The Shadow of the East Part 15

The fire had died down again, and the room was almost dark, he could hardly see her where she stood. He waited, hoping she would speak, then abruptly: "Can you give me an answer, Gillian?"

He heard the quick intake of her breath, felt her trembling beside him.

"Oh, if you would give me time," she murmured entreatingly. "I want to think. It means so much."

"Take all the time you wish," he said, and went quietly away. And his going brought a sudden desolation. She longed to call him back, to promise what he asked, to yield without further struggle. But uncertainty held her. Motionless she stood staring through the darkness at the dim outline of the door that had closed behind him, her breast heaving tumultuously, until tears blinded her and with a gasping sob she slipped to the floor. She had never dared to hope that he could love her, but the truth from his own lips was bitter. And for a time the realisation of that bitterness deadened all other feeling. Overwrought with the emotion of the last few hours, her nerves strained to breaking point, she was unable to check the tide of grief that shook her to the very depths of her being. With her face hidden in the soft rug, her outflung hands clenching convulsively, she wept in an abandonment of sorrow.

If he had never spoken, if he had never made this strange proposal but had maintained until the end the detached reserve that had seemed to set so wide a gulf between them, it would have been easier to bear. He would have pa.s.sed out of her life, inscrutable as he had always been. But with his change of att.i.tude, in the intimacy of the few hours they had spent alone, she had seen him with new eyes. The mysterious unapproachable guardian had gone for ever, and in his place was a very human man revealing characteristics she had never imagined to exist, showing an interest and a gentleness she had never suspected. He had exhibited a similarity of tastes and ideas that agreed extraordinarily with her own, he had talked as to a comrade. The companions.h.i.+p had been very sweet--very sorrowful. She could never think of him again as he had been, and the new conception of him gave a poignant stab to her grief.

In the brief happiness of the afternoon she had had a fleeting vision of what might have been "if he had loved me," she moaned, and it seemed to her that she had never known until now the real depth of her own love.

What she had felt before was not comparable with the overwhelming pa.s.sion that the touch of his hands had quickened. It swept her like a raging torrent, carrying her beyond the limit of her understanding, bringing with it strange yearnings that, half-understood, she shuddered from, ashamed.

Torn with emotion she wept until she had no tears left, until the hard racking sobs died away and her tired sorrow-shaken body lay still.

For the moment, exhausted, her agony of mind was dulled and time was non-existent. She did not move or lift her head from the tear-wet rug.

A great weariness seemed to deaden all faculty. The minutes pa.s.sed unnoticed. Then some latent consciousness stirred in her brain and she looked up startled.

It was quite dark and she realised, s.h.i.+vering, that the room had grown very cold. The calm afternoon had given place to a stormy night and heavy gusts of wind were sweeping round the angle of the house, shrieking and whistling eerily; from the window came the soft _swish swish_ of dry hard snow beating against the panes. She started to her feet. She had no idea of the hour but she knew it must be late. Perhaps the dinner gong had already sounded and, missed, somebody might come in search of her. She shrank from being found thus. Feeling her way to a lamp she turned the switch and the soft light flooding the room made her wince. A glance at her watch showed that she had still a few moments in which to gain her room un.o.bserved.

She felt oddly lightheaded and her feet dragged wearily. The tortuous pa.s.sage had never seemed so interminable, the succession of closed doors appeared unending. Reaching her own room she collapsed on to a sofa that was drawn up before the fire, her head aching, her limbs s.h.i.+vering uncontrollably, worn out with emotion. Exhausted in mind and body she seemed unable even to frame a thought logically or coherently--only an interrupted medley of unconnected ideas chased through her tired brain until her temples throbbed agonisingly. She knew that sometime she would have to rouse herself, that sometime a decision would have to be made, but not now. Now she could only lie still and make no effort. She was angry with herself, contemptuous of her weakness. She had disdained nerves, she was humiliated now by her present lack of control. But even self-scorn was a pa.s.sing thought from which she turned wearily.

One fact only remained, clear and distinct from the confusion in her mind--he did not love her. He did not love her. It hurt so. She hid her face in the pillows, writhing with the shame the knowledge of her own love brought her. The deep booming of the dinner gong awoke her to the necessity of some kind of action. She rang the bell that hung within reach of her hand and, by the maid who answered her summons, sent her excuses to Miss Craven, pleading a headache for remaining upstairs.

