Still She Wished for Company

by Margaret Irwin

  Juliana had sat down again on her seat some time ago. Daintree was standing beside it, looking down on her, but she kept her head downcast and the broad-brimmed hat did not permit him a view of her face.

  A host of bewildered feelings struggled together in her mind, and amongst them was a slight sense of indignation. So Mr. Daintree was not—had never been—the inconsolable widower she had always supposed him. It made him much more interesting; she felt she had been to some extent cheated.

  Sometimes he had looked at her in a way that had struck her at the time—he had very steady grey eyes, though not as bright as Lucian’s—and she had thought he was thinking of the beautiful wife who had died so young, long ago. And he was not thinking of her at all, at least not like that. She wished she had known that before, though, of course, it did not make any difference. She was very, very sorry he had been unhappy. His wife must have been odious to make him unhappy when he was so kind. But it was dreadful that he should want to marry her so much when it was impossible.

  “I am very sorry,” she said at last, “but you know it is impossible.”

  He made a sharp movement which suddenly recalled to her what his last words had been and how she had seemed to answer them.

  “No, no,” she said, “I did not mean that. Indeed, I think you could make me or any woman happy. Pray do not think me so insensible to the honour—oh, dear!” she broke off suddenly, for she felt that everything she was saying was wrong. But then it was wrong that she should have to say it. Why should she have to answer his proposal herself? It was unheard of.

  “I think my brother gave you his answer,” she said. “That is why I said the marriage was impossible.”

  “To your brother and Lady Chidleigh,” he replied, “my requests and my offers were different from what I have just made to you. Lady Chidleigh approves the match, but I am glad she has not spoken of this to you. It was my urgent request to her that she should not, especially when I found that Lord Chidleigh opposed it. But your wishes——”

  “But my brother has told you of them,” she said as he paused.

  He bent low over her and, to see her face, deliberately pushed back the broad-brimmed hat.

  “And you have nothing further to tell me?”

  Oh, but this was monstrous! Whatever she said she would hurt him, alienate him, and she had known him all her life. What an intolerable, painful situation! It was most unfair, too, to put it on her when the matter should, of course, have nothing to do with her, at least comparatively little. Certainly, nothing to do with her decision. She was glad that it had not, for she had never felt less capable of deciding anything. But Lucian had decided and that was enough, should have been enough, at least.

  If only Mr. Daintree had not such very steady eyes. They would not waver nor look away from hers. He had really behaved in an excessively odd manner—not to take Lucian’s answer, and to come into the Park on purpose to speak to her, and alone like this. She ought to be very chilling and indignant, why could she not think of something mamma might say? But she found to her consternation that her hands were trembling and she had to bite her lip to keep it from doing so too.

  A large firm hand came down on the top of hers. What, oh, what was going to happen? Suddenly she felt the air ringing with the sound of her name, not loud, but low and vibrating, and it was not Mr. Daintree who had called, but Lucian. She became intent, rigid.

  “Where is he?” she half whispered.

  Daintree looked utterly bewildered.

  “My brother was calling me. Did you not hear him?”

  “No, I did not. He could not have called. It has been completely silent.”

  “But I know he called me,” said Juliana. “He is waiting for me. On the terrace.”

  “If he were on the terrace, you could not possibly have heard him from here.”

  This should have been conclusive. But Juliana sprang up.

  “I must go. He wants me—now. You may not have heard him but I know he called me.”

  Daintree caught at her hand. “What if he did?” he said quickly. “Your brother can wait one moment. Have you forgotten—one moment ago when you were on the seat—what were you going to answer me? You were not going to tell me, were you, that I could never hope to please you?”

  Oh, how could he keep her back when Lucian had called her so urgently! And one moment ago or a hundred years, it was all one.

  “I am very sorry,” she said (she seemed to have been saying that all the time). “My brother gave you my answer as well as his.”

  His face did not change. It did not seem that he now expected another answer. He continued to look at her, but still more gravely, more piercingly she thought, than before. There was an acute anxiety in his gaze, and she felt that it was, for some obscure reason, on her account. She was embarrassed, but she did not try to withdraw her hand. She even held it up a little, for him to salute at parting. He kissed it slowly, then raised the long ruffle that fell from her elbow and kissed that also.

  “I would give my life to serve you,” he said.

  The words were a courtesy, almost a formula. But to Juliana they seemed to touch a terrible significance.

