Capricious Caroline Part 43

"At last," she said, "you are beginning to see your road."

He would not let her go outside, nor would he let her summon the butler. He pa.s.sed out and shut the door behind him, and for a moment Caroline leaned against that door, and shut her eyes whilst she fought down the wild tumult of pa.s.sion and heart suffering that rushed upon her.

There was a humiliation, too, in the suffering, a proud shame that she should confess even to herself, that this man who had just gone from her was so capable of moving her, that the touch of his hand, the sound of his voice, meant joy, in its most exquisite meaning, and that as he pa.s.sed away from her, taking with him the spell of his presence, the light and the warmth of life itself went with him. And still a very lifetime of self-condemnation would not alter what had come. Love to some natures is borne as lightly, has as little value as a thistledown floating on the wind; it has the sparkle of a new jewel, the pa.s.sing radiance of a summer day, to fade with the setting sun, and to come again when another day is born. But with other natures love comes but once, and comes to stay; pain, sorrow, age, separation, even death itself, have no power to dispossess such a love of its dwelling-place in natures such as these.

And it was in this fas.h.i.+on that love had come by stealth as it were into the heart of Caroline Graniger.

CHAPTER XIV

To sit and eat dinner alone in the large dining-room was beyond Caroline this evening. She went upstairs resolutely determining to work again, but she had reckoned without Dennis.

The maid was ripe for a good long chat. She insisted, too, on bringing up some dinner and waiting on Caroline.

Dennis found the girl looking very tired and depressed. But when she pressed this point Miss Graniger promptly declared that she had never felt better in her life.

"Tell me all that you have been doing, Dennis," she said.

Really it was a rest for her to sit and say nothing, a rest not to vex her brain with futile questioning for a while.

It amused her to hear the maid's views of things in general. Dennis's admiration for a beautiful country largely depended on how the servants were lodged and cared for in any particular house.

"This ere's a kind of paradise," she said; "down with them rich folk in Devons.h.i.+re we was that crowded we didn't know how to turn round. Some of them slept in huts, but I was a bit better off than most, because Miss Camilla wanted me with her most all the time. What do you think of her, miss?" Dennis asked abruptly, "don't you find her looking simply awful? She's that shaky, I do declare, at times I can hardly get her into a frock, and for all she swears it isn't so; I'm certain sure she's got something worritin' her."

Dennis was silent a moment, then she went on: "I wouldn't say it to a soul but you, but I can't help thinking as it's that fellow Broxbourne's as is vexing her."

Caroline sat with her elbow on the table, her face shadowed by her hand.

"But isn't that rather ridiculous, Dennis?" she asked. "Why should Sir Samuel vex her?"

"Ah! my dear," said Dennis, "that's a question I'd like to answer. I wish to the Lord she'd marry and settle down; for there's no getting away from the fact that Sir Samuel's been buzzing about her ever so much of late, and it does her no sort of good." A note of exasperation came here into Dennis's voice. "Just to think of all she's got now, all what's been done for her. How she's been took out of all her difficulties, and stands on her own feet! Didn't she ought to be lively and well? I can't make it out! Why don't they marry, miss?"

"Oh, I think they will now very shortly," Caroline said. "Now, run down and have your own supper, Dennis ... it is getting late."

When the maid had gone, Caroline sat in the same att.i.tude. She was not thinking of what Dennis had just told her, she was thinking of that deep, tender note in Haverford's voice when he had been speaking of Camilla. How he loved her! The one creature who had brought to him all that had been lacking in his life till now! How many years he must have hungered for such love. Surely now that it had come it would have its real value! Surely a love such as his could not be born only to be wasted!

"She is so dear to me," the words haunted Caroline, and when her mind jerked back and she recalled the earlier hours of this day, and the veritable anguish which she had experienced when she had looked at Camilla's changed, almost worn face, her eagerness to stand and to help him, to put an end to this indecision, this dangerous and futile waiting, seemed to burn in her veins, and quicken the beat of her heart.

"I will certainly go to London to-morrow," she said; "I feel almost inclined to pretend that I am overtaxed, that the children try me, that I want attention. She is always urging me to let her know if that should happen, and that is where she is so sweet, everything else stands on one side when she thinks there is a claim on her."

