She saw his serious eyes light up.
“Grace has a boy. I’ve just heard.”
The light died away from his face.
“I’m glad. Lucky Grace——”
She caught his arm and held to it, hurt by that look of sombre disappointment.
“It will happen to us, dear. And I—shall be so happy.”
“Of course—it will,” he said with sudden gentleness; “you are made to be a mother, Bess.”
The spring passed away, and the summer heat was upon them, a season of dust and of glare when the greenness died out of the landscape, and the grey maquis grew more grey, and the pines more black.
It was Elizabeth’s first experience of this African heat, and her fairness wilted, a fairness that had grown up among the English oaks and beeches. She had to struggle with a growing sense of languor and of apathy, and this physical burden was made more heavy by her other discouragement.
For she felt and knew that her husband was watching her, and sometimes it seemed to Bess that his watchfulness betrayed a little frown of impatience. Moreover, she was so much alone, for both she and York were shy of discussing the desire that had begun to exaggerate itself in the minds of them both. They avoided the subject, as people avoid the facing of a possible tragedy.
Also, the one other woman in the house appeared to have an ungodly insight into the problem that was vexing these two. As the summer glare increased Marie Delage seemed to grow more vigorous and swarthy, and with the wife’s paling colour Marie’s vitality glowed like some coarse and fleshy flower. And woman can be devilish clever in the wounding of other women.
Marie employed sympathy. She would come into the darkened room where Elizabeth York was lying down during the heat of the day, and after provoking an answer to some seemingly necessary question, she would stand by the couch and emit her poison.
“Madame would prefer her bath in the evening? Very good. Yes; it is blazing to-day. It is sad for madame—that she cannot bear the heat.”
“I shall get used to it.”
“Indeed—I hope so. But madame comes from the north. It is a question of skin. Monsieur was never troubled by the heat. He loves it——”
Bess’s languor was at her mercy. She resented the woman’s torturing intimacies, and yet felt hopeless.
“I shall grow acclimatized, Marie.”
“Would madame like a book?”
“No, thank you. I’ll try to go to sleep.”
Always, in leaving the bedroom, Marie would seem to pause and glance at that empty cot, and that pause and that glance were eloquent:
“Still empty. What a pity! And that is the real business of life. I know. Poor madame.”
She would go out softly leaving York’s wife bedewed with the heat and limp with a feeling of utter exhaustion, and a head and a heart that ached. She was wise as to her enemy, and it seemed to her that her enemy would continue to exult.
She hated Marie. She longed for an Englishwoman, one of her own blood, a friend to whom she could talk.
One day the house had been stifling, and in the cool of the evening she escaped from it into the burnt-up garden, and thence to the hillside and the pines. York had ridden over to Madame Le Noir, and it was probable that the old lady would wish him to stay to dinner, and Elizabeth was glad of his absence, for she was in one of those lonely moods when solitude seems the only solace. The sunset hung among the pine boughs, and under the rough wall surrounding the wood she found a stone seat.
“Grace has a child,” she thought; “why not I?”
She had lost her northern bloom, and her eyes seemed to have grown bigger, and as she sat and brooded she heard Arab music coming from the farm, a plaintive melody that repeated itself like the yearning inside her heart. A child, a child!
Then, she heard voices. They approached up the hillside on the other side of the wall, the voices of a woman and a man, and she knew that they belonged to Marie Delage and Louis Proyart. The two were laughing.
“He won’t have much use for her when he finds that she can’t give him a foal.”
There was more laughter.
“He would have done better with you, Marie, ha-ha. You would have obliged him——”
York’s wife fled. She slipped away among the pines like a woman ashamed, and when York returned he found her lying motionless in the big room with her face half hidden in the pillow.
“Why, Bess——”
And suddenly she put out her arms to him.
“Oh—Ronny—Ronny, don’t hate me.”
He was more moved than she knew. He sat down on the bed and held her, and spoke gently.
“The heat tires you, chérie. You are not used to it——”
She had an inspiration.
“Ronny, can’t we go somewhere, just you and I together, up into the mountains—somewhere where it is green?”
“I’ve been thinking of it,” he said; “and I ought to have told you. We could be in Savoy or the Pyrenees in three days. Mountain air—what——?”
She clung to him.
“Take me. I have a feeling, dear—— Just you and I together.”
It was on that night, with her tears upon his face that York realized that this woman was more dear to him than he had suspected. He loved her, not for what she could give him, but for what she was, his mate, his dear comrade.
And for a moment he was frightened by this love. It seemed so final. It came and stood beside the egotism that desired to see itself repeated in a child; it looked starkly upon his selfishness; it forced the possible frustration of his purpose and claimed a share of the regret.
“I have been rather blind,” he thought.
It was the first crack in the shell of his complacency, and though it was but a crack it was there. His kindness became something more than kindness; it hid a little flame of passion.
“We’ll get off to-morrow, Bess. Can you manage it?”
“Yes.”
“Splendid.”
They set out for Savoy.
