Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “No — only that we have met before. I don’t know what she may suspect. And your son?”

  “Oh, I suppose he knows. Somebody must have told him. “

  “He doesn’t know who I am, though,” said Mrs. Bowring, with conviction. “He seems to be more like his mother than like you. He couldn’t conceal anything long.”

  “I wasn’t particularly good at that either, as it turned out,” said Sir Adam, gravely.

  “No, thank God!”

  “Do you think it’s something to be thankful for? I don’t. Things might have gone better afterwards—”

  “Afterwards!” The suffering of the woman’s life was in the tone and in her eyes.

  “Yes, afterwards. I’m an old man, Lucy, and I’ve seen a great many things since you and I parted, and a great many people. I was bad enough, but I’ve seen worse men since, who have had another chance and have turned out well.”

  “Their wives did not love them. I am almost old, too. I loved you, Adam. It was a bad hurt you gave me, and the wound never healed. I married — I had to marry. He was an honest gentleman. Then he was killed. That hurt too, for I was very fond of him — but it did not hurt as the other did. Nothing could.”

  Her voice shook, and she turned away her face. At least, he should not see that her lip trembled.

  “I didn’t think you cared,” said Sir Adam, and his own voice was not very steady.

  She turned upon him almost fiercely, and there was a blue light in her faded eyes.

  “I! You thought I didn’t care? You’ve no right to say that — it’s wicked of you, and it’s cruel. Did you think I married you for your money, Adam? And if I had — should I have given it up to be divorced because you gave jewels to an actress? I loved you, and I wanted your love, or nothing. You couldn’t be faithful — commonly, decently faithful, for one year — and I got myself free from you, because I would not be your wife, nor eat your bread, nor touch your hand, if you couldn’t love me. Don’t say that you ever loved me, except my face. We hadn’t been divorced a year when you married again. Don’t say that you loved me! You loved your wife — your second wife — perhaps. I hope so. I hope you love her now — and I dare say you do, for she looks happy — but don’t say that you ever loved me — just long enough to marry me and betray me!”

  “You’re hard, Lucy. You’re as hard as ever you were twenty years ago,” said Adam Johnstone.

  As he leaned forward, resting an elbow on his knee, he passed his brown hand across his eyes, and then stared vaguely at the white walls of the old hotel beyond the platform.

  “But you know that I’m right,” answered Mrs. Bowring. “Perhaps I’m hard, too. I’m sorry. You said that you had been mad, I remember — I don’t like to think of all you said, but you said that. And I remember thinking that I had been much more mad than you, to have married you, but that I should soon be really mad — raving mad — if I remained your wife. I couldn’t. I should have died. Afterwards I thought it would have been better if I had died then. But I lived through it. Then, after the death of my old aunt, I was alone. What was I to do? I was poor and lonely, and a divorced woman, though the right had been on my side. Richard Bowring knew all about it, and I married him. I did not love you any more, then, but I told him the truth when I told him that I could never love any one again. He was satisfied — so we were married.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Sir Adam.

  “Blame me! No — it would hardly be for you to blame me, if I could make anything of the shreds of my life which I had saved from yours. For that matter — you were free too. It was soon done, but why should I blame you for that? You were free — by the law — to go where you pleased, to love again, and to marry at once. You did. Oh no! I don’t blame you for that!”

  Both were silent for some time. But Mrs. Bowring’s eyes still had an indignant light in them, and her fingers twitched nervously from time to time. Sir Adam stared stolidly at the white wall, without looking at his former wife.

  “I’ve been talking about myself,” she said at last. “I didn’t mean to, for I need no justification. When you said that you wanted to say something, I brought you here so that we could be alone. What was it? I should have let you speak first.”

  “It was this.” He paused, as though choosing his words. “Well, I don’t know,” he continued presently. “You’ve been saying a good many things about me that I would have said myself. I’ve not denied them, have I? Well, it’s this. I wanted to see you for years, and now we’ve met. We may not meet again, Lucy, though I dare say we may live a long time. I wish we could, though. But of course you don’t care to see me. I was your husband once, and I behaved like a brute to you. You wouldn’t want me for a friend now that I am old.”