Here a sound from the nursery drew Caroline into the children's room.

It was only Baby talking in her sleep, but she sat down a little while, and in the tranquillity of the children's room some tranquillity fell on her own nerves too.

"At least I have one great joy," she said to herself as she sat there; "they all trust me. She could not give me greater proof of this than in the words she spoke to me about these dear little souls to-day."

Just then she heard some one moving in the other room, and rising, she went softly to the door. It was the maid who usually waited on her.

"I have brought you a letter, miss. It's just come. Sent over from Lea Abbey."

"Thank you," said Caroline.

She waited until the maid had made up the fire and gone out of the room, and then when she was alone she still waited.

It was very ridiculous of her, but she felt suddenly frightened.

There was nothing unusual in Camilla sending a letter at this hour. Her letters and messages arrived at any time.

"What _is_ the matter with me?" asked Caroline of herself impatiently.

"I am all upside down to-day!" And then she opened the letter.

It was written in pencil; written in haste.

"I did intend not to have sent a word to any of you, but just as I am starting for London I feel I must scribble a message to you, dear little Caroline. Ask Agnes to forgive me. The fact is I cannot bring myself to write to her, and you--you little bit of a thing as you are, draw me as I have never been drawn before. I am taking a big step to-night, Caroline. It is ridiculous to suppose that you will any of you regard what I am doing as anything but madness, but I cannot help myself. Everything forces me away from what you all think the best for me; but then, you see, you none of you have known just exactly what has been pa.s.sing with me. I had a great temptation to open my heart to you when we were together out on the marshes to-day, but I could not do it.

Remember what I told you about the children. They won't see me for some little while, but as soon as possible they will come to me, and you, too ... if you _will_ come. Tell Agnes I will write to her in a day or two, and that I am always hers lovingly, that is if she cares any longer for my love."

The initials "C. L." were scribbled under this.

Caroline put down the letter, and stood staring ahead of her, seeing nothing.

At first the full significance of what Camilla had written did not come to her. She was only conscious of that almost hopeless feeling of irresistance, of surrender to emotion, which any acutely pathetic element produces.

But this dazed, only half-conscious sensation, pa.s.sed from her quickly, and then her mind began to act nervously, feverishly. She spun threads together, and with hideous clearness she remembered now the words Dennis had spoken only just a little while before.

She took up the letter again, and she read it this time deliberately.

"She is gone to London," she said to herself; "that means that she will sleep there--that she will not leave till to-morrow, wherever she is going. It has all been planned out. She got rid of Dennis because Dennis might have asked questions. Lea Abbey was only one of the details, and now she is in London. Well, I shall go there, too!"

She crumpled the letter, and went quickly into the corridor. The nursery-maid was in a room a little further along.

"Please stay with the children," said Caroline; "I am going downstairs."

She ran down to the hall, and sought and found a railway guide. All at once she remembered that a guest who had once been summoned away very hurriedly from Yelverton at night had caught a train at some junction a little distance away. By so doing he had reached London at a very early hour.

Caroline decided to follow his course. The express paused at Swaile Junction somewhere before four o'clock, but she would start off now.

To have to sit there and wait till the Brentons came back, and to go into explanations was utterly beyond her. Besides, she felt half afraid that Mrs. Brenton might try to dissuade her from going, and Caroline could not endure that. It was not only the woman who called to her, it was the man who loved this woman--the man whom she loved herself--who seemed to clamour to her to stand between Camilla and what she intended to do.

She scribbled an explanation to Agnes Brenton, and slipped Camilla's letter inside.

"It may be only a chance," she wrote; "but I cannot help feeling that I shall find her in London. She will never dream that one of us would follow her, and if human hands can drag her back from this miserable mistake, I want mine to be the hands to do it."

She intended to keep Dennis in ignorance of her going, but she took one of the other maids into her confidence.

"Don't let there be any fuss," she said, "but I must get up to London as quickly as I can. I am sorry not to wait for Mrs. Brenton, but you will give her that letter. Can you manage to keep Dennis downstairs while I run up and slip on my hat and coat?"