felt the warmth of his body like the glow of an open fire. And a sudden
wild wave of rebellion went through her, goading her into action at
last. She had never resisted him before; she resisted him now fiercely,
passionately, striving with all her strength to free herself from that
pitiless hold.
"You never offered me love," she panted, straining back from him even
while he mastered her. "Love--love--is a very different thing!"
Her voice went into a gasp that was almost a cry. He was holding her
crushed to him in a grip that nearly suffocated her. His eyes blazed
down into hers, terrible in their intensity, cruelly, appallingly
bright. The savage in him had leapt free of all shackles at last, and
had her utterly at his mercy.
"Well?" he said, speaking with lips drawn back, showing his set teeth.
"And what is love--as defined by you--and Saltash? Something peculiarly
holy?"
The taunt pierced her like a knife, with a pain so unbearable that for
the moment she was almost beside herself. For an instant she winced from
that intolerable thrust; but only for an instant. The next with a
furious wrench she freed one hand and struck him--struck him across his
grim, menacing mouth.
"How dare you say that?" she cried. "How dare you? How dare you?"
She struck him afresh with each repetition, so stung to frenzy was she
by that sneer. But when the sudden realization that he stood to endure
her blows without the smallest attempt to check or avoid them came upon
her, the spirit went out of her. She became passive again, trembling
from head to foot, so that but for his upholding arms she must have
fallen.
"Let me go!" she whispered voicelessly. "Let me go!"
He was still gazing at her, but his look had changed. His eyes still
burned, but they no longer threatened. Rather she read in them a
slow-gathering wonder, as of a man who has picked up some strange
substance of which he does not know the value or properties.
He held her awhile longer, and then very gradually he let her go.
She drew away from him, her bosom heaving, her lips panting, and leaned
upon the dressing-table for support. She had withstood him indeed, but
it had cost her every inch of her strength.
She did not know how she endured his silence. It seemed to pierce every
nerve, while he still stood observing her, as it were appraising her.
Then at length very slowly he spoke. "I take back what I said about
Saltash. I see I was wrong."
He paused a moment. She had made a sharp gesture of surprise, but she
spoke no word. He went on.
"I realize--now--that you do not know what love is. If you did, you
wouldn't be so--ashamed. Maybe you never will know. It isn't given to
all of us--not that sort. But let me tell you this! Your friendship--or
whatever you call it--with Saltash must end. There must be no more
letters--no more secret meetings. Saltash is not a white man. I
believe in your own heart you know it. Trust him, and he will let you
down,--sure."
He spoke with sombre force. She heard him in utter silence, her head
bent, still striving to call back her vanished strength.
He came a step nearer to her. "Maybe you think you can hoodwink
me--disobey me, and I shan't know. You haven't a very great opinion of
my intellect, I guess. But--you may take it from me--I shall know. And
if you try to deceive me, you will repent it. You wouldn't fancy life
on a lone ranch with not a soul but me to speak to--and all the dishes
to wash?" A grim note that was not without a hint of humour crept into
his voice. "That's what it will mean, my girl, if you don't obey your
husband now. I'm a man of my word, and I think you know it."
He was standing close to her. She felt the vitality of the man,
encompassing her, enthralling her. Her brief resistance was over. The
very heart of her felt too tired to beat. He had not forcibly quelled
her rebellion, yet in some fashion he had taken from her the power to
rebel.
He waited for her to speak, but still she could not. Only after a
moment or two she drew back from him again and sat down in a chair by
the table. He had delivered his ultimatum. There seemed nothing more
to be said.
She wished dully that he would go. Surely he could see that the game
was his, that she had ceased to move or to attempt to counter that final
stroke! Yet he still stood motionless, almost as if he were waiting for
something.
Suddenly he spoke again with an odd, restrained vehemence; she felt that
he spoke in spite of himself. "That's a prospect that doesn't attract
you, I reckon. You've no use for me, never have had--save once. My
love is just an insult to you. You even call it by another name. But I
tell you this," his voice deepened with a strong vibration that affected
her very strangely, gripping her close attention, "whatever it is, it's
a driving force that I can't restrain. It may be an obsession, it may
be a curse; but there is no getting away from it. It simply is and it
has got to be. And if any man ever dares to come between us--you had
better mark what I say--I'll shoot him!"
He spoke with a fatalism that sank deep into her soul. It was no savage
threat, but the clear pronouncement of a man who knew exactly what he
would do under given circumstances. And she was sure in that moment,
absolutely sure, that no dread of consequences would deter him.
She did not answer him; there was nothing to say. But there swept over
her another dreadful wave of apprehension such as had caught her in the
summer-house an hour before, turning her cold from head to foot. What
would he say if he knew what had passed between them--if he knew that
their lips had met?
She pictured him selecting his weapon with the deadly determination that
had inspired his words, saw the cruel set of the mouth, the ruthless
glitter of the savage eyes; and she shivered, shivered uncontrollably,
convulsively, as one in the grip of an ague.
He saw the shiver; he could not fail to see it, and his attitude changed
a little. A measure of softening came into it, even a tinge of
kindliness.
"There, you're overwrought," he said. "It's time you got to bed.
Reckon you understand me, so we'll give the matter a rest."
He turned with the words, turned in his sturdy, purposeful fashion and
went back to his room.
She did not watch him go, but she listened with straining ears for the
closing of the door between them. It did not come to her. There was to
be no relief from his presence that night. The door remained half-open.
She sat on motionless for a moment or two, listening in a numb, hopeless
fashion to his quiet, methodical movements.
She got up sharply at length and began with quivering speed to undress,
not daring to linger lest she should have to meet again the straight,
unsparing scrutiny of those terribly bright eyes.
Once only, and that just at the last, did she stay a moment and stoop
over a small dark object on the floor--something she fancied she had
dropped. But the next instant a wild fit of trembling seized her, she
stood up again, feeling giddy, physically sick. The thing on the floor
was the charred remnant of the moth that had fluttered impotent wings to
escape but so short a time before. It lay there shrivelled, lifeless,
the wings that had beaten so madly for freedom shattered and consumed in
the flame.
She caught her hand to her throat. What evil Fate had decreed that such
things should be? Even the tiniest thread of life could not escape the
seething whirlpool of destruction.
Sick at heart, she turned and extinguished the candle that had wrought
so cruel a doom. The moonlight shone whitely into the room. She went
to the window and pulled down the blind; then trembling, she crept to
bed. And the darkness covered her soul.
CHAPTER IX
THE INVITATION
Saltash did not come to her on the following day, and for her own sake
she was thankful that he did not. But the problem of her mother's
difficulties had begun to vex her sorely. Without communicating with
him, she knew that it could not be solved. He had given his promise to
help her, yet somehow she did not feel the task before her to be a very
easy one. Charlie was so curiously elusive in some respects. It was
not always a simple matter to detach him from the whim of the moment.
And she had many a time heard him declare that he was not a business
man.
She watched the post with nervous anxiety, but nothing came for her.
She was relieved to have nothing to conceal, but her mother's anxieties
weighed upon her. She hesitated to write to Charlie, but told herself
she would have to do so if no word came from him. It was all highly
unsatisfactory, and behind her uneasiness there lurked a deep sense of
self-reproach, self-distrust. She had suffered him to go too far, too
far. It might be difficult to recover a normal footing. It might be he
was even now planning some deep game, some master-stroke to follow up
the advantage he had gained and win her for his own.
He would not succeed. He could not succeed. She would not so much as
allow her thoughts to wander in that direction. She had been mad that
night. There had been witchery in the very air. But now she was awake
to the crude realities of life, awake and sane and bitterly ashamed of
her weakness. He might plot and intrigue, but he could not overthrow
her reason a second time. The madness had passed, and it would not
return. But the necessity for seeing him remained, and it was an urgent
one. She found it hard to wait in inactivity.
The whole day passed without a sign from him, and her patience began to
wear thin. Surely, surely he could not fail to keep that solemn promise
of his! Surely he could not have forgotten--or be waiting for her to
make the first move!
She went for a walk on the down with Capper in the evening. She did not
greatly want to go. She was a little afraid of his shrewd insight. But
she found that she had no cause for fear. He was full of kindly
commonplace topics, and he touched upon no intimate subject whatever.
She returned from the walk feeling soothed and refreshed.
They went through the training-field on the way back, and here they came
upon Jake, giving Bunny his first riding-lesson. It was good to see the
boy's eagerness, his flushed face and shining eyes. He was utterly
fearless and even impatient of Jake's care.
They stood awhile and watched, then turned and walked up through the
garden.
"He is very happy," Maud said.
Capper smiled. "Jake is an A1 companion for him, Mrs. Bolton. He is
thrice lucky to be in the care of a man like Jake."
She agreed without enthusiasm. "Yes, Jake is very kind."
"That's so. And he won't spoil him either. Also," Capper spoke with
emphasis, "he'll never learn anything that isn't clean and straight from
Jake. Guess he'll make a fine man some day."
"Thanks to you, Doctor!" Maud said.
"No, madam. Thanks to Jake! My part was a very small one. I am just a
mechanic; but Jake is a driver of engines--a maker of men."
Maud said nothing, and he changed the subject.
They lingered in the garden till Jake and Bunny joined them; then they
separated, Bunny, contrary to custom, attaching himself to Maud, and
Jake taking possession of Capper.
Brother and sister ascended the steps into the house and entered the
parlour. Bunny was still flushed and excited. Life was full of
absorbing interest to him. He had actually been off the leading rein
most of the time,--yes, and he had cantered too. Jake said he was to go
and have a warm bath and then do his time on the floor. It was a great
bore, but he supposed he'd have to. What was Maud looking so sick
about? Wasn't she well?
This amiable enquiry was made just as Maud's eyes had fallen upon a
letter lying on the table. She almost snatched it up, and then found
with a mingling of relief and disappointment that it was not from
Saltash.
The crabbed writing was wholly unfamiliar to her. She stood gazing at it
while her sudden agitation subsided.
"Who's it from?" said Bunny, coming to peer over her shoulder.
"Liverpool post-mark. Why, that's from that queer old codger who was
down here in the winter, I'll bet. What on earth does he want?"
"To be sure--Uncle Edward," Maud said.
She opened the letter with Bunny looking on. They read it together.
"MY DEAR GRAND-NIECE,
"I am pleased to acknowledge your letter of the 4th inst., and I write
to inform you that I shall be delighted to receive you and your brother
on whatever date it may suit you to come. I am glad to hear of the
latter's excellent progress. I presume you are capable of keeping him
in order. You will of course be prepared to find your own
entertainment. Should your worthy husband care to join the party by any
chance, I have room for all.
"Your affectionate uncle,
"EDWARD WARREN."
"Holy Christopher!" ejaculated Bunny. "What on earth did you want to
write to him for? I'm not going there,--jiggered if I am! And to be
tied to your apron-strings too,--not much!"
Maud folded the letter. "I thought you might like to go away with me
for a little," she said.
He stared at her. "What! Away from Jake? Not--much!"
She tried to smile. "You're not very flattering, Bunny."
Bunny was still staring. "I can't think what's come to you! Jake's the
best chap in the world, and yet you don't seem to get on with him. Say,
what the blazes is the matter with you anyway?"
She bit her lip. "I wish you wouldn't be so horribly imitative, Bunny.
You never used to talk like that."
Bunny flared up on the instant. "I'll talk as I damn' well please!
It's no affair of yours. As to leaving Jake, I'm hanged if I will! You
can jolly well go by yourself!"
"And as to behaving like a beastly bounder, you'll apologize for it
before you leave this room," a soft voice said.
Both started violently. Jake had come up the steps from the garden. He
walked over to the mantelpiece, searched for and found a box of matches;
then turned.
