On an afternoon in early September eighteen months after her marriage
Gillian was driving across the park toward the little village of Craven
that, old world and quite unspoiled, clustered round a tiny Norman
church two miles distant from the Towers. She leaned back in the
victoria, her hands clasped in her lap, preoccupied and thoughtful.
A scented heap of deep crimson roses and carnations lay at her feet;
beside her, in contrast to her listless attitude, Mouston sat up tense
and watchful, his sharp muzzle thrust forward, his black nose twitching
eagerly at the distracting agitating smells borne on the warm air
tempting him from monotonous inactivity to a soul satisfying scamper
over the short cropped grass but, conscious of the dignity of his
position, ignoring them with a gravity of demeanour that was almost
comical. Once or twice when his wrinkling nostrils caught some
particularly attractive odour his pads kneaded the cushions vigorously
and a snarly gurgle rose in his throat. But no other sign of
restlessness escaped him--it was patience bred of experience. For miles
around he was a well-known figure, sitting grave and motionless on his
accustomed side of the victoria as it rolled through the country lanes.
To the villagers of Craven, all directly or indirectly dependent on
the estate, he was welcome in that he was inseparable from the gentle
tender-hearted girl whom they worshipped, but their welcome was
a qualified one that never descended to the familiar; his strange
appearance and disdainful aloofness made him an object of curiosity
to be viewed with most safety from a respectful distance; time had not
accustomed them to him and tales of his uncanny understanding filtering
through, richly embroidered, to the village from the house, did not tend
to lessen the awe with which he was regarded. They marvelled, without
comprehension, at the partiality of his mistress; he was the “black
French devil” to more households than that of Major, the gamekeeper, an
“unorranary brute” to those of less gifted imagination.
To Mouston Gillian's periodical visits to the village were a tedium
endured for the sake of the coveted seat beside her.
The passing of a herd of deer, feeding intently and--save for one or two
more timid hinds who started nervously--too used to the carriage to
heed its approach, roused the poodle, as always, to a high pitch of
excitement; they were old enemies and his annoyance gave vent to a
sharp yelp as he sidled close to Gillian and endeavoured to attract her
attention with an insistent paw. But for once she was heedless of the
hints of her dumb companion, and, whining, he slunk back into his own
corner, curling up on the seat with his forepaws brushing the mass
of scented blossom. And ignorant of the pleading brown eyes fixed
pathetically on her, Gillian followed the train of her own troubled
thoughts. For eighteen months she had been Barry Craven's wife, for
eighteen months she had endeavoured to fulfill her share of the contract
they had made--and to herself she admitted failure.
The strain was becoming unendurable.
In the eyes of the world an ideal couple, in reality--she wondered if in
the whole universe there were two more lonely souls than they. She knew
now that the task she had set herself that stormy December night was
beyond her power, that it had been the unattainable dream of an immature
love-sick girl. She had fought to retain her high ideals, to believe
that love--as great, as unselfish as hers--must beget love, but she had
come to realise the utter futility of her dream and to wonder at the
childish ignorance that had inspired it. The sustaining hope that she
might indeed be a comfort to his loneliness had died hard, but
surely. For he gave her no opportunity. Despite unfailing kindness and
overwhelming generosity he maintained always a baffling reserve she
found impossible to penetrate. Of his inner self she knew no more than
she had ever done, she could get no nearer to him. But in all matters
that dealt with their common life he was scrupulously frank and
out-spoken; he had insisted on her acquiring a knowledge of his
interests and a working idea of his affairs, from which she had shrunk
sensitively, but he had persisted, arguing that in the event of his
death--Peters not being immortal--it was necessary that she should be
able to administer possessions that would be hers--and the thought of
those possessions crushed her. It was only after a long struggle, in
distress that horrified him, that she persuaded him to forego the big
settlement he proposed making. If she had not loved him his liberality
would have hurt her less, but because of her love his money was a
scourge. She hated the wealth to which she felt she had no right, to
herself she seemed an impostor, a cheat. She felt degraded. She would
rather he had bought her, as women have from time immemorial been
bought, that she might have paid the price, as they pay, and so retained
the self-respect that now seemed for ever lost. It would have been a
means of re-establishing herself in her own eyes, of easing the burden
of his bounty that grew daily heavier and from which she could never
escape. It was evident in all about her; in the greater state and
ceremony observed at the Towers since their marriage, which, while
it pleased the household, who rejoiced in the restoration of the old
régime, oppressed her unspeakably; in the charities she dispensed--his
charities that brought her no sense of sacrifice, no joy of self-denial;
in the social duties that poured in upon her.
His wealth served only to strengthen the barrier between them, but for
that she might have been to him what she longed to be. If the talent
that now seemed so useless could have been used for him she would have
found a measure of happiness even if love had never come to crown her
service. In poverty she would have worked for him, slaved for him, with
the strength and tirelessness that only love can give. But here the
gladness of giving, of serving, was denied, here there was nothing
she might do and the futility of her life choked her. She had
conscientiously endeavoured to assume the responsibilities and duties
of her new position, but there seemed little for her to do, for the big
household ran smoothly on oiled wheels under the capable administration
of Forbes and Mrs. Appleyard, with whom, both honest and devoted to the
interests of the family they had served so long and faithfully, she knew
it was unnecessary and unwise to interfere. In any unusual circumstance
they would refer to her with tactful deference but for the rest she knew
that, perforce, she must be content to remain a figure-head. Even her
work--interrupted constantly by the social duties incumbent on her and
performed from a sense of obligation--failed to comfort and distract. It
was all so utterly useless and purposeless. The gift with which she had
thought to do so much was wasted. She could do nothing with it. She was
no longer Gillian Locke who had dreamed of independence, who had hoped
by toil and endeavour to clear the stain from her father's name. She was
the rich Mrs. Craven--who must smile to hide a breaking heart, who must
play the part expected of her, who must appear always care-free and
happy. And the constant effort was almost more than she could
achieve. In the ceaseless watch she set upon herself, in the rigid
self-suppression she exercised, it seemed to her as if her true self had
died, and her entity faded into an automaton that moved in mechanical
obedience to the driving of her will. Only during the long night hours
or in the safe seclusion of the studio could she relax, could she be
natural for a little while. That Craven might never learn the misery of
her life, that she might not fail him as she had failed herself, was
her one prayer. She welcomed eagerly the advent of guests, of foreign
guests--more exigent in their demands upon her society--particularly;
with the house filled the time of host and hostess was fully occupied
and the difficult days passed more easily, more quickly. The weeks they
spent alone she dreaded; from the morning greeting in the breakfast room
to the moment when he gave her the quiet “Good-night” that might
have come from an undemonstrative brother, she was in terror lest an
unguarded word, a chance expression, might tell him what she sought to
keep from him. But so insensible did his own constant pre-occupation of
mind make him appear of much that passed, that she feared his intuition
less than that of Peters who she was convinced had a very shrewd idea of
the state of affairs existing between them. It was manifested in diverse
ways; not by any spoken word direct or indirect, but by additional
fatherly tenderness of manner, by unfailing tactfulness, by quick
intervention that had saved many awkward situations. It was practically
impossible in view of his almost daily association with the house and
its inmates that he could be unaware of certain facts. But the wise
kindly eyes that she had feared most were closed for ever.
The Great Summons for which Miss Craven had been so calmly prepared had
come more suddenly, more tragically even than she had anticipated. She
had passed over as she would have wished, had she been given the choice,
not in the awful loneliness of death but one of a company of heroic
souls who had voluntarily and willingly stood aside that others might
have the chance to live.
