WHEREIN DAMARIS MEETS HERSELF UNDER A NOVEL ASPECT
Damaris threw back the bedclothes, her eyes still dim with slumber, and
gathered herself into a sitting position, clasping her knees with both
hands. She had a vague impression that something very pleasant awaited
her attention; but, in the soft confusion of first awakening, could not
remember exactly what it was.
To induce clearer consciousness she instinctively parted the mosquito
curtains, slipped her feet down over the side of the bed; and, a little
crouched together and fumbly--baby-fashion--being still under the
comfortable empire of sleep, crossed the room and set back the inward
opening casements of the south window. Thereupon the outdoor freshness,
fluttering her hair and the lace and nain-sook of her nightdress,
brought her, on the instant, into full possession of her wandering wits.
She remembered the nature of that charmingly pleasant something; yet
paused, before yielding it attention, held captive by the spectacle of
returning day.
It was early. The disc of the sun still below the horizon. But shafts of
light, striking up from it, patterned the underside of a vast dapple of
fleecy cloud--heliotrope upon the back-cloth of blue ether--with fringes
and bosses of scarlet flame. Against this, occupying the foreground, the
pine trees, which sheltered the terrace, showed up a deep greenish purple
bordering upon black.
Leaning out over the polished wooden bar--which topped the ironwork of
the window-guard--Damaris sought and gained sight of the sea. This,
darker even than the tufted foliation of the pines--since still untouched
by sunlight--spread dense and compact as molten metal, with here and
there a sheen, like that of the raven's wing, upon its corrugated
surface. To Damaris it appeared curiously forbidding. Seeing it thus she
felt, indeed, to have taken Nature unawares, surprised her without
disguise; so that for once she displayed her veritable face--a face not
yet made up and camouflaged to conceal the fact of its in-dwelling terror
from puny and defenceless man.
With that the girl's thoughts flew, in longing and solicitude, to
Faircloth, whose business so perpetually brought him into contact with
Nature thus naked and untamed.--By now, and over as sinister a sea--since
westward the dawn would barely yet have broke--the _Forest Queen_ must be
steaming along the Andalusian coast, making for Gibraltar and the Straits
upon her homeward voyage. And by some psychic alchemy, an influence more
potent and tangible than that of ordinary thought, her apprehension fled
out, annihilating distance, bridging intervening space. For, just as
certainly as Damaris' fair body leaned from the open window, so certainly
did her fair soul or--to try a closer and more scientific definition--her
living consciousness, stand in the captain's cabin of the ocean-bound
tramp, making Darcy Faircloth turn smiling in his sleep, he having vision
and glad sense of her--which stayed by him, tempering his humour to a
peculiar serenity throughout the ensuing day.
That their correspondence was no fictitious one, a freak of disordered
nerves or imagination, but sane and actual, both brother and sister could
convincingly have affirmed. And this although time--as time is usually
figured--had neither lot nor part in it. Such projections of personality
are best comparable, in this respect, to the dreams which seize us in the
very act of waking--vivid, coherent and complete, yet ended by the
selfsame sound or touch by which they are evoked.
In Damaris' case, before the scarlet, dyeing the cloud dapple, warmed to
rose, or the dense metallic sea caught reflections of the sunrise,
broadening incandescence, her errant consciousness was again cognizant
of, subjected to, her immediate surroundings. She was aware, moreover,
that the morning sharpness began to take a too unwarrantable liberty
with her thinly clad person for comfort. She hastily locked the casements
together; and then waited, somewhat dazed by the breathless pace of her
strange and tender excursion, looking about her in happy amazement.
And, so doing, her eyes lighted upon a certain oblong parcel lying on her
dressing-table. There was the charmingly pleasant something which awaited
her attention! A present, and the most costly, the most enchanting one
(save possibly the green jade elephant of her childish adoration) she had
ever received!
She picked up, not only the precious parcel, but a hand-mirror lying near
it; and, thus armed, bestowed herself, once more, in her still warm bed.
The last forty-eight hours had been fertile in experiences and in events,
among which the arrival of this gift could by no means be accounted the
least exciting.--Hordle had brought the packet here to her, last night,
about an hour after she and her father--standing under the portico--waved
reluctant farewells to Colonel Carteret, as the hotel omnibus bore him
and his baggage away to the station to catch the mail train through to
Paris. This parting, when it actually came about, proved more distressing
than she had by any means prefigured. She had no notion beforehand what a
really dreadful business she would find it, after these months of close
association, to say good-bye to the man with the blue eyes.