"If we were alone, my son, I'd punch your head for you. Maud is quite
right. You've no call to talk like a cowboy. Now apologize--quick!"
But Bunny stood sullenly silent.
Maud turned to the door. "Pray don't trouble to make him do that!" she
said. "I am accustomed to cowboy manners."
The door closed upon her, and in the same instant Jake's hand closed
upon Bunny's shoulder.
"Go after her!" he commanded, "Catch her up, and say you're sorry!"
But Bunny resisted him. "I won't, Jake. I'm not sorry. And I won't go
and stay with Uncle Edward. There! If you send me, I'll run away."
Jake shook him. "I'll be mad with you in a minute, my son. Go after
her, do you hear? Go after her and make it up before she starts
crying!"
"She won't cry!" said Bunny incredulously. "She never does."
Jake swung him round to the door. "Bunny, don't you be a skunk! If you
don't go, there'll be trouble--bad trouble."
"But it was her fault!" protested Bunny, stung to remonstrance. "She
set on to me first."
"I don't care whose fault it was," said Jake. "You're to go."
Bunny writhed in his hold. "You're beastly unfair, Jake. If I do go, I
shan't apologize."
"You won't?" said Jake.
"No, I won't!" There was a faint note of apprehension in Bunny's voice,
notwithstanding its defiance. He stood up to Jake, but his eyelids
quivered ever so slightly. His hands opened and shut in the old nervous
fashion.
Jake was holding him fast. "Think it over!" he said. "Think it over!"
His voice was steady, his grip inflexible. His eyes never left the
boy's hot face. They held a stern warning that could not be ignored.
Bunny straightened himself to meet it. "I suppose you'll thrash me," he
said. "Well,--you must, that's all."
A faint gleam crossed Jake's face. It was hardly a smile, and was gone
on the instant. "No, I shan't thrash you," he said. "Now, will you
go?"
And Bunny capitulated, struck his colours unconditionally, flung his
arms round his brother-in-law's shoulders. "All right, Jake. I'll go,
old man. I'll go. Don't look so confoundedly grim!"
Jake held him back with one hand on his rough dark head. "Be off with
you, boy! I'll see you later--maybe when you're in bed. Go now!"
He smiled upon Bunny, for there were tears in the boy's eyes, patted him
on the back, and turned to go as he had entered.
Ten seconds later Bunny was beating a rousing tattoo on his sister's
door. "Say, Maud, let me in--quick--quick!"
He wriggled at the handle, for the door was locked, and, meeting with no
response, beat again.
"Maud, I say, let me in! I've come to say I'm sorry. Don't be waxy, old
girl! Open the door!"
There came a lagging footstep. The key turned, Bunny burst into the
room headlong.
"You're not crying, are you? I knew you weren't. There! It's all
right, isn't it? What makes you so touchy, nowadays? You never used to
be."
Her arms held him tightly in a mute embrace. She kissed him with a
yearning tenderness.
Bunny drew back and looked at her with sudden, close attention. "Maud,
what's the matter? Tell me what's the matter!"
She was smiling, a strangely drawn smile. Not for the first time he
became conscious of the veil of reserve that hung between them. He
strove with it indignantly, seeking to tear it aside.
"Maud, tell me, I say! You would have told me in the old days."
She caught back an involuntary sigh. "You were older then, Bunny."
"I wasn't!" he declared. "What rot!"
"Ah well," she said gently, "things were different in those days."
And suddenly there came to Bunny--Bunny who had lain and watched life so
long that his eyes had grown tired with watching--one of the old shrewd
flashes of enlightenment, solving the mystery.
He held her very tightly, his face burning red. "Say, Maud--old girl,
is it--is it--I know what it is!"
"Don't, Bunny!" she whispered inarticulately.
He kissed her with the warmth of renewed understanding. "That's why
Jake's so beastly worried about you. Poor old boy! He's getting as
lean as Chops. Have you noticed?"
She had not. They sat down together on an ottoman near the window,
Bunny's arm protectingly around her.
"He sent me up after you in such a hurry because he was afraid you were
going to cry," he went on. "He was furious with me for vexing you.
Poor old Jake!"
A curious little pang of resentment went through her. "You seem to think
he is very much to be pitied," she said.
"I do," said Bunny instantly. "He looks so down in the mouth nowadays.
I saw it directly I came home. He's got a sort of hurt look at the back
of his eyes, as if he wasn't getting on with himself. I sometimes wish
you'd be a bit kinder to him, Maud. I'm sure he mopes."
This was a point of view so new to Maud that she hardly knew how to
regard it. Somehow it had never occurred to her that Jake could take
her attitude to heart, Jake who trampled down all rebellion with so
merciless a heel. She had always told herself that Jake had all he
really wanted. That he was aware of any need of the spirit she had never
seriously believed. Bunny's assertion brought to mind Mrs. Wright's
kindly assurance that there was a whole lot of reserve in Jake; and for
the first time the old woman's words recurred to her. "He won't show
you his heart so long as he thinks you've no use for it." Was there a
measure of truth in those words? She wondered. She wondered.
"Guess I must be going," said Bunny. "I've got to have a bath. You
might turn on the water for me like a brick while I go and undress."
There was subtle tact in the suggestion. Bunny knew--none better--that
to wait upon him was his sister's dearest privilege, and he judged by
her sad face that it was time to change her thoughts.
When he arrived in the bath-room a few minutes later, he found
everything put ready for his comfort, and Maud waiting to turn off the
water at his command. He was attired in a large bath towel which he
held artistically draped about his person. He thrust a bare, warm arm
about her neck.
"Thanks, old girl. You're jolly decent to me! I don't know how I
managed to be such a beast. Guess my temper must have got warped in its
youth. By the way, there's a letter for you from Charlie on my
dressing-table. He told me to give it to you when we were alone. I
suppose it's something to do with the mother's affairs."
"Oh, perhaps," Maud said; and she hoped he did not note her sudden start
or the quick flushing of her face. "When did you see him?"
"He came up the garden way this evening just before I went riding with
Jake. You were out with Dr. Capper. He was in rather a decent mood,"
said Bunny. "He gave me half a sovereign. Not a bad sort--Charlie."
He began to emerge from the enveloping towel, and Maud turned to go.
"You can stay if you like," said Bunny graciously. "I've no wish to make
a stranger of you."
But she smiled and declined the invitation. "You do better without me
now," she said.
And as the boy's small thin figure slipped down into the bath, she went
out and crossed the passage swiftly to his room.
The letter from Charlie was not on his table, but tossed carelessly on
the bed with his clothes. She shivered at the thought that Jake, and
not she, might have found it there. The purple crest stood out
conspicuous on the white envelope--a fox's head with the motto: Sans
vertu, underneath. She wondered what wild ancestor of his had designed
the cynical device.
Her hands were trembling as she tore open the flap. She was impatient,
yet half-afraid. Her heart throbbed hard at sight of the dashing scrawl
once so familiar and so dear.
"_Ma belle reine des roses;_"--her heart throbbed a little faster. The
old sweet name, how it brought back to her those free, happy days of her
youth! How she marvelled now at the high, girlish pride that had sent
him away. How cruel had been the cost of that same pride!
She read on. It was a characteristic epistle, half-mocking,
half-tender, throughout. Would she meet him again? But of course she
would! Had she not said that he could serve her? But they would not
risk another interruption. Would she be going to the Graydown races? If
not, he would manage to return early and come to her by the garden way.
They would thus be sure of at least half an hour together before anyone
else got back. He seemed confident that she would not refuse, and she
knew, even as she read, that she could not. She must see him somehow.
She must somehow get back to normal relations with him. She could not
sacrifice his friendship to that one night's madness. Besides, there
was her mother.
A trampling of hoofs in the yard below drew her to the window. She
looked forth.
It was the Albatross being led out of his stable for the evening canter.
Dick Stevens held the bridle. He wore a heavy, glowering look. She
remembered--and the memory seemed to scorch her--that morning after her
wedding-day when she had stood and listened in petrified horror to Jake
pouring forth terrible invective upon the lad's head.
He was standing by now, watching with a frown, as though the boy's
movements displeased him; and even as she looked he went forward and
took the bridle into his own hand.
Stevens stood aside sullenly, while he readjusted the bit with set lips.
The Albatross nozzled against him, and after a few moments Jake's hand
went to his pocket and brought forth a piece of sugar.
Then, while the animal munched it, he turned round upon the sulky
stable-boy and spoke.
"If any harm comes to him through any damn' carelessness of yours, I
warn you,--and I'm a man of my word--I'll leather you to a jelly, if it
costs me fifty pounds."
His words were quiet, but absolutely distinct. His right hand was hard
gripped on his riding-whip.
Stevens slunk back a step, not speaking, his face crimson and defiant.
Maud at the upper window clasped her hands suddenly and very tightly
upon the letter they held. Yes, he was a man of his word. And what if
he kept that other promise he had made to her? Life alone on a ranch
with Jake! Her whole being rose in revolt at the thought. She turned
away with a shudder.
CHAPTER X
THE MISTAKE
The day fixed for the race for the Burchester Cup was inclined to be
showery. Jake was up at an early hour, and when he was gone Maud rose
also. But she felt too languid to bestir herself very greatly. She sat
by the open window, breathing the pure morning air, and wondering,
wondering, what the day would bring forth.
Since the receipt of Saltash's letter, she had been making up her mind.
That she must see him alone that day was inevitable, but she had formed
a strong determination that for the future she would put bounds to their
intercourse. It could but lead in the one hopeless direction. Moreover,
open friendship between them had become, owing to Jake's prohibition,
impossible.
She did not blame Saltash for what had happened, but bitterly she blamed
herself. She had been carried away by the moment's madness. Her feet
had slipped. But the determination to retrace that false step was
strong within her. For Charlie's sake, as well as for her own, she knew
that they must not go on. With fatal clearness she realized that it was
the downward path leading to destruction. It had never attracted her
before her marriage, that downward path. The care of Bunny had absorbed
her life. But now that her life was empty of all but the bondage she
hated, she faced the fact that her resolution had begun to waver. She
could no longer trust herself to stand firm.
Sitting there, drinking in the refreshing coolness of the rain-washed
air, feeling the sweet morning chill all about her, something of that
innate purity of hers seemed to revive. Some of the bitterness went
from her soul. She was very, very tired; but after long meditation she
had begun to see her way more clearly. Perhaps dimly the future had
begun to draw her. Yes, her life was empty now. But in a little
while--a little while-- A deep, deep breath escaped her. The memory of
Mrs. Wright and her confident words of wisdom came to her. Her life
would not be always a dreary wandering in a desert land. Prisoner she
might be, but even so, the flowers might bloom around her, within her
reach.
A little tremor went through her. Ah yes, it might be there were
compensations in store, even for her. Her life would not be always
empty.
A kind of waking dream came upon her. It was as though a soothing hand
had been laid upon her, stilling her wild rebellion, giving her hope.
The kaleidoscope of life was changing every day. Why should she
despair?
When she descended to breakfast, she was calmer, more at peace with
herself, than she had been for long.
She found Capper waiting alone. He gave her his quick, keen look, but
characteristically he made no comment upon what he saw.
"I am wondering how I shall catch the boat-train to-night," he said.
"Must you do so?" she asked.
He nodded vigorously. "Indeed I must. I have trespassed upon your
hospitality quite long enough. And there is work waiting across the
Atlantic that only Maurice Capper can do."
She smiled at him. "How indefatigable you are! Won't it wait a little
longer?"
"Not a day!" declared Capper.
And neither of them dreamed that that same work would have to wait many
days ere Maurice Capper was at liberty to handle it.
They sat down alone to breakfast. Jake and Bunny had had their meal
long before.
