When Ivy came out of her state-room at half-past eight, the great
heat of the day had gone, and old Dieppe harbour was bathed in a
mysterious, enchanting twilight. She had put on to-night a white
chiffon frock which made her look childishly young, and, as she
floated wraithlike down the deck towards him, Rushworth caught his
breath.
He had been waiting for her--he would have been ashamed to acknowledge
to himself for how long, though he knew that she was never late.
Jervis had no sense of time, but punctuality was one of Ivy’s virtues.
“I’m afraid you’ll think my sea-study rather austere!”
“Austere?”
His lovely friend hardly knew the meaning of this, to her unusual,
word. Eagerly she walked through into what was the floating workshop
of a very busy man, though something had been done this evening to
disguise its real character. Two great bowls of variously coloured
roses stood on the writing-table; and in the centre of the state-room
was a small table set for two. On an Italian plate in the centre of
the table was heaped up some fine fruit.
“How delicious!” She clapped her hands. “Who would ever think we were
on board a ship?”
“You are the first guest of mine who has ever come through this door.”
He longed to tell her, he wanted her to know, that she held a place
apart from any other human being in his life.
“How about Miss Chattle?”
“Charlotte least of all! Once she was free of this room, I should
never be able to get her out.”
“Not Miss Dale even?”
The colour rushed into Rushworth’s sunburnt face, and Ivy noted it
with a jealous pang, as he answered more gravely, “No, not even Bella.
I made up my mind--and I’m a man who once he has made up his mind,
well, sticks to it--that this state-room should be my bolt-hole, as
well as my study. It’s understood by everyone on board that when I’m
in here, I won’t be disturbed.”
He pointed to a telephone instrument. “If the yacht catches fire, my
skipper has permission to ring me up.”
The short dinner was served well and quickly by Rushworth’s own
steward; but neither of the two felt in the mood for talking in the
presence of even the most unobtrusive third. Each was longing,
consciously longing, to be alone with the other.
During that half hour when he had been waiting for her, aching for
her, Miles Rushworth had faced up to the fact that he was madly in
love with Ivy Lexton, and that he would give everything he valued most
in the world to have her for his own.
But his passion for another man’s wife--so again and again he assured
himself--was of an exalted, noble, and spiritual quality. Never would
he allow that passion to become earthly. He admitted, at long last,
that, as regarded his own peace of mind, he had been unwise to see as
much of Ivy as he had done in London. But he had dreamt, fool that he
had been, of a friendship which should be prolonged even after his
marriage to another woman. During those three weeks he had also
thought often of the girl whom he meant to make his wife. Ivy should
be his friend and Bella’s friend--their dear, dear friend.
But since they had all come together on his yacht Rushworth had had a
rude awakening. He knew now that Bella Dale was his dear, dear friend,
but Ivy Lexton was the woman he loved.
At last dinner, which had seemed to them both intolerably long, was
over.
“Would you like coffee served on deck?” asked Rushworth.
But before Ivy could answer, the steward intervened. “It’s just begun
to rain, sir,” and as he said the word “rain,” there came a flash of
lightning, followed by a peal of thunder.
Ivy’s host turned to her. “We shall have to stay here, unless you’d
rather go into the saloon?”
“I’d rather stay here,” she said in a low voice.
“Shall I pull down the blind, sir?”
“You may as well.”
In a minute the man brought in coffee, and then they heard him running
along the deck through the pelting rain.
Ivy’s hand lay on the table. She looked at it--her fingers were
twitching. She felt, with joy and triumph, the tenseness of the
atmosphere between them, and, for the first time, something in her
responded to Rushworth’s still voiceless passion.
“I don’t want any coffee,” she murmured.
“Neither do I.”
They both rose. He looked across at her. “You’ll find that sofa over
there comfortable, I think.”
He uttered the commonplace words in a strained, preoccupied tone. The
summer storm outside seemed at one with him, shutting them off from
the world.
Ivy walked across to the little couch, which was just large enough for
two, and, after a perceptible moment of hesitation, he followed her.
