So he had unlocked it. So he had hoped she would come.
He didn't, however, look round. He was sitting with his back to the door
at the writing-table in the window, writing.
'I want my flowers in here,' he said, without turning his head.
So he had rung. So he thought it was the parlourmaid. So he hadn't
unlocked the door because he hoped she would come.
But his flowers,--he wanted his birthday flowers in there because they
were all that were left to him of his ruined birthday.
When she heard this order Lucy's heart rushed out to him. She shut the
door softly and with her bare feet making no sound went up behind him.
He thought the parlourmaid had shut the door, and gone to carry out his
order. Feeling an arm put round his shoulder he thought the parlourmaid
hadn't gone to carry out his order, but had gone mad instead.
'Good God!' he exclaimed, jumping up.
At the sight of Lucy in her blanket, with her bare feet and her confused
hair, his face changed. He stared at her without speaking.
'I've come to tell you--I've come to tell you----' she began.
Then she faltered, for his mouth was a mere hard line.
'Everard, darling,' she said entreatingly, lifting her face to his,
'let's be friends--please let's be friends--I'm so sorry--so sorry----'
His eyes ran over her. It was evident that all she had on was that
blanket. A strange fury came into his face, and he turned his back on
her and marched with a heavy tread to the door, a tread that made Lucy,
for some reason she couldn't at first understand, think of Elgar. Why
Elgar? part of her asked, puzzled, while the rest of her was blankly
watching Wemyss. Of course: the march: _Pomp and Circumstance_.
At the door he turned and said, 'Since you thrust yourself into my room
when I have shown you I don't desire your company you force me to leave
it.'
Then he added, his voice sounding queer and through his teeth, 'You'd
better go and put your clothes on. I assure you I'm proof against sexual
allurements.'
Then he went out.
Lucy stood looking at the door. Sexual allurements? What did he mean?
Did he think--did he mean----
She flushed suddenly, and gripping her blanket tight about her she too
marched to the door, her eyes bright and fixed.
Considering the blanket, she walked upstairs with a good deal of
dignity, and passed the bedroom door just as Lizzie, her arms full of a
complete set of clothing, came out of it.
'Lumme!' once more exclaimed Lizzie, who seemed marked down for shocks;
and dropped a hairbrush and a shoe.
Disregarding her, Lucy proceeded up the next flight with the same
dignity, and having reached Vera's room crossed to the fire, where she
stood in silence while Lizzie, who had hurried after her and was
reproaching her for having gone downstairs like that, dressed her and
brushed her hair.
She was quite silent. She didn't move. She was miles away from Lizzie,
absorbed in quite a new set of astonished, painful thoughts. But at the
end, when Lizzie asked her if there was anything more she could do, she
looked at her a minute and then, having realised her, put out her hand
and laid it on her arm.
'Thank you _very_ much for everything,' she said earnestly.
'I'm terribly sorry about that window, mum,' said Lizzie, who was sure
she had been the cause of trouble. 'I don't know what come over me to
forget it.'
Lucy smiled faintly at her. 'Never mind,' she said; and she thought that
if it hadn't been for that window she and Everard--well, it was no use
thinking like that; perhaps there would have been something else.
Lizzie went. She was a recent acquisition, and was the only one of the
servants who hadn't known the late Mrs. Wemyss, but she told herself
that anyhow she preferred this one. She went; and Lucy stood where she
had left her, staring at the floor, dropping back into her quite new set
of astonished, painful thoughts.
Everard,--that was an outrage, that about sexual allurements; just
simply an outrage. She flushed at the remembrance of it; her whole body
seemed to flush hot. She felt as though never again would she be able to
bear him making love to her. He had spoilt that. But that was a dreadful
way to feel, that was destructive of the very heart of marriage. No, she
mustn't let herself,--she must stamp that feeling out; she must forget
what he had said. He couldn't really have meant it. He was still in a
temper. She oughtn't to have gone down. But how could she know? All this
was new to her, a new side of Everard. Perhaps, she thought, watching
the reflection of the flames flickering on the shiny, slippery oak
floor, only people with tempers should marry people with tempers. They
would understand each other, say the same sorts of things, tossing them
backwards and forwards like a fiery, hissing ball, know the exact time
it would last, and be saved by their vivid emotions from the deadly
hurt, the deadly loneliness of the one who couldn't get into a rage.
Loneliness.
She lifted her head and looked round the room.