Vera Part 17

'But----'

'People are so untrustworthy about books. I took pains to arrange mine myself, and they're all in first-cla.s.s-bindings and I don't want them taken out and left lying anywhere by Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry. If any one wants to read they can come and ask me. Then I know exactly what is taken, and can see that it is put back.' And he held up the key on his watch-chain.

'But doesn't that rather discourage people?' asked Lucy, who was accustomed to the most careless familiarity in intercourse with books, to books loose everywhere, books overflowing out of their shelves, books in every room, instantly accessible books, friendly books, books used to being read aloud, with their hospitable pages falling open at a touch.

'All the better,' said Wemyss. '_I_ don't want anybody to read my books.'

Lucy laughed, though she was dismayed inside. 'Oh Everard--' she said, 'not even me?'

'You? You're different. You're my own little girl. Whenever you want to, all you've got to do is to come and say, "Everard, your Lucy wants to read," and I'll unlock the bookcase.'

'But--I shall be afraid I may be disturbing you.'

'People who love each other can't ever disturb each other.'

'That's true,' said Lucy.

'And they shouldn't ever be afraid of it.'

'I suppose they shouldn't,' said Lucy.

'So be simple, and when you want a thing just say so.' Lucy said she would, and promised with many kisses to be simple, but she couldn't help privately thinking it a difficult way of getting at a book.

'Macaulay, d.i.c.kens, Scott, Thackeray, British Poets, English Men of Letters, _Encyclopaedia Britannica_--I think there's about everything,'

said Wemyss, going over the gilt names on the backs of the volumes with much satisfaction as he stood holding her in front of them. 'Whiteley's did it for me. I said I had room for so and so many of such and such sizes of the best modern writers in good bindings. I think they did it very well, don't you little Love?'

'_Very_ well,' said Lucy, eyeing the shelves doubtfully.

She was of those who don't like the feel of prize books in their hands, and all Wemyss's books might have been presented as prizes to deserving schoolboys. They were handsome; their edges--she couldn't see them, but she was sure--were marbled. They wouldn't open easily, and one's thumbs would have to do a lot of tiring holding while one's eyes tried to peep at the words tucked away towards the central crease. These were books with which one took no liberties. She couldn't imagine idly turning their pages in some lazy position out on the gra.s.s. Besides, their pages wouldn't be idly turned; they would be, she was sure, obstinate with expensiveness, stiff with the leather and gold of their covers.

Lucy stared at them, thinking all this so as not to think other things.

What she wanted to shut out was the wind sobbing up and down that terrace behind her, and the consciousness of the fierce intermittent squalls of rain beating on its flags, and the certainty that upstairs.... Had Everard _no_ imagination, she thought, with a sudden flare of rebellion, that he should expect her to use and to like using the very sitting-room where Vera----

With a quick s.h.i.+ver she grabbed at her thoughts and caught them just in time.

'Do you like Macaulay?' she asked, lingering in front of the bookcase, for he was beginning to move her off towards the door.

'I haven't read him,' said Wemyss, still moving her.

'Which of all these do you like best?' she asked, holding back.

'Oh, I don't know,' said Wemyss, pausing a moment, pleased by her evident interest in his books. 'I haven't much time for reading, you must remember. I'm a busy man. By the time I've finished my day's work, I'm not inclined for much more than the evening paper and a game of bridge.'

'But what will you do with me, who don't play bridge?'

'Lord, you don't suppose I shall want to play bridge now that I've got you?' he said. 'All I shall want is just to sit and look at you.'

She turned red with swift pleasure, and laughed, and hugged the arm that was thrust through hers leading her to the door. How much she adored him; when he said dear, absurd, simple things like that, how much she adored him!

'Come upstairs now and take off your hat,' said Wemyss. 'I want to see what my bobbed hair looks like in my home. Besides, aren't you dying to see our bedroom?'

'Dying,' said Lucy, going up the oak staircase with a stout, determined heart.

The bedroom was over the library, and was the same size and with the same kind of window. Where the bookcase stood in the room below, stood the bed: a double, or even a treble, bed, so very big was it, facing the window past which Vera--it was no use, she couldn't get away from Vera--having slept her appointed number of nights, fell and was finished. But she wasn't finished. If only she had slipped away out of memory, out of imagination, thought Lucy ... but she hadn't, she hadn't--and this was her room, and that intelligent-eyed thin thing had slept in it for years and years, and for years and years the looking-gla.s.s had reflected her while she had dressed and undressed, dressed and undressed before it--regularly, day after day, year after year--oh, what a trouble--and her thin long hands had piled up her hair--Lucy could see her sitting there piling it on the top of her small head--sitting at the dressing-table in the window past which she was at last to drop like a stone--horribly--ignominiously--all anyhow--and everything in the room had been hers, every single thing in it had been Vera's, including Ev----

Lucy made a violent lunge after her thoughts and strangled them.

Meanwhile Wemyss had shut the door and was standing looking at her without moving.

'Well?' he said.

She turned to him nervously, her eyes still wide with the ridiculous things she had been thinking.

'Well?' he said again.

She supposed he meant her to praise the room, so she hastily began, saying what a good view there must be on a fine day, and how very comfortable it was, such a nice big looking-gla.s.s--she loved a big looking-gla.s.s--and such a nice sofa--she loved a nice sofa--and what a very big bed--and what a lovely carpet----

'Well?' was all Wemyss said when her words came to an end.

'What is it, Everard?'

'I'm waiting,' he said.

'Waiting?'

'For my kiss.'

She ran to him.

'Yes,' he said, when she had kissed him, looking down at her solemnly, '_I_ don't forget these things. _I_ don't forget that this is the first time my own wife and I have stood together in our very own bedroom.'

'But Everard I didn't forget--I only----'

She cast about for something to say, her arms still round his neck, for the last thing she could have told him was what she had been thinking--oh, how he would have scolded her for being morbid, and oh, how right he would have been!--and she ended by saying as lamely and as unfortunately as she had said it in the chateau of Amboise--'I only didn't remember.'

Luckily this time his attention had already wandered away from her.

'Isn't it a jolly room?' he said. 'Who's got far and away the best bedroom in Strorley? And who's got a sitting-room all for herself, just as jolly? And who spoils his little woman?'

Before she could answer, he loosened her hands from his neck and said, 'Come and look at yourself in the gla.s.s. Come and see how small you are compared to the other things in the room.' And with his arms round her shoulders he led her to the dressing-table.

'The other things?' laughed Lucy; but like a flame the thought was leaping in her brain, 'Now what shall I do if when I look into this I don't see myself but Vera? It's _accustomed_ to Vera....'

'Why, she's shutting her eyes. Open them, little Love,' said Wemyss, standing with her before the gla.s.s and seeing in it that though he held her in front of it she wasn't looking at the picture of wedded love he and she made, but had got her eyes tight shut.

With his free hand he took off her hat and threw it on to the sofa; then he laid his head on hers and said, 'Now look.'

Lucy obeyed; and when she saw the sweet picture in the gla.s.s the face of the girl looking at her broke into its funny, charming smile, for Everard at that moment was at his dearest, Everard boyishly loving her, with his good-looking, unlined face so close to hers and his proud eyes gazing at her. He and she seemed to set each other off; they were becoming to each other.

Smiling at him in the gla.s.s, a smile tremulous with tenderness, she put up her hand and stroked his face. 'Do you know who you've married?' she asked, addressing the man in the gla.s.s.