A few months after the marriage on which she had set her heart the
family curse had seized her as suddenly and as imperatively as it had
ever done her nephew. An exhibition of statuary in America had served
as an adequate excuse and she had started at comparatively short notice,
accompanied by the faithful Mary, after a stormy interview with her
doctor, whose gloomy warnings she refuted with the undeniable truism
that one land was as good as another to die in. Within a few hours of
the American coast the tragedy, short and overwhelming, had occurred.
From the parent ice a thousand miles away in the north the stupendous
white destruction had moved majestically down its appointed course to
loom out of the pitch-black night with appalling consequence. A sudden
crash, slight enough to be unnoticed by hundreds, a convulsive shudder
of the great ship like the death struggle of a Titan, had been followed
by unquellable panic, confusion of darkness, inadequate boats and
jamming bulkheads. Miss Craven and Mary were among the first on deck and
for the short space of time that remained they worked side by side
among the terror-stricken women and children, their own life-belts early
transferred to dazed mothers who clutched wild-eyed at wailing babes.
Together they had stood back from the overcrowded boats, smiling and
unafraid; together they had gone down into the mystery of the deep, two
gallant women, no longer mistress and maid but sisters in sacrifice and
in the knowledge of that greater love for which they cheerfully laid
down their lives.
And while Gillian mourned her bitterly she was yet glad that Miss
Craven was spared the sadness of witnessing the complete failure of her
cherished dream.
In the little Norman church toward which Gillian was driving there had
been added yet another memorial to a Craven who had died tragically
and far from home; a record of disastrous calamity that, beginning four
hundred years before with the Elizabethan gallant, had relentlessly
pursued an ill-starred family. The church lay on the outskirts of the
village and close to the south entrance of the park.
Gillian stopped the carriage for a few moments to speak to the
anxious-looking woman who had hurried out from the creeper-covered lodge
to open the gates. Behind one of the casements of the cottage a child
was fighting for life, a cripple, with an exquisite face, whom Gillian
had painted. To the sorrowful mother the eager tender words, the soft
impulsive hand that clasped her own work-roughened palm, the wide dark
eyes, misty with sympathy were worth infinitely more than the material
aid, so carefully packed by Mrs. Appleyard, that the footman carried up
the narrow nagged path to the cottage door.
And as the impatient horses drew the carriage swiftly on again Gillian
leaned back in her seat with a quivering sigh. The woman at the lodge,
despite her burden of sorrow, despite her humbleness, was yet richer
than she and, with intolerable pain, she envied her the crowning joy of
womanhood that would never be her own. The child she longed for would
never by the touch baby hands bring consolation to her starved and
lonely heart. Her thoughts turned to her husband in a sudden passion of
hopeless love and longing. To bear him a child--to hold in her arms a
tiny replica of the beloved figure that was so dear to her, to watch
and rejoice in the dawning resemblance that the ardour of her love would
make inevitable.... Hastily she brushed away the gathering tears as the
carriage stopped abruptly with a jingle of harness at the lichgate.
Coaxing the reluctant Mouston from the seat where he still sulked she
tied him to the gate, took the armful of flowers from the grave-faced
footman, and dismissing the carriage walked slowly up the lime-bordered
avenue. The orderliness and beauty of the churchyard struck her as it
always did--a veritable garden of sleep, with level close-shorn turf
set thick with standard rose trees, that even the clustering headstones
could not make chill and sombre.
From the radiant sunshine without she passed into the cool dimness of
the little building. With its tiny proportions, ornate and numerous
Craven memorials and--for its size--curiously large chancel, it seemed
less the parish church it had become than the private chapel for which
it had been built. Then the house had been close by, but during the
troublous years of Mary Tudor was pulled down and rebuilt on the present
site.
Through the quiet silence Gillian made her way up the short central
aisle until she reached the chancel steps. For a few minutes she knelt,
her face crushed against the flowers she held, in silent passionate
prayer that knew neither form nor words--a soundless supplication that
was an inchoate appeal to a God of infinite understanding. Then rising
slowly she pushed back the iron gate and went into the chancel. Directly
to the left the new monument gleamed cleanly white against the old
dark wall. Simple and bold, as she would herself have designed it, the
sculptor's memorial was the work of the greatest genius of the day who
had willingly come from France at Craven's invitation to perpetuate the
memory of a sister artist who had also been a lifelong friend.
A rugged pedestal of green bronze--with an inset panel representing the
tragedy--rose upward in the shape of billowing curling waves supporting
a marble Christ standing erect with outstretched pitying hand, majestic
and yet wholly human.
Gillian gazed upward with quivering lips at the Saviour's inclined
tender face, and opening her arms let the scented mass of crimson
blossom fall slowly to the slab at her feet that bore Miss Craven's name
and Mary's cut side by side.
_“Greater love hath no man than this, that
a man lay down his life for his friends.”_
She read the words aloud, and with a stifled sob slipped down among the
roses and carnations that Caro Craven had loved, and leaned her aching
head against the cool hard bronze. “Dearest,” she whispered, in an agony
of tears, “I wonder can you hear? I wonder are you allowed, where you
are, to know what happens here on earth? Oh, Aunt Caro, _cherie_, do you
know that I have failed--failed to bring him the peace and consolation
I thought my love was strong enough to give, I have tried so hard to
understand, to help ... I have prayed so earnestly that he might turn to
me, that I might be to him what you would have me be ... but I have not
been able ... I have failed him ... failed you ... myself. Oh, dearest,
do you know?”
Prone among the roses, at the feet of the pitying Christ, she cried
aloud in her desperate loneliness to the dead woman who had given her
the tenderest love she had ever known. The shadows lengthened widely
before she rose and drew the scattered flowers into a fragrant heap.
She stood for a while studying intently the relief of the wreck; it
suggested a train of thought, and with a sudden impulse she traversed
the chancel and sought among the memorials of dead Cravens for the
tablets commemorating those who had disappeared or died tragically. By
chance at first and later by design these had all been placed within the
confines of the chancel that formed so large a part of the tiny church.
Before the florid Italian monument that recorded all that was known of
the short life of the Elizabethan adventurer she paused long, looking
with quickening heart-beat at the graceful kneeling figure whose face
and form were those of the man she loved.
_Barry Craven ... he set his eyes unto the west_.... Amongst the
calamitous record there were four more of the name--their bodies
scattered widely in distant unknown graves, victims of the spirit of
adventure and unrest. She moved slowly from one to the other, reading
again the tragical inscriptions she knew by heart, cut as deeply in her
memory as on the marble slabs before her.
_Barry Craven--Lost in the Amazon Forest_.
_Barry Craven--In the silence of the frozen seas_.
_Barry Craven--Perished in a sandstorm in the Sahara_.
_Barry Craven--In Japan_.
_Barry Craven--Barry Craven_.
The name leaped at her from all sides until, with a shudder, she buried
her face in her hands to shut out the staring capitals that flamed
in black and gold before her eyes. The dread that was with her always
seemed suddenly closer than it had ever been, menacing, inevitable.
Would the fear that haunted her day and night become at some not far
distant time an actual fact? Would the curse that had already led to
ten years' perpetual wandering lay hold of him again--would he, too, in
quest of the peace he had never found, disappear as they had done? Was
it for this that he had insisted on her acquiring a knowledge of his
affairs? With the quick intuition of love she had come to understand
the deep unrest that beset him periodically, an unrest she recognised
as wholly apart and separate from the other shadow that lay across his
life. With unfailing patience she had learned to discriminate. Covertly
she had watched him, striving to fathom the varying moods that swayed
him, endeavouring to anticipate the alternating frames of mind that made
any definite comprehension of his character so difficult. The charm
of manner and apparent serenity that led others to think of him as one
endowed beyond further desire with all that life could give did not
deceive her. He played a part, as she did, a part that was contrary to
his nature, contrary to his whole inclination. She guessed at the strain
on him, a strain it seemed impossible for him to endure, which some
day she felt must inevitably break. His habitual self-control was
extraordinary--once only during their married life had he lost it when
some event, jarring on his overstrung nerves, had evoked a blaze of
anger that seemed totally out of proportion to the circumstance, that
would have given her proof, had she needed one, of his state of mind.