A few minutes later Mary, grim-visaged and big-hearted, appeared with a tray, headache remedies and multifarious messages from the dining room.

She bathed the girl's aching head, brus.h.i.+ng the tumbled brown hair and piling it afresh into a soft loose knot. Grumbling gently at the long hours of work to which she attributed the unusual indisposition, she took full advantage of the rare opportunity of rendering personal attention and fussed to her heart's content, stripping off the stained overall and subst.i.tuting a loose velvet wrapper; and then stood over her, a kindly martinet, until the light dinner she had brought was eaten. Afterwards she packed pillows, made up the fire, and administered a particularly nauseous specific emanating from a homeopathic medicine chest that was her greatest pride, and then took herself away, still mildly admonis.h.i.+ng.

Gillian leaned back against the cus.h.i.+ons with a feeling of greater ease and restfulness. Food had given her strength and under Mary's ministrations her mental poise had steadied. She would not let herself dwell on the question that must before long be settled, Miss Craven would be coming soon, and until she had been and gone no definite settlement could be attempted.

She lay looking at the fire, endeavouring to keep her mind a blank. It was odd to be alone, she missed the familiar black form lying on the hearth-rug, but tonight she could not bear even Mouston's presence, and Mary had taken a request to Yos.h.i.+o, to whose room the dog had been banished from the studio, that he would keep him until the morning.

A tap at the door and Miss Craven appeared, anxious and questioning.

"Only a headache?--my dear, I don't believe it!" she protested, plumping down on the side of the sofa and clutching at her hair, that sure sign of perturbation. "You've never had a headache like this before. You've been working too hard. You were painting all the morning and they tell me you worked throughout the afternoon and had no tea. Gillian, dear, when will you learn sense? I don't at all approve of you having tea sent to the studio _only_ when you ring for it. Young people require regular meals and as often as not neglect 'em; young artists are the worst offenders--you needn't contradict me, I know all about it. I did it myself." She patted the clasped hands lying near her and scrutinised the girl more closely. "You're as pale as a ghost and your eyes are too bright. Did Mary take your temperature? No?--the woman must have lost her senses. I'll telephone to Doctor Harris to come and see you in the morning. If you looked a fraction more feverish I'd send for you to-night, storm or no storm. Peter braved it, open car as usual. He sent his love. Barry turned up from Scotland this afternoon. He looks very tired--says he had a bothering time and a wretched journey--Gillian!"

she cried sharply as the girl slid from the sofa on to her knees beside her and raised a quivering piteous face.

"Aunt Caro, I'm not ill," the words came in tumbling haste, "there's nothing bodily the matter with me--I'm only dreadfully unhappy. I know Mr. Craven is back--he came to me in the studio this afternoon. He asked me to marry him," the troubled voice sank to a whisper, "and I--I don't know what to do."

"My dear." The tenderness of Miss Craven's tone sent a strangling wave of emotion into Gillian's throat. "Aunt Caro, did you know? Do you wish it too?" she murmured wistfully.

Unwilling to admit a previous knowledge which would be difficult to explain, Miss Craven temporised. "I very greatly hoped for it," she said guardedly; "you and Barry are all I have to care for, and you are both so--alone. I know you think of a very different life, I know you have dreams of making a career for yourself. But a career is not all that a woman wants in her life; it can perhaps mean independence and fame, it can also mean great loneliness and the loss of the full and perfect happiness that should be every woman's. You mustn't judge all cases by me. I have been happy in my own way but I want a greater, richer happiness for you, dear. I want for you the best that the world can give, and that best I believe to be the shelter and the safety of a man's love."

The brown head dropped on her knee. "You are thinking of me--I am thinking of him," came a stifled whisper.

Miss Craven stroked the soft hair tenderly. "Then why not give him what he asks, my dear," she said gently. "He has known sorrow and suffering.

If through you, he can forget the past in a new happiness, will you not grant it him? Oh, Gillian, I have so hoped that you might care for each other; that, together, you might make the Towers the perfect home it should be, a home of mutual trust and love. You and Barry and, please G.o.d, after you--your children." She choked with unexpected emotion and brushed the mist from her eyes impatiently.

