ELISABETH--AND HER SON
The entrance to Barrow Court was somewhat forbidding. A flight of
shallow granite steps, flanked by balustrades of the same austere
substance, terminating in huge, rough-hewn pillars, led up to an
enormous door of ancient oak, studded with nails--destined, it would
seem, to resist the onslaught of an armed multitude. The sternness of
its aspect, when the great door was closed, seemed to add an increased
warmth to the suggestion of welcome it conveyed when, as now, it was
swung hospitably open, emitting a ruddy glow of firelight from the hall
beyond.
Sara was standing at the top of the granite steps, waiting to greet the
Durwards, whose approach was already heralded by the humming of a motor
far down the avenue.
A faint regret disquieted her. This was the last--the very last--time
she would stand at the head of those stairs in the capacity of a hostess
welcoming her guests; and even now her position there was merely an
honorary one! In a few minutes, when Mrs. Durward should step across the
threshold, it was she who would be transformed into the hostess, while
Sara would have to take her place as a simple guest in the house which
for twelve years had been her home.
Thrusting the thought determinedly aside, she watched the big limousine
swing smoothly round the curve of the drive and pull up in front of the
house, and there was no trace of reluctance in the smile of greeting
which she summoned up for Major Durward's benefit as he alighted and
came towards her with outstretched hand.
“But where are the others?” asked Sara, seeing that the chauffeur
immediately headed the car for the garage.
“They're coming along on foot,” explained Durward. “Elisabeth declared
they should see nothing of the place cooped up in the car, so they got
out at the lodge and are walking across the park.”
Sara preceded him into the hall, and they stood chatting together by the
tea-table until the sound of voices announced the arrival of the rest of
the party.
“Here they are!” exclaimed Durward, hurrying forward to meet them, while
Sara followed a trifle hesitatingly, conscious of a sudden accession of
shyness.
Notwithstanding the charming letter she had received from Mrs. Durward,
begging her to remain at Barrow Court exactly as long as it suited
her, now that the moment had come which would actually install the
new mistress of the Court, she began to feel as though her continued
presence there might be regarded rather in the light of an intrusion.
Mrs. Durward's letter might very well have been dictated only by a
certain superficial politeness, or, even, solely at the instance of
her husband, and it was conceivable that the writer would be none too
pleased that her invitation had been so literally interpreted.
In the course of a few seconds of time Sara contrived to work herself
up into a condition bordering upon panic. And then a very low contralto
voice, indescribably sweet, and with an audacious ripple of laughter
running through it, swept all her scruples into the rubbish heap. There
was no doubting the sincerity of the speaker.
“It was so nice of you not to run away, Miss Tennant.” As she spoke,
Mrs. Durward shook hands cordially. “Poor Geoffrey couldn't help being
the heir, you know, and if you'd refused to stay, he'd have felt just
like the villain in a cinema film. You've saved us from becoming the
crawling, self-reproachful wretches.” Then she turned and beckoned to
her son. “This is Tim,” she said simply, but the quality of her voice
was very much as though she had announced: “This is the sun, and moon,
and stars.”
As mother and son stood side by side, Sara's first impression was that
she had never seen two more beautiful people. They were both tall, and a
kind of radiance seemed to envelope them--a glory imparted by the sheer
force of perfect symmetry and health--and, in the case of the former of
the two, there was an added charm in a certain little air of stateliness
and distinction which characterized her movements.
Patrick's reminiscent comment on Elisabeth Durward recalled itself to
Sara's mind: “I think she was one of the most beautiful women I have
ever seen,” and she recognized that almost any one might have truthfully
subscribed to the same opinion.
Mrs. Durward must have been at least forty years of age--arguing from
the presence of the six foot of young manhood whom she called son--but
her appearance was still that of a woman who had not long passed her
thirtieth milestone. The supple lines of her figure held the merest
suggestion of maturity in their gracious curves, and the rich chestnut
hair, swathed round her small, fine head, gleamed with the sheen which
only youth or immense vitality bestows. Her skin was of that almost
dazzling purity which is so often found in conjunction with reddish
hair, and the defect of over-light brows and lashes, which not
infrequently mars the type, was conspicuously absent. Her eyes were
arresting. They were of a deep, hyacinth blue, very luminous and soft,
and quite beautiful. But they held a curiously veiled expression--a
something guarded and inscrutable--as though they hid some secret inner
knowledge sentinelled from the world at large.