His outburst had been a perfectly natural reaction, but while she
admitted the fact she felt a nervous dread of its recurrence.
She feared anything that might precipitate the upheaval that loomed
always before her like a threatening cloud. For sooner or later the
unrest that filled him would have to be satisfied. The curse of Craven
would claim him again and he would leave her. And she would have to
watch him go and wait in agony for his return as other women of the race
had watched and agonised. And if he went would he ever return? or
would she too know the anguish of suspense, the long drawn horror of
uncertainty, the fading hope that year by year would become slighter
until at last it would vanish altogether and the bitter waters of
despair close over her head? A moan, like the cry of a wounded animal,
broke from her. In vivid self-torturing imagination she saw among the
sinister record around her another tablet--that would mean finality. He
was the last of the Cravens. Did it mean nothing to him--had the sorrow
of that past that was unknown to her but which had become woven into her
own life so inextricably, so terribly, killed in him even the pride
of race? Had he, deep down in the heart that was hidden from her, no
thought of parenthood, no desire to perpetuate the family name, the
family traditions? It would seem that he had not--and yet she wondered.
The woman he had loved--of whose existence she had convinced herself--if
she had lived, or proved faithful, would he still have desired no son?
She shrank from the stabbing thought with a very bitter sob.
A sudden horror of her environment came over her. Around her were
suggestions from which she shuddered, evidences that raised the haunting
dread with which she lived to a culmination of fear. It had never seemed
so near, so strong. It was stronger than her will to put it from her
and in it, with inherent superstition, she saw a premonition. The little
peaceful church became all at once a place of terror, a grisly charnel
house of vanished hopes and lives. The spirits of countless Cravens
seemed all about her, hostile, malign, triumphing in her weakness,
rejoicing in her fear--spectral figures of the dead crowding, hurrying,
threatening. She seemed to see them, a dense and awful concourse,
closing round her, to hear them whispering, muttering, jibing--at her,
a thing apart, an alien soul whose presence they resented. The clamorous
voices rang in her ears; vague shapes, illusive and shadowy, appeared to
float before her eyes. She shrank from what seemed the contact of actual
bodily forms. Unnerved and overwrought she yielded to the horror of
her own imagination. With a stifled cry she turned and fled, her arms
outstretched to fend from her the invisible host that seemed so real,
not daring even to look again at the pitying Christ whose calm serenity
formed such a striking contrast to her storm-tossed heart.
Blindly she sped down the chancel steps, along the short central aisle,
out into the timbered porch, where she blundered sharply into somebody
who was on the point of entering. Who, it did not at the moment seem to
matter--enough that it was a human creature, real and tangible, to whom
she clung trembling and incoherent. A strong arm held her, and against
its strength she leaned for a few moments in the weakness of reaction
from the nervous strain through which she had passed. Then as she
slowly regained control of herself she realised the awkwardness of
her position, and her cheeks burned hotly. She drew back, her fingers
uncurling from the tweed coat they clutched so tightly, and, trying
to slip clear of the arm that still lay about her shoulders, looked up
shyly with murmured thanks.
Then: “David,” she cried. “Oh, David----” and burst into tears. Guiding
her to the bench that rested against the side of the porch Peters drew
her down beside him. “Just David,” he said, with rather a sad little
smile, “I was passing and Mouston told me you were here.” He spoke
slowly, giving her time to recover herself, thanking fate that she
had collapsed into his arms rather than into those of some chattering
village busybody. He had caught a glimpse of her face as she came
through the church door and knew that her agitation was caused by
something more than sorrow for Miss Craven, great as that sorrow was. He
had seen fear in the hunted eyes that looked unrecognisingly into his--a
fear that he somehow resented with a feeling of helpless anger.
The affection he had for her was such as he would have given the
daughter that might have been his had providence been kinder. And with
the insight that affection gave he had seen, with acute uneasiness, a
steadily increasing change in her during the last eighteen months. The
marriage from which he, as well as Miss Craven, had hoped so much seemed
after all to have brought no joy to either husband or wife. With his
intimate knowledge and close association he saw deeper than the casual
visitor to whom the family life at the Towers appeared an ideal of
domestic happiness and concord. There was nothing he could actually take
hold of, Craven was at all times considerate and thoughtful, Gillian
a model of wifely attention. But there was an atmosphere that,
super-sensitive, he discerned, a vague underlying feeling of tension
that he tried to persuade himself was mere imagination but which at the
bottom of his heart he knew existed. There had been times when he had
seen them both, as it were, off their guard, had read in the face
of each the same bitter pain, the same look of unsatisfied longing.
Possessing in so high a degree everything that life could give they
appeared to have yet missed the happiness that should by all reasoning
have been theirs. Whose was the fault? Caring for them both it was
a question that he turned from in aversion, he had no wish to judge
between them, no desire to probe their hidden affairs. Thrown constantly
into their society while guessing much he shut his eyes to more. But
anxiety remained, fostered by the memory of the tragedy of Barry's
father and mother. Was he fated to see just such another tragedy played
out before him with no power to avert the ruin of two more lives? The
pity of it! He could do nothing and his helplessness galled him.
To-day as he sat in the little porch with Gillian's hand clasped in his
he felt more than ever the extreme delicacy of his position. Intuitively
he guessed that he was nearer than he had ever been to penetrating the
cloud that shadowed her life and Barry's but with equal intuition he
knew he must convey no hint of his understanding. He gauged her shy
sensitive mind too accurately and his own loyalty debarred him from
forcing such a confidence. Instead he spoke as though the visit to Miss
Craven's memorial must naturally be the cause of her agitation.
“Why come, my dear, if it distresses you?” he said, in quiet
remonstrance; “she would not misunderstand. She had the sanest, the
healthiest conception of death. She died nobly--willingly. It would
sadden her immeasurably if she knew how you grieved.” Her fingers worked
convulsively in his. “I know--I know,” she whispered, “but, oh, David,
I miss her so--so inexpressibly.”
“We all do,” he answered; “one cannot lose a friend like Caro Craven
lightly. But while we mourn the dead we have the living to consider--and
you have Barry,” he added, with almost cruel deliberation. She faced him
with steady eyes from which she had brushed all trace of tears.
“Barry understands,” she said with quick loyalty; “he mourns her
too--but he doesn't _need_ her as I do.” It was an undeniable truth that
reduced Peters to silence and for a while Gillian also was silent.
Then she turned to him again with a little tremulous smile, the colour
flooding her delicate face.
“I'm glad it was only you, David, just now. Please forget it. I don't
know what's the matter with me to-day, I let my nerves get the upper
hand--I'm tired--the sun was hot----”
“So of course you sent the carriage away and proposed walking two miles
home by way of a rest cure!” he interrupted, jumping up with alacrity,
and taking advantage of the turn in the conversation. “Luckily I've got
the car. Plenty of room for you and the pampered one.” And waving aside
her protests he tucked her into the little two-seater, bundling Mouston
unceremoniously in after her.
The village school was near the church, and while Peters steered the car
carefully through groups of children who were loitering in the road she
sat silent beside him, wondering, in miserable self-condemnation, how
much she had betrayed during those few moments of hysterical outburst.
