“Is Hope not plumed, as ’twere a fiery dart?
And oh! thou dying day,
Even as thou goest, must she too depart
And Sorrow fold such pinions on the heart as will not fly away?”
D. G. ROSSETTI.
There are times when one cannot accept the reassurance of the external
world. When bright sunlight is a mockery, and a peaceful evening a gibe
at our own restlessness.
Daphne, waiting for what she knew was inevitable, underwent this
rebellion to nature. The exquisite fresh beauty of the May night, with
its deepening tints across the sky, the rising moon, and the last broken
songs of sleepy birds, stung her with a sense of how alone she was, and
in what alien surroundings. She was waiting for what she, above all
things, hoped, and feared, desired, and trembled at. She wanted to
escape, and she wanted to be recaptured. In fact she wanted (as in the
depths of our hearts we all want) both to eat our cake and have it
unbroken, to accomplish, and yet not to reach the goal. It was only when
the actual, sharp, decisive tread of the surgeon approached her, that
she realized she had only one emotion left, a fear that kept her from
moving away.
“Oh!” he said, “it is you, Daphne! it is you!” For a moment he stood
gazing down at her. The hardness of his eyes becoming tender, until he
ceased to look as the world knew him, and looked as she only could make
him look. “It has been a long three years,” he said at last, “and you
are much, much more beautiful!”
Then she took courage and began to speak. “Arthur, you should never have
come—why did you come? I had learnt how to be good, how to do without
you! These three years have been long indeed, long enough to show me
that what I promised was wrong, and that I can never, never keep it! Oh!
Arthur, it was cruel of you to come back! Let me go, promise you will
let me go?” He pointed to a seat sheltered by the house.
“Sit down,” he said, “and don’t be afraid!” She obeyed him with a little
gesture of despair.
“You have made me afraid of all the world—and you!” she said. He passed
up and down once or twice in front of her. Then he turned and faced her.
“You begged me to leave you,” he said, “because you were so young, and
it was all such a shock; but, you don’t suppose I meant to keep away, do
you? You, yourself said, ‘Come back in three years.’ I have worked
alone, and it has been hard, but I thought it only fair to give you
time, and you were worth waiting for, Daphne! What mistakes I have made,
have been paid for out of hand. I don’t mean to make you suffer for
them. I have a plan which is perfectly easy and simple to put before
you. It will not remove the essential difficulty that will have to
remain your secret and mine, but it will remove all the obvious
disadvantages, and give you a perfectly recognized position before the
world, but I won’t go into details unless you trust me. You _must_ trust
me or we can go no further. I suppose I was a fool to let you go? The
next I hear is that the girl who was to train herself into the courage
of her emotions, means to marry with no emotions whatever a raw boy out
of a college because he happens to have money and position. Do you break
no moral law there, Daphne?”
“I didn’t say I would marry him,” moaned the girl, “I only told Vera she
might have him here—if she liked.”
“To help you make up your mind about me?” he suggested.
“Arthur,” she said, “won’t you let me go? Won’t you please let me go?”
The surgeon knitted his brows in perplexity as he looked down at her. If
she had ceased to care for him, she would never have asked him this
question, there would have been no need, she had only to say “I do not
love you.” If she had not ceased to care for him, how could he let her
go for another man? And as for any alternative—there was no alternative
for a girl like Daphne, and no other alternative for a man like himself.
He knew that there is no safety for passion, but in the definite, and
the irrevocable. Compromise is but a flimsy barrier, in the war of
emotions, ready to fall at the lifting of an eye-lash, or the touch of a
hand. He realized that he was the more responsible, because he knew this
so much better than she did, but it was hard to keep back the words that
sprang to his lips, and the thoughts that thrilled his heart, as he
looked at her. He tried not to look at her, but he could not cease to
see her.
“Ah!” he said at last, “how I have hoped for this! Do you want me to let
you go? Tell me, Daphne?” He bent over her as he spoke, and put his
hands on her shoulders. She looked up at him, and tried to speak, it was
so much too difficult to send him away, and yet, in her heart of hearts,
she knew that she could never do anything else, and still she could not
speak. “Well! you don’t cry!” he said with grudging admiration for the
face beneath his.
“No! I don’t cry,” repeated Daphne sadly, “but I am much more unhappy
than if I did!” He gave an exclamation of impatience, and let her go
only just in time, for the young American had turned the corner, which
sheltered them, and the light of his cigarette, made a warning signal in
the dark.
“Ah, now! Mr. Field!” he said, “were you hypnotizing Miss Daphne? You
were so very still; tell me, Miss Daphne, what sin do you want to be
saved from? Maybe if I think hard like Mr. Field, it’ll work doubly
quick, and you’ll wake up hating it?”
The girl gave a gasp of relief. “Take me indoors, Bert,” she said, “this
night is—cold. It is too early to play at summer!”
“Why, yes! it’s pretty fresh!” agreed the young American, “and how you
are shivering, Miss Daphne.” He took her into the empty billiard-room,
where a bright wood fire was burning. “Why! your little hands,” he said
very gently, “your little hands are just as cold!” He rubbed them
between his own, and she let him without a word, sinking back into the
chair he had brought her, and closing her eyes.
“Oh! I’m so glad I can trust you, Bert,” she said at last.
“Why, certainly!” he said, “you can trust me, why not?”
Daphne did not answer. She felt as if he had carried her in, out of a
storm. She was quite exhausted, and the worst of it was, the storm was
still outside. A few minutes later, Lady Cheston and David Grey burst
into the room.