"There's no holding the boy this morning," Capper observed. "It will be
a good thing now when you can get him off to school, Mrs. Bolton. He'll
grow quicker there than anywhere."
Maud looked up quickly. "You think so?"
He smiled. "I have told Jake so. He, I believe, is waiting till these
all-absorbing races are over to consult you on the subject."
Maud's eyes fell. "He won't do that," she said, in a low voice. "He
and Bunny will settle it between them, and I shall be told afterwards."
"That so?" said Capper. "Then, if I may take the liberty to advise you,
madam, I should consult them first."
She shook her head in silence. How could she even begin to tell Capper
of the utter lack of sympathy between herself and Jake?
"And you really think he is fit to go to school, and fend for himself?"
she asked, after a moment.
"Do him all the good in the world," said Capper. He added kindly:
"Guess you'll miss him some, my dear; but believe me you won't be sorry
when you see what it does for him."
"Oh no, I shall never be sorry on his account," she said.
And there the subject ended, but before she left the breakfast table she
found an opportunity to acquaint him with her decision to remain at home
that day.
He expressed regret but not surprise. "You are wise not to overtire
yourself," he said.
She became aware again of the green eyes surveying her for a moment, and
coloured. "I--am not sleeping very well," she said, with an effort.
He nodded as one who fully understood. "Take things easily!" he said.
"Don't fret over 'em! Let the world go by!"
She got up, moved by an impulse curiously insistent. "Dr. Capper," she
said, "it--it's rather a difficult world, isn't it?"
Her voice had a quiver of wistfulness in it. He reached out a hand at
once that sought and held hers. "My dear Mrs. Bolton," he said, "we
live too hard--all of us. That's nine-tenths of the trouble. It's
because we won't trust the Hand on the helm. We're all so mighty
anxious to do our own steering, and we don't know a thing about it."
The hold of the thin yellow fingers was full of kindly comfort. There
was nothing disconcerting in the shrewd green eyes that looked into
hers.
"I think you'll be happier presently, you know," he said. "It seems to
me that two people I'm mighty fond of have got wandering off their
bearings in the wilderness. They'll find each other presently and then,
I guess, that same wilderness will blossom into a garden and they'll
settle down in comfort and enjoy themselves."
He pressed her hand, and released it, making it evident that he had no
intention of pursuing the matter further without definite encouragement.
And Maud gave him none. Something in her shrank from doing so. He was
Jake's friend before he was hers.
The day seemed very long. It was oppressive also, gleams of sunshine
alternating with occasional heavy thunder showers.
She was lying in a hammock-chair under the trees in the orchard with
Chops at her feet when Jake came striding through at the last moment to
find her.
"Capper tells me you don't feel up to coming," he said.
She barely glanced up from the book in her lap, she did not want to meet
his eyes. "I didn't tell him so," she said.
"But it is so?" insisted Jake.
"I have decided not to come, certainly," she said, feeling her heart
jerk apprehensively as she made the statement.
He stood a moment in silence, then bent unexpectedly, took her by the
chin, and turned her face up to his own. It was flooded with scarlet on
the instant; her eyes flinched away from his.
He held her so for several seconds, looking at her, mercilessly watching
that agonizing blush, till it faded under his eyes, leaving her white to
the lips. Then, without another word, he let her go.
She heard the jingle of his spurs as he went away, and for a long time
after she lay as he had left her, too unnerved to move. What could he
know? How much did he suspect? She felt cold to the very heart of her,
stricken and sick with fear. He had not so much as kissed her in his
brutal, domineering way, and that fact disquieted her more than any
other. Though she hated the touch of his lips she would have welcomed
it thankfully in that hour of sickening apprehension only to feel
reassured and safe.
The patter of rain roused her to activity and drove her back to the
house, in time to meet Mrs. Lovelace hastening forth with an umbrella to
her rescue.
"You shouldn't be sitting out there, ma'am, on a day like this," the old
woman said. "And, lawk-a-massy, you do look bad!"
Maud tried to smile. "I am not bad, Mrs. Lovelace. It's only the heat."
Mrs. Lovelace pursed her lips and looked severely incredulous. "You'd
best lie down, ma'am," she said. "I'll bring your lunch immediately."
She bustled away, and Maud sank on the couch in the parlour and strove
to compose herself. But she could not with that awful fear coiled like
a snake about her heart. A terrible restlessness possessed her. It was
impossible to remain still.
If she could only send a message to Charlie, warning him not to come!
But that was impossible. She knew that no message could reach him now.
He would have to come, and Jake would know of it. Manoeuvre as she
might, those lynx-eyes would wrest from her the secret. She knew
herself powerless to withstand them.
She made scarcely any pretence to eat the luncheon that Mrs. Lovelace
brought her. She had never before been in such a ferment of
disquietude. Those few awful moments of Jake's silent scrutiny had
shaken her to the very foundations of her being. She felt that he had
ruthlessly forced his way past her defences and looked upon her naked
soul. And she realized that he had spoken the truth when he had said
that she could not deceive him. He could tear her reserve from her like
a garment and expose her most secret thoughts.
She spent most of the afternoon in pacing to and fro, for she could not
rest. Her feet were soaked with the drenched orchard grass, but she did
not know it. Her limbs were strung to a feverish activity. There were
times when she thought she would go mad.
The hours crawled by leaden-footed. She did not know in the least when
Charlie would come, but she began to expect him long before he could
possibly arrive, and the waiting became a torment that chafed her
intolerably. If he would only come soon--so that she might make her
petition and let him go!
Back and forth, back and forth, she wandered, conscious sometimes of a
dreadful, physical sinking, but for the most part too torn with anxiety
to be aware of anything else. And Chops paced with her in mute sympathy
with her distress.
The afternoon was beginning to wane towards evening when Mrs. Lovelace
came forth once more in search of her--Mrs. Lovelace with prim, set
lips, sternly disapproving.
"You'll make yourself bad if you go on, ma'am," she said. "And if you
please, Mrs. Wright is here, and I'm laying the cloth for tea."
"Mrs. Wright!" Maud looked at her with dazed eyes, bringing her
thoughts back as it were from afar.
"There she is!" said Mrs. Lovelace.
And even as she spoke Maud caught sight of the comfortable, portly
figure standing on the steps.
She gave a gasp that was almost a cry, and began to hasten towards her.
Mrs. Wright on her part bustled down to meet her. "Don't hurry, my dear,
don't! I've only just come. Why, how tired and white you look! There!
Run along, Sarah, and get the tea, like a good soul! I'll take care of
Mrs. Bolton."
Her arm was already around Maud's waist; she looked up at her with round
eyes full of kindly concern.
Maud bent to kiss her. "How--good of you to come!" she said.
She herself was divided between relief and dismay; but the relief
predominated. It would not matter now if Charlie came. She would have
to write to him on her mother's behalf. It was the only way. She
believed she could evade Jake's vigilance with a letter--so long as
Charlie did not write to her. The anguish through which she had passed
had made her realize that she must not, could not, take such a risk
again.
She clung to Mrs. Wright as to a deliverer. "Thank you for coming!" she
said.
Mrs. Wright had begun to steer sturdily for the house. "Lor' bless you,
dear, I'm as pleased as anything to come," she said. "Jake dropped in
this morning casual-like, and happened to pass the remark as they was
all going to the races but you. So I sent down to Tom's young lady to
be so kind as to come and mind the shop for me this afternoon, and after
dinner I dressed myself and came along to keep you company. I could
have got here an hour ago, but I thought as you'd be resting, and I knew
as Sarah would be busy."
So it was Jake's doing! He had taken this step to circumvent her. Maud
was conscious of a throb of anger against him, but her visitor's
guileless chatter made her stifle it. Mrs. Wright was so obviously
unsuspecting.
They ascended the steps together, Mrs. Wright's arm stoutly assisting
her. Then in the parlour she turned and looked at Maud.
"If I was you, my dearie, I should lie right down and have a rest. And
I'll give you a drop of brandy in your tea."
She sank upon the sofa without protest. The reaction from those hours
of feverish suspense was upon her. She felt exhausted in mind and body.
Mrs. Wright attended upon her with the utmost kindness. She did not talk
a great deal, for which forbearance Maud was mutely thankful. She was
so unutterably tired, too tired even to protest against that drop of
brandy in her tea upon which Mrs. Wright insisted.
Another hour went by, but there was no sign of Saltash's coming. The
evening was turning dark and wet. Maud lay on her sofa, sometimes
dozing, sometimes talking abstractedly to her visitor. For Mrs. Wright
was determined to remain till Jake returned, and briskly said so. Maud
did not want to combat the decision. She was glad to have her there.
It seemed that Charlie was not coming after all. Something had detained
him. Her anxiety had spent itself, but she felt terribly weak. The
comfort of the old woman's tender care was too great to refuse.
She scarcely knew how the time went, so overpowering was the languor
that possessed her. The rainy sky brought down an early dusk long
before the setting of the sun. A brooding stillness hung upon all
things through which the patter of the rain sounded with unvarying
monotony.
"Deary me! They will get wet," sighed Mrs. Wright.
Slowly the heavy clouds gathered and hung! Slowly the darkness
deepened.
Suddenly Maud raised herself, sat up, tensely listened. "What is that?"
she said.
Mrs. Wright looked at her. "I hear nothing but the rain, dear."
Maud broke in upon her impatiently. "Yes, that--that--that! Don't you
hear? What is it? O God, what is it?"
Her voice rose wildly. In a moment she had sprung from her couch and
was standing with caught breath, listening.
"My dearie, it's only the rain," said Mrs. Wright soothingly. "Don't
let yourself get jumpy! There's nothing there."
But Maud paid no attention to her. With a movement incredibly swift she
reached the door and threw it open.
Then indeed Mrs. Wright heard sounds, muffled but undeniable, of some
commotion in the stable-yard. "I expect they've just got home, dear,"
she said. "And very wet they'll be. Hadn't you better tell Sarah to
get a nice hot brew of tea ready for 'em? Little Sir Brian will be sure
to want his tea."
But the rush of Maud's feet along the oaken passage was her only answer.
The girl went like the wind, urged by the most awful fear she had ever
known.
The front door was open. Bunny was on the step. But she brushed past
him without so much as seeing him, tearing forth bare-headed,
ashen-faced, into the rain.
For there in the murky twilight, terrible as a lion newly roused, stood
Jake, gripping by the collar a struggling, writhing figure, the while he
administered to it as sound a horse-whipping as his great strength could
accomplish. His right arm moved slowly, with a deliberate regularity
unspeakably horrible to behold. She had a glimpse--only a glimpse--of
his face, and the savage cruelty of it was such that it seemed no longer
human. Of his victim she saw very little, but of his identity not the
smallest doubt existed in her mind; and as the sound of those awful
blows reached her, the last shred of her endurance was torn away. She
shrieked and shrieked again as she ran.
Those shrieks reached Jake as the cry of its mate in distress might
reach an animal intent upon its prey. He flung the prey from him on the
instant and wheeled. He met her a full ten yards from the spot, just as
her feet slipped on the wet stones of the yard. He caught her--she
almost fell against him--and held her hard in his arms.
She was sobbing terribly, utterly unstrung, hysterical. She struggled
for speech, but the wild sounds that left her lips were wholly
unintelligible. She struggled to free herself, but her strength was
gone. In the end, her knees suddenly gave way under her. She collapsed
with a gasping cry. And Jake, stooping, raised her, and bore her in
senseless out of the drenching rain.
CHAPTER XI
THE REASON
"You've only yourself to thank," said Capper. He tugged irritably at
his pointed yellow beard. His eyes were moody under brows that frowned.
"You might have known what to expect if you had an ounce of sense."
"Guess I always was an all-fired fool," said Jake.