Sara, meeting their still, enigmatic gaze, was subtly conscious of an
odd sense of repulsion, almost amounting to dread, and then Elisabeth,
making some trivial observation as she moved nearer to the fire,
smiled across at her, and, in the extraordinary charm of her smile, the
momentary sensation of fear was forgotten.
Nevertheless, it was with a feeling of relief that Sara encountered the
gay, frank glance of the son.
Tim Durward, though dowered to the full with his mother's beauty,
had yet been effectually preserved from the misfortune of being an
effeminate repetition of her. In him, Elisabeth's glowing auburn
colouring had sobered to a steady brown--evidenced in the crisp, curly
hair and sun-tanned skin; and the misty hyacinth-blue of her eyes had
hardened in the eyes of her son into the clear, bright azure of the
sea, whist the beautiful contours of her face, repeated in his, had
strengthened into a fine young virility.
“I can't cure mother of introducing me as if I were the Lord Mayor,” he
murmured plaintively to Sara as they sat down to tea. “I suppose it's
the penalty of being an only son.”
“Nothing of the sort,” asserted Elisabeth composedly. “Naturally I'm
pleased with you--you're so absurdly like me. I always look upon you in
the light of a perpetual compliment, because you've elected to grow up
like me instead of like Geoffrey”--nodding towards her husband. “After
all, you had us both to choose from.”
Tim shouted with delight.
“Listen to her, Miss Tennant! And for years I've been mistaking mere
vulgar female vanity for maternal solicitude.”
“Anyway, you're a very poor compliment,” threw in Major Durward, with an
expressive glance at his wife's beautiful face. It was obvious that he
worshipped her, and she smiled across at him, blushing adorably, just
like a girl of sixteen.
Tim turned to Sara with a grimace.
“It's a great trial, Miss Tennant, to be blessed with two parents--”
“It's quite usual,” interpolated Geoffrey mildly.
“Two parents,” continued Tim, firmly ignoring him, “who are hopelessly,
besottedly in love with each other. Instead of being--as I ought to
be--the apple of their eye--of both their eyes--I'm merely the shadowy
third.”
Sara surveyed his goodly proportions consideringly.
“No one would have suspected it,” she assured him; and Tim grinned
appreciatively.
“If you stay with us long,” he replied, “as I hope”--impressively--“you
will, you'll soon perceive how utterly I am neglected. Perhaps”--his
face brightening--“you may be moved to take pity on my solitude--quite
frequently.”
“Tim, stop being an idiot,” interposed his mother placidly, holding out
her cup, “and ask Miss Tennant to give me another lump of sugar.”
The advent of the Durwards, breaking in upon her enforced solitude,
helped very considerably to arouse Sara from the natural depression into
which she had fallen after Patrick's death. With their absurdly large
share of good looks, their charmingly obvious attachment to each other,
and their enthusiastic, unconventional hospitality towards such an utter
stranger as herself, devoid of any real claim upon them, she found the
trio unexpectedly interesting and delightful. They had hailed her as a
friend, and her frank, warm-hearted nature responded instantly, speedily
according each of them a special niche in her regard. She felt as though
Providence had suddenly endowed her with a whole family--“all complete
and ready for use,” as Tim cheerfully observed--and the reaction from
the oppressive consciousness of being entirely alone in the world acted
like a tonic.
The first brief sentiment of aversion which she had experienced towards
Elisabeth melted like snow in sunshine under the daily charm of her
companionship; and though the hyacinth eyes held always in their depths
that strange suggestion of mystery, Sara grew to believe it must be
merely some curious effect incidental to the colour and shape of the
eyes themselves, rather than an indication of the soul that looked out
of them.
There was something perennially captivating about Elisabeth. An
atmosphere of romance enveloped her, engendering continuous interest
and surmise, and Sara found it wholly impossible to view her from an
ordinary prosaic standpoint. Occasionally she would recall the fact that
Mrs. Durward was in reality a woman of over forty, mother of a grown-up
son who, according to all the usages of custom, should be settling down
into the drab and placid backwater of middle age, but she realized that
the description went ludicrously wide of the mark.