"We shall miss you at every turn, dear, dear Colonel Sahib," she almost
tearfully assured him. "How we are going ever to live without you I
don't know."
And impulsively, driven by the excess of her emotion to the point of
forgetting accustomed habits and restraints, she put up her lips for a
kiss. Which, thus invited, kiss Carteret, taking her face in both hands
for the minute, bestowed upon her forehead rather than upon those
proffered lips. Then his glance met Charles Verity's, held it in silent
interchange of friendship needing no words to declare its quality or
depth; and he turned away abruptly, making for the inside of the waiting
omnibus--cavernous in the semi-darkness--distributing largesse to all and
sundry as he went.
Damaris was aware of her father's arm passed through hers, holding her
against his side with a steadying pressure, as they went together across
the hall on their way to the first floor sitting-room. Aware of poor,
pretty, coughing little Mrs. Titherage's raised eyebrows and enquiring
stare, as they passed her with her coffee, cigarette, and fat, florid
stock-broker husband--who, by the way, had the grace to keep his eyes
glued to the patience cards, ranged upon the small table before him,
until father and daughter were a good half-way up the flight of stairs.
Later, when outwardly mistress of herself, the inclination to tears
successfully conquered and her normal half-playful gravity regained, she
went to her bedroom, Hordle had brought her this beguiling packet.
Inside the silver paper wrappings she found a red leather jewel case, and
a note in Carteret's singularly definite hand, character rather than
script, the severe yet decorative quality of Arabic about it.
"To the dear witch," it read, "in memory of our incomparable Henrietta's
dance, and of the midnight walk which followed it, and of our hours of
pleasant sightseeing at Marseilles."
No signature followed, only the date.
Now, sitting up in bed, while the day came into full and joyous being,
Nature's face duly decked and painted by the greatly reconciling sun,
Damaris read the exquisitely written note again. The writing in itself
moved her with a certain home-sickness for the East, which it seemed in
some sort to embody and from which to hail. Then meanings she detected,
behind the apparently light-hearted words, filled her with gratitude.
They reminded her gently of duties accepted, promises made. They gathered
in Faircloth, too, by implication; thus assuring her of sympathy and
approval where she needed them most.
She opened the case and, taking out the string of pearls it contained,
turned them about and about, examining, counting, admiring their lustre
and ethereal loveliness. They were graduated from the size of a
hemp-seed, so she illustrated it, on either side the diamond clasp, to
that of a marrow-fat pea. Not all of them--and this charmed her fancy as
giving them individuality and separate life--were faultlessly perfect;
but had minute irregularities of shape, tiny dimples in which a special
radiance hovered. She clasped the necklace round her throat, and, holding
up the hand-mirror, turned her head from side to side--with pardonable
vanity--to judge and enjoy the effect.
Damaris was unlearned in the commercial value of such treasures; nor did
money seem exactly a graceful or pretty thing--in some respects our
maiden was possessed of a very unworldly innocence--to think of in
connection with a present. Still she found it impossible not to regard
these jewels with a certain awe. What the dear Colonel Sahib must have
spent on them! A small fortune she feared. In the buying of this
all-too-costly-gift, then, consisted that business transaction he had
made the excuse for leaving her alone with Faircloth, upon the quay
alongside which lay the _Forest Queen_.
Oh! he surpassed himself! Was too indulgent, too munificent to her!--As
on a former occasion, she totted up the sum of his good deeds. Hadn't he
given up his winter's sport for her sake? Didn't she--and wouldn't an
admiring English reading public presently--owe to his suggestion her
father's noble book? When she had run wild for a space, and sold herself
to unworthy frivolities, hadn't he led her back into the right road, and
that with the lightest, courtliest, hand imaginable, making all
harmonious and sweetly perfect, once more, between her father and
herself? Lastly, hadn't he procured her her heart's desire in the meeting
with Darcy Faircloth--and, incidentally, given her the relief of free
speech, now and whenever she might desire to claim it, concerning the
strange and secret relationship which dominated her imagination and so
enriched the hidden places of her daily life and thought?
