“Oh, no,” she answered earnestly, which indeed was true. She had often reflected on the fact — rather desolately. No one had shown her any special kindness or attention since she “came out” except this Mr. Allingham.
“Then let us consider it settled,” he had said, and had kissed her, and led her out of the rose garden; and later on in the day had given her a wonderful engagement ring of the most superb diamonds. And so things had drifted on, and the preparation of her trousseau had been a great excitement, and her marriage day another excitement, and now, here she was, fast wedded, and on her honeymoon in Switzerland, with the irreproachable gentleman, whose black moustache would henceforth have to command her wifely admiration, year after year, till it turned grey. Somehow she had not realised the weight and seriousness of marriage till it was consummated; she had read many love-stories, many love-poems, in which all the heroes and heroines raved and swore in exquisitely choice language, and ended by killing themselves or somebody else with the dagger, pistol, or poison bowl, but the even prosaicness of married life had not been set before her in similarly graphic style.
Now and then she was a little afraid of herself — afraid that she was not as happy as she ought to be. She could not analyse her own feelings very well, but occasionally she caught herself sighing and murmuring uneasily, “I wonder if I really love him?” The doubt made her uncomfortable, for she had a tender heart and sensitive conscience. The relations between herself and her husband had, up till now, been more formal than passionate; for among his other idiosyncrasies, Mr. Allingham had a nervous horror of ridicule, and in consequence of this, had endured positive torments during their journey up the Rhine into Switzerland. He suspected everyone he met of the crime of knowing he was on his honeymoon “tour,” and the unpleasant scowl he assumed for would-be friendly strangers, frequently remained on his brows for the benefit of his young wife, who was thereby rendered constrained and depressed.
Arrived at the “Pension Gutsch,” he adopted an equally severe and distrustful demeanour towards the good-natured landlord, who made a dreadful mistake one morning by becoming too friendly, and venturing to suggest a drive, which he humbly considered would be a charming excursion for une jeune mariée. Mr. Allingham gave him a look that ought to have transfixed him, if looks had any such power, and told him curtly that he did not care about “excursions,” and that “Madame” would please herself as to a choice of walks or drives. After this, the humiliated landlord took care to avoid giving further offence by any undue exhibition of personal interest in his best paying guests, and the days rolled slowly on in a long sunshiny stretch of perfect calm, without any change to vary or break their peaceful monotony. Days of delicious weather they were — pure and balmy as spring, though it was full summer — happy days they might have proved to Rose Allingham if they had not also been days of ever-deepening perplexity. She was a very loving little creature — quick to respond to kindness — and she troubled herself desperately in secret as to why she could not, though she tried, be altogether loving to her husband. Something held her back from him — there was some impalpable barrier between his nature and hers that kept them singularly apart, though to all appearances united. The veriest trifles helped to emphasise this curious state of things. One evening, strolling together in the pine-woods, she began to think of all the dainty love-poems she used to read and be so fond of, and bringing to mind their dulcet teachings, she suddenly took her husband’s hand, and gently slipped it round her waist, leaning her fair little head confidently back against the shelter of the arm thus encircling her. Then, looking up, with shy, sweet eyes and a ravishing blush, she said softly —
“There! Isn’t that nice?”
He regarded her with a gentlemanly amazement.
“Certainly not! It is not ‘nice.’ It is anything but nice! I am surprised at you, Rose! I really am! Suppose anyone were to meet us walking along in this ridiculous position! Why, they would take us for Cook’s tourists — a Cockney’Arry and’Arriet out for a stroll! Nothing could be more vulgar and degrading!”
He withdrew his arm in haste, and walked beside her stiffly erect, scenting the piney air in virtuous indignation. His young wife said not a word, but walked on also, with crimsoning cheeks and downcast eyes, her little feet moving somewhat wearily. Presently he glared down upon her with an air of relenting condescension.
“Surely you know that demonstrations of affection in public are very bad form?” he inquired.
She looked up, her soft eyes flashing for once with something very like scorn.