Resolutely she determined that she would be strong, strong enough to put
away the dread that haunted her, strong enough to meet trouble only when
it came.
Clear of the children and running smoothly through the park Peters
condescended to break the silence.
“How went Scotland?” he asked, slowing down behind a frightened fawn
who was straying on the carriage road and cantering ahead of the car in
panicky haste. “Your letters were not satisfactory.”
“I wasn't taught to write letters. I never had any to write,” she said
with a smile that made the sensitive man beside her wince. “I did
my best, David, dear. And there wasn't much to tell. There were only
men--Barry said he couldn't stand women with the guns again after the
bother they were last year. They were nice men, shy silent creatures,
big game hunters mostly, and two doctors who have been doing research
work in Central Africa. When any of them could be induced to talk of
their experiences it was a revelation to me of what men will endure and
yet consider enjoyment. You would have liked them, David. Why didn't you
come? It would have done you more good than that horrid little yacht.
And we were alone the last two weeks--we missed you,” she added
reproachfully.
Peters had had his own reasons for absenting himself from the Scotch
lodge, reasons that, connected as they were with Craven and his wife, he
could not enlarge upon. He turned the question with a laugh.
“The yacht was better suited to a crusty old bachelor, my dear,” he
smiled. Then he gave her a searching glance. “And what did you do all
day long by yourself while the men were on the hills?”
She gave a little shrug.
“I sketched--and--oh, lots of things,” she answered, rather vaguely.
“There's always plenty to do wherever you are if you take the trouble to
look for it.”
“Which most people don't,” he replied, bringing the car to a standstill
before the front door.
“Is Barry back from London?”
“Coming this afternoon. Thanks for the lift, David, you've been a
Good Samaritan this afternoon. I don't think I could have walked.
Goodbye--and please forget,” she whispered.
He smile reassuringly and waved his hand as he restarted the car.
Calling to Mouston, who was rolling happily on the cool grass, she went
slowly into the house. With the poodle rushing round her she mounted
thoughtfully the wide stairs and turned down the corridor leading to
the studio. It seemed of all rooms the one best suited to her mood. She
wanted to be alone, beyond the reach of any chance caller, beyond the
possibility of interruption, and it was understood by all that in the
studio she must not be disturbed.
In the passage she met her maid and, giving her her hat and gloves,
ordered tea to be sent to her.
Mouston trotted on ahead into the room with the confident air of a
proprietor, fussily inspecting the contents with the usual canine
interest as if suspicious that some familiar article of furniture had
been removed during his absence and anxious to reassure himself that
all things were as he had left them. Then he curled up with a satisfied
grunt on the chesterfield beside which he knew tea would be placed.
Gillian looked about her with a sigh. The room, much as she loved it,
had never been the same to her since that December afternoon that seemed
so much longer than a bare eighteen months ago. The peace it had given
formerly was gone. Now there was associated with it always the memory
of bitter pain. She had never been able to recapture the old feeling of
freedom and happiness it had inspired. It was her refuge still,
where she came to wrestle with herself in solitude, where she sought
forgetfulness in long hours of work but it was no longer the antechamber
to a castle of dreams. There were no dreams left, only a crushing
numbling reality. She thought of her husband, and the question that was
always in her mind seemed to-day more than ever insistent. Why had
he married her? The reason he had given had been disproved by his
subsequent attitude. He had asked her to take pity on a lonely man--and
he had given her no opportunity. She had tried by every means in her
power to get nearer to him, to be to him what she thought he meant her
to be and all her endeavour had come to nothing. Had she tried enough,
done enough? Miserably she wondered would another have succeeded where
she had failed? And had she failed because, after all, the reason he had
given was no true reason? And suddenly, for the first time, in a vivid
flash of illuminating comprehension she seemed to realise the true
reason and the quixotic generosity that had prompted it. It was as if
a veil had been rudely torn from before her eyes. It explained much,
letting in an entirely new light upon many things that had puzzled her.
It placed her in a new position, changing her whole mental standpoint.
How could she have been so stupidly blind, so dense--how could she
have misunderstood? He had lied to her, a kindly noble lie, but a lie
notwithstanding--he had married her out of pity, to provide for her in
the lack of faith he had in her power to provide for herself. To him,
then, her dreams of independence had been only a childish ambition that
he judged unsubstantial, and in his dilemma he had conceived it his
duty to do what seemed to her now a thing intolerable. A burning wave
of shame went through her. She was humiliated to the very dust, crushed
with the sense of obligation. She was only another burden thrust upon
him by a man who had had no claim to his liberality. Her father--the
superman of her childish dreams! How had he dared? If love for him had
not died years before it would have died at that moment in the fierce
resentment that burned in her. But to the man who had so willingly
accepted such an imposition her heart went out in greater love and
deeper gratitude than she had yet known.
Yet, how, with this new knowledge searing her soul, could she ever face
him again? She longed to creep away and hide like a stricken animal--and
he was coming home to-day. Within a few hours she would have to meet
him, conscious at last of the full extent of her indebtedness and
conscious also of the impossibility of communicating her discovery. For
she knew that she could never bring herself to refer to it, and she
knew him well enough to be aware that any such reference was out of the
question. The gulf between them was too wide. The two days she had spent
alone at the Towers had seemed interminable, but with a revulsion of
feeling she wished now that his coming could be delayed. She shrank from
even the thought of seeing him. Though she called herself coward she
determined to postpone the meeting she dreaded until dinner, when the
presence of Forbes and a couple of footmen would brace her to meet the
situation and give her time to prepare for the later more difficult
hours when she would be alone with him. For he made a practice, rigidly
adhered to, of sitting with her in the evenings during the short time
she remained downstairs. He was punctilious in that courtesy as in all
other acts of consideration. His own bed-hour was very much later and
she often wondered what he did, what were his thoughts, alone in the
solitary study that was his refuge as the studio was hers.
But she had come almost to fear the evening hours they spent together,
the feeling of constraint was becoming more and more an embarrassment.
The last two weeks in Scotland had been more difficult than any
preceding them. Craven's restlessness had been more apparent, more
pronounced. And looking back on it now she wondered whether it was
association with the men with whom he had travelled and shot in distant
countries that was stirring in him more acutely the wander-hunger that
was in his blood. During the after dinner reminiscences in the Scotch
shooting lodge he had himself been curiously silent, but he had sat
listening with a kind of fierce intentness that to her anxious watching
eyes had been like the forced calm of a caged animal enduring captivity
with seeming resignation but cherishing always thoughts of escape.
It was then that her vague dread leaped suddenly into concrete fear.
An incident that had occurred a few days after the big game hunters had
left them had further disquieted her. On going to him for advice on some
domestic difficulty she had found him poring over a large map. He had
rolled it up at her approach and his manner had made it impossible for
her to express an interest that would otherwise have seemed natural.
With the reticence to which she had schooled herself she had made
no comment, but the thought of that rolled up hidden canvas and its
possible significance remained with her. It might mean only a renewed
interest in the scenes of past exploits--fervently she hoped it did. But
it might also mean the projection of new activities....
The arrival of a footman bringing tea put a period to her thoughts.