Damaris held up the hand-mirror contemplating his gift, this necklace of
pearls; and, from that, by unconscious transition fell to contemplating
her own face. It interested her. She looked at it critically, as at some
face other than her own, some portrait, appraising and studying it. It
was young and fresh, surely, as the morn--in its softness of contour and
fine clear bloom; yet grave to the verge of austerity, owing partly to
the brown hair which, parted in the middle and drawn down in a plain
full sweep over the ears, hung thence in thick loose plait on either
side to below her waist. She looked long and curiously into her own
eyes, "dear wonderful eyes," as Faircloth, her brother, so deliciously
called them. And with that her mouth curved into a smile, sight of which
brought recognition, new and very moving, of her own by no means
inconsiderable beauty.
She went red, and then white almost as her white nightdress and the white
pillows behind her. Laid the mirror hastily down, and held her face in
both hands as--as Carteret had held it last night, at the moment of
parting, when he had kissed not her lips but her forehead. Yet very
differently, since she now held it with strained, clinging fingers, which
hurt, making marks upon the flesh.--For could it be that--the other kind
of love, such as men bear the woman of their choice, which dictated
Carteret's unfailing goodness to her--the love that he had bitterly and
almost roughly defended when she praised the love of brother and sister
as dearest, purest, and therefore above all best?
Was it conceivable this hero of a hundred almost fabulous adventures, of
hair-breath escapes, and cunningly defied dangers in Oriental,
semi-barbarous, wholly gorgeous, camps, Courts and cities, this
philosopher of gently humorous equanimity, who appeared to weigh all
things in an equal balance and whom she had regarded as belonging to an
age and order superior to her own, had set his affections upon her
singling her out from among all possible others? That he wanted her for
his own, wanted her exclusively and as his inseparable companion, the
object of--
A sentence from the English marriage service flashed across her
mind.--"With my body I thee worship," it ran, "and with all my worldly
goods I thee endow."
"With my body I thee worship"--He, her father's elect and beloved friend,
in whom she had always so beautifully trusted, who had never failed her,
the dear man with the blue eyes--and she, Damaris? Her womanhood,
revealed to itself, at once shrank back bewildered, panic-stricken, and,
passion-stricken, called to her aloud.
For here Carteret's grace of bearing and of person, his clean health,
physical distinction and charm, arose and confronted her. The visible,
tangible attributes of the man--as man--presented themselves in fine
relief, delighting her, stirring her heretofore dormant senses, begetting
in her needs and desires undreamed of until now, and, even now, in
substance incomprehensible. She was enchanted, fevered, triumphant; and
then--also incomprehensibly--ashamed.
As the minutes passed, though the triumph continued to subsist, the shame
subsisted also, so that the two jostled one another striving for the
mastery. Damaris took her hands from her face, again clasped them about
her drawn-up knees, and sat, looking straight in front of her with
sombre, meditative eyes. To use a phrase of her childhood, she was busy
with her "thinkings"; her will consciously hailing emotion to the
judgment-seat of intelligence for examination and for sentence.
If this was what people commonly understand when they speak of love, if
this was the love concerning which novelists write and poets sing--this
riot of the blood and heady rapture, this conflict of shame and triumph
in which the animal part of one has so loud a word to say--she didn't
like it. It was upsetting, to the confines of what she supposed
drunkenness must be. It spoilt things heretofore exquisite, by giving
them too high a colour, too violent a flavour. No--she didn't like it.
Neither did she like herself in relation to it--like this unknown,
storm-swept Damaris. Nor--for he, alas! couldn't escape inclusion--this
new, unfamiliar presentment of the man with the blue eyes. Yet--and here
was a puzzle difficult of solution--even while this new presentment of
him, and conception of his sentiment towards her, pulled him down from
his accustomed pedestal in her regard, it erected for him another
pedestal, more richly sculptured and of more costly material--since had
not his manifold achievements, the whole fine legend as well as the whole
physical perfection of him, manifested themselves to, and worked upon her
as never before?--Did this thing, love, then, as between man and woman,
spring from the power of beauty while soiling and lowering beauty--bestow
on it an hour of extravagant effulgence, of royal blossoming, only to
degrade it in the end?--The puzzle is old as humanity, old, one may say,
as sex. Little wonder if Damaris, sitting up in her maidenly bedchamber,
in the unsullied brightness of the early morning hour, failed to find any
satisfactory answer to it.
