“But I was NOT angry!” said John, simply— “And it takes two to make a quarrel!”
She peeped at him from under her long lashes and again the fleeting blush swept over her fair face.
“I must go now!” — she said— “Won’t you come into the drawing-room? — just to hear Cicely sing at her very best?”
“Not to-night,” — he answered quickly— “If you will excuse me—”
“Of course I will excuse you!” and she smiled— “I know you don’t like company.”
“I very much DISLIKE it!” he said, emphatically— “But then I’m quite an unsociable person. You see I’ve lived alone here for ten years—”
“And you want to go on living alone for another ten years — I see!” said Maryllia— “Well! So you shall! I promise I won’t interfere!”
He looked at her half appealingly.
“I don’t think you understand,” — he said, — then paused.
“Oh yes, I understand perfectly!” And she smiled radiantly. “You like to be left quite to yourself, with your books and flowers, and the bits of glass for the rose-window in the church. By the bye, I must help you with that rose-window! I will get you some genuine old pieces — and if I find any very rare specimens of medieval blue or crimson you’ll be so pleased that you’ll forget all about that cigarette — you know you will!”
“Miss Vancourt,” — he began earnestly— “if you will only believe that it is because I think so highly of you — because you have seemed to me so much above the mere society woman that I — I—”
“I know!” she said, very softly— “I quite see your point of view!”
“You are not of the modern world,” — he went on, slowly— “Not in your heart — not in your real tastes and sentiments; — not yet, though you may possibly be forced to become one with it after your marriage—”
“And when will that be?” she interrupted him smiling.
His clear, calm blue eyes rested upon her gravely and searchingly.
“Soon surely, — if report be true!”
“Really? Well, you ought to know whether the date has been fixed yet,” — she said, very demurely— “Because, of course YOU’LL have to marry me!”
Something swayed and rocked in John’s brain, making the ground he stood upon swerve and seem unsteady. A wave of colour flushed his bronzed face up to the very roots of his grey-brown hair. Maryllia watched him with prettily critical interest, much as a kitten watches the rolling out of a ball of worsted on which it has just placed its little furry paw. Hurriedly he sought in his mind for something to say.
“I — I — don’t quite understand,” — he murmured.
“Don’t you?” and she smiled upon him blandly— “Surely you wouldn’t expect me to be married in any church but yours, or by any clergyman but you?”
“Oh, I see!” And Maryllia mentally commented— ‘So do I!’ — while he heaved a sigh unconsciously, but whether of relief or pain it was impossible to tell. Looking up, he met her eyes, — so deep and blue, so strangely compassionate and tender! A faint smile trembled on her lips.
“Good-night, Mr. Walden!”
“Good-night!” he said; then suddenly yielding to the emotion which mastered him, he made one swift step to her side— “You will forgive me, I know! — you will think of me presently with kindness, and with patience for my old-fashioned ways! — and you will do me the justice to believe that if I seemed rude to your guests, as you say I was, it was all for your sake! — because I thought you deserved more respect from them than that they should smoke in your presence, — and also, because I felt — I could not help feeling that if your father had been alive he would not have allowed them to do so, — he would have been too precious of you, — too careful that nothing of an indecorous or unwomanly nature should ever be associated with you; — and — and — I spoke as I did because it seemed to me that someone SHOULD speak! — someone of years and authority, who from the point of experience alone, might defend you from the contact of modern vulgarity; — so — so — I said the first words that came to me — just as your father might have said them! — yes! — just as your father might have spoken, — for you — you know you seem little more than a child to me! — I am so much older than you are, God help me!”
Stooping, he caught her hands and kissed them with a passion of which he was entirely unconscious, — then turned swiftly from her and was gone.