VI
It was a summer hotel among the mountains which York had chosen for their holiday; an unpretentious, homely place that was well known to him, a little Canaan, rich in milk and cream and fruit and honey. Its reaction upon Elizabeth amazed him. In two days she was a different creature, vital; bright-eyed, red of lip; all her languor had passed; she was the Elizabeth of Beech Hangar Farm, only more so.
But her reaction did not draw its stimulus merely from the mountains and their freshness, little plateaux where the grass was green, and the cool plash of mountain valleys, for if York had become aware of the change in his feelings towards her, she was no less aware of it. The man—her husband—was different. His eyes, his hands, his voice were different. He had begun to love her as a woman asks to be loved. He was not a man who loved easily, and therefore his love would last.
They drew nearer to each other. She was able to talk to him, as she had not talked before, and on this holiday of long rambles and climbings in the clear air, they grew to know each other. Their confidences were intimate and sacred.
A favourite retreat of theirs in the early morning, and in the evening, was a corner of the orchard above the hotel. Behind and above them the grapes were ripening in an upland vineyard, and from this vantage point they looked over a wooded hill into a green valley where the lights were always changing.
It was here that she made him realize how well she understood; and he, in listening to the voice of this farmer’s daughter, was aware of his undeserved good fortune. She had one of those quiet voices which make the simplest words sound musical and oracular. It never grew strident, voluble, or silly.
His tenderness showed itself in playful touches.
“Your voice makes me think of milk, Bess.”
“Why—milk?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Fresh milk being poured out. Just—that.”
Another thing that delighted him was her dignity. She was no cloying, amorous wench. She remained herself, even thou
gh it was a devoted self.
“Strange, Ronny, you should have married me when you could have married anybody.”
“That’s just it,” he said; “I did not want to marry—anybody.”
It was like a second honeymoon to them, but a honeymoon without any of the awkwardnesses and discomforts, for their intimacy was a relation of minds as well as of bodies.
York found that he could talk to his wife as though he were talking to a second self; what was more, he found himself asking her advice about the estate, the house and garden, the servants and stock. He was less pleased with Louis Proyart than he had been.
“I have nothing definite against the fellow, but somehow—I’m not satisfied.”
“I don’t trust him, Ronny.”
“Why not?”
“Instinct. I have a feeling that he is not straight.”
“Odgers has hinted as much; but I don’t like to listen to tittle-tattle.”
“I know. You are big, Ronny. But I trust Odgers. He’s a rough-grained thing, but he is sound. And then, there is one other person. I should be much happier, Ronnie, without Marie.”
“Oh!” he said, surprised; “I hadn’t noticed——”
“Women behave differently to men. I don’t like Marie.”
“Well, get rid of her, Bess. You are the mistress; you do as you please.”
Her warm fingers closed on his wrist.
“Thank you, dear. Being big to people makes them big to you. I’m not fussy.”
“You’re not,” he said, smiling down at her; “you are the most restful thing in Christendom.”
She snuggled close to him under the apple boughs, her hair brushing his cheek.
“I suppose it wouldn’t be possible for us to have an Englishwoman, Ronny?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Because—well—when something happens—I would rather have an Englishwoman in the house.”
“Of course,” he said gently; “you can have just whatever you wish, Bess. I’ll see what can be done. And do you think—there is a chance——?”
Her voice fell to a whisper.
“I do, Ronny. I’m not sure—but I think it is likely.”
She glanced up presently at his serious face.
“What are you thinking about, Ronny? The child——?”
“No; about you,” he said.
“About me!”
“About—all that’s best—for you. I can give you the best.”
For it was coming to him slowly that his wife was more to him than any child could be.
Back in Algeria again when the worst of the heat had passed, York left Elizabeth with friends of his who had a villa up above Algiers where there was a cooling breeze from the sea. He had business in Algiers; he had become a domesticated creature with his thoughts full of doctors and nurses, and there was Marie’s successor to be found. An English resident, just returned from the Pyrenees, was able to help him in the matter.
“Izard is going home. You know Izard—and I believe he has a housekeeper who wants to stay out here.”
York went to see Izard, who had a villa at the top of the Rue Michelet. He did not see Izard, but he saw his housekeeper, a tall, ruddy, kind-eyed Irishwoman named Jenny Rourke. Mrs. Rourke was a widow of five-and-forty; she could speak French; she appeared to attach a foolish value to sentiment.
“Oh, it’s a baby you are thinking of, sir.”
“Yes; I want someone kind and capable.”
York liked the woman; he offered her generous terms, and she decided to come.
“It’s a little lonely out there,” he warned her.
“Well, there will be two of us, sir; and when the babe comes——”
She laughed; she had a reassuring Irish laugh, and an air of supreme good nature. Mr. Izard was going home at the end of the week, and she had thought of taking a holiday, but the change to the Villa York out by Mida would be as good as a holiday.
“Then I’ll send a car for you. Mrs. York is staying up above there. The car can fetch you both.”
York went on ahead to Mida, and surprised the people at the Villa York. They had not expected him, and the situation that he found there more than justified Elizabeth’s distrust.
Louis Proyart had introduced himself into his employer’s house, and was using York’s bath and sleeping in York’s bed.