The great doctor looked down at him from his post on the hearth, and his
eyes softened a little. For Jake's dejection was very thorough. He sat
as it were in dust and ashes.
"Not always, my son," he said. "But I guess you've surpassed yourself
on this occasion. Well, it's done. She may get over it, but she won't
love you any the better for it. It'll be up to you to make a fresh
start presently."
Jake was silent. He was not smoking. He sat with bent head and lowered
eyes.
Capper contemplated him awhile, till at length a faint glint of humour
began to shine in his green eyes. He moved, and laid a long, wiry hand
upon Jake's shoulder.
"Say, Jake!" he said. "Don't take it too hard, man! Let it be a lesson
to you, that's all. And the next time you want to whip a stable-boy, do
it on the quiet, and there'll be no misunderstandings. Guess you'll
have to sing small for a bit, but it's not a hanging matter. She'll
forgive you by and by."
"Why should she?" Jake did not move his head or respond in any way to
the friendly touch.
"Because she's that sort." Capper spoke with stout conviction. "She
won't hold out against you when she sees you're sorry. Don't be afraid
to tell her so, Jake! Don't hide your soul!"
Jake raised his head suddenly, looking full up at Capper with eyes that
glowed red and sombre. "You don't quite grasp the situation, Doc," he
said. "She won't be sorry for this when she comes to herself. She
never wanted to bear a child of mine. She loathes the very ground I
walk on. She'd do most anything--most anything--to get quit of me. No,
I reckon she won't be sorry any. She'll be--sort of--glad!"
"Oh, shucks!" Capper's hand suddenly smote him hard. "You don't know
women. I tell you, you don't know 'em!"
"I know one!" Jake's voice was deadly calm. His eyes shone like a
still, hot fire. "I thought I could win her, though the odds were dead
against me. I staked all on the chance--the hundredth chance--and it's
gone. I've lost. There's no sense in pretending otherwise. Now that
this has happened I shan't hold her any longer, unless it's by brute
force; and I reckon there's more lost than gained that way. And yet I
know--I know--" his voice suddenly took a deeper note--"that where I've
failed, no other man has ever yet succeeded. No one else has ever got
to the heart of her. That I know."
He spoke with grim force, as though challenging incredulity on Capper's
part, but Capper made no attempt to contradict him. He even nodded as
if he held the same opinion.
"Then I guess it's up to you to find the way," he said. "There's a
better way for all of us than brute force, my son. There is a power
that all the violence in the world can't beat. It's greater than all
the devils. And you'll win out--you'll win out--on the strength of it."
He paused. Jake's eyes had kindled a little. He set his hands on the
arms of his chair as though about to rise.
"You get me?" Capper asked.
A faint smile came over his face. "You speak as one who knows," he
said.
"I do know." Capper's voice was very emphatic. "It's not an easy world
to live in. It's a mighty difficult one. But we've been given a compass
to steer by--a Divine compass, Jake, my lad. Guess it's our own fault
in the main if we fail to get there."
He waited. The light was gradually growing in Jake's eyes. He had a
speculative, half-doubtful look.
"And yet you advised me to jump the hedge," he said.
Capper smiled somewhat ruefully. "I didn't tell you to burst your way
through, did I?" he said. "You didn't take it the right way, my son.
You blundered, and it's left a nasty breach. It's not beyond repair,
mind you. But it'll take some patience and some faith before it's all
filled up. Set to work on it right now! You've got the materials. Use
'em--all you know! Show her what Love--real Love--is worth! She's a
woman. She'll soon understand."
Jake got to his feet with the quiet, purposeful movement of a man who
has work before him. He gripped Capper's hand for a moment, and looked
him straight in the face.
"I reckon you're right, sir," he said, speaking rather heavily. "I've
made a damn' muddle of the whole show. I was nearer to her--several
lengths nearer--in the old days when we were just friends--just
friends--" his voice quivered slightly--"than I am now. Well, I reckon
I must get back to the old footing. We'll be--just friends--again."
He turned from Capper with the words, went to the mantelpiece and took
up his pipe.
The doctor watched him for awhile silently. There was a greatness about
the man's simplicity that commanded his respect. There was even an
element of the superb in it.
"I take off my hat, to you, Jake," he said at length "You're a white
man."
Jake's head was bent over his pipe. He made a brief, contemptuous
sound, and rammed it into his mouth. "We don't all think alike," he
said. "Well, I must be going anyway. So long, Doc!"
"Where are you off to?" Capper asked.
He made a gesture as of one who contemplates an unpleasant task. "I
must go up to the Castle. I said I would. I've got to tell Lord
Saltash how the Albatross failed this afternoon."
"But, man, he knows!" exclaimed Capper. "He was there!"
Jake turned round. His pipe was alight. He puffed at it grimly.
"Maybe he does. But it's my duty to tell him all the same. It may
interest him also to hear that Stevens won't be fit for the saddle again
for a week or two. I'd have marked the young blackguard for life if I
hadn't been stopped." His brows suddenly met fiercely. "I'd have got
out of him what he did it for too--though I guess I know. When a hot
favourite like the Albatross gets left behind like that there's always a
reason--a damn' substantial reason--at the bottom of it. Oh, it's a
foul business," he said bitterly. "I ought to have scratched sooner
than run the chance of having him pulled. I never trusted
Stevens--never. I'll see him drawn and quartered before he ever rides
another horse of mine!"
"But you've no evidence?" suggested Capper.
"I've the evidence of my own eyes," said Jake bluntly. "And there'll be
further evidence presently, or I'm a nigger."
"What do you mean? He'll never own it."
"No." Jake spoke with a savage disdain. "He won't have the spunk for
that. And he won't have the spunk either to take out a summons for
assault. He'll just take it all lying down. I know. I know."
He swung round on his heel to go, went as far as the door, then suddenly
wheeled and came back.
"Say, Capper!" he said, and all the savagery was gone from his voice; it
held a note of pleading. "She'll get over it, sure?"
Capper's yellow face was full of kindness. He reached forth a hand that
gripped hard. "Please God she'll live to be the mother of your children
yet, Jake!" he said.
Jake drew a sharp breath. "God knows I don't want her--just for that,"
he said, with husky vehemence.
And then abruptly, as if ashamed, he pulled his hand free and departed.
Capper's fingers sought his beard as the door closed. "You're learning,
Jake," he said. "You're learning. Wonder how soon she'll begin to find
out that there's another man in the place where her husband used to be!"
He coiled himself down into a chair, bending and cracking his long
fingers with meditative zest. But the frown remained between his brows.
If Capper the man was satisfied, Capper the doctor was very much the
reverse. He was not dismayed, but he was anxious, more anxious than he
deemed it necessary for anyone to know.
"She'll pull through," he muttered to himself once. And again: "She must
pull through."
But in his heart he knew that it was more than possible that his
patient's life might ebb out on the bitter tide of disappointment and
misery even when the worst danger seemed to be over. She was so lonely
in her trouble, so piteously bereft of all desire or incentive to live.
Up in the room above, Maud lay, white and still, her dark hair all about
her, her eyes closed, an aloofness that was almost like the shadow of
Death wrapping her round.
Mrs. Wright sat by her side, very alert and watchful. It was growing
late, but she had long ago signified her intention of remaining for the
night. Very practical and sure of herself was Mrs. Wright. She and Dr.
Capper were already firm allies.
The night was close, and the windows were flung wide. The door into the
adjoining room was wide open also, and a faint current of air eddied
about the room, stirring now and again the chintz hangings of the
old-fashioned bed, rustling occasionally the white muslin curtains at
the window. The wash of the sea came up vaguely from the dark distance.
It sounded like the far splashing of mighty oars.
Near at hand, down in the dim garden there came sometimes the mysterious
movements of some small creature creeping stealthily through the bushes,
and once or twice down in the orchard an owl hooted its weird,
half-human signal.
Mrs. Wright did not like the voice of the owl. She shivered whenever
she heard it; but Maud lay as one oblivious of all things, drifting,
drifting, on a great lonely sea on which no sun ever rose or star shone.
Someone came into the adjoining room and stood in the open doorway.
Mrs. Wright looked swiftly round.
Jake's eyes met hers, he made a brief sign for silence. Then, without
sound, he crept in and stood against the bed-curtain, looking down
mutely at his wife's still face.
Several seconds of complete silence followed, then, quite suddenly, as
though someone had called her, she opened her eyes wide and turned her
head.
He drew back behind the curtain on the instant ere she could catch sight
of him, standing motionless as a statue, not seeming so much as to
breathe.
A troubled frown gathered on Maud's face; she made a restless movement.
At once Mrs. Wright bent to her from the other side of the bed. "What
is it, my dearie? You're not in pain?"
Maud was panting a little. She tried to raise herself, but was gently
checked by a motherly hand. She took and held it with trembling
fingers.
"Mrs. Wright,--please--you won't go!" she begged.
"Surely not, my dear." Stoutly Mrs. Wright made answer. "I'm going to
take care of you all night long."
But Maud was not wholly reassured. She clung faster to the plump,
soothing hand. "If Jake comes in, he--he will want to send you away.
Don't let him, Mrs. Wright! I--I can't be alone with Jake to-night."
She was becoming agitated, but Mrs. Wright gently hushed her. "You
shan't be, dearest. Jake wants me to be with you to-night. He is very
unhappy about you, is poor Jake. Dear knows you needn't be afraid of
him."
"Oh, how can I help it after what he did to Charlie? Did you see? Did
you see? Is Charlie very badly hurt?"
"Charlie?" questioned Mrs. Wright.
"Charlie Burchester--Lord Saltash. Didn't you see what--what Jake did
to him? Oh, it was terrible--terrible!" A great shudder shook her at
the remembrance of what she had seen.
"My dear! My dear!" Mrs. Wright leaned to her, smoothing her pillow.
"Why, what a mistake to be sure! And to think you've put yourself out
like this all for nothing! Dear, dear, dear, to be sure! That wasn't
Lord Saltash, darling. Whatever made you think it was? It was just one
of them pesky stable-boys as he was giving a jacketing to; and richly he
deserved it, I'll be bound."
"Oh, Mrs. Wright!" Maud's voice was suddenly eager. "Are you sure? Are
you sure?"
Her dark eyes, wide and beseeching, were raised in earnest questioning
to her old friend's kindly face. She clung to the sustaining hand.
"My dear, of course I'm sure. I came along behind you. I saw it all.
It was that young dog, Dick Stevens. I know him well, never did like
him; and I'm sure he deserved all he got, probably more. Now you
mustn't worry yourself any longer. Leave it all to old Mother Wright
and go to deep! Will you, my dearie?"
"You're sure Charlie is safe?" Maud said quiveringly. "He--he was
coming--don't tell Jake!--to see me to-day. But he didn't come. And I
thought--I thought--Oh, are you sure Jake isn't listening?"
She broke off in sudden terror, starting up as if she would tear aside
the curtain. But Mrs. Wright was swift to interpose.
"My dear, you mustn't upset yourself like this. It's very wrong. What
if Jake did know? Surely he would understand. He would know that there
could be no reason why Lord Saltash should not drop in and see you in a
friendly way now and then. Didn't you tell me you were old friends?"
"Oh, you don't know Jake!" moaned Maud. "He is so terrible--so
terrible. He would shoot Charlie--if he knew!"
"My dear!" Mrs. Wright was genuinely shocked. She threw a sharp glance
towards the curtain. "But there is no reason! There can be no reason!
You're talking wildly. You can't know what you're saying."
Maud had sunk back upon her pillows, white-lipped, exhausted. "There is
a reason," she whispered. "There is a reason! I love Charlie. I have
loved him for years. And Jake--Jake would kill him if he knew. He does
know--a little. That's why--why I am so--afraid. Oh, I wish--I wish I
were--dead!"
