It was many weeks afterwards that he told her what Mary had said. Her
woe, not selfish, but inconsolable, made it impossible that during the
first days of bereavement he should do more than help and sustain her by
the fullness of a friendship now recognized as deep and unrestrained.
It was she herself who asked him one day if Mary had said anything that
he could tell her, had spoken of her with a continuation of the
forgiveness, her trust in which made life possible. Camelia, in her new
devotion to her mother, its vehemence almost alarming Lady Paton,
controlled for her sake all tears and lamentations, but lying on a sofa
this afternoon, alone in the twilight, the tears had risen, and they
were falling fast when Perior came in and sat down beside her. It was
then that she asked him about Mary.
"She told me what you said to her the night before she died," Perior
answered, and Camelia let him take her hand. She lay reflecting for some
moments before saying--
"She wanted you to think as well of me as possible."
"She wanted to make me happy. She knew that you were mistaken."
"How mistaken?" Camelia asked from her pillow.
His voice had been unemphatic, but in the slight pause that followed
her question she felt that his eyes dwelt upon her, and she looked up at
him.
"You told her--that I did not love you." Camelia lay silent, her hand in
his, her eyes on his eyes.
"You believed that, didn't you?" he asked.
"How could I help believing it?"
"Ah! that shows a trust in me! Well, Mary did not believe it. Mary told
me that I loved you."
"And do you?" cried Camelia. She took her hand away, sat upright, and
faced him. Perior was forced to smile a little at the baldness of his
answering, "I do, Camelia."
"You did not know till----"
"Oh, I knew all along," Perior confessed, interrupting her. Camelia's
eyes widened immensely as she took in the astounding revelation. He
replied to their silent interrogations with "I have been a wretched
hypocrite. How I convinced you of the lie I don't know."
"And you told that to Mary." He saw now that her gaze passed him,
ignored him and his revelation in its personal bearing.
"I told her the truth. It did not hurt her. She was far above such
hurts. You had showed her that you were worthy of any love. To share her
secret made her happy."
"Happy! Oh, Mary! Mary!" Camelia murmured, looking away from him. "It
must have hurt," she added. "Ah, it must have hurt."
"She was as capable of nobility as you--that was all."
"As I!" It was a cry of bitterness.
"As you, indeed. I feel between you both what a poor creature I am. I
suppose I did for a test. You proved yourselves on me."
There was silence for a little while. Camelia looked out of the window
at the spring evening. It was here they had sat together on that day of
their first meeting after her return. Her mind went back to it in all
the sorrow of hopeless regret. What had Mary been to her then?
"What more did she say?" she asked at last in a voice of utter sadness.
She still looked out of the window, but when he answered, "She said that
you loved me," she looked at him.
"Is that still true, Camelia?" he asked, smiling gravely and with a
certain timidity.
"So you know, at last, how much."
"My darling." His tone brought the tears to her eyes; they rolled down
her cheeks while she said brokenly, "And I told her; I gave her the
weapon--and she smiled at us. Oh, that smile!"
"There was triumph in it. She asked me to marry you, Camelia, and I said
I would--if you would have me. But, I must not ask you now--must I?" He
sat down beside her on the sofa, and kissed her hand.
"Ah, no; don't think of that. It would kill me, I think, if for one
moment I forgot."
"You need not forget--yet you may be happy, and make me happy."
"Oh, you don't know," said Camelia, clasping her hands and looking down
at them, "you don't know. Even you don't know how wicked I have been."
"We all have such dark closets in our hearts. Don't shut yourself in
yours."
"I don't shut myself. I am locked in. That is my punishment. Michael,"
and she looked round at him without turning her head, "I think of
nothing else; that I made her miserable--that I made her glad to die. I
must tell you. You don't know how I treated her. I remember it all
now--years and years--so plainly. I robbed her of everything. If a
sunbeam fell on her path I stood between her and it."
Perior was silent, but putting his hand over hers he held it faithfully.
"Listen. Let me tell you a few--only a few--of the things I remember. I
don't know why you love me!--how you can love me! It hurts me to be
loved!" she sobbed suddenly.
"If it will help you, tell me everything. And I must love you, even if
it hurts you."
