A week had passed since Perior had received the first pleading note from
Enthorpe, and one afternoon, when he was busy in his laboratory, another
arrived, more a command than a supplication.
"Come at once. I must see you. I am very unhappy."
Camelia indeed was very unhappy. She could hardly recognize or define
the unusualness of the unfamiliar sensation, and her ignorance helped to
hurt her, make her more bewildered under it. She had accepted Sir Arthur
that morning, hurried by no impulse, but conscious as she walked with
him in the garden of an ill-tempered recklessness, of a fate more easily
accepted than evaded uselessly. If he would have it--if every one would
have it, including herself, of course, let it be so. She said yes with
almost a sigh of exhausted energy, smiled with lifted brows over Sir
Arthur's ensuing rapture, and then wondered that under the lightness
with which she braved the decisive moment a sudden sickness of fear, of
sorrow, should seize her. Reality this, then. No more choice. No more
playing. The game ended. She was not being led into the Garden of Eden,
but out of it, and a new world, a world bleak, leaden, a sunless
immensity of dreariness stretched before her. She was frightened, and
the lesser feelings of the next hour were dazed by her effort to dismiss
this fear. She knew that her mother's tearful, speechless joy, Lady
Henge's elevated approbation, Mary's gasping efforts after fitting
phrases, Frances' cool, close-lipped little smile of satisfaction, and
the background of congratulatory faces were all very irritating, and
that she herself was unreasonably angry with them all.
She was glad to find herself alone in the library with Sir Arthur, even
though strangely helpless before his joyous possessorship. His arm was
about her, and she could hear Lady Henge thundering on the piano in the
drawing-room.
"The dear mater is improvising an epithalamium," said Arthur, with a
laugh. To Camelia it seemed cynically in keeping with her jarred and
jangled mood that her marriage should be interpreted by this pretentious
music. It symbolized so much. Her own flimsiness and falseness, the
immense distance from anything like perfect union. She turned her
thought to the attainable pleasures of the future, tried to shut her
soul on the lamenting ideal that Lady Henge's music mocked, and her mind
rested for a moment on the reassuring certainty of her own appreciation
of Sir Arthur's excellence. Strangely enough, though his possessorship
frightened, his arm about her waist consoled her; a warm sense of his
kindness and stability held her from inner terrors; she was glad to have
him there; she foresaw in solitude an on-coming and chilly stupor. She
felt it well to sit beside him, protected from her own fear by his
devoted nearness. "There now, you are smiling," said Sir Arthur; "you
seemed sad, as though you were conscious of responsibility--and didn't
like it." When he spoke of responsibility Camelia felt more keenly that
she had received an injury from fate. The "Yes" that had been spoken
only a few hours before had belonged to the game, was it quite fair that
this solemnity should result? Yet why not take it gaily? Force it into a
dancing ring of happy lightness?
"Responsibility? Oh no, you can't saddle me with that!" she said,
returning his look, and smiling still more easily as she felt how much
his handsome face pleased her; its very expression, an unaccented,
humorous gaiety, worn for her sake, was a homage, a warrant of most
chivalrous comprehension. "You alone are responsible"--and following her
mental picture of the game of hide-and-seek in a Watteau landscape--"You
caught me--that was all!"
"That was all!" he repeated; "and you were difficult to catch. Now that
you are caught I shall keep you."
"No, I am not sad," Camelia pursued, "I only feel as if I had grown up
suddenly."
"No, don't grow up. I must keep you always my laughing child."
"Lady Henge wouldn't approve of that!" said Camelia, yielding to a
closer enfolding, but facilitating it by no gracious droopings.
"Ah, mother loves you," said Sir Arthur, with a touch of added pride in
his capture.
"Does she?" Camelia's brows lifted a little; the enfolding continuing
she was conscious enough of a dart of irritation to wish to add, "I
don't love her!" but after a kiss he released her and she checked the
naughty impulse, merely adding, with some perversity, keeping him now at
arm's length though she abandoned her hand for the purpose, "Would you
have dared to love me had she not?"
"Camelia, you know that I did." The perversity had grieved him a little.
His clear brown eyes, that always reminded her of a dog's in their
widely opened sincerity, dwelt on her, questioning her intention. "She
did not know you, that was all."
"Nor did you, quite." Camelia laughed at him gently, and put her hand on
his shoulder, half as a reward for the pang, half to still keep him
away.
"No, not quite," Sir Arthur confessed, "though even my ignorance loved
you. But you let me know you at last."
"But what _do_ you know?" Camelia persisted.
"I know my laughing child."
"Her faults the faults of a child?"
