Deadham Hard Part 55

Wace that winter at St. Augustin, and that all he went through has remarkably developed and strengthened his character--that it, in fact, was what determined him to take Holy Orders. His difficulties melted before his real need for the support of religion. It would have all been most touching if one had heard a story of such devotion from anyone but--but her, about anyone but him--under the circ.u.mstances, poor young man--because--darling--well, because of you."

"Of me?" Damaris stiffened.

"Yes--that is just the point. Mrs. Frayling left me in no doubt. She was determined to make me understand just what Mr. Wace's att.i.tude had been towards you--and that it is still unchanged."

Damaris got up. Pulled off her driving coat, gloves and hat. Threw them upon the seat of a chair. The act was symbolic. She felt suffocated, impelled to rid herself of every impediment. For wasn't she confronted with another battle--a worse one than that with the house, namely, a battle with her long-ago baby-love, and her father's love too--Henrietta.--Henrietta, so strangely powerful, so amazingly persistent--Henrietta who enclosed you in arms, apparently so soft but furnished with suckers, octopus arms adhering, never letting you go? She had played with the idea of this intrusion of Henrietta's and its effect upon Miss Felicia, at first as something amusing. It ceased to be amusing. It frightened her.

"And my att.i.tude is unchanged, too," she said presently, gravely proud.

"I didn't want to marry Marshall Wace then. I was dreadfully sorry when Henrietta told me he cared for me. I don't want to marry him or have him care for me one bit more now. I think it very interfering of Henrietta to trouble you with this. It is not the moment. She might at least have waited."

"So I felt," Miss Felicia put in. She watched her niece anxiously, as the latter went across to the fire-place and stood, her back to the room, looking down into the glowing logs.

For she had--or rather ought she not to have?--another communication to make which involved the fighting of a battle on her own account, not against Henrietta Frayling, still less against Damaris, but against herself. It trembled on the tip of her tongue. She felt impelled, yet sorrowed to utter it. Hence her wishes and purposes jostled one another, being tenderly, bravely, heroically even, contradictory. In speaking she invited the shattering of a dream of personal election to happiness--a late blossoming happiness and hence the more entrancing, the more pathetic. That any hope of the dream's fulfilment was fragile as gla.s.s, lighter than gossamer, the veriest shadow of a shade, her natural diffidence and sane sense, alike, convinced her. For this very cause, the dream being of the sweetest and most intimate, how gladly would she have cherished the enchanting foolishness of it a trifle longer!--Her act of heroism would earn no applause, moreover, would pa.s.s practically unnoticed. No one would be aware of her sacrifice. She would only gain the satisfaction of knowing she had done the perfectly right and generous thing by two persons who would never share that knowledge.--She blushed.--Heaven forbid they ever should share it--and thank her.

"Mrs. Frayling--I don't want"--

Miss Felicia stopped.

"What don't you want?"--This from Damaris over her shoulder, the pause being prolonged.

"To set you against her, darling"--

"I think," Damaris said, "I know all about Henrietta."

"She insinuates so much," Miss Felicia lamented.--"Or seems to do so. One grows wretchedly suspicious of her meaning. Perhaps I exaggerate and misjudge her.--She is quite confusingly adroit; but I extremely disliked the way in which she spoke of Colonel Carteret."

Damaris bent a little forward, holding her skirt back from the scorch of the fire, her eyes still downcast.

"How did she speak of him?"

"Oh! all she said was very indirect--but as though he had not played quite fair with her on some occasion. And--it's odious to repeat!--as if that was his habit with women, and with unmarried girls as well--as if he was liable to behave in a way which placed them in a rather invidious position while he just shuffled out of all responsibility himself. She hinted his staying on with us here was a case in point--that it might give people a wrong idea altogether. That, in short--at least thinking it over I feel sure this is the impression she meant to convey to me--that he is indulging his chronic love of philandering at your expense."

"And thereby standing in the light of serious lovers such as Marshall Wace?"

After a moment Damaris added:

"Is that your idea of Colonel Carteret, Aunt Felicia?"

"Ah! No, indeed no," the poor lady cried, with rather anguished sincerity. Then making a fine effort over herself:

"Least of all where you are concerned, my darling."

And she drifted hastily on to her feet. The curtains were still undrawn; and, through the window opposite, she caught sight of a tall figure coming up across the lawn in the frosty twilight.

"Pardon me if I run away. I've forgotten a note I meant to send to poor little Theresa Bilson.--I must let Laura have it at once, or she mayn't catch the postman," she said with equal rapidity and apparent inconsequence.