And at her knee Gillian knelt motionless, her lip held fast between her teeth to stop the bitter cry that nearly escaped her, her heart almost bursting. The picture Miss Craven's words called up was an ideal of happiness that might have been. The suffering that reality promised seemed more than she could contemplate. What happiness could come from such a travesty? The strange yearnings she had experienced seemed suddenly crystallised into form, and the knowledge was a greater pain than she had known. What she would have gone down to the gates of death to give him he did not require--the unutterable joy that Miss Craven suggested would never be hers. She searched for words, for an explanation of her silence that must seem strange to the elder woman.

Miss Craven obviously knew nothing of the unusual conditions attached to his proposal, her words proved it, and Gillian could not tell her. She could not betray his confidence even if she had so wished. If she could but speak frankly and show all her difficulty to the friend who had never yet failed in love and sympathy----She sought refuge in prevarication. "How can I marry him?" she cried miserably. "You don't know anything about me. I'm not a fit person to be his wife--my antecedents----"

"Bother your antecedents!" interrupted Miss Craven, with a somewhat shaky laugh. "My dearest girl, Barry isn't going to marry them, he's going to marry you. They can have been anything you like or imagine but it does not alter the fact that their daughter is the one woman on earth I want for Barry's wife." She stooped and gathered the girl into her arms.

"Gillian, can you give us, Barry and me, this great happiness?"

Gently Gillian disengaged herself and rose slowly to her feet. She made a little helpless gesture, swaying as she stood. "What can I say?" she said brokenly. "Do you think it means nothing to me! Don't you know that what I already owe you and Mr. Craven is almost more than I can bear, that I would give my life for either of you? But this--oh, you don't understand--I can't tell you--I can't explain----" She dropped back on the sofa and her voice came m.u.f.fled and entreatingly from among the silken cus.h.i.+ons, "If you knew how I long to repay you for your wonderful goodness, if you knew what your love has meant to me! Oh, dearest, I'd give the world to please you! But I don't know what to do, I don't know what is honest--and you can't help me, n.o.body can help me. I've got to settle it myself. I've got to think----"

Miss Craven guessed the crying need for solitude conveyed in the last faltering words and rose in obedience to the unspoken request. She stood for a moment, looking tenderly down on the slim prostrate figure, and a fear that grew momentarily stronger came to her that in her endeavour to bring happiness to these two lives she had blundered fatally. She had been a fool, rus.h.i.+ng in. And with almost a feeling of dismay she realised it was beyond her ability now to stay what she had put in motion. She was as one who, having wantonly released some complex mechanism, stands aghast and powerless at the consequence of his rashness. And yet, despite the seeming setback to her hopes, the conviction that had urged her to this step was still strong in her; she still had faith in its ultimate achievement. She touched the girl's shoulder in a quick caress. "You are worn out, child. Go to bed and rest now, and think to-morrow," she said soothingly.

For long after she left the room Gillian lay without moving. Then with a long shuddering sigh she sat up. She tried to concentrate on the decision she must make but her thoughts, ungovernable, dwelt persistently on the unknown woman whom she had convinced herself he must have loved, and the pa.s.sionate envy she had felt before swept her again until the pain of it sent a whispered prayer to her lips for strength to put it from her. Huddled on the side of the sofa, her head supported on her hands, she stared fixedly into the fire as if seeking in the leaping flames the answer to the problem that confronted her. Then in her agony of mind inaction became impossible and she rose and paced the room with hurried nervous tread.

To do what was right--to do what was honourable; to conquer the clamorous self that cried out for acceptance of this semblance of happiness that was offered. To bear his name, to have the right to be near him, to care for him and for his interests as far as she might.

To be his wife--even if only in name. Dear G.o.d, did he know how he had tempted her? But she had no right. The crus.h.i.+ng burden of debt she owed rose like an unsurpa.s.sable mountain between her and what she longed for. Only by repayment could she keep her self-respect. The dreams of independence, the place she had thought to make for herself in the world, the re-establis.h.i.+ng of her father's name--could she forego what she had planned? Was it not a n.o.bler aim than the gratification of self that urged the easier way? Yet would it be the easier way? Was she not really in her heart shrinking from the difficulty and sadness that this loveless marriage would bring? Was it not cowardice that prompted a supposed n.o.bility of thought that now appeared ign.o.ble? She wrung her hands in desperation. Had she no courage or steadfastness at all? Was the weakness of purpose that had ruined her father's life to be her curse as it had been his?