"Has she faults?"
"Oh, blinded man!"
"The faults of a child, then," he assented.
When he had left her, for he was to spend the day in London, there was a
lull after the stress of change. Camelia found herself in a solitude
wherein she might sit and meditate. Every one seemed to fall away from
her, and when she was left alone she was sorry for it, though it was she
who had withdrawn, not they. Lady Henge had talked to her for
half-an-hour, her arm affectionately, but heavily lying about her
shoulders, seeming in the massive embrace to claim her with a kindness
that knew itself as wiser than mere maternal emotionalism. The low
tones of her voice were impressive, and Camelia would have submitted to
the newly assumed manner of guardianship, of confidential admonition,
with a very ill grace, had not Lady Henge been now so truly indifferent
to her.
Mary had been very tiresome, following her at a distance, wanting to
kiss her and cry. Mrs. Fox-Darriel's silent complacency was unendurable.
Camelia knew that in the new epoch her friend saw only a tightly-closed
fist, and this symbol affected her own imagination until she could have
shaken Mrs. Fox-Darriel for having suggested it.
Then her mother had fallen upon her breast and wept. Camelia was ashamed
of herself for seeing in the great lovingness a Scriptural exaggeration;
and being ashamed of herself she was only the more anxious to get rid of
the maternal clinging. She ended by locking herself in her own room,
only to find that she had locked herself in with a melancholy that had
been stepping silently beside her since the morning. She would not look
this companion in the face, however. She was alone with it at last; but
she feverishly avoided its fixed eyes, and eagerly busied herself with
trivialities, a dramatic sense of courage animating all her actions. She
emptied and rearranged her wardrobes and boxes, folded ribbons with
intensest exactitude, introduced a new plan in the bestowal of her
gloves and handkerchiefs, and even found herself unpicking a summer hat
with a fictitious eagerness that implied an imperative want of that
particular hat in a new trimming. When the hat was quite demolished she
put it away, and polished her finger-nails, and, lastly, spent a
fatiguing half-hour before the looking-glass in essays at new ways of
hair-dressing. None were satisfactory, and with arms aching from their
long uplifting, she at last swept the shining tresses into their
accustomed lines, unlocked the door, and emerged deliberately, but with
a sense of flight.
Every one had gone. The guests to golf at the Havershams; Mary, Lady
Paton, and Lady Henge for a long drive. They had all respected the
sensitive requirements of her new position. She was to be left alone,
and as Camelia walked from room to room, the big house was desolate.
She nourished a sense of resentment, of injury, for it seemed to thrust
away the chilly stupor of fear, fear of that new presence walking with
her, waiting for her recognition. The loneliness, the melancholy, to
which she could only feign blindness, were almost unendurable. The tears
rose to her eyes more than once, and her thoughts circled nearer and
nearer to Perior's great unkindness. It was when the melancholy seemed
suddenly to lay an imperative hand upon her that she flew to the
writing-table and wrote the note. She looked at the clock as she heard
the groom departing on horseback. Perior might easily arrive at six, and
at the thought her spirits rose with a great soaring bound, and laughed
down at the cold enemy. When he arrived she would see what would happen.
She reined back her imagination from any plan.
According to his manner, she would tell immediately, or delay telling
until a favorable moment. Perhaps when he knew he would say that his
heart was completely broken, but the thought of his unhappiness only
seemed to send her spirits into a higher ecstasy of joyousness. She felt
them bubble-like, floating in illusion, but the relief of the unthinking
hour--she seemed to live in it only, to breathe only its
expectancy--buoyed her above the clouds. In the long drawing-room, where
the firelight made the autumnal landscape outside, its distant hills
purpling with chilly evening, a mere picture, framed for the contrast in
her rosy mood, she danced, trying over new steps. She had always loved
her dancing, loved to feel herself so lovely, her loveliness set to such
musical motion, the words of the song. She hummed the sad, dead beauty
of a pavane, pacing it with stately pleasure; the gracious pathos of an
old gavotte; and, feeling herself a brook, her steps slid into the
flowing ripple of the courante. Perior had always loved these exquisite
old dances. She would dance for him, of course. That thought had been
growing, and the gavotte, the courante, the pavane becoming rehearsals.
Yes, she would dance for him--at first. Flushed, panting a little from
the long preparation, she ran upstairs to put on a white dress, a new
one made for dancing, with sleeves looped over bare arms, flowing sash,
and skirt like a flower-bell. She lingered on each detail. She must be
beautiful for Alceste; dear Alceste, poor, poor Alceste; how unhappy he
would be--when he knew. And suppose he should not come. The thought went
through her like a dagger as she held a row of pearls against her
throat. Over them she looked with terror-stricken eyes at the whiteness
of her beauty--useless beauty? Ah, she could not believe it, and she
clasped the pearls on a breast that heaved with the great sigh of her
negation. She could not believe it. He must come. And when she reentered
the drawing-room the sound of a horse's hoofs outside set the time to
the full throb of an ecstasied affirmation.