She stood where he had left her, trembling a little, but with a startled radiance in her eyes that made them doubly beautiful. She was pale to the lips; — her hands, — the hands he had kissed, were burning. Suddenly, on an impulse which she could not have explained to herself, she ran swiftly out of the picture-gallery and into the hall where, — as the great oaken door stood open to the summer night, — she could see the whole flower-garlanded square of the Tudor court, gleaming like polished silver in the intense radiance of the moon. John Walden was walking quickly across it, — she watched him, and saw him all at once pause near the old stone dial which at this season of the year was almost hidden by the clambering white roses that grew around it. He took off his hat and passed his hand over his brows with an air of dejection and fatigue, — the moonlight fell full on the clear contour of his features, — and she drew herself and her sparkling draperies well back into the deep shadow of the portal lest he should catch a glimpse of her, and, perhaps, — so seeing her, return —
“And that would never do!” she thought, with a little tremor of fear running through her which was unaccountably delicious;— “I’m sure it wouldn’t! — not to-night!”
The air was very warm and sultry, — all the windows of the Manor were thrown open for coolness, — and through those of the drawing-room came the lovely vibrations of Cicely’s pure fresh voice. She was singing an enchanting melody on which some words of Julian Adderley’s, simple and quaint, without having any claim to particular poetic merit, floated clearly with distinct and perfect enunciation —
“A little rose on a young rose-tree Shed all its crimson blood for me, Drop by drop on the dewy grass, Its petals fell, and its life did pass; Oh little rose on the young rose-tree, Why did you shed your blood for me?
“A nightingale in a tall pine-tree Broke its heart in a song for me, Singing, with moonbeams around it spread, It fluttered, and fell at my threshold, dead; — Oh nightingale in the tall pine-tree, Why did you break your heart for me?
“A lover of ladies, bold and free, Challenged the world to a fight for me, But I scorn’d his love in a foolish pride, And, sword in hand, he fighting died! Oh lover of ladies, bold and free, Why did you lose your life for me?”
And again, with plaintive insistence, the last two lines were repeated, ringing out on the deep stillness of the summer night —
“Oh lover of ladies, told and free, Why did you lose yowr life for me?”
The song ceased with a clash of chords. It was followed by a subdued clapping of hands, — a pause of silence — and then a renewed murmur of conversation. Walden looked up as if suddenly startled from a reverie, and resumed his quick pace across the courtyard, — and Maryllia, seeing him go, advanced a little more into the gleaming moonlight to follow him with her eyes till he should quite disappear.
“Upon my word, a very quaint little comedy!” said a coldly mocking voice behind her— “A modern Juliet gazing pathetically after the retiring form of a somewhat elderly clerical Romeo! Let me congratulate you, Miss Maryllia, on your newest and most brilliant achievement, — the conquest of a country parson! It is quite worthy of you!”
And turning, she confronted Lord Roxmouth.
XXIV
For a moment they looked at each other. The smile on Roxmouth’s face widened.
“Come, come, Maryllia!” he said, easily— “Don’t be foolish! The airs of a tragedy queen do not suit you. I assure you I haven’t the least objection to your amusing yourself with a parson, if you like! The conversation in the picture-gallery just now wa
s quite idyllic — all about a cigarette and Psyche! Really it was most absurd! — and the little sermon of the enamoured clergyman to his pretty penitent was as unique as it was priggish. I’m sure you must have been vastly entertained! And the final allusion he made to his age — THAT was a masterstroke of pathos! — or bathos? Which? Du sublime au ridicule il n’y’a qu’un pas, Madame!”
Her eyes were fixed unswervingly upon him.
“So you listened!” she said.
“Naturally! One always listens to a comedy if it is played well. I’ve been listening all the evening. I’ve listened to your waif and stray, Cicely Bourne, and am perfectly willing to admit that she is worth the training you are giving her. It’s the first time I’ve heard her sing to advantage. I’ve listened to Eva Beaulyon’s involved explanation of a perfectly unworkable scheme for the education of country yokels (who never do anything with education when they get it), on which she is going to extract twenty thousand pounds for herself from the pockets of her newest millionaire- victim. I’ve listened to the Bludlip Courtenay woman’s enthusiastic description of a new specific for the eradication of wrinkles and crowsfeet. I’ve listened to that old bore Sir Morton Pippitt, and to the afflicting county gossip of the lady in green, — Miss Ittlethwaite is her name, I believe. And, getting tired of these things, I strolled towards the picture-gallery, and hearing your delightful voice, listened there. I confess I heard more than I expected!”
