THE SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS
Monday morning dawned. Evarne looked more radiantly lovely than ever
after her day in the open air, and work was re-attacked with general
ardour. The only interruption to the proceedings was a ring at the door,
which came as lunch-time was approaching. It proved to be a man with a
letter for Geoff.
"This is rather interesting to us all!" he exclaimed as he read it.
"Winborough arrived in London on Saturday. I left a note for him, you
know, Jack, and he says he will come at three o'clock on Wednesday to be
'life-masked,' but he is coming in here this afternoon just to see us."
Jack flushed with sudden excitement and apprehension. Geoff laid down
the letter and looked at Evarne. These few days of their engagement left
her still ignorant of his position and relationship towards Winborough.
Geoff could hardly have given any reason for his reticence--there could,
indeed, be no rational explanation forthcoming--it was just a
purposeless fancy that had not mattered hitherto. But now she must know.
She always lunched with him in his sitting-room, while Jack and
Pallister sought their mid-day repast out of doors. He would tell her
then; and Lord Winborough himself must no longer be kept in ignorance of
his heir's forthcoming marriage. There seemed to be an ample dose of
"tellings" before Geoffrey that day.
But Pallister all unconsciously relieved him of one.
"I'm really awfully excited," he declared. "I've never seen his
lordship, but Mr. Meridith knows him quite well. Maudie calls him a
'dear.' And I'm awfully thrilled, too, at the prospect of taking a
life-mask. I shall be longing to try when once I've seen it done. Will
you let me practise on you, Miss Stornway?"
"Well, I don't know. It's rather terrible, isn't it?"
"I don't think so. Only a bit unpleasant. Nothing to hurt."
"Have you done many, Mr. Hardy?"
"Several. It's a wonderful help towards getting a likeness, especially
if the sitter's time is precious. Still, it is uncommonly hateful to go
through."
"Don't tell Lord Winborough that! How do you start?"
"Well, you rub cold-cream or some such decoction well into the skin."
"For the sake of the victim's complexion, I suppose?"
"Partly. Next you put a couple of quills into his nostrils."
"To breathe through?" chipped in Pallister.
"Precisely; and very careful you have to be, I can tell you, considering
that it's the one and only way in which a supply of fresh air can be
obtained, for the next step is to pour moist plaster all over the face."
"How clammy! Much of it?"
"Not at first--only a thin layer; but after you've laid a piece of
string downways on either cheek, you add more plaster until it's about
an inch thick. There it has to remain until it hardens. Then you draw up
the two strings, thereby cutting the mask into three parts, and take it
off, a firm and absolute replica of the features."
"But it does sound rather dangerous," declared Evarne after a moment's
thought.
"Not with ordinary care and attention. It's quite safe," Jack assured
her; "but it feels much worse than it is really. One's whole life
undoubtedly depends on those two breathing-quills. I went through it
once myself, and I couldn't help thinking of what would happen if by any
accident they got choked up. The operator always keeps a pair of
scissors handy to snip off the end in case by any chance a splash of
plaster happens to settle on it. Still, it needs a deal of nerve, I must
confess. You can't hear a sound except an indistinct sort of rumbling
and the thud of your own heart like a sledge-hammer. I should think it's
a bit like being buried alive. I tried to lift an eyelid, but the
plaster held it in an immovable grip, and of course your lips are so
sealed that it is impossible to speak a single word. I assure you, it
did make me feel queer!"
"I wonder," inquired Pallister meditatively, "what would happen if you
just _had_ to sneeze?"
But Jack declined to venture an opinion.
"I'm afraid I can't promise to be done," Evarne declared with some
degree of emphasis.
"Now, would you expect anybody to consent after that lurid description,
Jack?" inquired Geoff, laughing. "It's a good thing Winborough can't
hear your vivid reminiscences, or he would suddenly recall some other
imperative engagement for Wednesday afternoon."
"Perhaps he won't come anyhow," suggested Pallister, bent on teasing.