A delicious flood of contentment went through her. She stood smiling in
the dark yet luminous room, where only the firelight shone along the
polished oak of floor and wainscoting, half unconsciously emphasizing
her sense of the moment's drama by pressing her hands on her heart. Of
course he had come. How could he not come if she really wanted him? Dear
Alceste. In a moment he had entered. The firelight, as she stood before
him, seemed to shine through her pearly glimmering. She looked
sprite-like, a transparent fairy. Her dress, her attitude, her eyes, the
hovering expectancy. Perior, too, was immediately conscious of drama,
and felt as immediately an impulse to flight; but he came forward, a
quick look of calm arming his sturdy opposition to the atmosphere of
exaggerated meanings.
"Well, here I am," he said, in a manner intended by its commonplace to
rebuff the significance, whatever it might be, of eyes, dress, and
attitude. Camelia took his hand, joyously entering once more into the
dear, enchanted fairy-land--the old sense of a game, only a more
delightful, a more exciting game than ever. She could almost have
whirled him into the circle--a mad dancing whirl round and round the
room. How astonished he would have been! Solemn, staid old Alceste!
"Yes, here you are. At last," she said. "How shamefully you have
punished me this time!"
She laughed, but Perior sighed.
"I haven't been punishing you," he said, walking away to the fireplace.
Camelia followed him and watched him hold out his hand to the warmth.
"Is it so cold?" she asked.
"Very chilly; the wind catches one on that mile along the common. My
hands are half-numbed." Prettily, as she leaned in her illumined
whiteness beside him, she took his hands between her own and rubbed them
briskly.
"You wrote that you were unhappy," said Perior, looking down at the
daintily imprisoned hands; "what is the matter?"
"The telling will keep. I am happier now."
"Did you get me here on false pretences?" He smiled as he now looked at
her, and the smile forgave her in advance.
"No, no. I needed you very much; really I did. I am growing melancholy;
and I was all alone. I hate being alone."
"There, that will do. They are quite warm now; thanks very much. Where
are the others?"
"The others? They are away," said Camelia vaguely.
"Rodrigg?"
"He comes back to-night, I think."
"And Henge?" Perior asked it with a little hesitation. Of late he had
wondered much about Arthur and Camelia. There was an effort in the
unconscious aloofness of his voice.
"In London too." Camelia looked clearly at him. No, she would not tell
him now. The happy half-hour she must guard for them both. Her oblivion,
his ignorance, would make a fairy-land. Let him think even that she had
sent Arthur away finally. Arthur had no place in fairy-land.
"All the others are out," she repeated, "golfing, calling, driving. But
are you not glad to see me, even if I seem happier than strict
consistency requires?"
"Yes, I am glad to see you." Perior's eyes showed the half-yielding,
half-defiance of his perplexity. "But tell me, what is the matter? Don't
be so mysterious."
"But tell me," she returned, stepping backward, her skirt held out for
displayal, "is not my dress pretty?"
"Very pretty." Perior leaned back against the mantelpiece with an air of
resignation. "Very exquisite."
"Shall I dance for you?"
"By all means; since the dress was put on for that, I summoned for that.
Isn't it so?"
She made no reply, her smile lingering as she turned from him, and
showing in its fixedness a certain gravity. He was satisfied that
conjecture as to her meaning, her plan in all this, only wearied him,
yet sorry that he had come. Under the weariness he was resentfully aware
of excitement. And what of Arthur? Camelia's whole manner subtly
suggested that Arthur no longer counted. The note might be explained as
an after-throb of doubt, or at least of dreariness, in a world
momentarily without big issues. If she had refused Arthur definitely?
The thought, as his eyes followed Camelia's exquisite steps and slides,
shook some careful balancing of self-control. He felt stripped of a
shield, unpleasantly exposed to a dangerous moment. Camelia was dancing
quite silently, yet the air, to Perior's musical brain, seemed full of
melody, and she the soundless embodiment of music made visible--so
lovely, so dear to him; so dear in spite of everything. She was like a
white flower, tilting, bending in the wind. She skimmed like a swallow,
ran with rippled steps like a brook, flitted with light, languid
balancings, a butterfly hovering on extended wings. Her slender body,
like a fountain, rose and fell in a continuity of changing loveliness.
