The Gateless Barrier Part 18

But the young lady continued:--

"It is extraordinary to me how little regard you have for appearances.

Comments were made upon the length of your former absence. They came round to me. That was not to be endured in the case of my husband. I put a stop to all that by cabling for you."

"Ah! yes, I see," Laurence said slowly. "When I arrived there certainly seemed no very obvious reason for the sending of that cable. That was unlike you. When I thought of it I confess I was puzzled."

"If you leave again after so short a stay, it will give colour to those comments." Virginia spoke with emphasis, almost with solemnity. "I do not propose to submit to that. So you must choose, Laurence. Either you must give up going, or you must wait till it is convenient to me to go with you. I do not care for a summer voyage; it is dull. Between the seasons n.o.body one ever heard of is crossing. One may meet the wrong people. My leaving would cause great disappointment here. It would break up their summer. Still I would risk that to avoid the other. It would be a scramble too, and nothing is more annoying than a scramble, but I dare say I could arrange to be ready in two weeks from now."

"That's very good of you," Laurence replied. "But unfortunately I must go at once, and, pardon my saying so, it will be better for me to go alone. Everything is at sixes and sevens. Confusion reigns at Stoke Rivers. I would not take you there under existing circ.u.mstances. You'd receive a quite wrong impression. Oh, it would be utterly disastrous!"

he exclaimed.

For the first time he beheld Virginia depart from her faultless self-complacency, lose herself a little and display signs of anger. Her chin went up with a quick jerk, her eyes flashed, her features seemed for the moment swollen. This shocked him, it was so wholly unprecedented. He felt very sorry, as though he had been careless and clumsy, as though he had broken something hitherto flawless, and therefore charming, if not of supreme intrinsic value.

"I begin to believe," she cried, "you have an intention I shall never see Stoke Rivers at all."

"No, no, my dear," he answered rapidly, rising as he spoke. "Nothing of the kind. You are very distinctly mistaken. I have never been more ready that you should see Stoke Rivers than within the last hour--that is, when Stoke Rivers is fit to be seen. The poor, old house seems to have been in jeopardy of final disappearance about a week ago. There's where my bad news comes in. They write me word of a nasty fire there. n.o.body's fault--an electric light wire heated, and not being properly cased charred some of the panelling which finally caught alight. The house has been kept at such a high temperature for years, that the woodwork is like so much tinder."

Virginia's chin was still in the air, but she had in great measure recovered her self-control. Her manner was rather elaborately cold.

"That is a pity," she said calmly. "But, of course, the house and its contents are insured."

"Oh, yes, the loss is more a matter of sentiment than of money. Only one room is burnt out, as far as I can gather; and it didn't contain any very valuable pictures, or any part of my uncle's collection."

"Probably it is as well this fire occurred, then," Virginia observed. "I have always supposed Stoke Rivers would need some reconstruction before it came up to the level of modern requirements."

"Possibly--" he spoke rather drily. "Only, you see, I happened to entertain a peculiar fondness for this particular room, and I am sorry to part with the outward and visible signs of certain memories."

The young lady did not answer immediately, but examined the dial-plate of the little watch, set in diamonds, upon her wrist.

"The carriage will be here," she said. "I have not time to change my dress. I cannot play golf with Horace Greener. It is very embarra.s.sing.

I have no valid excuse to offer him."

"Oh, the heat, my dear, the heat," Laurence said, smiling. "Any excuse is valid if you make it with sufficient conviction."

Virginia looked hard at him.--"I wonder just what you mean by that," she retorted. She put up her hand, puffing her hair out a little more over her ears. "That fire was not very serious on your own admission," she continued, "I cannot see that it necessitates your hurrying over with this frantic haste. And if I am to live in it it would be desirable I should overlook the reconstruction of the house myself."

Her tone was meditative. Her statements were concise. Laurence felt his back against the wall. He must take the consequences of his own action however distasteful and disagreeable. His course would have been very obvious had his record been quite clean in regard to Virginia; but, he was an honest man. Something of exquisite, of incalculable value had tempted him; and the peculiarities of his temperament had heightened that temptation. He had been saved from falling, not by his own virtue, but by the virtue and self-sacrifice of one adorably his superior. He could not plume himself upon the achievement. He acknowledged that his conscience was not clear in respect of Virginia; and this necessitated the payment of a heavy penalty in connection with his own self-esteem.

His pride rebelled against "giving himself away," against further self-revelation; only, the logic of the situation prevailed. It cut him to the quick, yet it had to be done.