She felt suddenly very young, very inexperienced. Her early training that had denied the exercise of individual responsibility and had inculcated a pa.s.sivity of mind that precluded self-determination had bitten deeper than she knew. Her life since leaving the convent had been smooth and uneventful, there had been no occasion to practise the new liberty of thought and action that was hers. And now before a decision that would be so irrevocable, that would involve her whole life--and not hers alone--she felt to the full the disability of her upbringing.

Alone she must make her choice and she shrank from the burden of responsibility that fell upon her. She had n.o.body to turn to for counsel or advice. In her loneliness she longed for the solace of a mother's tenderness, the shelter of a mother's arms, and bitterness came to her as she thought of the parents who had each in their turn abandoned her so callously. She had been robbed of her birthright of love and care.

She was alone in the world, alone to fight her own battles, alone in the moment of her direst need.

Then all at once she seemed to see in the trend of her thoughts only a supreme selfishness that had lost sight of all but personal consideration. Was her love of so little worth that in thought for herself she had forgotten him? He had asked her to pity his loneliness--and she had had only pity for herself. Her lips quivered as she whispered his name in an agony of self-condemnation.

Coming back slowly to the fireside she slipped to the floor and leaned her head against the sofa listening to the storm that beat with increasing violence against the house, and the roar of the tempest without seemed in strange agreement with the tumult that was raging in her heart. The words he had used came back to her. Did it really lie in her power to lessen the loneliness of his life? To give him what he asked--was not that, after all, the true way to pay her debt? With a little sob she bowed her head on her hands.... An hour later she rose stiffly, cramped with long sitting, and moving nearer to the fire chafed her cold hands mechanically. Her face was very sad and her wide eyes heavy with unshed tears. She drew a long sobbing breath. "Because I love him," she murmured. "If I didn't love him I couldn't do it." A thought that brought new hope came to her. She loved him so deeply, might not her love, she wondered wistfully, perhaps some day be strong enough to heal the wound he had sustained--strong enough even to compel his love?

Then doubt seized hold on her again. Would she, in the limited scope that she would have, find opportunity--would he ever allow her to get near enough to him?... She flung her hands out in pa.s.sionate appeal.

"Oh, G.o.d! if this thing that I am doing is wrong, if it brings sorrow and unhappiness, let me be the only one to pay!"

A sudden longing to make retraction impossible came over her. She looked anxiously at her watch. Was it too late to go to him to-night? Only when she had told him would she be sure of herself. Her word once given there could be no withdrawal.

It was nearly midnight but she knew he rarely left his study until later. Peters would be gone, he was methodical in his habits and retired punctually at eleven o'clock with a regularity that was unvarying. She was sure of finding him alone. She dared not wait until the morning, she must go now while she had the courage. Delay might bring new doubts, new uncertainty. Impulsively she started towards the door, then paused on a sudden thought that sent the warm blood in a painful wave to her face. Would he misunderstand, think her unwomanly, attribute her hasty decision to a sordid desire for material gain, for the ease that would be hers, for the position that his name would give? It was the natural thought for him who offered so much to one who would give nothing in return. And not for him alone--in the eyes of the world she would be only a little adventuress who had skilfully seized the opportunity that circ.u.mstance had given to advantage herself. But the world did not matter, she thought with scornful curling lip, it was only in his eyes that she desired to stand well. Then with quick shame she knew that the sentiments she had ascribed to him were unworthy, the outcome only of her own strained imagination, and she put them from her. She went quickly to the gallery, dimly lit from a single lamp left alight in the hall below--left for Craven as she knew. Silence brooded over the great house. The storm that earlier had beat tempestuously against the dome as if striving to shatter the ma.s.sive gla.s.s plates that opposed its fury had blown itself out and glancing upward Gillian saw the huge cupola shrouded with snow that gleamed palely in the soft light. The stillness oppressed her and odd thoughts chased through her mind. She looked to right and left nervously and in a sudden inexplicable panic sped down the wide staircase and across the shadowy hall until she reached the study door. There she halted with wildly beating heart, panting and breathless. It was a room which she had never before entered, and an almost paralysing shyness made her shake from head to foot. Nerving herself with a strong effort she tapped with trembling fingers and, at the sound of an answering voice, went in.

