She noted his sudden recoil, the almost horrified expression in his
face, as she made this astounding confession.
Her voice had in it a vibrating note of reproach when she spoke again.
“Surely, you do not think that of me? If I were what you seem to
suppose, I could not look you in the face. Listen while I tell you a
strange, an astonishing story, but a true one.”
Ashamed of himself for having so swiftly harbored evil thoughts, he
composed himself to listen.
“I told you after I left boarding-school he found me a home with some
friends of his, a married couple who, I fancy, were under considerable
obligations to him. I was not at all happy there, and I suppose I
could not help showing it when he came to see me. I did not take to
either the husband or the wife, and they did not take to me. I saw
from the first they did not want me, and I expect it was the fear of
offending Mr. Quentin that made them hesitate to give a point-blank
refusal to his suggestion. Perhaps also the want of money, for, I soon
found out they were poor and making a brave show on very little.
Anyway, we never hit it off together from the day I entered their
house to the day I left it.”
And, at this point, Aylmer said the thing he might have been expected
to say, and he said it with obvious sincerity.
“I am pretty certain the fault must have been on their side. It seems
to me that any normal person could get on with you. You seem so
even-tempered, so adaptable.”
She thanked him with a smile. “One is never a fair judge of oneself;
still, I do not think I am difficult. If they had given me a little
encouragement instead of keeping me always at arm’s length, I fancy I
could have made myself fairly at home. Richard, I could see, began to
have his suspicions of the state of affairs, and one day rather
sternly bade me tell him the truth--was I happy or not?
“I hated to trouble him more than I could help, after his
extraordinary kindness to me. But, that day I was in unusually low
spirits and could not pretend. My answer was a flood of tears which it
was impossible for me to restrain. He was very, very fond of
me--chiefly, I think, for my mother’s sake--and he was deeply touched
by my outburst of grief. He soothed me as a kind father might soothe a
child, and assured me that my unhappiness should not continue. He
would think it well over, and find some means of ending it. I must
wait patiently for a few days while he was making up his mind as to
what should be done. At the end of three days he paid me another
visit, and made me a most remarkable proposition.”
“I should have guessed that he would have asked you to marry him,”
interposed Aylmer. “In the case of a guardian and a young, attractive
ward, that is often the solution of an awkward position.”
“Yes, I was prepared for that myself. And I was so wretched at the
time that, frankly speaking, if he had asked me to marry him, I should
have consented, although my feeling for him was of a strictly filial
nature. But, apparently, no such idea recommended itself to him. He
discussed the project of having me to live with him as his ward, or
better still, his adopted daughter. He did not favor this scheme,
foresaw that it would give rise to all sorts of gossip and
uncharitable comment.
“He alluded to the subject of marriage in a very delicate sort of way,
saying that even if I were willing to overlook the disparity in our
ages and make what must be, under the circumstances, an experiment of
the most hazardous kind, he felt it would be his duty to protect me
from any such rash impulse. For himself, there never had been but one
woman in the world he wanted to marry, and she would not have him.
That, of course, was my dear mother. As her heart had been buried in
her husband’s grave, so his was buried in hers. He could never give to
any other the love he had given to her.”
She paused for a second, and Aylmer could find nothing to say. Surely,
from what he could guess was coming, there had never been a more
extraordinary situation. The girl would have taken him for a husband;
but, although he loved her in his own way, the man would not take her
for a wife.
“There was, he concluded, only one feasible solution for the
difficulty, one from which, when he first suggested it, I frankly
recoiled. It was that we should present ourselves to the world as
husband and wife. Nobody would know that our real relations were those
of guardian and ward. In this way he would have a right to protect me,
and the tongue of scandal would be effectually silenced.”
At that moment it seemed that her companion was on the point of
interrupting. She apparently divined the nature of the comment to
which he was about to give utterance, and she went on swiftly, as if
in answer to it.
“Of course, if we had been ordinary people with plenty of friends and
acquaintances, it would have been almost impossible to carry out such
a project unless we actually had gone through the ceremony of
marriage. But, in our case, the difficulty was removed by the fact
that both of us led a life of singular isolation. I had no friends at
all, my dear mother having carefully secluded me from the
companionship of any of the people she knew in her adopted profession.
I was estranged, through no fault of my own, from all my relations. I
took no interest in them; they were entirely oblivious of even my
existence.”
“I understand your position perfectly,” the young man said. “But was
Mr. Quentin in an equally isolated state? Had he, like you, nobody to
consider?”
“Strange as it may sound to you, he appeared to be equally alone in
the world,” was the answer. “Ever since I have known him, he has been
a singularly reticent man. Never to me, never to my mother, according
to what she told me, has he divulged any details of his family, of his
past history. All we knew was that he was a man of means who spent the
greater part of his life in travel.”