She ceased to speak, and a dreadful pallor crept up over her face. Mrs.
Wright, anxiously watching, saw that she was slipping into
unconsciousness, and across the bed she issued a sharp command.
"Quick, Jake! Go and fetch the doctor!"
The shadow behind the curtain vanished. Mrs. Wright reached for a fan.
The heat was intense. The darkness hung before the window like a pall.
And the good woman trembled a little in spite of herself. She felt as
if the Angel of Death had suddenly entered the quiet room to share her
watch.
CHAPTER XII
REFUGE
"So you've come to see your old uncle at last! Dear me, you've been a
precious long time about it. Tut, tut, child, what a clothes-peg to be
sure! Sit down. Sit down! You don't look fit to stand."
Old Uncle Edward pulled out a chair from his dining-room table and
almost thrust his visitor into it. Then he turned, seized a decanter,
and poured some wine into a large old-fashioned glass goblet.
"You drink this! It's good stuff--older than you are. It'll turn to
blood in your veins, and a good thing too. You look as if you hadn't got
more than a thin half-pint in the whole of your constitution. There!
That's better. Don't be afraid of it! Don't be afraid of it! Take
another dose before you start talking! I know what you women are once
your tongues get going. Take another dose, I say! You're looking
half-dead. What have they been doing to you? Starving you?"
His grey whiskers seemed to bristle with indignation as he asked the
question; his eyes glared at her like the eyes of a terrier on the hunt.
Maud sat in the red velvet chair with a feeling of vast unreality. It
was true that she was feeling almost too weak to stand, and her weakness
imparted to her an odd desire to cry. The gruff kindliness of her
reception made her feel like a lost child brought home to a kind but
somewhat severe parent. She drank the wine in almost unbroken silence.
Uncle Edward stood looking on, sternly critical. "So you've been ill,
have you? I can see you have. Poor girl, poor girl! Well, we must see
what we can do, to get you strong again. And you haven't brought your
young brother along? How is he? Quite cured?"
"Yes, quite cured." Maud put out a hesitating hand and somewhat shyly
slipped it into her uncle's. "He is quite cured," she said, forcing a
difficult smile. "And he would have come too--it was so good of you to
ask him--only it is September, and the school will soon be opening; and
it seemed a pity not to let him go at the beginning of the term. We all
thought so."
Uncle Edward grunted as if not wholly pleased. But his old knotted
fingers closed very kindly about her own. "So your good husband is going
to pay for his schooling, is he? That's very generous of him--very
generous, indeed. He's a man of property, is he,--your Jake?"
A quick flush rose in Maud's upturned face; she averted it swiftly. "I
don't know. He seems to be able to do anything he likes. He--he is
very kind to Bunny."
Uncle Edward grunted again. "Well, and how do you amuse yourself, now
that the all-important Bunny is off your hands? I suppose you play the
busy housewife, do you?"
Maud uttered a faint laugh as forced as her smile had been. "Oh no. I
don't do anything. There is an old woman who cooks and does everything.
I really can't think of anything that I do. Of course lately--just
lately--I haven't been able to do things. But everything goes very well
without me."
Uncle Edward squeezed her hand and released it. "You've too humble an
opinion of yourself, my dear. Most women get uppish when they marry. I
don't as a rule like young married women for that reason. They think
all the world stands still to admire 'em. But you--well, you're
different. You and I will get on together."
He smiled upon her so suddenly and so genially that she felt as if a
burst of sunshine had warmed her tired soul. She lifted her face with a
gesture that was half-instinctive, and he stooped at once and kissed it.
"You're a very pretty young woman," he said, patting her cheek
paternally. "At least you might be, if you weren't so painfully thin.
You've been very ill, I can see. You're hardly fit to travel alone now.
Why didn't you tell me? I'd have come and fetched you if I'd known."
"Oh, I didn't travel alone," she said. "I had Dr. Capper with me. I
shouldn't have come so soon but for him. He was going to the docks, and
he offered to bring me and take care of me. He knew how dreadfully I
wanted to get away."
"And who may Dr. Capper be?" Uncle Edward demanded grimly.
"He is a very great American surgeon--a friend of Jake's. He was with
us when--when I began to be ill. And--and I have been in his hands ever
since." Maud spoke haltingly. "He is a very kind man," she said. "I
don't think I should have lived if it hadn't been for him. He made me
live."
"Oh, he's one of your quacks, is he?" Uncle Edward spoke with a mighty
contempt. "Well, I thank Heaven I've never called in a doctor all my
life, and I consider it's one of the chief reasons why I've lived so
long. People think a deal too much about their health nowadays. The
world is getting neurotic. Plenty of fresh air and exercise, and good
wholesome food. That's my motto. No beastly doctors' messes for me.
Now that man of yours, he's a healthy animal, I'll be bound. I liked
the looks of him, and the ways of him too. A bit off-hand, but straight
and clean. He's been good to you, has he?"
He shot the question with an abruptness that found Maud wholly
unprepared. She made an involuntary movement of shrinking.
"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Uncle Edward. "He's been high-handed, I
gather. Just what I expected. If a man doesn't make love to a woman
before he marries her, he'll never be bothered to after. Silly fool!
Silly fool! Still, you might have done worse. Don't take him too
seriously, my dear! Tip him off his perch if he crows too loud!"
Maud smiled her faint sad smile and rose. "I am not complaining of
anyone, Uncle Edward. You mustn't jump to conclusions. And you mustn't
call Dr. Capper a quack, for he has healed Bunny. Now, may I please go
up to my room? I know you are busy, and I shall be glad to rest for a
little if I may."
"Go by all means!" said Uncle Edward. "You're to do exactly as you like
in this house. Consider the whole show at your disposal! Come and go
exactly as you will!" He drew her to him abruptly and kissed her a
second time. "Be happy, my dear!" he said. "Be happy! You won't be
young always, and there's not much fun to be had when you're
old--specially if you're alone. But you'll never be that, please
Heaven. You'll have your children and your children's children growing
up around you--even when you're old."
He paused, holding her, for Maud had suddenly hidden her face against
his shoulder. "I can't look forward--like that," she whispered. "I
often think--that I'd rather--live alone."
There was a pathos in her words that bordered upon tragedy. Uncle
Edward thrust a protecting arm about her, rasping his throat as if
something had made it smart. "Tut, tut!" he said. "You wouldn't enjoy
it for long. There's precious little fun in the lonely life, I can tell
you, for I know. I sit here on a Sunday and listen to the quiet till
even the racket of a dog-fight would be welcome. We're all the same, I
expect; wanting what we haven't got instead of making the best of what
we have. I should think the Almighty must smile sometimes at the very
contrariness of us."
He patted her shoulder as she lifted her head, looking at her with his
keen grey eyes that held humour as well as sympathy.
"You'll have plenty of solitude in this establishment, anyhow," he said.
"You can soak yourself in it all day long. There's a library that may
amuse you, but that's all I can offer in the way of entertainment."
"Oh, I don't want entertainment," Maud assured him.
"You're singularly unlike your mother," was Uncle Edward's comment.
He did not ask her how her mother was faring, and she did not feel that
the moment for speaking of her affairs had arrived. There was a touch
of the formidable about the old man, all his kindness to her
notwithstanding; and she felt too tired and ill for a difficult
discussion. She wanted to lie down and rest for a long, long time.
This visit to Uncle Edward meant deliverance to her from a yoke too
heavy to be borne. All through her illness she had yearned for, striven
for, this escape; and because of this intense longing of hers, Capper,
realizing that disappointment could but retard her progress, had set
himself to further her desire.
Jake had offered no opposition to it. She had scarcely seen Jake since
the night of the races, and not once had they been alone together. He
had bidden her farewell that morning in Capper's presence briefly,
almost coldly. There had not been even so much as a touch of hands
between them at parting. He had got into the carriage after them, it
was true, and had wrapped a rug about her knees; but he had done it
without any personal solicitude or show of sympathy. Only at the very
last, just as the train started, had he looked her in the face; and then
as it were half against his will he had turned his eyes upon her.
And the memory of that look had gone with her throughout the journey; it
was to haunt her for many days with a strange poignancy. For the
red-brown eyes had held no mastery, no passion, only a dumb misery that
had somehow gone to her heart. Why had he looked at her like that? Why
was he so unhappy? Had he wanted to speak to her and failed for lack of
words? Did he blame himself at all for what had happened? Did he
desire in any way to make amends?
She had thought that to escape from his proximity would have been sheer
relief, but now that she actually found herself free from all
possibility of seeing him she was curiously perturbed by the thought of
him. She had an odd little regret that she had not waved a hand to him
as the train had borne her away. Just a friendly wave to show him that
she harboured no resentment any longer! She might have done it, but for
an overpowering shyness that had prevented any expression of farewell.
Ill though she was, ill and weary, she could have made him that sign of
friendship and been none the worse for it.
But reserve had held her back. It towered between them, a barrier more
insurmountable than it had ever been before. And behind that reserve
her whole being crouched in fear. For she had begun to tell herself
over and over, over and over, like a panic-stricken child, that once
away from him she could never return, never, face again that which she
had faced.
Possibly he had begun to realize this also; possibly that was why he had
looked at her so. Would he accept it as inevitable, she wondered?
Would he, now that she had dragged herself free for a space from a
bondage unendurable, be merciful and let her go altogether?
There was her promise. Oh yes, there was her promise. But might not
that promise now be regarded as fulfilled? She had striven to do her
duty, but it had proved too hard for her. Surely he must see that now!
Surely he could not wish to hold her any longer against her will! The
thought tortured her. She was like a hunted creature in a temporary
refuge all exits from which were barred. If she made a final dash for
freedom and the open, she would almost certainly be trapped.
Against her will the thought of Charlie went through her like a flaming
sword;--Charlie who had sworn to be a friend to her--Charlie from whom
she had not heard one single word since that awful day that she had
awaited him in vain. No one had spoken to her of him, but that he was
no longer at the Castle she was fairly convinced. He had, as it were,
darted like a fire-fly into her ken and out of it again. But he would
return. She was sure he would return. And when he came--what then?
What then?
She did not ask herself why he had gone in that sudden fashion. It was
so characteristic of the man that she saw nothing in it. That there had
been no encounter between him and Jake she was now certain. Perhaps he
had gone away for her sake in order to avert Jake's suspicion. His
complete silence seemed to point to this. But it was quite useless to
speculate. His ways were past understanding, so vague was her knowledge
of the motive that governed his actions.
Meanwhile the problem of her mother's difficulties remained and was
becoming more and more acute. The place had been mortgaged by Sheppard
to Saltash's predecessor who had had a fancy for possessing the whole of
Fairharbour; and the affairs of the landlord of the Anchor Hotel had
been on the downward trend ever since. Occasionally a good season would
arrest this decline for a space; but good seasons were becoming more and
more rare. Giles Sheppard sought consolation too often in his cellars,
and the management was no longer what it had been. Regular visitors were
beginning to desert him in consequence, and the downward slope was
rapidly becoming precipitous. Saltash's man of business was tightening
his hold, and Sheppard's tenure of the place was becoming week by week
more uncertain.
All of this Maud knew. Her mother was growing desperate. Her life, it
seemed, had been nothing but a series of misfortunes, and this
threatened to be the greatest of them all. Giles had deceived her
outrageously, and now that he had secured her he cared for her no
longer, save when his frequent libations rendered him tipsily amorous.
Something of a vixenish nature was beginning to develop in Mrs.
Sheppard. She was no more the gentle, plaintive creature she had been.