Strength seemed all at once to leave her. Physically and mentally exhausted, a feeling of unreality supervened. The strange room swam before her eyes. As in a dream she saw him start to his feet and come swiftly to her across a seemingly unending length of carpet that billowed and wavered curiously, his big frame oddly magnified until he appeared a very giant towering above her; as in a dream she felt him take her ice-cold hands in his. But the warm strong grasp, the grave eyes bent compellingly on her, dragged her back from the shuddering abyss into which she was sinking. Far away, as though coming from a great distance, she heard him speaking. And his voice, gentler than she had ever known it, gave her courage to whisper, so low that he had to bend his tall head to catch the fluttering words, the promise she had come to give.

CHAPTER VII

On an afternoon in early September eighteen months after her marriage Gillian was driving across the park toward the little village of Craven that, old world and quite unspoiled, cl.u.s.tered round a tiny Norman church two miles distant from the Towers. She leaned back in the victoria, her hands clasped in her lap, preoccupied and thoughtful.

A scented heap of deep crimson roses and carnations lay at her feet; beside her, in contrast to her listless att.i.tude, Mouston sat up tense and watchful, his sharp muzzle thrust forward, his black nose twitching eagerly at the distracting agitating smells borne on the warm air tempting him from monotonous inactivity to a soul satisfying scamper over the short cropped gra.s.s but, conscious of the dignity of his position, ignoring them with a gravity of demeanour that was almost comical. Once or twice when his wrinkling nostrils caught some particularly attractive odour his pads kneaded the cus.h.i.+ons vigorously and a snarly gurgle rose in his throat. But no other sign of restlessness escaped him--it was patience bred of experience. For miles around he was a well-known figure, sitting grave and motionless on his accustomed side of the victoria as it rolled through the country lanes.

To the villagers of Craven, all directly or indirectly dependent on the estate, he was welcome in that he was inseparable from the gentle tender-hearted girl whom they wors.h.i.+pped, but their welcome was a qualified one that never descended to the familiar; his strange appearance and disdainful aloofness made him an object of curiosity to be viewed with most safety from a respectful distance; time had not accustomed them to him and tales of his uncanny understanding filtering through, richly embroidered, to the village from the house, did not tend to lessen the awe with which he was regarded. They marvelled, without comprehension, at the partiality of his mistress; he was the "black French devil" to more households than that of Major, the gamekeeper, an "unorranary brute" to those of less gifted imagination.

To Mouston Gillian's periodical visits to the village were a tedium endured for the sake of the coveted seat beside her.

The pa.s.sing of a herd of deer, feeding intently and--save for one or two more timid hinds who started nervously--too used to the carriage to heed its approach, roused the poodle, as always, to a high pitch of excitement; they were old enemies and his annoyance gave vent to a sharp yelp as he sidled close to Gillian and endeavoured to attract her attention with an insistent paw. But for once she was heedless of the hints of her dumb companion, and, whining, he slunk back into his own corner, curling up on the seat with his forepaws brus.h.i.+ng the ma.s.s of scented blossom. And ignorant of the pleading brown eyes fixed pathetically on her, Gillian followed the train of her own troubled thoughts. For eighteen months she had been Barry Craven's wife, for eighteen months she had endeavoured to fulfill her share of the contract they had made--and to herself she admitted failure.

The strain was becoming unendurable.