“But your home is in England, is it not?” asked Aylmer, voicing his
surprise. “Traveling abroad so much, he would pick up acquaintances
about whom he would know as much, or rather as little, as they would
know about him. But, surely, in his own country, he must have some
intimates, like his friend Martyn, for instance.”
She shook her head emphatically. But, in spite of that action, it
seemed to him there was just a shade of hesitation in her manner as
she spoke. “He has just a very few old cronies who occasionally come
to see him at Hampstead during the very short periods that we are in
residence there. In a general way, he is averse to cultivating
society, and he hates entertaining in his own house. He prefers this
cosmopolitan life, and is content to consort for a brief space with
birds of passage like himself.”
“And would you wish a different sort of existence? Or, are you as
contented as he is?” asked Aylmer.
“I am not quite sure,” she said after a brief pause. “The constant
flitting about has its bright side. One is hardly ever dull; there is
always some sort of excitement in a continual change of scenes and
people. But then I am very young yet. Later on, perhaps, I may feel
the desire to settle down, to have a real home, a place you can look
upon as a haven of peace.”
They walked on for a long time in silence. The young man was thinking
swiftly, deeply, over the singular tale she had unfolded to him.
Presently he spoke.
“And when you made this strange arrangement, did it ever occur to you
that there might come a day when you might meet somebody you really
cared for, when these extraordinary relations might become exceedingly
irksome?”
A vivid blush overspread her face at this question.
“As I told you, at first I recoiled at the proposition. But he is a
singularly persuasive man. He employed all his eloquence to overcome
my reluctance, to prove to me it was the best way out of a most
difficult situation. I don’t think, at the time, I probed very deeply
into the future; I was too anxious to embrace any lot that promised me
even moderate happiness. But, to do him justice, he was not unmindful
of the contingency to which you have alluded.”
Aylmer heaved a sigh of relief. He had thought very hardly of Quentin
for having taken advantage of the girl’s inexperience and unhappiness
to lure her into a false and anomalous position, one which, in time,
she might find to be insupportable. He hoped she had been left some
chance of escape from such a bondage.
“Yes, he was very fair and considerate. He told me in the most
delicate way that if the experiment did not result in my happiness, if
in the course of time I came across one whom I really loved and who
really loved me, he would put no obstacles in the way. On the
contrary, he would do everything he could to smooth away the
difficulties that would arise.”
A very singular man this Quentin, that was quite obvious, thought
Aylmer. Still, it puzzled him why such a roundabout way should have
been chosen. Granted that her living with him as his ward, or adopted
daughter, might have given rise to scandalous comment, there were
other methods by which he might have secured his object of providing
for her. He was, apparently, a very well-off man; he could have made
her an allowance sufficient to support herself, apart from him. This
masquerading as man and wife seemed one of the very wildest of
projects that could emanate from the brain of one who appeared to be
perfectly sane and also a man of the world. The situation would be
very difficult to explain convincingly to the most ardent lover, if
such should come upon the scene later on. They might have no real
friends who took any interest in their proceedings, but, in the course
of their short nomadic life together they must have come across heaps
of people to whom she was known as Mrs. Quentin, the supposed wife of
a man old enough to be her father.
His thoughts were in such a whirl over this remarkable revelation that
he found it difficult to collect them. The one thing that insistently
presented itself to his mind was the fact that she was really a free
woman, and that he was at liberty to woo her, if he chose.
“And you have told me all this,” he said at length, “because you have
an instinct that some day you may want a friend. I do not wish to
force your confidence in any way, but I should like to know if that
instinct has some foundation in fact; in a word, that you are, even
now, apprehending trouble of some kind.”
There was a long pause before she replied to him, and there seemed in
her manner the same hesitation that he had noticed a little time
before.
“I do not know if there is any foundation in fact. It is, I think,
simply an instinct but one that I cannot reason myself out of.” She
spoke a little incoherently. “I have told you because I trust you, and
because you offered to be my friend.”
He spoke very seriously. “My dear Mrs. Quentin, again I repeat that I
shall prove myself worthy of your trust.” He added with a boldness
that surprised himself: “I shall always be a friend. But if you care
to look a little closer you will find more than a friend.”
These expressive words seemed to arouse in her an intense agitation.
Her bosom heaved; impulsively she laid her hand upon his arm, and, an
almost piteous cry came from the lips that trembled with her emotion.
“Oh, no, please not now. I was afraid of that, or I think I should
have made you my confidant sooner. We must remain just friends, firm
and faithful friends.”