  He waited, but she said nothing.

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” he continued. “I shouldn’t, in your place. Oh, I know! If I were dying or starving, or very unhappy, you would be capable of doing anything for me, out of sheer goodness. You’re only just to people who aren ‘t suffering. You were always like that in the old days. It’s so much the worse for us. I have nothing about me to excite your pity. I’m strong, I’m well, I’m very rich, I’m relatively happy. I don’t know how much I cared for my wife when I married her, but she has been a good wife, and I’m very fond of her now, in my own way. It wasn’t a good action, I admit, to marry her at all. She was the beauty of her year and the best match of the season, and I was just divorced, and every one’s hand was against me. I thought I would show them what I could do, winged as I was, and I got her. No; it wasn’t a thing to be proud of. But somehow we hit it off, and she stuck to me, and I grew fond of her because she did, and here we are as you see us, and Brook is a fine fellow, and likes me. I like him too. He’s honest and faithful, like his mother. There’s no justice and no logic in this world, Lucy. I was a good-for-nothing in the old days. Circumstances have made me decently good, and a pretty happy man besides, as men go. I couldn’t ask for any pity if I tried.”

  “No; you’re not to be pitied. I’m glad you’re happy. I don’t wish you any harm.”

  “You might, and I shouldn’t blame you. But all that isn’t what I wished to say. I’m getting old, and we may not meet any more after this. If you wish me to go away, I’ll go. We’ll leave the place tomorrow.”

  “No. Why should you? It’s a strange situation, as we were to-day at table. You with your wife beside, and your divorced wife opposite you, and only you and I knowing it. I suppose you think, somehow — I don’t know — that I might be jealous of your wife. But twenty-seven years make a difference, Adam. It’s half a lifetime. It’s so utterly past that I sha’n’t realise it. If you like to stay, then stay. No harm can come of it, and that was so very long ago. Is that what you want to say?”

  “No.” He hesitated. “I want you to say that you forgive me,” he said, in a quick, hoarse voice.

  His keen dark eyes turned quickly to her face, and he saw how very pale she was, and how the shadows had deepened under her eyes, and her fingers twitched nervously as they clasped one another in her lap.

  “I suppose you think I’m sentimental,” he said, looking at her. “Perhaps I am; but it would mean a good deal to me if you would just say it.”

  There was something pathetic in the appeal, and something young too, in spite of his grey beard and furrowed face. Still Mrs. Bowring said nothing. It meant almost too much to her, even after twenty-seven years. This old man had taken her, an innocent young girl, had married her, had betrayed her while she dearly loved him, and had blasted her life at the beginning. Even now it was hard to forgive. The suffering was not old, and the sight of his face had touched the quick again. Barely ten minutes had passed since the pain had almost wrung the tears from her.

  “You can’t,” said the old man, suddenly. “I see it. It’s too much to ask, I suppose, and I’ve never done anything to deserve it.”

  The pale face grew paler, but the hands were still, and grasped each other, fi
rm and cold. The lips moved, but no sound came. Then a moment, and they moved again.

  “You’re mistaken, Adam. I do forgive you.”

  He caught the two hands in his, and his face shivered.

  “God bless you, dear,” he tried to say, and he kissed the hands twice.

  When Mrs. Bowring looked up he was sitting beside her, just as before; but his face was terribly drawn, and strange, and a great tear had trickled down the furrowed brown cheek into the grey beard.