In the eyes of the world an ideal couple, in reality--she wondered if in the whole universe there were two more lonely souls than they. She knew now that the task she had set herself that stormy December night was beyond her power, that it had been the unattainable dream of an immature love-sick girl. She had fought to retain her high ideals, to believe that love--as great, as unselfish as hers--must beget love, but she had come to realise the utter futility of her dream and to wonder at the childish ignorance that had inspired it. The sustaining hope that she might indeed be a comfort to his loneliness had died hard, but surely. For he gave her no opportunity. Despite unfailing kindness and overwhelming generosity he maintained always a baffling reserve she found impossible to penetrate. Of his inner self she knew no more than she had ever done, she could get no nearer to him. But in all matters that dealt with their common life he was scrupulously frank and out-spoken; he had insisted on her acquiring a knowledge of his interests and a working idea of his affairs, from which she had shrunk sensitively, but he had persisted, arguing that in the event of his death--Peters not being immortal--it was necessary that she should be able to administer possessions that would be hers--and the thought of those possessions crushed her. It was only after a long struggle, in distress that horrified him, that she persuaded him to forego the big settlement he proposed making. If she had not loved him his liberality would have hurt her less, but because of her love his money was a scourge. She hated the wealth to which she felt she had no right, to herself she seemed an impostor, a cheat. She felt degraded. She would rather he had bought her, as women have from time immemorial been bought, that she might have paid the price, as they pay, and so retained the self-respect that now seemed for ever lost. It would have been a means of re-establis.h.i.+ng herself in her own eyes, of easing the burden of his bounty that grew daily heavier and from which she could never escape. It was evident in all about her; in the greater state and ceremony observed at the Towers since their marriage, which, while it pleased the household, who rejoiced in the restoration of the old regime, oppressed her unspeakably; in the charities she dispensed--his charities that brought her no sense of sacrifice, no joy of self-denial; in the social duties that poured in upon her.

His wealth served only to strengthen the barrier between them, but for that she might have been to him what she longed to be. If the talent that now seemed so useless could have been used for him she would have found a measure of happiness even if love had never come to crown her service. In poverty she would have worked for him, slaved for him, with the strength and tirelessness that only love can give. But here the gladness of giving, of serving, was denied, here there was nothing she might do and the futility of her life choked her. She had conscientiously endeavoured to a.s.sume the responsibilities and duties of her new position, but there seemed little for her to do, for the big household ran smoothly on oiled wheels under the capable administration of Forbes and Mrs. Appleyard, with whom, both honest and devoted to the interests of the family they had served so long and faithfully, she knew it was unnecessary and unwise to interfere. In any unusual circ.u.mstance they would refer to her with tactful deference but for the rest she knew that, perforce, she must be content to remain a figure-head. Even her work--interrupted constantly by the social duties inc.u.mbent on her and performed from a sense of obligation--failed to comfort and distract. It was all so utterly useless and purposeless. The gift with which she had thought to do so much was wasted. She could do nothing with it. She was no longer Gillian Locke who had dreamed of independence, who had hoped by toil and endeavour to clear the stain from her father's name. She was the rich Mrs. Craven--who must smile to hide a breaking heart, who must play the part expected of her, who must appear always care-free and happy. And the constant effort was almost more than she could achieve. In the ceaseless watch she set upon herself, in the rigid self-suppression she exercised, it seemed to her as if her true self had died, and her ent.i.ty faded into an automaton that moved in mechanical obedience to the driving of her will. Only during the long night hours or in the safe seclusion of the studio could she relax, could she be natural for a little while. That Craven might never learn the misery of her life, that she might not fail him as she had failed herself, was her one prayer. She welcomed eagerly the advent of guests, of foreign guests--more exigent in their demands upon her society--particularly; with the house filled the time of host and hostess was fully occupied and the difficult days pa.s.sed more easily, more quickly. The weeks they spent alone she dreaded; from the morning greeting in the breakfast room to the moment when he gave her the quiet "Good-night" that might have come from an undemonstrative brother, she was in terror lest an unguarded word, a chance expression, might tell him what she sought to keep from him. But so insensible did his own constant pre-occupation of mind make him appear of much that pa.s.sed, that she feared his intuition less than that of Peters who she was convinced had a very shrewd idea of the state of affairs existing between them. It was manifested in diverse ways; not by any spoken word direct or indirect, but by additional fatherly tenderness of manner, by unfailing tactfulness, by quick intervention that had saved many awkward situations. It was practically impossible in view of his almost daily a.s.sociation with the house and its inmates that he could be unaware of certain facts. But the wise kindly eyes that she had feared most were closed for ever.

The Great Summons for which Miss Craven had been so calmly prepared had come more suddenly, more tragically even than she had antic.i.p.ated. She had pa.s.sed over as she would have wished, had she been given the choice, not in the awful loneliness of death but one of a company of heroic souls who had voluntarily and willingly stood aside that others might have the chance to live.