And, her hand in that faithful hand, her eyes on his, demanding
inflexible judgment, Camelia began the long confession--a piteous tale,
indeed. All the blots and failings gathered in a huge blackness; she
spoke from it. He felt as she spoke that the clasp of his hand was her
one link with revival. It was a piteous tale: for the robbery of Mary's
ride, the brutal taunts flung at her on that winter night--these were
but the bigger drops in the sea of selfish thoughtlessness. After each
incident, rounded with a succinct psychology that showed her pitiless
clearness of vision, she paused, as if waiting for him to speak. His
silence seemed to acquiesce, and she wanted no soothing denial. And even
now his hand held hers, and did not cast her off. When she had done, and
after the silence had grown long, he said--
"And so I might lay bare my heart to you."
"I would not be afraid of its dark corner. You have never been meanly
selfish, never trodden on people."
"But I might affirm other things. I will open the door if it will help
you to sit down with me in the doubled darkness."
"No, dear Michael, no. Mine is enough."
"I have heard you; and may I now tell you again that I love you?"
"Not again. Not now. But I am glad that you love me. I feel it. I should
like to sit like this forever, just feeling it, with my hand in yours."
This very debatable love-scene must be Perior's only amorous consolation
for many months. Of her quiet content in his presence there could be no
doubt. No barrier, no pain, was now between them. Their union was
achieved, as if by a mere wave-wash, effacing one misunderstanding--it
hardly seemed more now, nor their change of relation apparent; but under
all Camelia's courage was the fixed determination to allow herself no
happiness. Superficially there was almost gaiety at times; her regret
would never become conventional or priggish; but even Lady Paton did not
guess that Camelia and Michael were lovers, although a secret hope--very
wonderful, and carefully hidden--painted for her future rosy
possibilities. With all the sadness, with all the regret, these days
were the happiest Lady Paton had known; and as Camelia's devotion was
exclusively for her, she could not guess that the secret hope was
already realized.
Yet Camelia did not leave her silent lover utterly bereft. After the
deep gravity of the first avowal her little demonstrations were of a
light, an almost mocking order. In this new phase she returned to the
teasing fondness of the old one; and sometimes the central tenderness
would pierce the lightness.
Perior could afford patience. Reading one afternoon in the library (his
daily presence at Enthorpe was a matter of course), he heard steps
behind him, then felt her hand clasp over his eyes.
"You are keeping on--loving me?" she demanded.
"Yes, I am keeping on," said Perior, turning his page with a masterly
calm. He knew that the little outburst conceded nothing, and that even
when Camelia dropped a swift kiss on his hair he was by no means
expected to retaliate.
For the lighter mood the cottages made endless subjects for conversation
and discussion. In talking--squabbling amicably--over their interior
civilization, Camelia felt that she and Perior had much the playful
gravity of children making sand pies at the seaside.
Camelia insisted on her prints and photographs, and on hanging them
herself. She had fixed theories on the decoration of wall-spaces.
Perior held the ladder and criticised. "They are quite out of place, you
know. That exotic art is most incongruous. It jars." Camelia was hanging
up a modern print after Hiroshighé.
"It wouldn't jar on us, would it?" she asked, driving in a nail.
"We are exotic mentally."
"Let us train them to a more cosmopolitan out-look, then."
"They would far prefer the colored prints from Christmas numbers."
"Well, they shan't have them!" Camelia declared, and he laughed at her
determined tyranny. But when her tenants were duly installed Camelia was
forced to own that the honest forces of the soil were difficult to
manage. She came in to tea one afternoon with the announcement, that the
Dawkins had taken down all their prints and put up flower-entwined texts
and horrible colored advertisements. Mrs. Dawkins had said that her
husband objected to "those outlandish women"; they made him feel "quite
creepy like."
Later on she had to confess that the Coles by no means appreciated their
photographs of the Sistine Sibyls, so charmingly placed along the walls,
and that from among them glared a well-fed maiden with upturned,
prayerful, and heavily-lashed eyes; testifying to the Coles' religious
instincts and to their only timid opposition.
"How can they be so stupid!" cried Camelia. "And how can I!"
"You can't grow roses on cabbages, Camelia," said Perior, "to say
nothing of orchids. You are demanding orchids of your cabbages."
"Desire precedes function," Camelia replied sententiously, "if the
cabbages want to, very much, they may grow orchids. I shall still
hope."