While the man arranged the simple necessaries that were more suited to
the studio than the elaborate display Forbes considered indispensable
downstairs, she crossed the room to an easel where stood a half-finished
picture. She looked at it critically. Was he right--was there, after
all, nothing in her work but the mediocre endeavour of an amateur? She
had been so confident, so sure. And the master in Paris who had taught
her--he also had been confident and sure. Yet as she studied the
uncompleted sketch before her she felt her confidence waver. It had not
satisfied her while she was working on it, it seemed now hopelessly and
utterly bad. With a heavy sigh she stared at it despondently, seeing
in it the failure of all her hopes. Then in quick recoil courage came
again. One piece of bad work did not constitute failure--she would not
admit failure. She had worked on it at a time of extreme depression,
when all the world had seemed black and hopeless, and the deplorable
result was due to lack of concentration. She had allowed her own
disturbed thoughts to intrude too vividly, and her wandering attention,
her unhappiness, had reacted disastrously on her work. It must be
so. Her own judgment she might have doubted, but the word of her
teacher--no. She _had_ to succeed, she had to justify herself,
to justify de Myères. “_Travaillez, travaillez, et puis encore
travaillez_,” she murmured, as she had heard him say a hundred times,
and tore the sketch across and across, tossing the pieces into a large
wicker basket. With a little shrug she turned to the tea table beside
which Mouston was sitting up in eager expectation, watching the dancing
kettle lid with solemn brown eyes. She made tea and then drew the dog
close to her, hugging him with almost passionate fervour. It was not
a frequent event, but there were times when her starved affections,
craving outlet, were expended in default of other medium upon the poodle
who gave in return a devotion that was entirely single-minded. Yoshio
was still the only member of the household who could touch him with
impunity, and toward Craven his attitude was a curious mixture of hatred
and fear. To Mouston--her only confidant--she whispered now the new
projects she had formed during the last two solitary days for a better
understanding of the obscure mind that had hitherto baffled her, for a
further endeavour to break through the barrier existing between them. To
speak, if only to a dog, was relief and she was too engrossed to notice
the sound the poodle's quick ears caught directly. With a growl he
wrenched his head free of her arm and, startled, she looked up expecting
to see a servant.
She saw instead her husband. His unexpected appearance in a room he
habitually avoided robbed her, all unprepared to meet him as she was, of
the power of speech. White-lipped she stared at him, unable to formulate
even a conventional greeting, her heart beating rapidly as she watched
him cross the room. He, too, seemed to have no words, and she saw with
increased nervousness that his face was dark with obvious displeasure.
The silence that was fast becoming marked was broken by Mouston who with
another angry snarl leaped suddenly at Craven with jealous hostility,
to be caught up swiftly by a pair of powerful hands and flung into a far
corner, where he landed heavily with a shrill yelp of surprise and
pain that died away in a broken whimper as, cowed by the unlooked-for
retribution, he crawled under a big bureau that seemed to offer a safe
retreat.
“Barry!” Gillian's exclamation of incredulous amazement made Craven
sensible that the punishment he had inflicted must seem to her
unnecessarily severe. She could not be expected to see into his mind,
could not possibly know the feeling of loathing inspired by the sight of
the poodle in her arms. He was jealous--of a dog and in no mood to curb
the temper that his jealousy roused.
“I am sorry,” he said shortly. “I didn't mind him going for me, it's
perhaps natural that he should--but I hate to see you kiss the dam'
brute,” he added with a sudden violence in his voice that braced her
as a more temperate explanation would not have done. To be deliberately
cruel to an animal, no matter how great the provocation, was unlike
Craven; she felt convinced that Mouston was not the primary cause of
his irritability. Something must have occurred previously to disturb
him--the business, perhaps, for which he had waited in London, and,
seeking her, the scene he had surprised had grated on fretted nerves.
He had never before commented on her affection for the dog who was her
shadow; he had never even remonstrated with her, as Peters had many
times, for spoiling him. His present attitude seemed therefore the more
inexplicable--but she realised the impossibility of remonstrance. The
dog had behaved badly and had suffered for his indiscretion; she could
not defend him--had she wanted to. And she did not want to. At the
moment Mouston hardly seemed to matter--nothing mattered but the
unbearable fact of Craven's displeasure. If she could have known the
real cause of that displeasure it would have made speech easier. She
feared to aggravate his mood but she knew some answer was expected of
her. Silence might be misconstrued.
With calmness she did not feel she forced her voice to steadiness.
“Most women make fools of themselves over some animal, _faute de
mieux,”_ she said lightly. “I only follow the crowd.”
“Is it _faute de mieux_ with you?” The sharp rejoinder struck her like a
physical blow. Unable to trust herself, unable to check the quivering
of her lips, she turned away to get another cup and saucer from a near
cabinet.
“Answer me, Gillian,” he said tensely. “Is it for want of something
better that you give so much affection to that cringing beast”--he
pointed to the poodle who was crawling abjectly on his stomach toward
her from the bureau where he had taken refuge--“is it a child that your
arms are wanting--not a dog?” His face was drawn, and he stared at
her with fierce hunger smouldering in his eyes. He was hurting himself
beyond belief--was he hurting her too? Could anything that he might
say touch her, stir her from the calm placidity that sometimes, in
contradiction to his own restlessness, was almost more than he could
tolerate? She had fulfilled the terms of their bargain faithfully,
apparently satisfied with its limitation. She appeared content with this
damnable life they were living. But a sudden impulse had come to him
to assure himself that his supposition was a true one, that the outward
content she manifested did not cover longings and desires that she
sought to hide. Yet how would it benefit either of them for him to
wring from her a secret to which he, by his own doing, had no right?
In winning her consent to this divided marriage he had already done
her injury enough--he need not make her life harder. And just now, in
a moment of ungovernable passion, he had said a brutal thing, a thing
beyond all forgiveness. His face grew more drawn as he moved nearer to
her.
“Gillian, I asked you a question,” he began unsteadily. She confronted
him swiftly. Her eyes were steady under his, though the pallor of her
face was ghastly.
“You are the one person who has no right to ask me that question,
Barry.” There was no anger in her voice, there was not even reproach,
but a gentle dignity that almost unmanned him. He turned away with a
gesture of infinite regret.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, in a strangled voice. “I was a cur--what I
said was damnable.” He faced her again with sudden vehemence. “I wish to
God I had left you free. I had no right to marry you, to ruin your life
with my selfishness, to bar you from the love and children that should
have been yours. You might have met a man who would have given you both,
who would have given you the full happy life you ought to have. In my
cursed egoism I have done you almost the greatest injury a man can do a
woman. My God, I wonder you don't hate me!”
She forced back the words that rushed to her lips. She knew the danger
of an unconsidered answer, the danger of the whole situation. The
durability of their future life seemed to depend on her reply, its
continuance to hang on a slender thread that, perilously strained,
threatened momentarily to snap. She was fearful of precipitating the
crisis she had long realised was pending and which now seemed drawing to
a head. An unconsidered word, an intonation even, might bring about the
catastrophe she feared.
She sought for time, praying for inspiration to guide her. The waiting
tea table supplied her immediate want.
Mechanically she filled the cups and cut cake with deliberate precision
while her mind worked feverishly.
His distress weighed with her more than her own.
Positive as she now was of the true reason that had prompted him to
marry her she saw in his outburst only another chivalrous attempt to
hide that reason from her. He had purposely endeavoured to misrepresent
himself, and, understanding, a wave of passionate gratitude filled her.
Her love was clamouring for audible expression. If she could only speak!
If she could only break through the restrictions that hampered her,
tell him all that was in her heart, measure the force of her living love
against the phantom of that dead past that had killed in him all the
joy of life. But she could not speak. Pride kept her silent, and the
knowledge that she could not add to the burden he already bore the
embarrassment of an unsought love.
But something she must say, and that before he noticed the hesitation
that might rob her words of any worth. Only by refusing to attach an
undue value to the significance of what he had said could she arrest the
dangerous trend of the conversation and bring it to a safer level.
She sat down slowly, re-arranging the simple tray with ostentatious
care.