There was nothing in the least drab about Elisabeth, nor would there
ever be. She was full of colour and brilliance, reminding one of a great
glowing-hearted rose in its prime.
Part of her charm, undoubtedly, lay in her attitude towards husband and
son. She was still as romantically in love with Major Durward as any
girl in her teens, and she adored Tim quite openly.
Inevitably, perhaps, there was a touch of the spoilt woman about her,
since both men combined to indulge her in every whim. Nevertheless,
there was nothing either small or petty in her willfulness. It was
rather the superb, stately arrogance of a queen, and she was kindness
itself to Sara.
But the largest share of credit in restoring the latter to a more normal
and less highly strung condition was due to Tim, who gravitated towards
her with the facility common to natural man when he finds himself for
any length of time under the same roof with an attractive young person
of the opposite sex. He had an engaging habit of appearing at the door
of Sara's sitting-room with an ingratiating: “I say, may I come in for a
yarn?” And, upon receiving permission, he would establish himself on
the hearth-rug at her feet and proceed to prattle to her about his own
affairs, much as a brother might have done to a favourite sister,
and with an equal assurance that his confidences would be met with
sympathetic interest.
“What are you going to do with yourself, Tim?” asked Sara one day, as
he sprawled in blissful indolence on the great bearskin in front of her
fire, pulling happily at a beloved old pipe.
“Do with myself?” he repeated. “What do you mean? I'm doing very
comfortably just at present”--glancing round him appreciatively.
“I mean--what are you going to be? Aren't you going to enter any
profession?”
Tim sat up suddenly, removing his pipe from his mouth.
“No,” he said shortly.
“But why not? You can't slack about here for ever, doing nothing.
I should have thought you would have gone into the Army, like your
father.”
His blue eyes hardened.
“That's what I wanted to do,” he said gruffly. “But the mother wouldn't
hear of it.”
Sara could sense the pain in his suddenly roughened tones.
“But why? You'd make a splendid soldier, Tim”--eyeing his long length
affectionately.
“I should have loved it,” he said wistfully. “I wanted it more than
anything. But mother worried so frightfully whenever I suggested the
idea that I had to give it up. I'm to learn to be a landowner and squire
and all that sort of tosh instead.”
“But that could come later.”
Tim shrugged his shoulders.
“Of course it could. But mother refused point-blank to let me go to
Sandhurst. So now, unless a war crops up--and it doesn't look as though
there's much chance of that!--I'm out of the running. But if it ever
does, Sara”--he laid his hand eagerly on her knee--“I swear I'll be one
of the first to volunteer. I was a fool to give in to the mother over
the matter, only she was simply making herself ill about it, and, of
course, I couldn't stand that.”
Sara wondered why Mrs. Durward should have interfered to prevent her son
from following what was obviously his natural bent. It would have seemed
almost inevitable that, as a soldier's son, he should enter one or other
of the Services, and instead, here he was, stranded in a little country
backwater, simply eating his heart out. Mentally she determined to
broach the subject to Elisabeth as soon as an opportunity presented
itself; but for the moment she skillfully drew the conversation away
from what was evidently a sore subject, and suggested that Tim should
accompany her into Fallowdene, where she had an errand at the post
office. He assented eagerly, with a shake of his broad shoulders as
though to rid himself of the disagreeable burden of his thoughts.
From the window of his wife's sitting-room Major Durward watched the two
as they started on their way to the village, evidently on the best of
terms with one another, a placid smile spreading beneficently over his
face as they vanished round the corner of the shrubbery.
“Anything in it, do you think?” he asked, seeing that Elisabeth's gaze
had pursued the same course.
“It's impossible to say,” she answered quietly. “Tim imagines himself
to be falling in love, I don't doubt; but at twenty-two a boy imagines
himself in love with half the girls he meets.”
“I didn't,” declared Geoffrey promptly. “I fell in love with you at the
mature age of nineteen--and I never fell out again.”
Elisabeth flashed him a charming smile.
“Perhaps Tim may follow in your footsteps, then,” she suggested
serenely.
“Well, would you be pleased?” persisted her husband, jerking his head
explanatorily in the direction in which Sara and Tim had disappeared.
“I shall always be pleased with the woman who makes Tim happy,” she
answered simply.