Without a word in response, she turned from him and began to move away. He stretched out a hand and caught her sleeve.
“Maryllia, wait! I must speak to you — and I may as well say what I have to say now and get it over.”
She paused. Lifting her eyes she glanced at him with a look of utter scorn and contempt. He laughed.
“Come out into the moonlight!” — he said— “Come and walk with me in this romantic old courtyard. It suits you, and you suit it. You are very pretty, Maryllia! May I — notwithstanding the parson — smoke?”
She said nothing. Drawing a leather case from his pocket, he took a cigar out and lit it.
“Silence gives consent,” — he went on— “Besides I’m sure you don’t mind. You know plenty of men who can never talk comfortably without puffing smoke in between whiles. I’m one of that sort. Don’t look at me like Cleopatra deprived of Marc Antony. Be reasonable! I only want to say a few plain matter-of-fact words to you—”
“Say them then as quickly as possible, please,” — she replied— “I am NOT a good listener!”
“No? Now I should have thought you were, judging by the patience with which you endured the parson’s general discursiveness. What a superb night!” He stepped from the portal out on the old flagstones of the courtyard. “Take just one turn with me, Maryllia!”
Quietly, and with an air of cold composure she came to him, and walked slowly at his side. He looked at her covertly, yet critically.
“I won’t make love to you,” — he said presently, with a smile— “because you tell me you don’t like it. I will merely put a case before you and ask for your opinion! Have I your permission?”
She bent her head slightly. Her throat was dry, — her heart was beating painfully, — she knew Roxmouth’s crafty and treacherous nature, and her whole soul sickened as she realised that now he could, if he chose, drag the name of John Walden through a mire of social mud, and hold it up to ridicule among his own particular ‘set,’ who would certainly lose no time in blackening it with their ever-ready tar-brush. And it was all through her — all through her! How would she ever forgive herself if his austere and honourable reputation were touched in ever so slight a degree by a breath of scandal? Unconsciously, she clasped her little hands and wrung them hard — Roxmouth saw the action, and quickly fathomed the inward suffering it indicated.
“You know my dearest ambition,” — he went on,— “and I need not emphasise it. It is to call you my wife. If you consent to marry me, you take at once a high position in the society to which you naturally belong. But you tell me I am detestable to you — and that you would rather die than accept me as a husband. I confess I do not understand your attitude, — and, if you will allow me to say so, I hardly think you understand it yourself. You are in a state of uncertainty — most women live always in that state; — and your vacillating soul like a bewildered butterfly — you see I am copying the clerical example by dropping into poetry! — and a butterfly, NOT a cigarette, is I believe the correct emblem of Psyche,—” here he took a whiff at his cigar, and smiled pleasantly— “your soul, I repeat, like a bewildered butterfly, has lighted by chance on a full-flowering parson. The flight — the pause on that maturely-grown blossom of piety, is pardonable, — but I cannot contemplate with pleasure the idea of your compromising your name with that of this sentimental middle-aged individual who, though he may be an excellent Churchman, would make rather a grotesque lover!”
She remained silent. Glancing sideways at her, he wondered whether it was the moonlight that made her look so set and pale.