“You didn't force me to marry you, Barry,” she said quietly. “I knew
what I was doing, I realised the difficulties that might arise. But
you have nothing to reproach yourself with. You have been kind and
considerate in everything. I am enormously grateful to you--and I am
very content with my life. Please believe that. There is only one thing
that I could wish changed; you said that we were to be friends--and you
have let me be only a fair weather friend. Won't you let me sometimes
share and help in the difficulties, as well as in the pleasures? Your
interests, your obligations are so great--” she went on hurriedly, lest
he should think she was aiming at deeper, more personal concerns--“I
can't help knowing that there must be difficulties. If you would only
let me take my part--” She looked up, meeting his gloomy stare at last,
and a faint appeal crept into her eyes. “I'm not a child, Barry, to be
shown only the sunny side of life.”
An indescribable expression flitted across his face, changing it
marvellously.
“I would never have you know the dark side,” he said briefly, as he took
the cup she held out to him.
She was conscious that the tension, though lessened had not altogether
disappeared. There was in his manner a constraint that set her heart
throbbing painfully. She glanced furtively from time to time at his
stern worn face, and the weariness in his eyes brought a lump into her
throat.
He talked spasmodically, of friends whom he had seen in London, of a
hundred and one trivial matters, but of the business that had kept him
in town he said nothing and she wondered what had been in his mind when
he had departed from an established rule and deliberately sought her in
a room that he never entered. Had he come with any express intention,
any confidence that had been thwarted by Mouston's stupid behaviour? She
stifled a sigh of disappointment. He might never again be moved by the
same impulse.
With growing anxiety she noticed that his restlessness was greater even
than usual. Refusing a second cup of tea he lit a cigarette, pacing up
and down as he talked, his hands plunged deep in his pockets.
In one of the silences that punctuated his jerky periods he paused by a
little table on which lay a portfolio, and lifting it idly looked at
the sketches it contained. With a sudden look of apprehension Gillian
started and made a half movement as if to rise, then with a shrug she
sank back on the sofa, watching him intently. It was her private sketch
book, and there was in it one portrait in particular, his own, that she
had no wish for him to see. But remonstrance would only call attention
to what she hoped might pass unnoticed. Craven turned over the sketches
slowly. He had seen little of his wife's work since their marriage, she
was shy of submitting it to him, and with the policy of non-interference
he had adopted he had expressed no curiosity. He recognised many faces,
and, recognising, remembered wherein lay her special skill. He found
himself looking for characteristics that were known to him in the
portraits of the men and women he was studying. There was no attempt at
concealment--vices and virtues, liberality of mind, pettiness of soul
were set forth in naked truth. A sympathetic picture of Peters arrested
him, though the name written beneath it puzzled. He looked at the kindly
generous countenance with its friendly half-sad eyes and tender mouth
with a feeling of envy. He would have given years of his life to have
possessed the peace of mind that was manifested in the calm serenity of
his agent's face.
His lips tightened as he laid the sketch down. With his thoughts
lingering on the last portrait for a second or two he looked at the next
one absently. Then a stifled exclamation broke from him and he peered
at it closer. And, watching, Gillian drew a deep breath, clenching her
hands convulsively. He stood quite still for what seemed an eternity,
then came slowly across the room and stood directly in front of her. And
for the first time she was afraid of meeting his eyes.
“Do I look like--that?”
Her head drooped lower, her fingers twining and intertwining nervously,
and her dry lips almost refused their office.
“I have seen you like that,” very slowly and almost inaudibly, but he
caught the reluctant admission.
“So--_damnable_?”
She flinched from the loathing in his voice.
“I _am_ sorry--” she murmured faintly.
“Good God!” the profanity was wrung from him, but had he thought of
it he would have considered it justified, for the face at which he was
staring was the beautiful tormented face of a fallen angel. He looked
with a kind of horror at the hungry passionate eyes fierce with
unsatisfied longing, shadowed with terrible memory, tortured, hopeless;
at the set mouth, a straight grim line under the trim golden brown
moustache; at the bitterness and revolt expressed in all the deep cut
lines of the tragic face. He laid it down with a feeling of repulsion.
She saw him like that! The pain of it was intolerable.
He laughed with a harsh mirthlessness that made her quiver.
“It is a truer estimation of my character than the one you gave me a
few minutes ago,” he said bitterly, “and you may thank heaven I am your
husband only in name. God keep you from a nearer acquaintance with me.”
And turning on his heel he left her. Long after he had gone she sat on
motionless, her fingers picking mechanically at the chintz cover of the
sofa, staring into space with wide eyes brimming with tears. She knew it
was a cruel sketch, but she had never meant him to see it. It had taken
shape unconsciously under her hand, and while she hated it she had
kept it because of the remarkable likeness and because it was the only
picture she had of him.
The dreams of a better understanding seemed swept away by her own
thoughtlessness and folly. She had hurt him and she could never explain.
To refer to it, to try and make him understand, would do more harm
than good. With a pitiful sob she covered her face with her hands, and,
beside her, Mouston the pampered cringed and whimpered unheeded and
forgotten.
She had looked forward to his return with such high hopes and now they
lay shattered at her feet. During a brief hour that might have drawn
them nearer together they had contrived to hurt each other as it must
seem to both by deliberate intent. For herself she knew that she was
innocent of any such intention--but was he? He had never hurt her
before, even in his most difficult moods he had been to her unfailingly
kind and considerate. But to-day--shudderingly she wondered did it mark
a new era in their relations? And in miserable futile longing she wished
that this afternoon had never been.
After what had occurred the thought of facing him across a table during
an interminable dinner and sitting with him alone for the long hours of
a summer evening drove her to a state bordering on panic. She pushed the
thick hair off her forhead with a little gasp. It was cowardly--but
she could not, would not. Despising herself she crossed the room to the
telephone.
At the Hermitage Peters was indulging in a well-earned rest after a long
hot day that had been both irksome and tiring. Wearing an old tweed coat
he lounged comfortably in a big chair, a couple of sleepy setters at his
feet, a foul and ancient pipe in full blast. The room, flooded with the
evening sun, was filled with a heterogeneous collection of books and
music manuscript, guns, fishing rods and whips. The homely room had
stamped on it the characteristics of its owner. It was a room to work
in, and equally a room in which to relax. The owner was now relaxing,
but the bodily rest he enjoyed did not extend to his mind, which was
very actively disturbed. His usually genial face was furrowed and he
sucked at the old pipe with an energy that enveloped him in a haze of
blue smoke. The ringing of the telephone in the opposite corner of the
room came as an unwelcome interruption. He glared at it resentfully,
disinclined to move, but at the second ring rose reluctantly with a
grunt of annoyance, pushing the drowsy setters to one side. He took down
the receiver with no undue haste and answered the call gruffly, but his
bored expression changed rapidly as he listened. The soft voice came
clearly but hesitatingly:
“Is that you, David? Could you come up to dinner--if--if you're not
going anywhere else--I've got a tiresome headache and it will be so
stupid for Barry. I don't want him to be dull the first evening at home.
So if you could--please, David--”
His face grew grim as he detected the quiver in the faltering indecisive
words, but he answered briskly.
“Of course I'll come. I'd love to,” he said, with a cheeriness he was
far from feeling. He hung up the receiver with a heavy sigh. But he had
hardly moved when the telephone rang again sharply.
“Damn the thing!” he muttered irritably.
This time a very different voice, curt and uncompromising:
“--that you, Peter?--Yes!--Doing anything tonight?--Not?--Then for God's
sake come up to dinner.” And then the receiver jammed down savagely.
With grimmer face Peters moved thoughtfully across the room and touched
a bell in the wall by the fireplace. His call was answered with the
usual promptness, and when he had given the necessary orders and the man
had gone he laid aside his pipe, tidied a few papers, and went slowly to
an adjoining room.