For a moment he stood silently gazing down into her upturned face.
Then he began moving forward a chair.
“Won’t you sit down here, by me?” she asked, looking at him with her
dovelike eyes.
“Shall I? Is there room?”
“Plenty of room,” she said tremulously.
As he sat down, there came another vivid flash of lightning, followed
by a peal of thunder louder than the one before.
He turned quickly to her: “You’re not frightened, are you?”
“I am--a little.”
And then all at once she was in his arms, and he was murmuring low,
passionate words of endearment and of reassurance between each long,
trembling, clinging kiss.
How he loved her! And how wonderful to know that she, poor darling,
loved him too. He felt as may feel a man who, after wandering for days
in the desert, suddenly comes on an oasis and a cool stream.
But even now, when every barrier between them seemed miraculously
broken down, Rushworth kept a certain measure of control over himself.
“I’m going to pull up the blind and put out the light,” he whispered
at last.
A moment later they were in darkness, though now and again a vivid
flash of lightning illuminated the harbour through sheets of blinding,
torrential rain.
He strode back to the little couch, and sank down again by her; but he
resisted the aching longing to take her once more into his arms.
Instead he took her soft hand in his, while he muttered in a broken
voice, “I’ve been a brute! You must forgive me.”
She answered in a stifled voice, “There is nothing to forgive.”
“I’ve been to blame all through!”
Then, in a tone he strove to lighten, “I ought to have labelled you
‘dangerous’ from the first moment I saw you.”
She melted into tears, and remorsefully he whispered, “Have I hurt you
by saying that?”
She shook her head; but she pulled her hand away.
“Listen, Ivy?”
It was the first time Miles Rushworth had called her by her name, and
for that, Jervis, poor fool, had thought him old-fashioned and
over-formal.
“Yes,” she whispered submissively.
“We’ve got to talk this out--you and I.”
“Yes,” she said again, wondering what he meant by those strange words,
and longing, consciously, even exultantly, longing, for him to take
her again in his strong arms.
“I’ll begin by telling you something I’ve never told to any living
being.”
He uttered those words in so serious a tone that Ivy felt a thrill of
fear, of doubt, go through her. Had he a woman in his life whom he
would not, or could not, give up?
“I was twenty when my father died, and before his death we had a long
private talk. Quite at the end of our talk, he made me give him a
solemn promise.”
Rushworth stopped a moment. He was remembering what had been the most
moving passage up to now in his thirty-five years of life. It was as
if he heard the very tones of his father’s firm, if feeble, voice.
“At the time my promise seemed easy to keep. Indeed, I was surprised
he thought it necessary to exact it.”
“What was your promise?” Ivy whispered, and she came a little, only a
little, nearer to him.
“My promise was never to allow myself to fall in love with a married
woman. Though it hasn’t always been as easy as I thought it would be,
till now I have kept that promise. But now I’ve broken it, for I love
you. Love you? Why I adore you, my darling----”
Again he waited, and Ivy felt oppressed, bewildered. Many men had said
that they adored her. But no man had made that delightful, exciting
admission, without showing strong apparent emotion.
Rushworth had uttered the words calmly, collectedly, and staring
straight before him.
“And I can’t help myself--that’s the rub,” he went on, in the same
matter-of-fact voice. “Indeed, I’m afraid I’m going to go on loving
you all my life,” he smiled a rueful smile in the soft darkness which
encompassed them.
“But of course I knew, even then, when I was a cub of twenty, what my
father really meant. There is a part of my promise to him I can keep;
and what’s more--by God, I intend to keep it!”
She was moved, thrown off her usual calculating balance, by the
strength of his sincerity, and also made afraid.
“What d’you mean?” she faltered.
“It’s true that I love you--I didn’t know there could be such love in
the world as that which I feel for you, Ivy. If it would do you any
good for me to jump into that harbour out there and be drowned, I’d do
it! But I’m going to keep my love for you sacred, and I’m going not
only to save myself, but I’m going to save you, my darling, darling
love.”