She had once--and only once--approached Jake on the subject of financial
help. Maud was unaware of this. Jake's reply had been perfectly
courteous but uncompromisingly firm. He would give Mrs. Sheppard
shelter, if she ever needed it, but he would have nothing to do with her
husband or his affairs. Mrs. Sheppard had turned from him with a bitter
look that had said more than words. And since that day she had steadily
avoided all intercourse even with her daughter, declaring herself far
too busy to get as far as the Stables.
Maud had not needed her; but none the less she was uneasy about her.
She wished she knew where Charlie was; but she could not risk sending a
letter to the Castle. There seemed to be nothing more she could do. She
had begun to tell him of her trouble. He knew she needed help.
Possibly even he might without further persuasion refrain from carrying
matters to extremes. She had mentioned her mother to him. He must have
understood. He would surely remember her distress.
And yet whenever her thoughts turned towards him the memory of Jake's
words awoke within her, tormented her: "Trust him, and he will let you
down,--sure." Why had he spoken so certainly? What did he know of
Saltash and his ways? Was it possible--could it be--that he knew a side
of Charlie's whimsical nature that had never been presented to her? Or
was she so blind that she had failed to perceive it? It was true that
in the old days he had failed her, he had wavered in his allegiance.
But he had come back. He had come back. Always she remembered that.
And because he had come back, her heart had warmed to him again, against
her will, against her judgment, even in spite of every instinct. He
belonged to her; that was the thought that flashed with such a burning
intensity through her soul, the thought that refused utterly to be
stifled or put away. He belonged to her and to none other, trifle or
intrigue as he might. She was his fate. How often he had said it! And
so he would return. She was sure he would return. And when he
came--what then? Ah, what then?
CHAPTER XIII
THE LAMP BEFORE THE ALTAR
Life at Uncle Edward's was as he had predicted a very quiet affair
indeed, but Maud slipped into it very easily, with a sense of comfort at
her heart. It had a healing effect upon her. It stilled the fevered
unrest of her spirit. It was all so well-ordered, so methodical. It
soothed her, gave her a sense of normality and peace. Her physical
strength came back to her with a rapidity that surprised herself, and
with its return she found herself beginning to look upon the world with
new eyes, found herself able to thrust dark thoughts and problems into
the background, found herself at rest.
At Uncle Edward's suggestion, she wrote once a week to Jake. It was not
easy to write, but when her uncle remarked that the young man would
probably come tearing hell-for-leather across England to find out what
was the matter if she didn't, she deemed it the wiser course to follow.
Her letters were very brief, very formal, and the letters she received
in reply were equally so. She was sure that they were penned in that
cheerless little den of his that faced north and overlooked the
stable-yard.
Bunny's letters were very few and far between. He was completely
engrossed with the thought of the new life at school upon which he was
about to enter, and it was very plain to Maud that he missed her not at
all. The fact had ceased to hurt her as poignantly as when she first
discovered it. Empty though her life was, she had learned by degrees to
do without him. She was learning day by day to endure that emptiness
with patience, for by some secret instinct she knew that it would not be
her portion for ever.
Not far from her uncle's house, at the corner of a busy street, there
stood an old grey church. The doors were always open, and one day she
dropped in to rest.
It was the first visit of many. The place was infinitely peaceful, full
of silence and soft shadows. A red light burned ever before the altar,
and there were always beautiful flowers upon it, white lilies that never
seemed to fade. She loved to draw near and smell the incense of those
flowers, to gaze upon their shining purity, to feel with awe that the
ground beneath her feet was holy.
She did not often turn her eyes upon the lamp that burned so still and
red. It was always the flowers that drew her, the fragrance of them
that comforted her soul.
Once, on a golden afternoon in mid-September, she came in late and
stayed for the evening service; and then it was that, sitting in the
body of the church, she found herself gazing, gazing, not at the
flowers, but at the red, mystic flame that burned unflickering before
the altar. It reminded her of something, that still red
flame,--something that made her want to flee away and hide. It came
between her and her prayers. It lay in wait for her in her dreams.
And yet when Sunday evening came and Uncle Edward prepared to sally
forth alone, she put forward a tentative suggestion that she should
accompany him.
He was delighted with the proposal, and as they fared forth together,
his horny old hand was on her arm, making her glad that she was with
him.
They sat near the door, and she was secretly relieved. In the glare of
many lights all down the body of the church, the gleam of that one red
light was swallowed up and she saw only the flowers. It was a beautiful
service--a harmonious whole in which no individual note was struck. The
man who officiated was young and very quiet, and not till he ascended
the pulpit was she aware of anything out of the ordinary in his
personality. It came to her then instantaneously, like a flash-light
piercing her soul. He struck no attitudes, made no visible attempt to
gain the attention of his audience; but it was fully his from the moment
he began to speak. He preached, not as one delivering a discourse, but
with the absolute simplicity of a man who speaks from his heart. "Let
your lights be burning," were the words he first uttered, and then
without preamble he began to talk of Love--Love Divine, Unconquerable,
Eternal--Love that stoops but is never small--Love that soars, but is
never out of reach. He spoke of the great warfare of the spirit, of the
thousand difficulties holding back the soul. And he declared that Love
was the one great weapon to meet and overcome them all. "We do not know
the power of Love," he said. "We only know that it is invincible and
undying--the very Essence of God." He spoke of spiritual blindness, and
swept it aside as nought. "We may not all of us be able to believe; but
we can all have Love. Nothing counts in the same way. However blind we
may be, we can keep that one lamp burning in the darkness, burning in
the desert, giving light to the outcast, and guiding the feet of the
wanderers."
It was while he was speaking thus that the lights in the body of the
church went down and the red flame before the altar shone clear and
unchanging in the gloom. Maud's eyes were drawn instantly to it, became
riveted upon it. She sat with bated breath, almost as one who watched a
miracle. And by some strange telepathy the man in the pulpit became
aware of it also. He turned towards it.
"Look at that light!" he said. "It is kept burning perpetually, the
symbol of undying worship, undying Love. Everyone may keep such a light
as that burning always. The spark is ours for the kindling. It may be
placed before the Altar of an Unknown God. But none the less is it
offered to His Glory and immortal. It is not faith or hope that the
soul needs above all things. It is Love, the power to love, and the
power to create love--the will to offer love perpetually before the
Altar of Love. It is only love that counts in the long run, only love
that survives. There may be a thousand other things around us when we
die, good and evil, but the only thing we shall carry with us beyond is
that lamp that we have always kept burning before the altar and never
suffered to go out. It is no easy thing to keep it always burning in
this world of many failures. It is bound to flicker sometimes, even to
die down; but while we live, the power to revive it is still ours, the
power to worship God with love." He paused a moment, turned slowly back
to face the dim nave, and then very quietly he gave utterance to words
that Maud was never to forget. "We all want Love, hunger for it, starve
for it. Our lives are mere ash-heaps without it. But do we all realize
that love is only gained by love, that we must pour out all we have to
win it, that we must purge our hearts of all selfish desire, sanctify
ourselves by self-sacrifice, by the complete renunciation of self,
before the perfect gift can be ours? Love is a joyful sacrifice. There
are people whom everyone loves. They are the people who realize what
Love means, who give and give, without measure, not counting the cost,
rejoicing only in the power to give, till it all comes back to them a
thousandfold. It is then that the ploughman overtakes the reaper, for
ploughman and reaper are one."
When Maud lay down that night, those words were still running in her
mind. That unstinted giving, that measureless pouring out, that utter
sacrifice, were these indeed the means by which the desert could be made
to blossom--even for her?
She slept sooner than usual, but the echoes of that quiet voice still
followed her down through the deeps of slumber, till she dreamed that
she was back before that shining altar of flowers. And a radiance that
was not of earth was all about her--a radiance unimaginable that was
warmth as well as light; and looking up she saw that it came from the
red lamp above her--the symbol of undying Love.
As in a trance she waited, for the wonder of the thing held her
spellbound. And while she waited, she became aware of someone else in
the holy place, someone who moved stealthily, as if half-afraid. And
turning, by the light of that revealing glow, she saw her husband with
that look of silent misery in his eyes.
It pierced her then as it had not pierced her before. She was conscious
of an almost fierce impulse to comfort, an impulse that urged her to
him, banishing all hesitation, all doubt. She went near to him, she
gave him both her hands. And even as she did so, the look in his eyes
changed. She saw a deep, still fire come into them. It seemed to be
reflected from the red lamp above. He moved forward with her into the
glow.
And suddenly her own eyes were opened and she knew that he loved her--he
loved her....
Then she awoke with a palpitating heart and realized that it was a
dream.
CHAPTER XIV
THE OPEN DOOR
Not till she had been in her uncle's house for close upon four weeks did
Maud brace herself to speak to him of her mother. She had been on the
verge of doing so many times, but always, in his bluff fashion, he had
managed to convey to her that the subject was not to be broached.
But for an urgent letter from Mrs. Sheppard herself, she would scarcely
have summoned the courage to break through what was almost a
prohibition, for Uncle Edward was not an easy man to resist; and even as
she did so, she knew with absolute conviction that her effort was
foredoomed to failure. She scarcely knew how to make it, so
uncompromising was the old man's attitude, and when at last it was made,
when in desperation she forced herself to tell him of her mother's
pitiable plight, she regretted it almost immediately so curtly was her
information received. She saw that Uncle Edward was really angry though
he said but little. She also saw that what she said on her mother's
behalf made not the smallest impression upon his will. He heard her out
indeed, but so grimly that at length, feeling that she was presenting
the matter quite inadequately in face of his total lack of sympathy, she
gave him her mother's hysterical appeal to read.
He shook his head at first, but finally, as she pressed it upon him
almost tearfully, he took and read the letter. Then, while anxiously she
watched him, he tore it across and across and flung it back to her over
the table.
"Pshaw!" he said. "The woman's a hypocrite--a confounded impostor. I
know her. You don't. Leave her alone, and let her sink!"
And with that he stumped angrily from the room with beetling brows and
fiery eyes.
Maud sat very still after his departure. She had known in her heart
that it was hopeless to appeal to him, but now that the appeal had
failed she was utterly nonplussed. There was no doubt in her mind that
matters were desperate. Her mother had made her realize that, and she
felt she could not write and tell her that she could do nothing. Slight
as was the bond of sympathy between them, still were they mother and
daughter, and she could not fling her off as Uncle Edward recommended.
In a fashion the old man's anger reacted in her mother's favour; for she
was conscious of indignation on her behalf. Whatever Mrs. Sheppard's
faults might be--and it was quite possible that insincerity was among
them--he had no right to abuse her to her daughter. It aroused her own
anger, and it aroused also that protective instinct which was never very
far below the surface with her. When she rose at length, her face was
very pale and determined. She had not wanted to write to Charlie, but
it seemed that she had no choice.
It was a still, warm afternoon in October. She went into the
drawing-room, a stiff apartment upholstered in gold brocade, and sat
down at a writing-table in a window-recess to write.
It was the most difficult letter she had ever composed, and yet she had
never experienced the smallest difficulty in writing to him before. She
could not express herself freely. Words would not come. She desired to
avoid all reference to what had passed between them on that night of
witchery on which they had last met. She wanted to blot it out of her
mind and heart, to address him, to regard him, as only a friend. Ever
since that Sunday evening, now nearly a week ago, she had kept her
thoughts rigidly from straying in his direction. Had it been possible
she would have put him altogether out of her life. It was not possible,
and she knew it. But it was with the greatest reluctance that she set
herself to write to him, and her reluctance displayed itself in every
sentence.
She sat over that letter for the greater part of the afternoon, and when
it was finished at last she felt utterly dissatisfied with it. She had
an urgent desire to tear it up. But she could not face the writing of
another. With a weary sigh she closed and stamped the envelope.
It was then that there fell a step outside the drawing-room door, and
Uncle Edward's discreet, elderly maidservant peeped in.