Lady Cheston gave a shriek of laughter when she saw them. “Oh! you have
left a savage creature out there, Daphne!” she said. “I mean the rude,
quiet man, Wood—Hill—Field—some country name, isn’t it? I asked him
just for fun, you know, how he came to do hypnotism, and he blazed out
at me, ‘If you want to see performing dogs go to a circus!’”
“And served you jolly well right, you know!” said David Grey. “Beastly
kind of thing to say to a man when——” he stopped suddenly, and glanced
at Daphne.
“You might finish your sentence,” said Lady Cheston crossly.
David Grey gave a short laugh, and picked up a rose of Daphne’s, which
had fallen to the floor. He put it in his button-hole. “There isn’t any
need to finish the sentence,” he said. “Where are the twins?”
“They’re singin’ duets to the curate,” said Lady Cheston with another
little shriek. “And Vera’s talkin’ to him about teachin’ Sunday School
teachers the harp, she thinks they’ll be able to enter more into the
lives of Old Testament characters! And—give me a cigarette, David! The
girl with the mouth is reforming, Reggie.” She suddenly remembered
Daphne. “Oh, my dear, I forgot you,” she said, “I’m always sayin’ awful
things before girls!” David frowned.
“Do you want to smoke?” he said; “you haven’t lit your cigarette yet,
you know?”
“I believe you think it’ll stop me talkin’,” said Lady Cheston archly,
as she accepted a match.
“Good Lord, no!” said David with some bluntness. He turned insolently to
Daphne. “And you,” he said, “do you want a match too?”
Bert Russell stepped quickly in between them. “Thank you, awfully,” he
said, “I shouldn’t mind.” Then he also turned to Daphne, “Do you mind my
smoking in here?” he said. Lady Cheston got very red.
“No!” said Daphne, “oh, no! I don’t mind your smoking!” She got up as
she spoke, and walked slowly towards the door. The group looked after
her, silenced for a moment. Then David flung down his cigarette, and
left the room. The American told a very, very funny story to Lady
Cheston.
“Daphne,” said David overtaking her at the foot of the staircase, “will
you marry me?”
“Oh! I suppose so,” said Daphne wearily, “but don’t talk about it, and
for Heaven’s sake don’t come near me!” For a moment, they looked at each
other. The man’s eyes were hungry with passion, the girl’s indifferent
with pain.
“I don’t seem to get much out of this, do I?” he said. “In London you
were more generous with me.”
“Oh! but I never let you kiss me!” cried Daphne with sudden emotion.
“And now—you are never going to let anybody else—kiss you,” said
David.
She felt her breath coming quick and fast under his eyes. Then she
looked beyond him, and saw Arthur Field. She made a tremendous effort to
pull herself together, the lights on the floor danced before her eyes.
She could hear the twins singing in the drawing-room. The hall door
opened, and a rush of cool night air entered, and with it—Katherine.
She glanced towards the staircase, and without a word passed Arthur, and
then David.
“Get me some brandy!” she said to the surgeon contemptuously. “Can’t you
see the girl’s going to faint?” she threw her strong arms round Daphne,
who clung to her silently, as a child in a dark room clings to its
nurse.
“Let me carry her upstairs,” said David hoarsely.
“Don’t let him touch me,” Daphne whispered.
“Go on ahead, and open the window over the sofa on the first landing,”
ordered Katherine briefly, “she can get as far as that.”
In a few minutes it was all over, and Daphne safe in her room. David
went into the smoking-room with Arthur Field. “You are a doctor,” he
said, “what do you make of a girl fainting like that?”
“It was a warm evening, she was over-tired—and her dress fitted her
very well,” said Arthur Field with a laugh.
“I don’t believe that’s true,” said David, “she isn’t that kind of
girl.”
“Pooh!” said the doctor irritably, “they’re all that kind of girl!”
David poured himself out a stiff glass of whisky and soda. The surgeon
watched his hand as he poured it out. “And we’re most of us that kind of
man,” he added unconcernedly. David grew very red.
Two hours later (it was nearly twelve), Lady Cheston opened the
smoking-room door. The surgeon had gone to bed. “Where’s my Reggie?” she
cried, shaking her finger at David.
“I don’t know—where—the devil—your Reggie is!” said the man at the
table.
Lady Cheston gave a scream of laughter. “David!” she said, “you’re
drunk!”
“Damn you!” he shouted, “what if I am?”
“Oh! you’d better go to bed,” said Lady Cheston, “if you can get there,”
she added, still laughing.
Reggie came behind her. “What are you doing, mother?” he asked very
rudely.
“My sweet pet, I was looking for you,” said his mother.
“Well! now you see me,” said her sweet pet rather crossly, “you had
better go upstairs.”
His mother followed his advice and ran laughing into Lady Middleton’s
room. “My dearest Vera,” she said, “who’s going to marry Daphne?”
“Oh! don’t you know? she’s going to marry David Grey, that’s been going
on for a long while,” said her hostess calmly.
Lady Cheston smiled. “My dear—the boy drinks!” she said.
“Well! there’s the butler,” said Lady Middleton vaguely, “and he can be
hypnotized, you know. There’s always something wrong with some of them.”
“Well! his _pockets_ are all right,” said Lady Cheston with emphasis.
“O, yes, dear! perhaps they are,” said Lady Middleton, ringing for her
maid, “but I never believe in anybody marrying for money, you know. Have
you everything you want, darling? I _hope_ so, good-night!”
Lady Cheston went to her room, but she did not go to sleep for a long
time. Downstairs Reggie and the American were helping David Grey to bed.
Katherine sat at Daphne’s bed-side by the open window, looking out into
the night. The sky was full of stars.