The Hermitage was properly the dower house of the Towers, but for the
last two generations had not been required as such. The room Peters now
entered had originally been the drawing room, but for the thirty years
he had lived in the house he had kept it as a music room. Panelled in
oak, with polished floor and innocent of hangings, the only furniture a
grand piano and a portrait, it was at once a sanctuary and a shrine. And
during those thirty years to only two people had he given the right of
entrance. To the woman whose portrait hung on the wall and, latterly,
to the girl who had succeeded her as mistress of Craven Towers. To this
room, to the portrait and the piano, he brought all his difficulties; it
was here he wrestled with the loneliness and sadness that the world
had never suspected. To-night he felt that only the peace that room
invariably brought would enable him to fulfil the task he had in hand.
* * * *
Craven was alone in the hall when he arrived, and it was not until the
gong sounded that Gillian made a tardy appearance, very pale but with a
feverish spot on either cheek. Peters' quick eye noticed the absence of
the black shadow that was always at her heels. “Where is the faithful
Mouston? Not in disgrace, surely--the paragon?” he teased, and was
disconcerted at the painful flush that overspread her face. But she
thrust her arm through his and forced a little laugh. “Mouston is
becoming rather incorrigible, I'm afraid I've spoiled him hopelessly.
I'll tell him you inquired, it will cheer him up, poor darling. He's
doing penance with a bone upstairs. Shall we go in--I'm famished.”
But as dinner progressed she did not appear to be famished, for she ate
scarcely anything, but talked fitfully with jerky nervousness. Craven,
too, was at first almost entirely silent, and on Peters fell the main
burden of conversation, until by a direct question he managed to start
his host on a topic that was of interest to both and lasted until
Gillian left them.
In the drawing room, after she had finished her coffee, she opened the
piano and then subsided wearily on to the big sofa. The emotions of the
day and the effort of appearing at dinner had exhausted her, and in
her despondency the future had never seemed so black, so beset with
difficulties. While she was immeasurably thankful for Peters' presence
to-night she knew it was impossible for him to act continually as a
buffer between them. But from the problem of to-morrow, and innumerable
to-morrows, she turned with a fixed determination to live for the
moment. _A chaque jour suffit sa peine_.
She lay with relaxed muscles and closed eyes. It seemed a long
while before the men joined her. She wondered what they were talking
about--whether to Peters would be imparted the information that had been
withheld from her. For the feeling of a nearly impending calamity was
strong within her. When at last they came she looked with covert anxiety
from one to the other, but their faces told her nothing. For a few
minutes Peters lingered beside her chatting and then gravitated toward
the piano, as she had hoped he would. Arranging the heaped up cushions
more comfortably around her she gave herself up to the delight of his
music and it seemed to her that she had never heard him play so well.
Near her Craven was standing before the fern-filled fireplace, leaning
against the mantel, a cigarette drooping between his lips. From where
she lay she could watch him unperceived, for his own gaze was directed
through the open French window out on to the terrace, and she studied
his set handsome face with sorrowful attention. He appeared to be
thinking deeply, and, from his detached manner, heedless of the harmony
of sound that filled the room. But her supposition was soon rudely
shaken. Peters had paused in his playing. When a few moments later the
plaintive melody of an operatic air stole through the room she saw her
husband start violently, and the terrible pallor she had witnessed once
before sweep across his face. She clenched her teeth on her lip to keep
back the cry that rose, and breathlessly watched him stride across the
room and drop an arresting hand on Peters' shoulder. “For God's sake
don't play that damned thing!” she heard him say in a voice that was
almost unrecognisable. And then he passed out swiftly, into the garden.
A spasm of jealous agony shook her from head to foot. With quick
intuition she guessed that the air that was unknown to her must be
connected in some way with the sorrow that darkened his life, and the
spectre of the past she tried to forget seemed to rise and grin at her
triumphantly. She shivered. Would its power last until life ended? Would
it stand between them always, rivalling her, thwarting her every effort?
For a long time she dared not look at Peters, who had responded without
hesitation to Craven's unceremonious request, but when at length
she summoned courage to glance at him it seemed as if he had already
forgotten the interruption. His face wore the absent, almost spiritual
look that was usual when he was at the piano and his playing gave no
indication of either annoyance or surprise. She breathed a quick sigh of
relief and, slightly altering her position, lay where she could see the
solitary figure on the terrace. Erect by the stone ballustrade, his arms
folded across his chest, staring intently into the night as if his
gaze went far beyond the confines of the great park, he seemed to her a
symbol of incarnate loneliness, and her heart contracted at the thought
of the suffering and solitude she might not share. If he would only turn
to her! If she had only the right to go to him and plead her love, beg
the confidence she craved, and stand beside him in his sorrow! But he
stood alone, beyond her reach, even unaware of her longing.
The slow tears gathered thick in her eyes.
For long after the keyboard became an indistinguishable blur Peters
played on untiringly. But at last he rose, closed the piano and turned
on an electric lamp that stood near.
“Eleven o'clock,” he exclaimed contritely. “Bless my soul, why didn't
you stop me! I forget the time when I'm playing. I've tired you out. Go
to bed, you pale child. I'm walking home, I'll see Barry on the terrace
as I pass.”
She slid from the sofa and took his outstretched hands.
“Your playing never tires me!” she answered, with a little upward
glance. “You've magic at the ends of your fingers, David dear.”
She went to the open window to watch him go, and presently saw him
reappear round the angle of the house and join Craven on the terrace.
They stood talking for a few minutes and then together descended the
long flight of stone steps to the rose garden, from which, by a short
cut through a little copse, could be reached the path that crossing the
park led to the Hermitage. It was the habit of Peters when he had been
dining at the big house to walk home thus and, as to-night, Craven
almost always accompanied him.
Gillian had long known her husband's propensity for night rambling and
she knew it might be hours before he returned. Was he angry with her
still that he had omitted the punctilious good-night he had never before
forgotten? Her lips quivered like a disappointed child's as she turned
back slowly into the room. But as she passed through the hall and
climbed the long stairs she knew in her heart that she had misjudged
him. He was not capable of petty retaliation. He had only forgotten--why
indeed should he remember? It was a small matter to him, he could not
know what it meant to her. In her bedroom she dismissed her maid
and went to an open window. She was very tired, but restless, and
disinclined for bed. Dropping down on the low seat she stared out over
the moonlit landscape. The repentant Mouston, abject at her continued
neglect, crawled from his basket and crept tentatively to her, and as
absently her hand went out to him gained courage and climbed up beside
her. Inch by inch he sidled nearer, and unrepulsed grew bolder until
he finally subsided with his head across her knees, whining his
satisfaction. Mechanically she caressed him until his shivering starting
body lay quiet under her soothing touch. The night was close and very
silent. No breath of wind came to stir the heavily leafed trees, no
sound broke the stillness. She listened vainly for the cry of an owl,
for the sharp alarm note of a pheasant to pierce the brooding hush that
seemed to have fallen even over nature. A coppery moon hung like a ball
of fire in the sky. At the far end of the terrace a group of tall trees
cast inky black shadows across the short smooth lawn and the white
tracery of the stone balustrade. The faint scent of jasmine drifted
in through the open window and she leaned forward eagerly to catch the
sweet intermittent perfume that brought back memories of the peaceful
courtyard of the convent school. A night of intense beauty, mysterious,
disturbing, called her compellingly. The restlessness that had assailed
her grew suddenly intolerable, and she glanced back into the spacious
room with a feeling of suffocation.