Maud turned in her chair. "What is it, Martha?"
Martha was about to explain, but broke off with a gasp and drew back.
There was a muttered word in the doorway, and the next moment Martha had
disappeared, and a man's figure stood in the opening.
"Hullo!" said Charlie, with a smile of gay effrontery. "May I come in?"
Maud sat for a second or two as one in a trance and stared at him. It
was as if the afternoon's labour had suddenly taken concrete form.
He did not wait for her greeting, but came lightly forward with hands
outstretched. "Ah, queen of the roses," he said, "what a peculiarly
unbecoming setting you have chosen for yourself! Why--why--what is
that? A letter to me? How many times a day do you write them?"
With a lithe, elastic movement, he drew her to her feet, held her a
moment, looking at her, then bent his smiling, swarthy face to hers.
"Greeting, queen of the roses!" he said.
She awoke then, came out of her trance, drew swiftly back from him.
"Oh, Charlie, is it--is it really you?" she said rather incoherently.
"You--how you startled me!"
He let her go, as always, at her desire, but with a faint, monkeyish
grimace of disapproval. "You were always easily shocked," he said.
"But on this occasion I assure you there is no need. I found myself in
the neighbourhood, and thought it would be the correct thing to pay you
a morning call."
His queer eyes mocked her openly as he made the explanation. She felt
discomfited, painfully embarrassed, and withal conscious of an almost
desperate longing to tell him to go.
But she knew she could not do that. Too much hung in the balance.
"Sit down!" she said, mustering her dignity with an immense effort.
"And I will tell you why I have been writing to you."
"Wouldn't it save trouble to show me the letter?" he suggested, with
easy audacity. "Or have you decided--now that you have had a further
opportunity of considering my personal charms--that you really can't?"
She flushed at the implied suggestion. "You can read the letter if you
like," she said somewhat stiffly. "It is on business."
She held it out to him, and he sank upon one knee to receive it.
"_Merci, ma belle reine_! Do you wish me to read it in your august
presence?"
"Please!" she said.
He sat facing her, and read it.
She watched his mobile brows as his eyes travelled over the page. She
saw amusement turn to humour and humour to merriment on his face. When
he looked up at her at length he was laughing.
"You write as a serf appealing to a feudal lord," he said. "Did you
mean to write like that?"
She shook her head at him gravely. "It is not a laughing matter," she
said.
"What I am laughing at is," he rejoined, still smiling with a hint of
derision. "By the way, have you heard from our worthy cow-puncher
lately?"
She flinched sharply, before she was aware. Her whole body tingled with
a sudden, burning blush.
And Saltash laughed again wickedly. "I saw him yesterday. He was in a
fiendish temper for some reason or other. Naturally I asked after you,
when he was expecting you back. What do you think he said?"
"What?" Maud breathed the word through lips that panted. Her heart was
beating violently she knew not why.
Saltash's dark face seemed to exult over her agitation. "He said,--you
know his soft, drawly way--'I guess I shall go--shortly--and fetch her
back, my lord.' I wondered if you were aware of his amiable intention.
There was the most deadly air of determination about him. I thought you
might like to know."
Maud's face was no longer burning; she was white to the lips. But she
turned from the subject with composure. "How did you know where to find
me?"
He laughed teasingly. "You are curiously curious, Maud of the roses.
Don't you yet realize that I always know everything? For instance, I
know exactly why you are treating me to this wet-blanket reception. But
you would be angry if I told you; so I won't. I also know--" he paused
suddenly. "Shall I say it? No, perhaps I had better not."
She smiled faintly. "Perhaps it is beside the point, Charlie. Do you
mind coming back to the subject of that letter? It is that that is
troubling me now more than anything else."
"Really?" he said. "But why should you be troubled? It wouldn't trouble
me to see my arch-enemy in dire straits."
"It is my mother I am anxious about," she said. "If Giles Sheppard goes
under, she will go too."
Saltash raised his brows in amused interrogation. "Oh, does that
follow? I should abandon the sinking ship if I were Mrs. Sheppard. She
has nothing to gain by sticking to it."
Maud received the remark in silence. He leaned forward, his dark face
still smiling.
"Do you know I love you for that?" he said. "_Chere reine des fleurs_,
lady of the golden silences! Do you ever say what you really think?"
She shook her head. "Charlie, I am learning--very slowly--a hard
lesson. Don't--please--make it any harder for me!"
"What?" he said. "You are really going back to him?"
She put up a hand to her face, almost as if she would hide it from him.
"I don't know--yet--what I shall do. But I do know that it would be
wrong not to go back."
"_Mais vraiment!_" he protested. "Is life so simple as that? How do
you arrive at that conclusion? Do you follow always the easy path of
virtue?"
She looked at him quickly. "It is not easy!" she said.
He lifted his shoulders. "No? But it is--safe at least. And you do not
possess the adventurous soul. You like to be--safe, _ma belle_, even at
the sacrifice of your very heart. Do you remember that night of
moonshine? But of course you do. Do you know that I prowled in the
garden half the night for your sake--just in case you should deem it
worth while to be true to that poor heart of yours? You went through a
good deal that night, my Maud." His voice changed subtly; the
half-scoffing note went out of it, a faint warmth of pity took its
place. "And yet you endured it all in silence. Why didn't you break
free and come to me? You knew--and so did he--that I was waiting,--or
you might have known."
Maud's head was bent; she did not attempt to answer him.
He got up abruptly and came to her. "Good-bye, Maud of the roses!"
She started slightly. "You are going?"
"Yes, I am going. I have received my discharge. My faithful service is
at end--unless--or may I say until?--that message comes to call me
back." He bent towards her. "Even I cannot wait for ever." he said.
"Do you know I stood by the orchard-gate in the rain for two hours on
the day of the races? You had a visitor, and so I would not intrude
upon you. But you, _chere reine_,--you knew I was going to be there.
And yet you never came."
She raised her head sharply, moved by something in his tone. "But how
could I? How could I?" she said. "Besides,--Jake knew."
He laughed. "Yes, Jake knew. He saw me that night of moonshine. He
nearly challenged me. And then he changed his mind and passed on. I
conclude it didn't suit him to quarrel with me. But what of that? He
was bound to know some day."
She clasped her hands tightly together. "If he knew all--he would shoot
you," she said, with a sudden hard shudder.
But Saltash only laughed again, and touched a wisp of her hair. "Oh, I
don't think so, queen of the roses. I think he would have pity on my
innocence--if he knew all. But that isn't the point, you know. The
point is that you choose bondage with him rather than freedom with me.
And that being so, I can only bow to your ruling. Once more--good-bye!"
She parted her hands with an effort, and gave him one of them. "What
about--my mother, Charlie?" she said.
He pressed her fingers lightly. "I commend her to the kind care of her
worthy son-in-law."
She raised her eyes to his almost incredulously. "You are going to--to
let them be ruined?"
He smiled at her, flashing his strange eyes. "It wouldn't do for you to
be under an obligation--a personal obligation--to me, would it?
Jake--you know--Jake might object."
She rose quickly and stood facing him. "Charlie, please don't jest!"
she urged him, her voice low and very earnest.
His smile became a grimace. "It rests with you," he said, "whether I
jest my way to the devil or whether I live a godly, righteous and sober
life for evermore. If it is to be the latter, then I am quite prepared
to fulfil my virtuous devoirs to my prospective mother-in-law. But if
the former is to be my portion--well, I don't think even St. Peter
himself would have saddled himself with anyone else's. That is the
position, _chere reine. Tu comprends maintenant_?"
Yes, she understood. There was nothing complex in the situation. She
stood looking at him her hand still in his.
"Then I cannot look upon you as--a friend?" she said at last, almost
under her breath.
He smiled upon her--a sudden, baffling smile. "But ask yourself that
question, Maud of the roses!" he said. "You will find the answer there
in your own heart, if you seek for it."
She quivered at the words, feeling the subtle attraction of the man even
against her will.
"You have refused to help me," she said.
He bent towards her, his dark face glowing. "I offer you--all I have,"
he said. "It is your own, to do with as you will. But you must take
all or leave all. Maud, Maud," his speech quickened to sudden
vehemence, "you love me! Why do you cling to your prison when the door
is standing wide? Now is your time to escape, if ever. I will take all
your cares--all your burdens. You shall be free as air. Only--now that
the door is open--come!"
"Yes. I should shut the door another time if I were you," a gruff voice
commented behind them. "It's a rash thing, young man, to leave the door
open when you're talking confidences. What are you doing in this house,
I wonder? Did you come in at the door?"
Both Maud and Saltash had faced round at the first sentence, she with a
sharp exclamation, he with a laugh.
Uncle Edward, his eyes very bright under the beetling brows, stumped up
to them with the air of an old watchdog investigating the presence of a
suspicious stranger. He rasped his throat ferociously as he came.
"Who may you be?" he demanded.
"I?" Saltash was laughing still, facing the situation with his hands in
his pockets, the soul of careless effrontery. "I don't suppose you have
ever heard my name before. I am Saltash."
"Who?" Uncle Edward turned for explanation towards his niece.
"Lord Saltash," she said, in a low voice.
"Oh! Lord Saltash!" The old man turned back to him with a sound like a
snarl. "Yes, I have heard of you before. You were co-respondent in the
Cressady divorce case a few years back."
Saltash laughed again with easy nonchalance. "You have a good memory,
sir. If it serves you as it should, you will also recall the fact that
the case was dismissed."
"I remember--all the facts," said Uncle Edward, with ominous
deliberation, "And as it is not my custom to admit men of your stamp
into my house, you will oblige me by quitting it without delay."
Saltash turned to Maud. "I am sorry you have been caught in such bad
company," he said. "Pray explain that I came uninvited! I shall be at
Burchester for the present. When you come back, you and your husband
must come and dine. Good-bye!"
With the unabashed smile still on his ugly face, he turned to go, moving
with the easy arrogance of the ruling race, royally incapable of
discomfiture.
Uncle Edward followed him to the door, and grimly watched his exit.
Then still more grimly he came tramping back. "And now to pick a bone
with you, my niece!" he said.
CHAPTER XV
THE DOWNWARD PATH
She stood erect, facing him. Her face was very pale, but her eyes were
quite unflinching. There was about her a majesty of demeanour that
might have deterred a less determined man than Uncle Edward. But he
stood upon his own ground and grappled with the situation quite
undismayed. He was moreover very angry.
"You young hussy!" he said, bringing out his words with immense
emphasis. "How dare you have your lover here? Thought you were safe,
eh? Thought I shouldn't know? Oh, you're like the rest of 'em, crafty
as an eel. What's the meaning of it, eh? What have you got to say for
yourself?"
She did not attempt to answer him. Where her mother would have been
loud in self-justification, she uttered not a word. Only, after a
moment or two, she turned slowly and sat down at the writing-table,
leaning her chin on her hand as one spent. Even so, there was an
aloofness in her attitude that conveyed to the wrathful old man beside
her an unpleasant sense of being at a disadvantage.
He stood looking down at her, grievously resentful, striving to select a
weapon sharp enough to pierce her calm.
"I thought you were to be trusted," he said. "Goodness knows why! You
didn't seem to have any leaven of your mother about you. But I see now
I was wrong. You are just your mother over again. But if you think you
are going to pursue an intrigue with that aristocratic blackguard in my
house, you're very much mistaken. No doubt I'm very old-fashioned and
strait-laced. But there it is. I object. I object strongly. The
man's a liar and a thief and a scoundrel. Don't you know it, eh?
Haven't you found him out yet?"
He stopped so pointedly for an answer that she could not maintain her
silence longer. She moved a little, turned her head slightly, without
raising her eyes, and spoke.