“Where is the public?” she asked. “We are quite alone; alone with the forest and the sunset — and with God! But I am sorry if my action offended you.”
“Dear me, I am not offended — why should I be?” he retorted pettishly. “You meant it well, no doubt. But wherever we are, alone or before witnesses, we must avoid even the appearance of vulgarity. And pray do not quote poetry to me, I hate it. ‘Alone with the forest and the sunset, and with God!’ What rubbish that is!”
“Is it?” and she gave a little sigh. “It is not poetry at any rate. It is only me!”
“Only you!” he repeated. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I said it — they are my own words; just as they came into my head. Very silly, of course.”
He eyed her with dignified wonder.
“Silly!” he echoed. “I should think so, indeed. Nothing could be sillier. They remind me of the style which the newspaper critics condemn as ‘forcible feeble.’”
He smiled, and stroked his black moustache. All at once she looked up at him with an expression of pathetic pleading in her young face.
“Harold,” she said, in a low uncertain voice, “are you sure — I mean — do you really love me?”
At this he felt seriously vexed; she was going to be hysterical or something, he was sure — women were all alike.
“My dear Rose,” he replied, with laborious politeness, “I think if you will take into consideration the fact that I have married you, you will scarcely need to ask such a very foolish question. If I had not loved you I should not have made you my wife. That you are my wife ought to be sufficient for you — the deepest feelings, as you know, have the fewest words. I hope,” here his voice became distinctly aggrieved in tone, “I hope you are not going to cry. Nothing is more childish; but perhaps you are over-tired, and had better go indoors. Pray remember that we are living more or less under public inspection, and that an hotel is not the place to make a ‘scene’ in.”
She raised her eyes to his. They were dry and bright and cold.
“Do not be afraid,” she said. “I am not crying, and I shall make no scene.”
And, turning from him, she entered the hotel in silence. He did not follow her, but remained sauntering up and down on the turf outside, smoking a cigar.
The next morning Mr. Francis Fane was out in the woods with his easel and sketching-block, bent on finishing a rather powerful study of a tall pine-tree split through by lightning. He had been hard at work for more than an hour before he became aware that there was a small white bundle lying, apparently thrown, on the moss at some little distance off. He could not make it out very distinctly, for the shadows of the pines were so long and wide, and presently, moved by curiosity, he got up and went to see what it was. As he approached, it resolved itself into a figure — a slight little figure clad in white with a blue ribbon round its waist — and stopping abruptly in his advance, he caught the smothered sound of low sobbing.
“By Jove!” he muttered—” Mrs. Allingham!”
Indescribably pained and uncomfortable at this discovery, he was about to step noiselessly back to his easel without uttering a word, when the girl suddenly raised her head, and perceiving him, started up, nervously trying to control herself.
“I — I beg your pardon!” he stammered. “I — I came out here to make a sketch—”
“Not of me, I hope!” she said, with a little tremulous smile; then
without the least pretence or affectation, she dried her eyes with a tiny lace handkerchief and began to laugh, though a trifle forcedly.
“I came out here, not to sketch, but to cry,” she confessed naively. “You know it’s very nice to have a little weep all to oneself sometimes.”
“Is it?” and he reddened foolishly. “I should have thought—” But he could not devise any fitting end to the sentence; and she looked at him with a touch of wistfulness in her dewy eyes.
“May I see your sketch?” she said, picking up a large pine-cone from the ground and studying its pretty polished divisions with intense interest. “I have often noticed you wandering about with your easel and paint-box. You are Mr. Francis Fane, are you not? and you are staying at the same hotel as we are?”
To all this he assented, walking beside her dreamily, and always thinking what a child she looked. As they drew near the spot where he had left his easel, he woke up to consciousness of prosy etiquette, and endeavoured to realise that his companion was not a woodland sylph as she seemed, but a “married lady” of position.
“I’m afraid my poor sketch is hardly worth your looking at, Mrs. Allingham,” he began formally. She interrupted him by a little gesture.