Her thoughts ranged out to the other members of her little local
court--to Peregrine Ditton and Harry Ellice, to Marshall Wace. Had they
personal experience of this disquieting matter? Was it conceivable the
boys' silly rivalries and jealousies concerning her took their rise in
this? Did it inspire the fervour of Marshall Wace's singing, his
flattering dependence on her sympathy?--Suspicion widened. Everywhere she
seemed to find hint and suggestion of this--no, she wouldn't too
distinctly define it. Let it remain nameless.--Everywhere, except in
respect of her father and of her brother. There she could spend her heart
in peace. She sighed with a sweetness of relief, unclasping her hands,
raising her fixed, bowed head.
The hotel, meanwhile, was sensibly in act of coming awake. Doors opened,
voices called. From the other side of the corridor sounded poor little
Mrs. Titherage's hacking cough, increasing to a convulsive struggle
before, the fit at last passing off, it sunk into temporary quiescence.
André, the stout, middle-aged _valet de chambre_, hummed snatches of gay
melody as he rubbed and polished the parquet flooring without. These
noises, whether cheerful or the contrary, were at least ordinary enough.
By degrees they gained Damaris' ear, drawing her mind from speculation
regarding the nature, origin, prevalence and ethics of love. Soon
Pauline, the chamber-maid, would bring her breakfast-tray, coffee and
rolls, those pale wafer-like pats of butter which taste so good, and thin
squares of beetroot sugar which are never half as sweet as one would
like. Would bring hot water and her bath, too, and pay her some nicely
turned little compliment as to the becoming effect of her night's
sleep.--Everything would pick itself up, in short, and go on, naturally
and comfortably just as before.
Before what?
Damaris straightened the hem of the sheet over the billowing edge of
flowered down quilt; and, while so doing, her hand came in contact both
with the mirror and the open jewel-case. She looked at this last with an
expression bordering on reproach, unfastened the pearls from her throat,
and laid them on the wadded, cream-coloured velvet lining. She delighted
to possess them and deplored possessing them in the same breath. They
spoke to her too freely and conclusively, told her too much. She would
rather not have acquired this knowledge either of Carteret or of
herself.--If it really were knowledge?--Again she repeated the question,
arising from the increasing normality of surrounding things--Before what?
For when all was said and done, the dear man with the blue eyes had
veritably and very really departed. Throughout the night his train had
been rushing north-north-westward to Paris, to England, to that Norfolk
manor-house of his, where his sister, his nephews, all his home
interests and occupations awaited him. What proof had she that more
intimate and romantic affairs did not await him there, or thereabouts,
also? Had not she, once and for all, learned the lesson that a man's
ways are different and contain many unadvertised occupations and
interests? If he had wished to say something, anything, special to her,
before going away, how easily--thus she saw the business--how easily he
might have said it! But he hadn't spoken, rather conspicuously, indeed,
had avoided speaking. Perhaps it was all a silly, conceited mistake of
her own--a delusion and one not particularly creditable either to her
intelligence or her modesty.
Damaris shut up the jewel-case. The pearls were entrancing; but somehow
she did not seem to think she cared to look at them any more--just now.
When her breakfast arrived she ate it in a pensive frame of mind. In a
like frame of mind she went through the routine of her toilette. She felt
oddly tired; oddly shy, moreover, of her looking-glass.
Miss Felicia Verity had made a tentative proposal, about a week before,
of joining her niece and her brother upon the Riviera. She reported much
discomfort from rheumatism during the past winter. Her doctor advised a
change of climate. Damaris, while brushing and doing up her hair,
discovered in herself a warm desire for Miss Felicia's company. She
craved for a woman--not to confide in, but to somehow shelter behind. And
Aunt Felicia was so perfect in that way. She took what you gave in a
spirit of gratitude almost pathetic; and never asked for what you didn't
give, never seemed even to, for an instant, imagine there was anything
you withheld from her. It would be a rest--a really tremendous rest, to
have Aunt Felicia. She--Damaris--would propound the plan to her father as
soon as she went downstairs.
After luncheon and a walk with Sir Charles, her courage being higher, she
repented in respect of the pearl necklace. Put it on--and with results.
For that afternoon Henrietta Frayling--hungry for activity, hungry for
prey, after her prolonged abstention from society--very effectively
floated into the forefront of the local scene.