He took her hand again, and this time he kissed it.
Ivy burst into bitter tears, and Rushworth put his arm around her.
“I know how you’re feeling,” he whispered brokenly. “My poor little
darling! But for God’s sake don’t cry. I can’t bear it. You’ve nothing
to be ashamed of--it’s been all my fault.”
“Can’t we go on being friends? It’s been so wonderful having you for a
friend!” she sobbed.
“Of course we’ll go on being friends--dear, dear friends. But
lovers--no! I’m going right away--it’s the only thing to do.”
He was telling himself that of course she did not understand--how
could she, gentle and pure if yet passionate creature that she
was?--the strength of his temptation. She would never know, indeed, he
must never allow her to know, what she meant to him, and all he was
about to give up for her sake. A sweet, loving wife, children, in a
word, a happy, normal life--all that Bella Dale had stood for in the
secret places of his heart.
He was brought back to the present by her agitated, agonised, “Going
away? Surely you’re not going away, now?”
He waited a moment without answering her. A frightful struggle was
going on in his heart, his conscience. Then, at last, he answered the,
to him, piteous question.
“Do you remember my once telling you of my sister? Of how I longed for
you to know her--but that she was too ill for me to take you to her.”
“Yes,” she murmured, trying to remember.
She had not been really interested, only secretly glad that
Rushworth’s widowed sister was not well enough to see her. Ivy Lexton
did not care to be brought in contact with her men friends’ mothers or
sisters. They never liked her, and she never liked them.
“My sister saw a new specialist this week, and he says she ought to
winter in South Africa. She’s horribly lonely--her husband was killed
in the war, and--and now I’ve made up my mind to go with her. You do
agree that it’s the best thing--indeed, the only thing for me to do?”
There was something in his tone as he uttered the question that made
her feel that, for the moment, at any rate, no plea would move him.
“I hate your going so far away,” she moaned.
“It’s the only thing to do,” he repeated in a hard tone.
“I’m afraid you despise me,” she said very low.
“Despise you? Good God! I honour you----”
And then all at once she was again in his arms.
Moved out of her false selfish self by the strength and reality of his
emotion, “I love you,” she murmured, clinging to him between their
kisses. “I shall always love you,” and believed she spoke the truth.
Surely, surely, he wouldn’t go away now?
The door opened, and in the darkness they sprang apart.
“The hotel has sent the car for you, sir. It is now on the quay.”
“The car?”
A feeling of surprise and despondency swept over Ivy.
Rushworth got up. For a moment or two, it seemed like eternity to him,
he found he could not speak.
Then he said, “I’m afraid I must go now, Mrs. Lexton. I’m sleeping at
the Hotel Royal to-night. A business friend of mine is staying there,
and we are going to have a talk before turning in. He is going to
Paris to-morrow morning.”
Addressing his servant: “I’ll be coming in a minute. The storm’s over,
isn’t it?” he added.
“I think it is, sir.”
“Then put on the light again, and take the despatch-box that’s over
there on my writing-table to the car.”
Rushworth waited till the sounds of footsteps on the deck outside had
grown faint. Then he came back to Ivy, but he had once more regained
possession of himself.
“I want to tell you, now, what I didn’t mean to tell you till the last
day of our trip. Some cousins of mine have a charming flat in the Duke
of Kent Mansion, close to Kensington Gardens. They want to let it for
six months, and I’ve just taken it in the hope that you and your
husband will live there till you have found something you like
better.”
“You’re too good to me.”
She looked crushed, defeated, humiliated.
“Ivy! My precious darling----” the yearning cry escaped him.
Slowly she lifted her head, and her eyes, swimming in tears, her
trembling mouth, longing for his kisses, beckoned.
He leapt forward, and she fell upon his breast. “Must you go away? I
don’t know how I shall live without you,” she sobbed.
As at last he tore himself from her arms, “Oh God,” he exclaimed. “If
only you were free!”