"I know him very well. But--forgive me, Uncle Edward!--I can't discuss
him with you. I--I am sorry you thought it necessary to insult him."
"Insult him!" Uncle Edward's anger boiled afresh. "Didn't I catch the
hound making love to you? Here in my house where I have lived decently
and respectably for over fifty years! Didn't I catch him, I say--he a
well-known profligate and you a married woman? Didn't I actually hear
him trying to tempt you from your husband and your duty? And you were
calmly permitting it. Look here, young woman! I've been too kind to
you. That's the fact of the matter. You've had too much liberty, too
much indulgence, too much of your own way. You married in a hurry
against my judgment. But--by heaven--since you are married, you shall
stick to your bargain! You take a pen now--do you hear?--and a sheet of
paper, and write to your husband this minute, and ask him to come and
join you here! I won't be surety for you any longer. Tell him to come
to-morrow!"
But Maud only stiffened as she sat making no movement to comply. She
looked like a marble statue of Despair.
Uncle Edward came a little nearer to her. He was not accustomed to
being set at nought. Most people regarded him as formidable even when
he was in a comparatively genial mood.
"Are you going to do as I tell you?" he said.
She glanced up at him momentarily. "I think," she said, "we will wait
till to-morrow."
He stamped a furious foot. "Will we, indeed, madam! Well, you may wait
as long as you please; but I tell you this: If you don't write that
letter--instantly, I shall go straight to the post-office found the
corner and send your husband a telegram to summon him at once. He will
be here by the morning, if I know him. And then I shall tell him
exactly why I sent for him. So now you can take your choice. Which is
it to be?"
He had moved her at last. Maud rose to her feet with a suddenness that
was almost suggestive of panic. "You would never do such a thing!" she
said. "You could not be so--so wickedly cruel!"
He snapped his jaws like an angry terrier. "Oh, that would be wicked,
would it? You have some odd ideas of morals; that's all I can say. But
wicked or cruel, it's what I mean to do. So take your choice, and be
quick about it! For I shan't go back on what I've said. When a woman
starts on the downward path, she usually takes it at a run; and I won't
be responsible. So which is it to be? Your letter or my telegram? Make
up your mind! Which?"
His manner was almost menacing. She stood facing with an awful sense of
impotence growing at her heart. To summon Jake herself was a proceeding
that she could not for a moment contemplate, but the bare thought of
Uncle Edward's alternative pierced like a poisoned knife. She felt again
that dreadful trapped feeling of former days. The liberty she had
enjoyed of late made it all the more terrible.
"I can't decide anything just now," she said at last, and she knew that
her voice trembled painfully. "Please--please let us wait a little!
There is really no need to send for Jake. Lord Saltash has gone, and he
will not come back."
"Don't tell me!" said Uncle Edward truculently. "Even if he doesn't,
how am I to be sure that you won't take it into your head to go to him?
No, my niece, I've heard too much. Why, he'd have had his arm round you
in another second. I know--I saw. If I'd waited another three seconds,
he'd have been kissing you. And not for the first time, I'll be bound."
The hot colour rushed to Maud's face; she turned sharply aside.
"Ha! That touches you, does it?" snarled Uncle Edward, with ferocious
triumph. "I guessed as much. Now which is it to be? Are you going to
write that letter?"
It was hopeless to carry the discussion further. A burning wave of
anger went through her, anger that buoyed her up above despair,
stimulating her to a fierce rebellion. She drew herself to her full
height and faced him with supreme defiance.
"I will not write that letter!" she said. "I will not be forced into a
false position. If you are tired of me, I will go. I will not stay--in
any case--to be insulted!"
And with that boldly, with the carriage of an outraged princess, she
swept by him and out of the room, leaving him staring after her in a
fury too great to express itself before the closing of the door.
Up to her room she went, outwardly calm, inwardly raging. All the old
hot rebellion against destiny had awaked within her. It had died down
of late, soothed into quiescence by the peaceful solitude in which she
had been living. But now it had sprung afresh to quivering life. Her
freedom from bondage had given her new strength. She would not be bound
again hand and foot, and thrust back into the old bitter slavery. It
was too much, too much. She had her life to live. It was hers, not
Jake's. She had a right to do with it as she would.
With hands that trembled she began to pack. Uncle Edward had made it
impossible for her to stay. If he had not set her feet upon the
downward path, he had sped her upon it with an impetus that drove her
irresistibly. She worked in a fever, not pausing for thought, conscious
but of the one urgent desire to be gone, to escape--she had scarcely
begun to think whither.
No one came near her during those evening hours. The daylight waned, and
she realized that it was nearing the dinner hour. Then suddenly it came
to her that she could not face her uncle again. She must make some
excuse.
Her work was done; she rang the bell.
After a pause Martha came to her. There was a scared look on the
woman's face. She seemed half-afraid to meet Maud's eyes.
"Did you ring, ma'am?" she enquired.
"Yes." With an effort Maud made reply. "Is--is my uncle in?"
"He's just come in and gone upstairs to dress for dinner, ma'am," Martha
told her.
"Ah!" Maud's heart contracted a little. "He has been out some time?"
she said.
"Yes, ma'am, a long time. He seems a bit out of temper about
something," Martha's round eyes suddenly conveyed sympathy that shone
out to Maud like a beacon in the darkness. "I shouldn't take much
notice of him, ma'am," she said. "He often says what he don't mean when
he's in one of his tantrums. He'll be better in the morning."
Again that awful sense of impotence assailed Maud. She leaned her head
against the door-post, closing her eyes for a second. What would the
morning bring forth? The thought turned her sick.
"Is there anything as I can do, ma'am?" asked Martha.
"Yes." Abruptly Maud pulled herself together. A sudden resolution had
sprung up within her. She could not face another storm such as that
through which she had just come. Above all she could not face the
morrow and its possibilities in this house. She turned back into the
room, and took half a sovereign from the table. "Martha," she said, "I
have packed everything up, and I am going away. I want you, please, to
call a cab now, at once, to take me away before my uncle comes
downstairs. I will write him a note while you are gone. Please,
please, Martha, be as quick as you can!"
The sympathy in Martha's eyes became a sort of tragic friendliness. "I
knew as you wouldn't stay, ma'am," she said, "not after the way he
hollered at you. I wouldn't myself in your place, ma'am; no, that I
wouldn't. But you see, I've been with him so long. I don't mind his
rough ways. I'll go at once, and thank you kindly, ma'am. It won't take
me five minutes. But, mind you, I think he'll be sorry to lose you."
"I can't help that," Maud made answer. "It is quite impossible for me
to stay. He will know why. But I will write him a note all the same."
And when Martha had gone, she sat down and scribbled two notes.
The first she addressed to her uncle:
"DEAR UNCLE EDWARD,
"I do not think you will be greatly surprised at my leaving you. After
what has passed, I could not stay. I am very sorry for what has
happened, but I suppose it had to be. I wish I could thank you for all
your kindness to me, but I know this is not the time. So I will only
say good-bye.
"Yours,
"MAUD."
The second note consisted of one sentence only, "I am going to my
mother. Maud." And when she had written it she picked up a tiny packet
of tissue-paper that lay beside her and dropped it into the envelope
with the note. She addressed the envelope to Lord Saltash, Burchester
Castle, and later she sealed and registered it, stopping at a
post-office to send it on its way. She believed it would reach its
destination almost as soon as he did. And that packet--that tiny object
wrapped in tissue-paper--would convey its own message. No further words
were needed.
She herself went for the night to a small hotel in a back-street that
was not far from her uncle's house. There would be a train in the early
morning. She would not travel by night. Something held her back, some
instinct she did not attempt to fathom. But she believed that Charlie
would travel by the night-train, and she did not want to see him again
until he had received that packet. Afterwards--well, the afterwards
would rest with him.
Her sleep was fitful and troubled that night, broken repeatedly by the
persistent chime of a church-clock. Towards morning she slept and
dreamed again that strangely haunting dream of the flower-decked altar
and the red, shining lamp above. For a space she held herself aloof
from the dream, refusing to yield to it. But at length it seemed to her
that someone came and took her hand, drawing her forward, and she had no
choice.
Straight into the wondrous glow she went, and presently she knelt before
those flowers of dazzling purity. The quiet hand still held hers in a
calm and comforting grasp. She felt that she would have been frightened
but for that sustaining hold.
And then suddenly she saw that the candles also were burning upon the
altar, knew that she was kneeling there with Jake, heard a voice above
their heads very low and clear that seemed to be speaking to their
hearts:--"Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."
...
And turning she found Jake's eyes upon her, alight with adoration....
She awoke with a gasping cry to a seething, passionate regret. Because
in those first wild moments she knew with an awful certainty that her
feet were set upon the downward path, and she could never turn back
again.
CHAPTER XVI
THE REVELATION
The autumn dusk was falling as the Fairharbour train crawled at length
into the station. A sea-fog hung clammily along the shore, and a smell
of burning weeds was in the air.
Maud shivered with cold and weariness as she descended to the platform.
It had been a long, long journey. Her whole body ached with fatigue.
There were not many travellers, and they had all disappeared before she
had collected her luggage and made her way out into the dank chill of
the station-yard where a rickety cab stood waiting.
She shivered afresh as she got into it. The dampness and the cold
seemed to penetrate to her very bones. She sat huddled in a corner.
"Where to, miss?" The porter thrust a cheery face in upon her, and,
albeit she was veiled, she shrank back with an instinctive desire to
avoid recognition.
"The Anchor Hotel," she said, through teeth that chattered in spite of
her.
She heard him give the order, and in a moment the ramshackle conveyance
was on its way. They clattered forth over the stones into the clinging
billows of mist.
The cold caught and pierced her anew as they neared the dreary front.
She heard the muffled roar of the sea splashing dully against the wall.
The mist became a wet drizzle beating in through the window. She tried
to close it, but the strap was broken. She could only draw her wrap
more closely about her.
The cab horse stumbled, and was dragged up by his driver with a curse.
They were nearing the Anchor Hotel. She wished she had prepared her
mother for her advent. She had not dared to do so in case--just in
case--it should come to Jake's knowledge, though she believed that Jake
must be well on his way to Liverpool by now, if he had not already
arrived there. It was possible that he had not been able to leave at a
moment's notice, and she had not dared to take the chance of any rumour
of her coming reaching him. But now that she was so nearly at the end of
her journey, she wished earnestly that her mother were expecting her.
The thought of meeting Giles Sheppard, asking his hospitality, was
hateful to her.
It would not be for more than that one night. Of that she was
convinced. Charlie would be swift to answer her summons, if indeed he
had returned to the Castle. But he was so erratic in all his ways that
she had some doubt on this point. If he had not returned--! But she
could not think of that possibility. She turned from it with a sick
foreboding. Surely Fate could not play her so hideous a trick!
They lumbered on.
Suddenly the light from the swinging lamp that hung in the porch of "The
Anchor" burst across their path. The horse stumbled again, recovered
itself, jolted on a few yards, stopped. They had arrived.
Maud gathered her energies for one supreme effort though she felt almost
too stiff with cold to move. The cabman shambled down and opened the
door.
"No one about seemin'ly," he remarked.
She controlled her quivering nerves. "Perhaps you will get down my
trunk," she said. "You can leave it in the porch."
The man grumbled to himself, but proceeded to comply, she standing on
the step to watch him.
The mist was beating in from the sea. Her face was wet with it. And
yet her dread of entering that house was such that she could hardly
bring herself to open the swing door, debating with herself if even then
she might not run up the hill to the house in which they had lodged a
year before--only a year before--and obtain shelter for the night there.
The darkness and the rain deterred her. Her courage seemed to have
quite left her. In the end she turned with a species of dreary
desperation and pushed back the heavy door.