"You should just have heard a Socialist gentleman--one of your pet pals,
I dare say, Jack--who was addressing an attentive and admiring audience
in Hyde Park yesterday. 'These bloated haristiscrats, pampered from
their cots upwards,' he declared, were, without exception, fickle and
false and altogether unreliable, and 'ought to be wiped off the face of
the globe altogether!'"
"But Lord Winborough hasn't been 'pampered from his cot upwards,'"
returned Jack unperturbed. "He only came into the title about five years
ago, so you see he is scarcely one of those whom 'my pet pal, the
Socialist,' was referring to."
Pallister ceased grinning at his own wit.
"Oh, of course, I know. He will keep his promise right enough," he said
seriously. Then, suddenly recollecting himself: "I say, Geoff, I didn't
mean to be personal. If your cousin goes and dies without children, we
don't expect you to alter, and be fickle and false and all the rest of
it, just because you become Earl of Winborough, eh?"
Evarne's lips parted, and, turning her head, she gazed at Geoff with
eyes filled with utter amazement and incredulity. That young man threw
down his brushes.
"Look here," he said lightly, "it's a quarter to one. I think we had
better stop work and have lunch."
"Right you are," cried Pallister the lazy. "Come along, Jackie, my boy;
we had better take plenty of time to strengthen ourselves for this
afternoon. We have both got to make a good impression, you know."
Jack partly understood Geoff's evident anxiety to get them gone. He
promptly pulled off his painting overall and put on his coat. Pallister,
with no such change of costume to effect, was already awaiting him, and
in a very few minutes they were both out of the place.
Already Geoff had freed Evarne from her golden fetters. They fastened by
means of snaps, and it needed the use of both hands to open them. The
long connecting chain was quite unbreakable, though charmingly light and
delicate in workmanship. He occupied the time while his friends were
dressing in subjecting it to a series of vigorous little tugs, as if to
test its strength; but directly the studio door had closed, he cast it
aside and turned to Evarne.
"Surely I didn't understand rightly?" she queried, in tones of
ill-suppressed anxiety. "I thought Mr. Pallister seemed to say that Lord
Winborough was not only your cousin, but that you were his heir?"
Geoff acknowledged this to be verily the truth.
"I'm sure I don't know why I didn't mention it long ago," he continued
apologetically. "It's very silly of me to appear to have made any sort
of a mystery about it, for naturally it's no secret. It can't be exactly
termed a misfortune in itself, can it, while of course it does not make
the slightest little bit of difference in our feelings for one another?"
"I am not so sure," rejoined Evarne sadly.
With slow steps she walked across the room and sat down by the open
window, gazing out into vacancy with troubled eyes. She felt no
pleasurable excitement, no eager interest, in this marvellous piece of
news. On the contrary, the fact that her lover held a position of so
much greater importance in the estimation of the world than she had for
one moment suspected, appeared to her simply and solely as an
unqualified misfortune. Viewed in the light of this new discovery, his
marriage with a woman who was, after all, only an artist's model, and,
moreover, one weighed down by a secret that a very few inquiries on the
part of the curious might reveal, became a matter of entirely different
import. Such ominous forebodings, such fresh doubts and apprehensions
crowded upon her, that tears burned under her eyelids, while an
expression of utter misery settled upon her features.
Geoffrey sped over to her side.
"My own dearest darling, please, please don't look so worried about it.
I'm so sorry I didn't tell you at once, but left you to find out so
suddenly. I was an idiot. If you look like that, I shall never forgive
myself. Why does it make you unhappy? I should have thought you'd be
rather pleased, if anything. What a sigh! After all, it's not so
wonderfully important. It will not make the least bit of difference to
us for years and years to come--perhaps never--who can tell?"
Evarne did not answer. The longer she reflected the more overwhelming
appeared this unforeseen complication. Of course, as soon as her
engagement became common knowledge, all sorts of people would want to
learn all about her; the events of her whole past life would probably be
delved into--and then--what? She wished Geoffrey would leave her alone
for a time. She wanted to think.
But the more anxious and depressed she appeared, the more concerned and
self-reproachful he grew.
"I'm not vexed with you personally, dear," she was at length compelled
to explain. "You mustn't think that for a moment. Only--only----"
"Only what?"