Her golden head shone in the dusk.
Perior watched her, half-dreaming, half-dazzled. The long moments of
acute, delicious contemplation drifted by as peacefully, as stilly as
falling rose-petals, muffling all outer jars and murmurs, blurring the
past, the future, making the present enchanted.
When she was far off his heart beat for her return, and when the
swaying, hovering whiteness came near he shrank from the nearness. The
unexpected sweeping turn that caught her away suddenly into the
half-visionary distance stabbed him through with a pang of relief and
disappointment.
He was entranced, half-mesmerized, conscious only of his delight in her,
when her circling at last grew slower, the musical beat of the
recovering tilt faltered. She came on a sliding, wavering step, and sank
like the softest sigh before him, folded together in her wing-like
whiteness.
"You enchanting creature," Perior murmured. He bent over her--he would
have lifted her--taking her hands, but Camelia herself rose between his
arms, and inevitably they closed about her. It was so natural, so
fitting in all its strangeness, that to Camelia the slow circling of the
dance seemed still to carry her round and round, unbroken by the crash
of a great revelation. She closed her eyes, hardly wondering at her
perfect happiness, and from the last revolving mists the reality dawned
sweetly upon her--the only reality. She had danced out of the game; it
lay far behind her. Through it she had blundered on a mistake, but her
mind put that swiftly aside. The mistake mattered nothing, the last act
merely of the game--a reckless, angered act. She thought now that the
game would hardly have been begun if only Perior had put his arms around
her, claimed and reclaimed her foolishness, long ago. Of course she
loved him. It needed but that to let her know.
But to Perior the moment, after its irresistible impulse, was merely one
of shame and self-disgust. He held her, for she was enchanting, and she
had enchanted him. Disloyalty to his friend did not forbid that
satisfaction. That she meant to marry Arthur was now impossible. She had
tossed him aside, dissatisfied; he could not pity Arthur for his escape,
nor credit Camelia with disinterestedness. She was bored, disappointed,
reckless in a wish for excitement. He analyzed her present mood
brutally--the mood of a vain child, made audacious by childhood
intimacy, her appetite for conquest whetted by his apparent
indifference; he had not known that she would pay such a price for
conquest. It was an ugly revelation of Camelia, but the revelation of
himself was uglier. He at least pretended to self-respect. The folly of
her coquetry hardly surprised him; his own yielding to it did; yet in
the very midst of his self-disgust he fulfilled it to the uttermost by
stooping his head to her upturned face, blind to its intrinsic
innocence, and kissing her lips. As he kissed her he knew that for angry
weeks and months he had longed to kiss her, the unrecognized longing
wrestling with his pride, with his finer fondness for her--the firm,
grave fondness of years, with even his loyalty to Henge. That barrier
gone, the longing rushed over the others. Among the wrecks his
humiliation overwhelmed him:--a girl he loved, but a girl he would not
woo, had wooing been of avail!--in it he was able to be generous.
The moment had not been long. He released her. Feeling most ungentle, he
yet put her away gently by the whole thrust of his arm. Leaning on the
mantel-shelf, his face averted from hers, he said: "Too enchanting,
Camelia. I have forgotten myself," and he added, "Forgive me."
"But _I_ did it!" Camelia's tone was one of most dauntless joyousness.
She was necessarily as sure of his love as of her own, surer of its
long-enduring priority. But his love feared--that was natural: dared not
hope for hers--too natural. She could not bear to have him put her away
in even a momentary doubt of her sincerity. Clasping both arms about his
neck she said quite childishly, in her great unconsciousness of his
thoughts about her--
"Why would you never say you were fond of me? Why would you never say
you loved me? Say it now--say that you love me."
His bewilderment at her audacity stung him to anger, and in
self-defence, for her sake too as well as for his own, almost to
brutality. "Ah, I love you enough to kiss you, Camelia," he said; "you
are only fit for that. There," he unlocked the clasping arms, "go away."
The unmistakable sternness of his face struck her with pained
perplexity. He would not meet her eyes; he turned from her, looking
wretched. A flashing thought revealed the possibility of tempted
loyalty. Did he think her bound? Divine the engagement? He could not
have heard of it already. She saw, her heart throbbing at the
half-truth, half-falseness of the unbecoming vision, how she must appear
to him in that distorting illumination. Free in her own eyes, she
hesitated on a lie that would release him from his doubts. But as she
stood looking at him, smiling, a little sternly too, at the test, the
door burst open with unpleasant suddenness, and Mr. Rodrigg, bull-like
in his vehemence, charged into the room.