As Felicia Verity pa.s.sed out into the hall, at one end of the avenue of stumpy pillars, Carteret came in at the other end through the garden door. He halted a moment, dazzled by the warmth and light within after the clair-obscure of the frosty dusk without, and looked round the room before recognizing the ident.i.ty of its remaining occupant. Then:

"Ah! you--dear witch," he said. "So you're home. And what of your drive?"

Damaris turned round, all of a piece. Her hands, white against the black, the fingers slightly apart, still pressed back the skirt of her dress as though saving it from the fire scorch, in quaintly careful childish fas.h.i.+on. Her complexion was that of a child too, in its soft brightness.

And the wonder of her great eyes fairly challenged Carteret's wits.

"A babe of a thousand years," he quoted to himself. "Does that look grow out of a root of divine innocence, or of quite incalculable wisdom?"

"I told you if you would be patient with me I should begin again. I have begun again, dear Colonel Sahib."

"So I perceive," he answered her.

"Is it written so large?" she asked curiously.

"Very large," he said, falling in with her humour. "And where does the beginning lead to?"

"I wish you'd tell me.--Henrietta has begun again too."

"I know it," he said. "Our incomparable Henrietta overtook me on her way from here to the Vicarage, and bestowed her society on me for the better part of half an hour. She was in astonis.h.i.+ng form."

Carteret came forward and stood on the tiger skin beside Damaris. Mrs.

Frayling's conversation had given him very furiously to think, and his thoughts had not proved by any means exhilarating.

"Does this recrudescence of our Henrietta, her beginning again, affect the scope and direction of your own beginning again, dearest witch?" he presently enquired, in singularly restrained and colourless accents.

"That depends a good deal upon you--doesn't it, Colonel Sahib?" our maiden gravely answered.

Carteret felt as though she dealt him a blow. The pain was numbing. He could neither see, nor could he think clearly. But he traced Mrs.

Frayling's hand in this, and could have cursed her elaborately--had it been worth while. But was anything worth while, just now? He inclined to believe not--so called himself a doating fool. And then, though tormented, shaken, turned his mind to making things easy for Damaris.

"Oh! I see that," he told her. "And now you have got hold of your precious little self again and made a start, it's easy enough to manage your affairs--in as far as they need any management of mine--from a distance. This beginning again is triumphant. I congratulate you! You're your own best physician. You know how to treat your case to a marvel. So I abdicate."

"But why? Why abdicate? Do you mean go away? Then Henrietta was right.

What she said was true. I never believed her. I"--

Damaris grew tall in her shame and anger. The solemn eyes blazed.

"Yes--pray go," she said. "It's unwarrantable the way I kept you here--the way I've made use of you. But, indeed, indeed, I am very grateful, Colonel Sahib. I ought to have known better. But I didn't. I have been so accustomed all my life to your help that I took it all for granted. I never thought how much I taxed your forbearance or encroached on your time.--That isn't quite true though. I did have scruples; but little things you said and did put my scruples to sleep. I liked having them put to sleep.--Now you must not let me or my business interfere any more.--Oh! you've treated me, given to me, like a prince," she declared, rising superior to anger and to shame, her eyes s.h.i.+ning--"like a king.

n.o.body can ever take your place or be to me what you've been. I shall always love to think of your goodness to--to him--my father--and to me--always--all my life."

Damaris held out her hands.

"And that's all.--Now let us say no more about this. It's difficult. It hurts us both, I fancy, a little."

But Carteret did not take her proffered hands.

"Dear witch," he said, "we've spoken so freely that I am afraid we must speak more freely still--even though it pains you a little perhaps, and myself, almost certainly very much more. I love you--not as a friend, not as an amiable elderly person should love a girl of your age.--This isn't an affair of yesterday or the day before yesterday. You crept into my heart on your sixth birthday--wasn't it?--when I brought you a certain little green jade elephant from our incomparable Henrietta, and found you asleep in a black marble chair, set on a blood-red sandstone platform, overlooking the gardens of the club at Bhutpur. And you have never crept out of it again--won't do so as long as body and mind hang together, or after. It has been a song of degrees.--For years you were to me a delicious plaything; but a plaything with a mysterious soul, after which I felt, every now and again, in wors.h.i.+p and awe. The plaything stage came to an end when I was here with you before we went to Paris, four years ago. For I found then, beyond all question of doubt, that I loved you as a man only loves once, and as most men never love at all. I have tried to keep this from you because I have no right to burden your youth with my middle-age."

Carteret smiled at her.

"It has not been altogether easy to hold my peace, dearest witch," he said. "The seven devils of desire--of which you knew nothing, bless you"--"I'm not sure that I do know nothing," Damaris put in quietly.

She looked him over from head to heel, and the wonder of her great eyes deepened.