Marcella Part 87

Betty gave a little start, and her brow puckered into a frown. As she too rose, she said resentfully to Aldous:

"Well, you _have_ snubbed me!"

As usual, he could not find the effective or clever thing to say.

"I did not mean to," he replied simply; but Betty, glancing at him, saw something in his face which gripped her heart. A lump rose in her throat.

"Do let's go and find Ermyntrude!" she said.

But Wharton had barely begun his talk with Marcella when a gentleman, on his way to the buffet with a cup to set down, touched him on the arm.

Wharton turned in some astonishment and annoyance. He saw a youngish, good-looking man, well known to him as already one of the most important solicitors in London, largely trusted by many rich or eminent persons.

"May I have a word with you presently?" said Mr. Pearson, in a pleasant undertone. "I have something of interest to say to you, and it occurred to me that I might meet you to-night. Excuse my interrupting you."

He glanced with admiration at Marcella, who had turned away.

Wharton had a momentary qualm. Then it struck him that Mr. Pearson's manner was decidedly friendly.

"In a moment," he said. "We might find a corner, I think, in that further room."

He made a motion of the head towards a little boudoir which lay beyond the tea-room.

Mr. Pearson nodded and pa.s.sed on.

Wharton returned to Marcella, who had fallen back on Frank Leven. At the approach of the member for West Brooks.h.i.+re, Lady Winterbourne and her daughter had moved severely away to the further end of the buffet.

"A tiresome man wants me on business for a moment," he said; then he dropped his voice a little; "but I have been looking forward to this evening, this chance, for days--shall I find you here again in five minutes?"

Marcella, who had flushed brightly, said that would depend on the time and Lady Winterbourne. He hurried away with a little gesture of despair.

Frank followed him with a sarcastic eye.

"Any one would think he was prime minister already! I never met him yet anywhere that he hadn't some business on hand. Why does he behave as though he had the world on his shoulders? Your _real_ swells always seem to have nothing to do."

"Do you know so many busy people?" Marcella asked him sweetly.

"Oh, you shan't put me down, Miss Boyce!" said the boy, sulkily thrusting his hands into his pockets. "I am going to work like blazes this winter, if only my dons will let a fellow alone. I say, isn't she _ripping_ to-night--Betty?"

And, pulling his moustache in helpless jealousy and annoyance, he stared at the Winterbourne group across the room, which had been now joined by Aldous Raeburn and Betty, standing side by side.

"What do you want me to say?" said Marcella, with a little cold laugh.

"I shall make you worse if I praise her. Please put my cup down."

At the same moment she saw Wharton coming back to her--Mr. Pearson behind him, smiling, and gently twirling the seals of his watch-chain.

She was instantly struck by Wharton's look of excitement, and by the manner in which--with a momentary glance aside at the Winterbourne party--he approached her.

"There is such a charming little room in there," he said, stooping his head to her, "and so cool after this heat. Won't you try it?"

The energy of his bright eye took possession of her. He led the way; she followed. Her dress almost brushed Aldous Raeburn as she pa.s.sed.

He took her into a tiny room. There was no one else there, and he found a seat for her by an open window, where they were almost hidden from view by a stand of flowers.

As he sat down again by her, she saw that a decisive moment had come, and blanched almost to the colour of her dress. Oh! what to do! Her heart cried out vaguely to some power beyond itself for guidance, then gave itself up again to the wayward thirst for happiness.

He took her hand strongly in both his own, and bending towards her as she sat bowered among the scent and colours of the flowers, he made her a pa.s.sionate declaration. From the first moment that he had seen her under the Chiltern beeches, so he vowed, he had felt in her the supreme, incomparable attraction which binds a man to one woman, and one only.

His six weeks under her father's roof had produced in him feelings which he knew to be wrong, without thereby finding in himself any power to check them. They had betrayed him into a mad moment, which he had regretted bitterly because it had given her pain. Otherwise--his voice dropped and shook, his hand pressed hers--"I lived for months on the memory of that one instant." But he had respected her suffering, her struggle, her need for rest of mind and body. For her sake he had gone away into silence; he had put a force upon himself which had alone enabled him to get through his parliamentary work.

