Bella Donna Part 31

That did not promise him much pleasure. Already he had received several family letters scarcely rejoicing in his marriage. They had not bothered him as much as he had formerly feared they would. He did not expect his relations, or the world, to look at things with his eyes, to think of Ruby with gentleness or even forgiveness for her past. He knew his world too well to make preposterous mental demands upon it. But Harwich had already expressed himself with his usual freedom. There seemed no particular reason why he should write so soon again.

Nigel tore open the letter, read it quickly, re-read it, then laid it down upon his knees, pulled his linen hat over his eyes, and sat for a long while quite motionless, thinking.

His brother's letter informed him that his sister-in-law, Zoe, Harwich's wife, had given birth to twin children--sons--and that they were "stunningly well--hip, hip, hooray!"

Harwich's boisterous joy was very natural, and might be supposed to spring from paternal feelings that did him honour, but there was a note of triumph in his exultation which Nigel understood, and which made him thoughtful now. Harwich was glorying in the fact that Nigel and Nigel's wife were cut out of the succession--that, so far as one could see, Mrs.

Armine would now never be Lady Harwich.

For himself Nigel did not care at all. Harwich was ten years older than he was, but he had never thought about succeeding him, had never wished to succeed him, and when he had married Ruby he had known that his sister-in-law was going to have a child. He had known this, but he had not told it to Ruby. He had not concealed it; simply, it had not occurred to him to tell her. Now the tone of Harwich's letter was making him wonder, "Will she mind?"

Presently he heard her coming into the room behind him, crossing it, stepping out upon the terrace.

"Nigel! Are you asleep?"

"Asleep!" he said. "At this hour!"

For once there was an unnatural sound in his voice, a note of carelessness that was forced. He jumped up from his chair, scattering his letters on the ground.

"You haven't read your letters all this time!"

"Not yet; not all of them, at least," he said, bending to pick them up.

"I've been reading one from my brother, Harwich."

"From Lord Harwich?" She sent a sharp look to him. "Is it bad news? Is Lord Harwich ill?"

"No, Ruby."

"Then what's the matter?"

"The matter? Nothing! On the contrary, it's a piece of good news."

In spite of himself almost, his eyes were staring at her with an expression of scrutiny that was fierce, because of the anxiety within him.

"Poor old Harwich has had to wait so long, and now at last he's got what he's wanted."

"What's that?"

"A child--that is, children--twins."

There was a moment of silence. Then Mrs. Armine said, with a smile:

"So that's it!"

"Yes, that's it, Ruby."

"Girls? Boys? Girl and boy?"

"Boys, both of them."

"When you write, congratulate him for me. And now read the rest of your letters. I'm going to take a stroll in the garden."

As she spoke, she put up her parasol and sauntered away towards the Nile, stopping now and then to look at a flower or tree, to take a rose in her hand, smell it, then let it go with a careless gesture.

"Does she really mind? d.a.m.n it, does she mind?"

There had been no cloud on her face, no involuntary movement of dismay, yet in her apparently unruffled calm there had been a reticence that somehow had chilled him. She was so clever in reading people that surely she must have felt the anxiety in his heart, the eager desire to be rea.s.sured. If she had only responded to it frankly, if she had only come up to him, touched his hand, said, "Dear old boy, what does it matter?

You don't suppose I've ever bothered about being the future Lady Harwich?"--something of that kind, all his doubts would have been swept away. But she had taken it too coolly, almost, had dismissed it too abruptly. Perhaps that was his fault, though, for he had been reserved with her, had not said to her all he was thinking, or indeed anything he was thinking.

"Ruby! I say, Ruby!"

Following a strong impulse, he hastened after her, and came up with her on the bank of the Nile.

"Look!" she said.

"What? Oh, Baroudi's dahabeeyah tied up over there! Yes, I knew that.

It's to get out of the noise of Luxor. Ruby, you--you don't mind about Harwich and the boys?"

"Mind?" she said.

Her voice was suddenly almost angry, and an expression that was hard came into her brilliant eyes.

"Mind? What do you mean, Nigel?"

"Well, you see it makes a lot of difference in my position from the worldly point of view."

"And you think I care about that! I knew you did. I knew exactly what you were thinking on the terrace!"

There was a wounded sound in her voice. Then she added, with a sort of terribly bitter quietness:

"But--what else could you, or anyone, think?"

"Ruby!" he exclaimed.

He tried to seize her hand, but she would not let him.

"No, Nigel! don't touch me now. I--I shall hate you if you touch me now."

Her face was distorted with pa.s.sion, and the tears stood in her eyes.

"I don't blame you a bit," she said. "I should be a fool to expect anyone, even you, to believe in me after all that--all that has happened. But--it is hard, sometimes it is frightfully hard, to bear all this disbelief that one can have any good in one."

She turned hurriedly away.

"Ruby!" he said, with a pa.s.sion of tenderness.

"No, no! Leave me alone for a little. I tell you I must be alone!" she exclaimed, as he followed her.

He stopped on the garden path and watched her go into the house.