“Oh, you know I am Mrs. Allingham?” she queried, smiling.
“Of course I do!” he answered, somewhat amused and surprised at her tone. “Everybody at the ‘Pension Gutsch’ knows you by sight.”
She mused a little, still intent on the mathematical partitions of the pine-cone she held. Suddenly she looked up.
“And what do they say of me?” she asked.
Fane was quite taken aback by the directness of the question. Meeting her eyes, however, and noting the inquiring candour and sweet innocence of their expression, he answered out and manfully —
“They say you are very young, and very pretty. You could hardly expect them to say or to think anything else, could you?”
She smiled and blushed.
“Oh, I don’t know!” she said. “You see, I thought they might think me — well — funny!”
He stared.
“Funny?”
“Yes. Because it does seem funny, doesn’t it, for such a little thing as I am to be a married woman? Some people must think it curious. Fancy — a married woman! Oh, I am quite old enough — I am twenty — but I don’t seem to be tall enough or big enough!” and she spread out her pretty hands expressively and with a charming smile. “I don’t know quite where I got all my silly ideas from, but when I was at school I used to think a married woman meant somebody fat and important-looking, who always wore a cap at breakfast, and a bow of velvet on the exact top of her head by way of full dress at dinner. I did, really!” and her eyes sparkled at the sound of Fane’s joyous laughter. “Of course, I know better now, but then —— —” here she broke off as she saw the easel just in front of her with the unfinished sketch upon it. She looked at it long and earnestly, and Fane watched her, feeling somewhat curious to know what sort of criticism this baby-faced creature would pass upon it. She studied it from every point with close attention, and her eyes grew soft and serious.
“It is very human!” she said, at last. “The poor split tree tells its own history. You can see it did not know anything — it grew up quite happily, always looking at the sky and believing that no harm could befall it — till all at once the lightning struck it to the heart and killed it. And in this picture of yours it seems to ask was it my fault that I fell? Of course, you mean it as an emblem of some noble ruined life, do you not?”
He heard her with a certain wonder and reverence — her voice was so very sweet and grave.
“I cannot say I ever thought of it in the way you see it,” he answered, “but I am very glad — and proud, that you find so much poetry in my poor effort.”
“Poetry? — oh, no. I am not at all poetical!” she said quickly, and almost shamefacedly. “I used to be rather fond of reading Keats and Byron, but I never do that now — my husband does not like it—”
“Indeed!” murmured Fane vaguely, wishing he could make a picture of her as she stood before him in her little white gown, with a picturesque, broad-brimmed hat resting on the sunny curls of her abundant hair.
“No,” she went on, confidingly, “he thinks it such nonsense. You see, he is a very clever man, and very scientific. He reads all the heavy magazines, and thinks it is very silly to waste time on studying verse, when one can have so much prose.”
“Yes, there certainly is a good deal of prose about,” said Fane.
At that moment a shadow crossed the sunlight in which they stood, and Mr. Allingham suddenly made his appearance.
“Why, Harold!” exclaimed his wife, springing towards him, “I thought you had gone into the town!”
“I have been into the town,” he replied frigidly, “but I returned a few minutes ago. Perhaps you are not aware it is nearly our lunch hour?” Then, with a stand-offish yet would-be patronising air, addressing himself to Fane, “You are an artist, sir?”
“I do a little in that way,” replied the young man, modestly. “Mrs. Allingham happened to pass by while I was at work, and she has been kind enough to look at my sketch.”
“Ah — yes — er — yes! Very good indeed!” murmured Mr. Allingham, scarcely glancing at the picture as he spoke. “Rose, it is time we went in. You are staying at our hotel are you not, Mr. — er — Mr. —— — ?”
“Fane,” said that gentleman mildly.
“Fane, oh! ah — yes. I think I have heard of you in London. You have exhibited, have you not?”
“Frequently.”
“Oh, yes, er — I remember! Charmed — charmed to meet you! Are you coming our way now?”