“But I said I would put a case before you,” — he continued, “and I will. Here are you, — of an age to be married. Here am I, — anxious to marry you. We are neither of us growing younger — and delay seems foolish. I offer you all I am worth in the world — myself, my name and my position. You have refused me a score of times, and I am not discouraged — you refuse me still, and I am not baffled. But I ask why? I am not deformed or idiotic. I would try to make you happy. A woman is best when she has entirely her own way, — I would let you have yours. You would be free to follow your own whims and caprices. Provided you gave me lawful heirs, I should ask no more of you. No reasonable man ought to ask more of any reasonable woman. Life could be made very enjoyable to us both, with a little tact and sense on either side. I should amuse myself in the world, and so I hope, would you. We understand modern life and appreciate its conveniences. The freedom of the matrimonial state is one of those conveniences, of which I am sure we should equally take advantage.”
He puffed at his cigar for a few minutes complacently.
“You profess to hate me,” — he went on— “Again I ask, why? You tell your aunt that you want to be ‘loved.’ You consider love the only lasting good of life. Well, you have your desire. I love you!”
She raised her eyes, — and then suddenly laughed.
“You!” she said— “You ‘love’ me? It must be a very piecemeal sort of love, then, for I know at least five women to whom you have said the same thing!”
He was in nowise disconcerted.
“Only five!” he murmured lazily— “Why not ten — or twenty? The more the merrier! Women delight in bragging of conquests they have never made, as why should they not? Lying comes so naturally to them! But I do not profess to be a saint, — I daresay I have said ‘I love you’ to a hundred women in a certain fashion, — but not as I say it to you. When I say it to you, I mean it.”
“Mean what?” she asked.
“Love.”
She stopped in her walk and faced him.
“When a man loves a woman — really loves her,” — she said, “Does he persecute her? Does he compromise her in society? Does he try to scandalise her among her friends? Does he whisper her name away on a false rumour, and accuse her of running after him for his title, while all the time he knows it is he himself that is running after her money? Does he make her life a misery to her, and leave her no peace anywhere, not even in her own house? Does he spy upon her, and set others to do the same? — does he listen at doors and interrogate servants as to her movements — and does he altogether play the dastardly traitor to prove his ‘love’?”
Her voice shook — her eyes were ablaze with indignation. Roxmouth flicked a little ash off his cigar.
“Why, of course not!” he replied— “But who does these dreadful things? Are they done at all except in your imagination?”
“YOU do them!” said Maryllia, passionately— “And you have always done them! When I tell you once an
d for all that I have given up every chance I ever had of being my aunt’s heiress — that I shall never be a rich woman, — and that I would far rather die a beggar than be your wife, will you not understand me? — will you not leave me alone?”
He looked at her with quizzical amusement.
“Do you really want to be left alone?” he asked— “Or in a ‘solitude a deux’ — with the parson?”
She was silent, though her silence cost her an effort. But she knew that the least word she might say concerning Walden would be wilfully misconstrued. She knew that Roxmouth was waiting for her to burst out with some indignant denial of his suggestions — something that he might twist and turn in his own fashion and repeat afterwards to all his and her acquaintances. She cared nothing for herself, but she was full of dread lest Walden’s name should be bandied up and down on the scurrilous tongues of that ‘upper class’ throng, who, because they spend their lives in nothing nobler than political intrigue and sensual indulgence, are politely set aside as froth and scum by the saner, cleaner world, and classified as the ‘Smart Set.’ Roxmouth watched her furtively. His clear-cut face, white skin and sandy hair shone all together with an oily lustre in the moonlight; — there was a hard cold gleam in his eyes.
“It would be a pretty little story for the society press,” he said, after a pause— “How the bewitching Maryllia Vancourt resigned the brilliancy of her social life for a dream of love with an elderly country clergyman! By Heaven! No one would believe it! But,” — and he waited a minute, then continued— “It’s a story that shall never be told so far as I am concerned — if—” He broke off, and looked meditatively at the end of his cigar. “There is always an ‘if’ — unfortunately!”
Maryllia smiled coldly.
“That is a threat,” — she said— “But it does not affect me! Nothing that you can do or say will make me consent to marry you. You have slandered me already — you can slander me again for all I care. But I will never be your wife.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 631