Odgers, the groom, had something to say, and York was not a man of hesitations. Proyart departed, and with him went Marie Delage, furious, her face the colour of chalk, her mouth venomous.
“You take care, monsieur. I know why we are being turned out——”
She screamed other vilenesses, but York took her by the shoulders and walked her to the door.
“You had better be careful, my lady. I’m not a nice man when my temper’s roused.”
VII
York walked his horse across the fields towards a group of Arabs who were hoeing weeds between the vines, for since Louis Proyart’s abrupt departure York had been acting as his own manager. Odgers of the surly tongue had been promoted to the post of foreman, and when the groom had protested that he would have to neglect the horses, York had sold all the riding horses save two.
York could see Odgers in brown drill riding breeches and a sun hat, chewing a straw and watching the men at work, and York smiled.
“No slacking when that little fellow is about.”
He found himself surprised by his own smile, for half an hour ago he had left his wife in tears, the tears that had followed a confession.
“Oh—Ronny, I was wrong. I had hoped—it’s nothing.”
And he had tried to comfort her, finding it easy to speak tender and comforting words.
“Why—I’ve got you, Bess; that’s the one thing that matters.”
Yes, that was the extraordinary part of it; the woman mattered more and more, that hypothetical child less and less, just as though he and his wife had interchanged their attitudes. He had not felt any great pang of disappointment when she had told him that her hope had proved an illusion, but to her the disappointment had appeared very deep and bitter. It seemed to him now that his desire for a son had been nothing but restlessness, the restlessness of a lonely man, but since the coming of Elizabeth all that had passed.
Odgers saluted him as York pulled up his big black horse and sat watching the men at work. They threw roving glances at him, with much showing of white teeth, for the Englishman was popular. The groom had withdrawn the straw from his mouth, and his terrier’s face, tanned and keen, looked up at York from under the shadow of his sun hat.
“Proyart turned up here this morning, sir.”
“Proyart?”
“A little squiffy and out to make trouble. I threatened to loose the dogs on him, and he cleared.”
“But I thought the fellow——”
“Didn’t you know, sir, that he has taken Mustapha’s farm on the Mida road?”
“I didn’t know it.”
“Marie’s there, too. Spliced. A nice couple to have as neighbours, sir.”
“Has he bought the farm, or is he renting it?”
“Bought it—I hear. On the proceeds of his scroungings here, I reckon.”
York looked grave.
“Then their land joins ours. I don’t like neighbours—with bad blood——”
“I don’t think you need worry, sir,” said the groom. “Proyart ain’t exactly popular with this crowd. They’d be glad of a chance to shy stones.”
Two days later York had cause to ride into Mida, and his way lay past Mustapha Farm. It stood on the high road, a narrow white house, with the farm buildings grouped at the back of it, and a patch of garden ground and orchard between it and the road. An old eucalyptus tree which had been pollarded grew beside the house, and on it a couple of storks had built a nest. Some of the fruit trees were in blossom, and a patch of arum lilies raised their white trumpets in the shade.
York was level with the gate when he became aware of a woman stan
ding between the two white posts. She had a shawl over her head, and she was wearing a flowered apron. It was Marie Delage, or Marie Proyart, as she was now.
She smiled up at York with her big red mouth and her ominous eyes.
“Good morning, monsieur.”
York pulled up. He had a feeling that it would be policy to show her no hostility.
“So we are neighbours, Marie.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
Her face was smiling and wicked.
“You see—our fruit trees are in flower. And look, monsieur.”
She pointed to the eucalyptus tree.
“We—are lucky. We have storks.”
“So I see.”
And then, with her hands under her apron, she struck a pose that was impossible for him to misunderstand.
“I, too, am lucky, monsieur. Madame will envy me a dear petit enfant, hein!”
York rode on, hating the woman, and trying not to feel angry.
He said nothing to his wife of the Proyart’s having taken Mustapha Farm, for he was unable to see how a woman’s casual malice could affect the life at the Villa York, and it seemed needless to worry Bess by telling her the news. In fact, at the end of a week the matter had drifted out of York’s mind.
He was happier than ever he had been in his life, and he felt that he could make Bess happy, child or no child. He had encouraged her enthusiasms in the neglected garden, and he was talking of buying a quiet saddle-horse so that she could ride about the estate with him. That they had been married for a year seemed to be incredible, for the months had gone very swiftly.
York was out on the hills with his gun when Marie Proyart paid that visit of hers to the Villa York. She arrived in a gig, driven by an Arab boy, dressed in full French Sabbath black, her mouth a bright cerise, her face like an ivory plaque. She made it a social occasion. She, too, was the wife of a propriétaire.
As it happened, she fell into the hands of Mrs. Jenny Rourke, who, whatever her prejudices might be against this particular type of woman, did not know her, Marie, by sight. And Marie put on the imagined airs of the wife of a propriétaire.
“Madame York is at home, yes?”
Jenny had no reason for saying that she was not, so Madame Proyart was conducted to the salon, and left sitting there on one of the French brocaded chairs while the Irishwoman went to find her mistress.
The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping Page 86