The four walls seemed closing in about her. She knew that the big white
bed would bring no rest, that she would toss in feverish misery until
the morning, and she turned with dread from the thought of the long
weary hours. Night after night she lay awake in loneliness and longing
until exhaustion brought fitful sleep that, dream-haunted, gave no
refreshment.
Sleep was impossible--the room that witnessed her nightly vigil a prison
house of dark sad thoughts. Her head throbbed with the heat; she craved
the space, the freshness of the moonlit garden.
Rousing the slumbering dog she went out on to the gallery and down the
staircase she had climbed so wearily an hour before. By the solitary
light still burning in the hall she knew that Craven had not yet
returned. Through the darkness of the drawing room she groped her way
until her outstretched hands touched shutters. Slipping the bar softly
and unlatching the window she passed out. For a moment she stood still,
breathing deeply, drinking in the beauty of the scene, exhilarated
with the sudden feeling of freedom that came to her. The silent garden,
beautiful always but more beautiful still in the mystery of the night,
appealed to her as never before. It was the same, yet wonderfully,
curiously unlike. A glamour hung over it, a certain settled peace that
soothed the tumult of her mind and calmed her nerves. Surrendering to
the charm of its almost unearthly loveliness she slowly paced the long
length of the terrace, the wondering Mouston pressing close beside her.
Then when her tired limbs could go no further she halted by the steps
and leant her arms on the coping of the balustrade. Cupping her chin in
her hands she looked down at the rose garden beneath her and smiled at
its quaint formality. Running parallel with the terrace on the one side
the three remaining sides were enclosed by a high yew hedge through
which a door, facing the terrace steps, led to a path that gave access
to the copse that was Peters' short cut. The shadow of the high dense
yew stretched far across the garden and she gazed dreamily into its
dusky depths, conjuring up the past, peopling the solitude about her
with forgotten ghosts who in the silks and satins of a bygone age had
walked those same flagged paths and talked and laughed and wept among
the roses. Poor lonely ghosts--were they lonelier than she?
The silence broke at last. Far off from the trees in the park an owl
called softly to its mate and the swift answering note seemed to mock
her desolation. Her whole being shuddered into one great soundless cry
of utter longing: “Barry! Oh, Barry, Barry!”
And as if in answer to her prayer she heard a sound that sent the quick
blood leaping to her heart.
In the deep shadow of the yew hedge the door that had opened shut with
a sudden clang. Her hands crept to her breast as she strained her eyes
into the darkness. Then the echo of a firm tread, and Craven's tall
figure emerged from the surrounding gloom. With fluttering breath she
watched him slowly cross the bright strip of moonlight lying athwart the
rose garden and mount the steps. Only when he reached the terrace did
he seem aware of her presence, and joined her with an exclamation of
surprise, “You--Gillian?”
“I couldn't sleep--it was so hot--the garden tempted me,” she faltered,
in sudden fear lest he might think she spied on him. But the fascination
of the night was to Craven too natural to evoke comment. He lit a
cigarette and smoked in a silence she did not know how to break, and a
cold wave of chill foreboding passed over her as she waited with nervous
constraint for him to speak. He turned to her at last with a certain
deliberation and spoke with blunt directness.
“I have been asked to lead an expedition in Central Africa. It is partly
a hunting trip, partly a scientific mission. They have approached me
because I know the country, and because I am interested in tropical
diseases and am willing to defray a proportion of the expense which will
be necessarily heavy--I should gladly have done so in any case whether
I went with the party or not. The question of leading the expedition I
deferred as long as I could for obvious reasons.--I had not only myself
to consider. But I have been pressed to give a definite answer and have
agreed to go. There are plenty of other men who would do the job better
than myself but, as I said, I happen to know the locality and speak
several of the dialects, so my going may make things easier for them.
But that is not what has weighed with me most, it is you. Do you think I
don't know how completely I have failed you--how difficult your life
is? I do know. And because I know I am going. For I see no other way of
making your life even bearable for you. It has become impossible for us
to go on as we are--and the fault is mine, only mine. You have been
an angel of goodness and patience, you have done all that was humanly
possible for any woman to do, but circumstances were against us. I had
no right to ask you to make such a marriage. I cannot undo it. I cannot
give you your freedom, but I can by my absence make your life easier
than it has been. I have arranged everything with the lawyers in London
and with Peters, here to-night. If I do not return, for there are
of course risks, everything is left in your control--it is the only
satisfaction in my power. If I do return--God give me grace to be kinder
to you than I have been in the past.”
The blow she had been waiting for had fallen at last, in fulfilment of
her premonition. In her heart she had always known it would come, but
its suddenness paralysed. She had nothing to say. Silently she stood
beside him, her hands tight-locked, numbed with a desperate fear. He
would go--and he would never return. It hammered in her brain, making
her want to shriek. She felt to the full her own powerlessness, nothing
she could say would turn him from his purpose. It was the end she had
always foreseen, the end of all her dreams, the end of everything but
sorrow and pain and loneliness unspeakable. And for him--danger and
possibly death. He had admitted risk, he had set his house in order.
From Craven it meant much. She had learned his complete disregard
for danger from the men who had stayed with them in Scotland; his
recklessness in the hunting field, which was a by-word in the county,
was already known to her. He set no value on his own life--what reason
was there to suppose that, in the mysterious land of sudden and terrible
death, he would take even ordinary precautions? Was he going with a
pre-conceived determination to end a life that had become unbearable?
In agony that seemed to rive her heart she closed her eyes lest he might
see in them the anguish she knew was there. How long a time was left to
her before the parting that would leave her desolate? “When do you go?”
The question burst from her, and Craven glanced at her keenly, trying to
read the colourless face that was like a still white mask. He fancied
he had caught a tremor in her voice, then he called himself a fool as
he noted the composure that seemed to argue indifference. Her calmness
stung while it strengthened him. Why should she care, he asked himself
bitterly. His going could mean to her only relief. And disappointment
made his own voice ring cold and distant. “Within the next few weeks.
The exact date is not yet fixed,” he said evasively. Again she was
silent while he wondered what were her thoughts. Suddenly she turned to
him, words pouring out in stammering haste, “While you are away--may I
go to France--to Paris--to work? This life of idleness is killing me!”
He looked at her in amazement, startled at her passionate utterance,
dismayed at a suggestion he had never contemplated. To think of her
at the Towers, in the position he would have her fill, watched over by
Peters, was the only comfort he could take away with him. For a second
he meditated a refusal that seemed within his right, arbitrary though it
might be. But the promise he had made to leave her free stayed him. He
could not break that promise now. “As you please,” he said, with forced
unconcern, “you are your own mistress. You can do whatever you wish.”
And with a slight shrug he turned toward the house. She walked beside
him in a tumult of emotion. He would now never know the love she bore
him, the aching passion that throbbed like a living thing within her.
She could not speak, the gulf between them was too wide to bridge, and
he would leave her, thinking her indifferent, callous! Tears blinded her
as she stumbled through the dark drawing room. In the dimly lit hall,
standing at the foot of the staircase with his hand clenched on the
oaken rail, Craven watched with tortured eyes the slender drooping
figure move slowly upward, battling with himself, praying for strength
to let her go--for he knew that if she even turned her head his
self-control would shatter. It was weakening now and the sweat broke out
in heavy drops on his forehead as he strove to crush an insidious inward
voice that bade him forget the past and take what was his. “Only one
life,” it seemed to shout in mocking derision, “live while you can, take
what you can! What is done, is done; only the present matters. Of
what use is regret, of what use an abstinence that mortifies yet feeds
desire? Fool, fool to set aside the chance of happiness!”
With a deep breath that was almost a groan he sprang forward. Then, in
deadly fear, he checked himself, and wrenching his eyes away from the
woman he craved fled out into the night.