Durward was silent a moment; then he returned to the attack.
“She's a very pretty young woman, don't you think?”
“Sara? No, I shouldn't call her exactly pretty. Her face is too thin,
and strong, and eager. But she is a very uncommon type--like a black and
white etching, and immensely attractive.”
It was several days before Sara was able to introduce the topic of Tim's
profession, but she contrived it one afternoon when she and Elisabeth
were sitting together awaiting the return of the two men for tea.
“It will be profession enough for Tim to look after the property,”
Elisabeth made answer. “He can act as agent for his father to some
extent, and relieve him of a great deal of necessary business that has
to be transacted.”
She spoke with a certain finality which made it difficult to pursue
the subject, but Sara, remembering Tim's suddenly hard young eyes,
persisted.
“It's a pity he cannot go into the Army--he's so keen on it,” she
suggested tentatively.
A curious change came over Elisabeth's face. It seemed to Sara as
though a veil had descended, from behind which the inscrutable eyes were
watching her warily. But the response was given lightly enough.
“Oh, one of the family in the Service is enough. I should see so little
of my Tim if he became a soldier--only an occasional 'leave.'”
“He would make a very good soldier,” said Sara. “To my mind, it's the
finest profession in the world for any man.”
“Do you think so?” Elisabeth spoke coldly. “There are many risks
attached to it.”
Sara experienced a revulsion of feeling; she had not expected Elisabeth
to be of the fearful type of woman. Women of splendid physique and
abounding vitality are rarely obsessed by craven apprehensions.
“I don't think the risks would count with Tim,” she said warmly. “He has
any amount of pluck.” And then she stared at Elisabeth in amazement.
A sudden haggardness had overspread the elder woman's face, the faint
shell-pink that usually flushed her cheeks draining away and leaving
them milk-white.
“Yes,” she replied in stifled tones. “I don't suppose Tim's a coward.
But”--more lightly--“I think I am. I--don't think I care for the Army as
a profession. Tim is my only child,” she added self-excusingly. “I can't
let him run risks--of any kind.”
As she spoke, an odd foreboding seized hold of Sara. It was as though
the secret dread of _something_--she could not tell what--which held the
mother had communicated itself to her.
She shivered. Then, the impression fading as quickly as it had come, she
spoke defiantly, as if trying to reassure herself.
“There aren't many risks in these piping times of peace. Soldiers don't
die in battle nowadays; they retire on a pension.”
“Die in battle! Did you think I was afraid of that?” There was a sudden
fierce contempt in Elisabeth's voice.
Sara looked at her with astonishment.
“Weren't you?” she said hesitatingly.
Elisabeth seemed about to make some passionate rejoinder. Then, all
at once, she checked herself, and again Sara was conscious of that
curiously secretive expression in her eyes, as though she were on guard.
“There are many things worse than death,” she said evasively, and
deliberately turned the conversation into other channels.
During the days that followed, Sara became aware of a faintly
perceptible difference in her relations with Elisabeth. The latter was
still just as charming as ever, but she seemed, in some inexplicable
way, to have set a limit to their intimacy--defined a boundary line
which she never intended to be overstepped.
It was as though she felt that she had allowed Sara to approach too
nearly some inner sanctum which she had hitherto guarded securely
from all intrusion, and now hastened to erect a barricade against a
repetition of the offence.
More than once, lately, Sara had broached the subject of her impending
departure from Barrow, only to have the suggestion incontinently brushed
aside by Major Durward, who declared that he declined to discuss any
such disagreeable topic. But now, sensitively conscious that she had
troubled Elisabeth's peace in some way, she decided to make definite
arrangements regarding her immediate future.
She was agreeably surprised, when she propounded her idea, to find Mrs.
Durward seemed quite as unwilling to part with her as were both her
husband and son. Apparently the alteration in her manner, with its
curiously augmented reticence, was no indication of any personal
antipathy, and Sara felt proportionately relieved, although somewhat
mystified.
“We shall all miss you,” averred Elisabeth, and there was absolute
sincerity in her tones. “I don't see why you need be in such a hurry to
run away from us.” And Geoffrey and Tim chorused approval.
Sara beamed upon them all with humid eyes.