  CHAPTER XI

  LADY JOHNSTONE WAS one of those perfectly frank and honest persons who take no trouble to conceal their anxieties. From the fact that when she had met him on the way up to the hotel Brook had been walking alone with Clare Bowring, she had at once argued that a considerable intimacy existed between the two. Her meeting with Clare’s mother, and her sudden fancy for the elder woman, had momentarily allayed her fears, but they revived when it became clear to her that Brook sought every possible opportunity of being alone with the young girl. She was an eminently practical woman, as has been said, which perhaps accounted for her having made a good husband out of such a man as Adam Johnstone had been in his youth. She had never seen Brook devote himself to a young girl before now. She saw that Clare was good to look at, and she promptly concluded that Brook must be in love. The conclusion was perfectly correct, and Lady Johnstone soon grew very nervous. Brook was too young to marry, and even if he had been old enough his mother thought that he might have made a better choice. At all events he should not entangle himself in an engagement with the girl; and she began systematically to interfere with his attempts to be alone with her. Brook was as frank as herself. He charged her with trying to keep him from Clare, and she did not deny that he was right. This led to a discussion on the third day after the Johnstones’ arrival.

  “You mustn’t make a fool of yourself, Brook, dear,” said Lady Johnstone. “You are not old enough to marry. Oh, I know, you are five-and-twenty, and ought to have come to years of discretion. But you haven’t, dear boy. Don’t forget that you are Adam Johnstone’s son, and that you may be expected to do all the things that he did before I married him. And he did a good many things, you know. I’m devoted to your father, and if he were in the room I should tell you just what I am telling you now. Before I married him he had about a thousand flirtations, and he had been married too, and had gone off with an actress — a shocking affair altogether! And his wife had divorced him. She must have been one of those horrible women who can’t forgive, you know. Now, my dear boy, you aren’t a bit better than your father, and that pretty Clare Bowring looks as though she would never forgive anybody who did anything she didn’t like. Have you asked her to marry you?”

  “Good heavens, no!” cried Brook. “She wouldn’t look at me!”

  “Wouldn’t look at you? That’s simply ridiculous, you know! She’d marry you out of hand — unless she’s perfectly idiotic. And she doesn’t look that. Leave her alone, Brook. Talk to the mother. She’s one of the most delightful women I ever met. She has a dear, quiet way with her — like a very thoroughbred white cat that’s been ill and wants to be petted.”

  “What extraordinary ideas you have, mother!” laughed Brook. “But on general principles I don’t see why I shouldn’t marry Miss Bowring, if she’ll have me. Why not? Her father was a gentleman, you like her mother, and as for herself—”

  “Oh, I’ve nothing against her. It’s all against you, Brook dear. You are such a dreadful flirt, you know! You’ll get tired of the poor girl and make her miserable. I’m sure she isn’t practical, as I am. The very first time you look at some one else she’ll get on a tragic horse and charge the crockery — and there will be a most awful smash! It’s not easy to manage you Johnstones when you think you are in love. I ought to know! “

  “I say, mother,” said Brook, “has anybody been telling you stories about me lately?”

  “Lately? Let me see. The last I heard was that Mrs. Crosby — the one you all call Lady Fan — was going to get a divorce so as to marry you.”

  “Oh — you heard that, did you?”

  “Yes — everybody was talking about it and asking me whether it was true. It seems that she was with that party that brought you here. She left them at Naples, and came home at once by land, and they said she was giving out that she meant to marry you. I laughed, of course. But people wouldn’t talk about you so much, dear boy, if there were not so much to talk about. I know that you would never do anything so idiotic as that, and if Mrs. Crosby chooses to flirt with you, that’s her affair. She’s older than you, and knows more about it. But this is quite another thing. This is serious. You sha’n’t make love to that nice girl, Brook. You sha’n’t! I’ll do something dreadful, if you do. I’ll tell her all about Mrs. Leo Cairngorm or somebody like that. But you sha’n’t marry her and ruin her life.”

  “You’re going in for philanthropy, mother,” said Brook, growing red. “It’s something new. You never made a fuss before.”