“No!” said Fane, rather brusquely, “I must finish my work.”
And he raised his hat courteously as husband and wife in their turn saluted him and walked away together. He looked after them for some minutes, noting with an artist’s eye the swaying youthful grace of the woman’s dainty figure and the stiff uncompromising squareness of the man’s.
“Ill-matched in every way,” he said to himself. “She is too young; and he is too — conceited.”
That same evening he was somewhat surprised when Mr. Allingham came up to him with almost an air of cordiality, and invited him to take coffee, and a smoke afterwards, in that private part of the “Gutsch” verandah which had been specially partitioned off for the sole use and benefit of the newly-wedded pair. He went, and was shyly welcomed by Mrs. Allingham, who looked more like a small lost angel than ever, attired in a loose tea-gown of silky white, adorned with old lace, and sleeves of delicate chiffon. She sat a little apart, looking out through the creepers which festooned the verandah at the full moon, sailing slowly through white clouds over the heights of Sonnenberg.
“Mrs. Allingham does not object to ‘smoke’?” said Fane courteously, before lighting his cigar. She turned her head, surprised; her husband laughed.
“Well, I never asked her,” he said. “Rose, do you hear? Do you object to smoke?”
“Object? I? Oh, no,” she faltered. “Not at all!”
Her husband laughed again and passed the liqueurs to his guest, who, however, helped himself very sparingly. Allingham drank off some cognac, and began to talk, and presently brought round the conversation to the subject of his place in Norfolk — Dunscombe Hall.
“I have been looking,” he said, with a pompous air, “for a competent person to make sketches of the place. Now, I believe, if I am not mistaken, that you are on the staff of one of the pictorials?”
Fane admitted the fact.
“Then you would be the very man for me. I should not at all mind giving you the job if you would care to undertake it.”
It was on the tip of Fane’s tongue to say that he would see him — first, for the man’s tone was so bumptious and patronizing as to be distinctly offensive. But, glancing at the delicate profile of the girl who leaned out among the clambering vines, looking at the solemn be
auty of the night, he restrained himself by an effort.
“If my engagements will allow me to accept any extra work I shall not object,” he answered, stiffly, “but I should have to communicate with my editor first.”
“Oh, certainly, certainly,” said Mr. Allingham complacently. “Only if you do it at all you must do it in October. If you can’t arrange that I must get somebody else. Dunscombe Hall is a very fine subject for an artist’s pencil. It used to be a monastery, and there are still some ruins of the old cloisters in the grounds. And there is a showy bit of sketching always at hand in the Haunted Mere.”
“Is it haunted?”
“Well, they say so,” replied Allingham, lighting his cigar. “I’ve never seen the ghost myself, but I am told that whenever there is to be a death in the family a lady appears in a boat on the water and beckons the departing spirit. All nonsense, of course. But I rather like a family ghost.”
“And you?” asked Fane of Mrs. Allingham, seeing that she had turned towards them and was listening attentively.
“I cannot quite tell whether I do or not,” she said slowly, and he fancied he saw her tremble. “I have never been in a haunted house to my knowledge, and, of course, it will be a new experience.” She forced a little smile. “I did not know Dunscombe Hall had a ghost.”
“Well, you know now,” said her husband cheerfully. “But it is a ghost that never comes indoors. And the Haunted Mere is a mile off from the house, so no one is likely to make its acquaintance. You will let me know in good time, Mr. Fane, as to whether you can undertake my commission or not?”
“Certainly.”
The conversation then changed to other matters, and when they parted for the night Fane thought Mrs. Allingham looked very tired and sad. A great pity filled his heart for the winsome little creature who seemed made for special tenderness and care, and who, despite the fact of her married dignity, had such an air of pathetic loneliness about her.
“Poor little woman!” he murmured, as he strolled out by himself in the warm moonlight, before going to bed. “She has got a perfectly irreproachable, commonplace prig for a husband — he will never do her any harm openly — never grudge her anything — never scandalise her in the least — and yet—”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 902