"You're quite right," he said. "The matter of the fire could have waited a little, I dare say, though it isn't exactly satisfactory to know part of one's house is roofless under a wet, English, July sky; but I had other bad news to-day." He paused a moment. "I heard of the funeral of a very dear connection of mine."

Virginia moved slightly, sweeping those fanwise-cut flounces to one side.

"Funeral?" she said quickly. "Really you have the very oddest manner of statement. Had you not already heard of his death, then?"

The young man moved too. He turned away, and a poignant sensation tore and hacked at him, so to speak. It hurt him physically. He gazed out over the dazzling whiteness of the smooth river seeing nothing, his whole being tense with the effort to resist the showing of that pain.

"Yes, yes, I have heard of her death, but I refused to believe it," he answered.

There was a moment of ominous silence, save for the shrilling of the insects, and lapping of the stream.

"Oh, a woman!" she said, with an almost alarming calm. "Have I ever heard of her?"

"I think not," Laurence answered.

"Then Louise had grounds for her a.s.sertions," she said, still with that deadly calm. "I thought it unworthy to listen. I forbade her to write or speak to me upon the subject. I--"

Laurence wheeled round. His eyes were dangerous. All the fanaticism of his race, and something finer than that, looked out of them.

"Think what you please of me," he cried; "but of her, think no evil.

Never dare to think any evil. She was one of the saints of G.o.d; and you, of all women, have no cause to misjudge her. She saved me from committing a great sin."

A singular expression crossed the young lady's face, an imperious desire to ask, to search out the ultimate of the matter. But it was momentary.

Spoilt child of fortune, she was too unaccustomed to vital drama to know how to deal with it. It staggered, it also slightly disgusted her. She could not rise to it. So conventionality proved stronger than even this very legitimate curiosity. Virginia remained true to her somewhat artificial traditions, to her own canons of good taste and self-respect, to that singular clause of the social creed which declares the thing unsaid also non-existent. Virginia appeared, in a way, admirable just then, yet she gave the measure of her nature. It was not great. She turned aside, with a movement of well-defined and lofty superiority.

"Are you aware that you become very indelicate?" she asked.

"Most men are indelicate at times, unfortunately."

"But not over here," she said. "American women do not permit that. You must remember whom you have married."--She waited a little. "The English standards are different, I presume," she added, not without a touch of sarcasm.

"I begin to think they are," Laurence answered.--He was paying, paying abominably; yet there was a sensible relief in so doing.--"They are based on the logic of fact," he continued. "And fact is more often indelicate than not. It has never yet, you see, learned to be a respecter of persons."

There was a pause, in which once again the fiddlings of the gra.s.shoppers and soothing lap of the water became audible.

"Do you still propose to go to England?"

Laurence nodded. "Yes," he said.

"Then"--began Virginia; but the young man held up his hand, partly in warning, partly demanding a cessation of hostilities. His thought had taken a new departure in regard to his wife. Somehow she had destroyed her own legend. She was more slight and shallow a creature than he had supposed, and he would never really stand in awe of her again. His smile was sad yet wholly friendly.

"Then--in a couple of weeks or so--I shall come back and fetch you," he declared. "And then, like wise and politic human beings, we will eschew controversy, each giving the other as much room as possible. I fancy you'll find we shall shake down pretty easily, and rub along like most other married people.--Meanwhile what's becoming of poor, neglected Horace Greener? Go and amuse both yourself and him, my dear. If you're not in before I start--well--for the moment, _addio_."

XXV

It was all very much in keeping with his mood--the reposeful landscape, heavy with the solid green of the August foliage, the sweep of the low, grey sky, the warm, still rain which drew forth an indefinable fragrance from the pastures and hedgerows, the wayside flowers, and the underwood.

Already the evenings had begun to shorten. The rambling village-street and its inevitable commotion of boys and dogs left behind, Laurence looked away, with a stirring of the heart, over this goodly land of which he was owner, as the brown thorough-bred breasted the hilly road leading up from the station to Stoke Rivers house. The prospect at once soothed and stimulated him. Emotion had been conspicuous princ.i.p.ally by its absence lately; it was pleasant to feel again.

At the hall-door the two men-servants met him; and Renshaw's large, egg-shaped countenance bore an expression almost paternal.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, his complexion ripening to mulberry with the effort of speech--"I do not wish to put myself forward, or go beyond my place, but I must express the pleasure we take in welcoming you home, sir. I speak not only for myself, but for Mr. Lowndes and Mr. Watkins, and all the other servants--both upper and under, sir."

Lowndes, the grey-haired, long-armed valet, subsequently gave vent to even more cordial sentiments.