“It's dear of you to want me to stay with you,” she declared. “But,
don't you see, I _must_ live my own life--have a roof-tree of my own? I
can't just sit down comfortably in the shade of yours.”
“Pushful young woman!” chaffed Geoffrey. “Well, I can see your mind is
made up. So what are your plans? Let's hear them.”
“I thought of taking rooms for a while with some really nice
people--gentlefolk who wanted to take a paying guest--”
“Poor but honest, in fact,” supplemented Geoffrey.
Sara nodded.
“Yes. You see”--smiling--“you people have spoiled me for living alone,
and as I'm really rather a solitary individual, I must find a little
niche for myself somewhere.” She unfolded a letter she was holding. “I
thought I should like to go near the sea--to some quite tiny country
place at the back of beyond. And I think I've found just the thing. I
saw an advertisement for a paying guest--of the female persuasion--so
I replied to it, and I've just had an answer to my letter. It's from a
doctor man--a Dr. Selwyn, at Monkshaven--who has an invalid wife and one
daughter, and he writes such an original kind of epistle that I'm sure I
should like him.”
Geoffrey held out his hand for the letter, running his eyes down its
contents, while his wife, receiving an assenting nod from Sara in
response to her “May I?” looked over his shoulder.
Only Tim appeared to take no interest in the matter, but remained
standing rather aloof, staring out of the window, his back to the trio
grouped around the hearth.
“'Household . . . myself, wife, one daughter,'” muttered Geoffrey.
“Um-um--'quarter of a mile from the sea'--um----'As you will have
guessed from the fact of my advertising'”--here he began to read
aloud--“'we are not too lavishly blessed with this world's goods. Our
house is roomy and comfortable, though abominably furnished. But I
can guarantee the climate, and there are plenty of nicer people than
ourselves in the neighbourhood. It wouldn't be fitting for me to blow
our own particular household trumpet--nor, to tell the truth, is it
always calculated to give forth melodious sounds; but if the other
considerations I have mentioned commend themselves to you, I suggest
that you come down and make trial of us.'”
“Don't you think he sounds just delightful?” queried Sara.
Manlike, Geoffrey shook his head disapprovingly.
“No, I don't,” he said decisively. “That's the most unbusinesslike
letter I've ever read.”
“_I_ like it very much,” announced Elisabeth with equal decision. “The
man writes just as he thinks--perfectly frankly and naturally. I should
go and give them a trial as he suggests. Sara, if I were you.”
“That's what I feel inclined to do,” replied Sara. “I thought it a
delicious letter.”
Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders resignedly.
“Then, of course, if you two women have made up your minds that the
man's a natural saint, I may as well hold my peace. What's the fellow's
address?--I'll look him up in the Medical Directory. Richard Selwyn,
Sunnyside, Monkshaven--that right?”
He departed to the library in search of Dr. Selywn's credentials,
presently returning with a somewhat rueful grin on his face.
“He seems all right--rather a clever man, judging by his degrees and the
appointments he has held,” he acknowledged grudgingly.
“I'm sure he's all right, asserted Sara firmly.
“Although I don't understand why such a good man at his job should
be practicing in a little one-horse place like Monkshaven,” retorted
Geoffrey maliciously.
“Probably he went there on account of his wife's health,” suggested
Elisabeth. “He says she is an invalid.”
“Oh, well”--Geoffrey yielded unwillingly--“I suppose you'll go, Sara.
But if the experiment isn't a success you must come back to us at once.
Is that a bargain?”
Sara hesitated.
“Promise,” commanded Geoffrey. “Or”--firmly--“I'm hanged if we let you
go at all.”
“Very well,” agreed Sara meekly. “I'll promise.”
“I hope the experiment will be an utter failure,” observed Tim, later
on, when he and Sara were alone together. He spoke with an oddly
curt--almost inimical--inflection in his voice.
“Now that's unkind of you, Tim,” she protested smilingly. “I thought
you were a good enough pal not to want to chortle over me--as I know
Geoffrey will--should the thing turn out a frost!”
“Well, I'm not, then,” he returned roughly.
The churlish tones were so unlike Tim that Sara looked up at him in
some amazement. He was staring down at her with a strange, _awakened_
expression in his eyes; his face was very white and his mouth working.
