁNOV
THE DOOMSWOMAN
THE SPLENDID IDLE FORTIES
A DAUGHTER OF THE VINE
THE CALIFORNIANS
AMERICAN WIVES AND ENGLISH HUSBANDS
A WHIRL ASUNDER
THE VALIANT RUNAWAYS (A BOOK FOR BOYS)
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
The list of other works by the author has been moved from the front of
the book to the end. Spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the
original. A few obvious typesetting errors have been corrected without
note.
[The end of _Julia France and her Times_ by Gertrude Atherton]
End of Project Gutenberg's Julia France and Her Times, by Gertrude Atherton