"I was thinking of a part of Mrs. Browning's translation of 'Prometheus
Bound.' Do you remember it?
"Oh, wise was he, oh, wise was he,
Who first within his spirit knew,
And with his tongue proclaimed it true,
That love comes best that comes unto
The equal of degree!
And that the poor and that the low
Should seek no love from those above...."
She broke off suddenly.
"Oh, Geoffrey, that is true! I know it is, and it does seem so suited to
us now."
"I noticed you discreetly ceased before reaching the last lines, which
would make the application I suppose you intend far from complimentary
to me, Mistress Evarne. My soul is neither 'proud' nor 'fluttered by
rows of ancestral lights,' or anything of that sort. Nothing 'flutters'
it except your sweet self, so that verse does not suit at all. How dare
you shake your head? Don't you believe me?"
"Yes, yes! I do, of course. But there is your cousin to consider. I
shall never gain his goodwill. He will never give his consent."
"Our marriage will be legal without that, my own dearest. But really,"
and Geoff came out boldly with a thundering big lie, "really I don't
anticipate his raising any serious objection. You see, it would be too
absurd, considering that it's the merest chance that he has got any
title at all. When the old earl and his brother, and both his sons and
his little grandson all died within three years, it was necessary to go
back over a century--if you ever heard of such a thing--before they came
to the point at which the line from which we are descended branched off.
Why, for my part, I scarcely realised we were related to the family at
all. We didn't even know the old earl personally. It would be too absurd
of us to put on airs and graces as if we were superior sort of creatures
born to wear strawberry-leaves. It's just simply the merest chance. Now,
after that long explanation don't let's talk about it any more, since it
worries you."
"I must say one thing. We have never spoken at all yet about money or
position, or anything of that sort, have we? Still, I have known all
along, and you also must have known full well, that in choosing me you
were marrying in every respect far below yourself and what your people
would deem----"
"Oh!" broke in Geoff, "please, please don't talk in that manner. It
isn't generous of you, Evarne. It isn't like you."
"I must finish, though. You are proposing to marry far below what your
relations would consider seemly in any case, and most undeniably you
have not made a fitting choice when one remembers what the future
probably holds for you. You don't see things quite as other people do,
you know; but I am more worldly-minded and practical. I think--I do
really--that this engagement between us is scarcely suitable, and that
it ought not to exist."
Geoff placed his hands heavily on her shoulders with a somewhat frantic
grip, and looked at her in serious alarm for a moment. Then he spoke
with forced carelessness.
"So you really think to persuade me of your claim to be considered
'worldly-minded' by trying now to get me to give you up, do you--you
darling? Listen to me. I shall marry you or nobody! If you won't have
me, I shall go down to my grave a morose, disagreeable old bachelor. I
shall always be doing my level best to make all around me utterly
miserable, and although everyone will fear and hate me, a few discerning
folk will explain, 'Oh, don't you know? That poor old man was crossed in
love in the days of his youth, and has never got over it!' Would you
like to have that on your conscience, Evarne mine? Now, come in to
lunch, and we won't speak another word of cousins or earls or prospects
or anything of the sort. We will just talk about ourselves. We are by
far the most interesting topic in the world, aren't we, darling?"
He caught her hand and commenced to draw her across the room. He looked
so young, so happy, so full of life, that Evarne forcibly thrust all her
own miseries back into the depth of her heart. She could not endure to
see the glad look fade from his eyes even for a minute.
"Very well, Geoff," she said in all meekness. "As long as you are sure
that you really want me, I will never leave you of my own accord."
"That's a promise?"
"Very well, it shall be. But remember this, if you do come to believe
that perhaps you would do wisely to listen to what I feel convinced your
cousin's advice will be, you must not hesitate or think of me at all. I
only exist now to please you, and I'm not afraid of spoiling you by
telling you so, dear. My first and only wish is that everything shall be
well with your life. Remember."
He bent his head and kissed the hand he held, but declined to even
discuss this subject with any seriousness.
"Come," he said lightly. "I'm starving hungry! More than anything else
in the world at the present moment I want you to give me my lunch."