Then, with his first sight of her in that little homely room and dress--so changed, but so lovely!--everything--admiration, pa.s.sion--had revived with double strength. Since that meeting he must have often puzzled her, as he had puzzled himself. His life had been a series of perplexities. He was not his own master; he was the servant of a cause, in which--however foolishly a mocking habit might have led him at times to be-little his own enthusiasms and hers--his life and honour were engaged; and this cause and his part in it had been for long hampered, and all his clearness of vision and judgment dimmed by the pressure of a number of difficulties and worries he could not have discussed with her--worries practical and financial, connected with the _Clarion_, with the experiments he had been carrying out on his estate, and with other troublesome matters. He had felt a thousand times that his fortunes, political or private, were too doubtful and perilous to allow him to ask any woman to share them.--Then, again, he had seen her--and his resolution, his scruple, had melted in his breast!

Well! there were still troubles in front! But he was no longer cowed by them. In spite of them, he dared now to throw himself at her feet, to ask her to come and share a life of combat and of labour, to bring her beauty and her mind to the joint conduct of a great enterprise. To _her_ a man might show his effort and his toil,--from _her_ he might claim a sympathy it would be vain to ask of any smaller woman.

Then suddenly he broke down. Speech seemed to fail him. Only his eyes--more intense and piercing under their straight brows than she had ever known them--beseeched her--his hand sought hers.

She meanwhile sat in a trance of agitation, mistress neither of reason nor of feeling. She felt his spell, as she had always done. The woman in her thrilled at last to the mere name and neighbourhood of love. The heart in her cried out that pain and loss could only be deadened so--the past could only be silenced by filling the present with movement and warm life.

Yet what tremors of conscience--what radical distrust of herself and him! And the first articulate words she found to say to him were very much what she had said to Aldous so long ago--only filled with a bitterer and more realised content.

"After all, what do we know of each other! You don't know me--not as I am. And I feel--"

"Doubts?" he said, smiling. "Do you imagine that that seems anything but natural to me? _I_ can have none; but _you_--After all, we are not quite boy and girl, you and I; we have lived, both of us! But ask yourself--has not destiny brought us together? Think of it all!"

Their eyes met again. Hers sank under the penetration, the flame of his.

Yet, throughout, he was conscious of the doorway to his right, of the figures incessantly moving across it. His own eloquence had convinced and moved himself abundantly. Yet, as he saw her yielding, he was filled with the strangest mixture of pa.s.sion--and a sort of disillusion--almost contempt! If she had turned from him with the dignity worthy of that head and brow, it flashed across him that he could have tasted more of the _abandonment_ of love--have explored his own emotion more perfectly.

Still, the situation was poignant enough--in one sense complete. Was Raeburn still there--in that next room?

"My answer?" he said to her, pressing her hand as they sat in the shelter of the flowers. For _he_ was aware of the practical facts--the hour, the place--if she was not.

She roused herself.

"I can't," she said, making a movement to rise, which his strong grasp, however, prevented. "I _can't_ answer you to-night, Mr. Wharton. I should have much to think over--so much! It might all look quite different to me. You must give me time."

"To-morrow?" he said quietly.

"No!" she said impetuously, "not to-morrow; I go back to my work, and I must have quiet and time. In a fortnight--not before. I will write."

"Oh, impossible!" he said, with a little frown.

And still holding her, he drew her towards him. His gaze ran over the face, the warm whiteness under the lace of the dress, the beautiful arms. She shrank from it--feeling a sudden movement of dislike and fear; but before she could disengage herself he had pressed his lips on the arm nearest to him.

"I gave you no leave!" she said pa.s.sionately, under her breath, as he let her go.

He met her flas.h.i.+ng look with tender humbleness.

"_Marcella_!"

The word was just breathed into the air. She wavered--yet a chill had pa.s.sed over her. She could not recover the moment of magic.