He looked at her long and searchingly. Was he mistaken, after all, in
thinking that she had for him any warmer feeling than that of
friendship? And yet, his friend Peyton, that shrewd observer, very
plainly had hinted that she was not indifferent to him. She had told
him she was a free woman. Why did she shrink from anything in the
shape of an avowal on his part? Before that revelation, he would not
have indulged in a hint of his feelings. But now there was no question
of injury to the man who masqueraded as her husband.
“Do you mean that--?” he began in an agitated voice, but she did not
allow him to complete his question.
“Oh, I beg of you not to press me further, not to question me.” Her
tones, full of entreaty, were far from steady. “I am not mistress of
myself, just now; you must have guessed what an effort it has cost me
to make such a confession to you. Be content now with the knowledge
that I esteem you more greatly than anybody I have ever met. I should
make you very, very vain if I told you the high opinion I have formed
of your character.”
“Must we always stop at friendship?” he asked gravely. “Is there no
hope of anything warmer on your part?”
But to that question she would make no answer. She could only send him
from her beautiful eyes that piteous and entreating look that forbade
him to press her further.
And yet, although he was not naturally a very keen observer, certain
things in her attitude, the depth of her agitation especially, seemed
to suggest that she returned his affection, although her lips
obstinately refused to confirm it. In spite of Quentin’s promise to
release her from an intolerable situation, was she doubtful that he
would keep his word when the crucial moment came? Or, was she thinking
that, even if he kept faith with her, the difficulties of the new
situation would still be very formidable?
She spoke presently in a lighter vein. “We shall not lose sight of
each other as is usually the case in an acquaintance of the casual
kind. We shall be going to England very shortly, and shall stay there
for some little time. I am going to tell you a great secret, which you
must be quite surprised at when you learn it from its proper source.
Richard has made up his mind to ask you to visit us at our home at
Hampstead; but, he is sure not to ask you till just before we say
good-by here. Don’t let your manner betray that it is not the surprise
he imagines.”
He gave her the required promise, while he meditated over the
information she had given him. There seemed no limit to Quentin’s
eccentricity. In England he was supposed to live the life of a
recluse, shunning company and seeing none but a few old cronies. Yet,
in a brief space, he had departed twice from his rules. He had asked
Whitefield, an absolute stranger, to visit him, and now he was going
to ask another stranger to be his guest. His conduct certainly was
contradictory. What had he seen in either of these two men to arouse
the desire of cultivating their society?
Of course he did not express these thoughts to her, but, he could not
get them out of his mind. He would have liked dearly to have had
Peyton’s alert young brain at work on this sudden change of front.
But, of course, he could not take him into his confidence, as he could
not betray the trust the beautiful young woman had reposed in him.
There was one point on which he was very curious--Did the ungenial
Martyn know of this singular relation between the couple, or did he,
like the rest, suppose them to be husband and wife in the ordinary
meaning of that relationship?
He put the question bluntly to her, and her answer was that Martyn was
not in the secret. She went even further than that in stating that
nobody except himself understood the true nature of the situation.
But, in spite of the strong fascination she exercised over him, he
could not quite bring himself to believe her. There was a subtle
something in her manner that roused his suspicions, that suggested
there were certain things in which she did not intend to give him her
complete confidence. He had an instinctive feeling that Martyn knew as
much as he did himself. But after such an emphatic assurance, he felt
it impossible to pursue the subject.
A later reference to that morning on which he had found her in tears
did not lead to any satisfactory result. She treated the matter
lightly, pretending there was really nothing in the incident, that she
had happened to be in a somewhat hysterical mood, and had given way to
an emotion that was not justified by anything that had taken place
between her husband’s friend and herself.
One result of the confidential relations that so suddenly had been
brought about was that, during the remainder of his stay at Ostend,
Aylmer was a good deal more in her society. Martyn was still one of
the party, but he continued to absent himself the greater part of the
time. And Quentin seemed rather pleased than otherwise that his wife
had found somebody who was ready always to keep her company when he
was not disposed to be her escort.
On the night before the two young men left for England, Quentin took
the opportunity, when alone with Aylmer, of inviting him to visit them
later on in London.
“We shall be at Hampstead in about a month from now,” he told the
young man. “And I will write to you as soon as we get there, and fix a
day for you to come and dine.” He added, after a slight pause: “I hope
that nice young fellow Peyton will not be offended if I don’t include
him. But I think he is a bit too youthful for such an invitation to
give him pleasure. And Eileen does not care for very young men.”
The next day he said good-by to the supposed husband and wife. His
regret at parting with Eileen was tempered by the thought that he
would soon be meeting her again. And this meeting would be independent
of the invitation that Quentin had given him.
He was resolved to deliver her, by every means in his power, from this
unnatural bondage, and to pursue this scheme, it would be necessary
they should meet in secret. He had suggested this to her several
times, and had been met by an agitated refusal. But, in the end, she
had surrendered, and had promised to do what he asked.