  “No, of course not. You never were so foolish before, my dear boy. I’m not bad myself, I believe. But you are, every one of you, and I love you all, and the only way to do anything with you is to let you run wild a little first. It’s the only practical, sensible way. And you’ve only just begun — how in the world do you dare to think of marrying? Upon my word, it’s too bad. I won’t wait. I’ll frighten the girl to death with stories about you, until she refuses to speak to you! But I’ve taken a fancy to her mother, and you sha’n’t make the child miserable. You sha’n’t, Brook. Oh, I’ve made up my mind! You sha’n’t. I’ll tell the mother too. I’ll frighten them all, till they can’t bear the sight of you.”

  Lady Johnstone was energetic, as well as original, in spite of her abnormal size, and Brook knew that she was quite capable of carrying out her threat, and more also.

  “I may be like my father in some ways,” he answered. “But I’m a good deal like you too, mother. I’m rather apt to stick to what I like, you know. Besides, I don’t believe you would do anything of the kind. And she isn’t inclined to like me, as it is. I believe she must have heard some story or other. Don’t make things any worse than they are.”

  “Then don’t lose your head and ask her to marry you after a fortnight’s acquaintance, Brook, because she’ll accept you, and you will make her perfectly wretched.”

  He saw that it was not always possible to argue with his mother, and he said nothing more. But he reflected upon her point of view, and he saw that it was not altogether unjust, as she knew him. She could not possibly understand that what he felt for Clare Bowring bore not the slightest resemblance to what he had felt for Lady Fan, if, indeed, he had felt anything at all, which he considered doubtful now that it was over, though he would have been angry enough at the suggestion a month earlier. To tell the truth, he felt quite sure of himself at the present time, though all his sensations were more or less new to him. And his mother’s sudden and rather eccentric opposition unexpectedly strengthened his determination. He might laugh at what he called her originality, but he could not afford to jest at the prospect of her giving Clare an account of his life. She was quite capable of it, and would probably do it.

  These preoccupations, however, were as nothing compared with the main point — the certainty that Clare would refuse him, if he offered himself to her, and when he left his mother he was in a very undetermined state of mind. If he should ask Clare to marry him now, she would refuse him. But if his mother interfered, it would be much worse a week hence.

  At last, as ill-luck would have it, he came upon her unexpectedly in the corridor, as he came out, and they almost ran against each other.

  “Won’t you come out for a bit?” he asked quickly and in a low voice.

  “Thanks — I have some letters to write,” answered the young girl. “Besides, it’s much too hot. There isn’t a breath of air.”

  “Oh, it’s not really hot, you know,” said Brook, persuasively.

  “Then it’s making a very go
od pretence!” laughed Clare.

  “It’s ever so much cooler out of doors. If you’ll only come out for one minute, you’ll see. Really — I’m in earnest.”

  “But why should I go out if I don’t want to?” asked the young girl.

  “Because I asked you to—”

  “Oh, that isn’t a reason, you know,” she laughed again.

  “Well, then, because you really would, if I hadn’t asked you, and you only refuse out of a spirit of opposition,” suggested Brook.

  “Oh — do you think so? Do you think I generally do just the contrary of what I’m asked to do? “

  “Of course, everybody knows that, who knows you.” Brook seemed amused at the idea.

  “If you think that — well, I’ll come, just for a minute, if it’s only to show you that you are quite wrong.”

  “Thanks, awfully. Sha’n’t we go for the little walk that was interrupted when my people came the other day?”

  “No — it’s too hot, really. I’ll walk as far as the end of the terrace and back — once. Do you mind telling me why you are so tremendously anxious to have me come out this very minute?”

  “I’ll tell you — at least, I don’t know that I can — wait till we are outside. I should like to be out with you all the time, you know — and I thought you might come, so I asked you.”

  “You seem rather confused,” said Clare gravely.

  “Well, you know,” Brook answered as they walked along towards the dazzling green light that filled the door, “to tell the truth, between one thing and another—” He did not complete the sentence.

  “Yes?” said Clare, sweetly. “Between one thing and another — what were you going to say?”

  Brook did not answer as they went out into the hot, blossom-scented air, under the spreading vines.

  “Do you mean to say it’s cooler here than indoors?” asked the young girl in a tone of resignation.