With a sudden apprehension of what was impending, she sprang up,
stretching out her hand as though to ward it off.
“No--no, Tim. It isn't--don't say it's that----”
He caught her hand and held it between both his.
“But it _is_ that,” he said, speaking very fast, the serenity of his
face all broken up by the surge of emotion that had gripped him. “It is
that. I love you. I didn't know it till you spoke of going away. Sara--”
“Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!” She broke in hastily. “Don't say any more,
Tim--please don't!”
In the silence that followed the two young faces peered at each
other--the one desperate with love, the other full of infinite regret
and pleading.
At last--
“It's no use, then?” said Tim dully. “You don't care?”
“I'm afraid I don't--not like that. I thought we were friends--just
friends, Tim,” she urged.
Tim lifted his head, and she saw that somehow, in the last few minutes,
he had grown suddenly older. His gay, smiling mouth had set itself
sternly; the beautiful boyish face had become a man's.
“I thought so, too,” he said gently. “But I know now that what I feel
for you isn't friendship. It's”--with a short, grim laugh--“something
much more than that. Tell me, Sara--will there ever be any chance for
me?”
She hesitated. She was so genuinely fond of him that she hated to give
him pain. Looking at him, standing before her in his splendid young
manhood, she wondered irritably why she _didn't_ love him. He was
pre-eminently loveable.
He caught eagerly at her hesitation.
“Don't answer me now!” he said swiftly. “I'll wait--give me a chance.
I can't take no . . . I won't take it!” he went on masterfully. “I love
you!” Impetuously he slipped his strong young arms about her and kissed
her on the mouth.
The previous moment she had been all softness and regret, but now,
at the sudden passion in his voice, something within her recoiled
violently, repudiating the claim his love had made upon her.
Sara was the last woman in the world to be taken by storm. She was too
individual, her sense of personal independence too strongly developed,
for her ever to be swept off her feet by a passion to which her
own heart offered no response. Instead, it roused her to a definite
consciousness of opposition, and she drew herself away from Tim's eager
arms with a decision there was no mistaking.
“I'm sorry, Tim,” she said quietly. “But it's no good pretending I'm in
love with you. I'm not.”
He looked at her with moody, dissatisfied eyes.
“I've spoken too soon,” he said. “I should have waited. Only I was
afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes.” He spoke uncertainly. “I've had a feeling that if I let you go,
you'll meet some man down there, at Monkshaven, who'll want to marry you
. . . And I shall lose you! . . . Oh, Sara! I don't ask you to say
you love me--yet. Say that you'll marry me . . . I'd teach you the
rest--you'd learn to love me.”
But that fierce, unpremeditated kiss--the first lover's kiss that she
had known--had endowed her with a sudden clarity of vision.
“No,” she answered steadily. “I don't know much about love, Tim, but I'm
very sure it's no use trying to manufacture it to order, and--listen,
Tim, dear,” the pain in his face making her suddenly all tenderness
again--“if I married you, and afterwards you _couldn't_ teach me as you
think you could, we should only be wretched together.”
“I could never be wretched if you were my wife,” he answered doggedly.
“I've love enough for two.”
She shook her head.
“No, Tim. Don't let's spoil a good friendship by turning it into a
one-sided love-affair.”
He smiled rather grimly.
“I'm afraid it's too late to prevent that,” he said drily. “But I won't
worry you any more now, dear. Only--I'm not going to accept your answer
as final.”
“I wish you would,” she urged.
He looked at her curiously. “No man who loves you, Sara, is going to
give you up very easily,” he averred. Then, after a moment: “you'll let
me write to you sometimes?”
She nodded soberly.
“Yes--but not love-letters, Tim.”
“No--not love-letters.”
He lifted her hands and kissed first one and then the other. Then, with
his head well up and his shoulders squared, he went away.
But the sea-blue eyes that had been wont to look out on the world so
gaily had suddenly lost their care-free bravery. They were the eyes of
a man who has looked for the first time into the radiant, sorrowful face
of Love, and read therein all the possibilities--the glory and the pain
and the supreme happiness--which Love holds.
And Sara, standing alone and regretful that the friend had been lost in
the lover, never guessed that Tim's love was a thread which was destined
to cross and re-cross those other threads held by the fingers of Fate
until it had tangled the whole fabric of her life.