  Chapter XI

  Lucian was on the terrace. As she came up the steps, Juliana saw him to her right, the sunshine gleaming on the pale grey satin of his coat. He was sitting on the very low red wall that ran along the second terrace, and as he sat there, hunched forward a little, the blue lupins on either side of him nearly reached his shoulders. His head was bent in her direction, his lips were pursed as though he were whistling, his hair was already powdered for the day, and she noticed as she had so often done, how much darker and sallower it made his complexion appear. She had always thought that only fresh-coloured men, like her other brothers or Mr. Daintree, should wear their hair powdered.

  And yet how graceful he was even in that careless position, and how exquisite were the lace ruffles at his wrists! She admired the crescent-shaped patch on his cheek that accentuated in mocking mimicry the upcurled corners of his mouth. Nobody she had seen dressed as well as Lucian nor had such an air, not merely when he chose, like George or Vesey, but always, however haphazard or careless or even absurd he permitted himself to be. As for Mr. Daintree, he had a grave air, and a dignified air, and a polite air, but that was quite a different thing from having an air.

  “That’s my dear charmer,” said Lucian. “I knew I should not be disappointed.”

  “I heard you call,” said Juliana, a trifle proudly, “although I was far away down in the park. But you did not actually call, did you, any more than you are now actually whistling?”

  “Well, no, I did not put my hands to my mouth and shout. But I was here where we walked a hundred years ago, where we shall walk a hundred years hence, and I was wanting you to come to me, here, now, this minute. I certainly called.”

  “And why did you want me, brother?”

  “Why? I hardly know. Perhaps you can tell me. You were gliding away from me when I called, were you not?”

  The quick and burning blush that surged up to her face and neck took her by surprise. She had not expected this, that she should feel guilty when she next met Lucian, guilty of disobedience to his commands, and guilty of something else—was it of disloyalty?

  And had he really guessed what had happened? how could he have guessed?

  He took her hands in one of his and drew her closer to him where he sat on the wall.

  “It occurs to me,” he said very lightly, very gently, “that you have a good deal by now to tell me.”

  “Oh!”—it came out in a rush and all sense of guilt to Lucian for the moment dispersed—” oh, I have been so odious. I have hurt him and I am sure he must think me a toad—so prim and mincing and pert and, and— missish!”

  She ended by dropping her head on to his embroidered waistcoat, and the long-suffering hat, its ribbons finally unfastened, fell off altogether. Lucian put his arm round her in the kindest, most brotherly and p
rotecting way. But his face looked over the top of her head with a curious expression, difficult to describe. It was amazed at first, but that passed quickly. It was not angry, but neither was it kind, brotherly and protecting. He did not speak for a minute and then he whistled “actually.”

  “So you have been giving Daintree a stolen meeting down in the park!”

  Juliana raised her head quickly. “Why, you knew—did you not?”

  “How should I know? Do you take me for a wizard?” He flung back his head and laughed.

  Juliana grew pale.

  “I thought—you said you called because you felt I was gliding away from you—and you said I had a good deal by now to tell you.”

  “Any fool could have said that who had seen your face then,” said Lucian. “You should not blush so easily, my dear, if you intend to carry on many secret interviews. As to my reasons for calling you, I was here on the terrace, where, the other night, I flatter myself, we both felt a peculiar sympathy. I thought of you—I found you were not there—I cannot explain it more than that. I suppose I had a fear, an old-womanish fancy. It seems it was well justified. For the rest, it is as easy to draw secrets from you as favours from an elderly beauty. I cannot congratulate you on your diplomacy, my pretty one, nor myself on my fraternal care. It seems I should keep better watch.”

  He began to sing very low a verse of Lord Rochester’s—

  “My dear Mistress has a Heart,

  Soft as those Kind Looks she gave me.”

  But there was no mistaking his sincerity. He had spoken with a bitterness which completely overshadowed the light and easy measure of his tones. Juliana looked at him in wonder.

  This was a new Lucian, a Lucian who could feel hurt and angry and even afraid. Afraid of what?—of her disobeying, forsaking, perhaps deceiving him? Oh, he could not!

  “Lucian, Lucian!” she cried in an agony—” It was not a stolen interview—how could you think I would think of such a thing?”

  “Think of it, sister? Lud, no, ’twere impossible!

  ’ But her Constancy’s so weak,

  She’s so wild and apt to wander,

  That my jealous Heart would break,

  Should we live one day asunder.’”

  She clasped her hands across his arm. “Brother, I beg you to listen. I have no secrets from you—I never wish to have. He came on me as I sat there, drawing, in the park—I was surprised——”

  “Oh, were you much surprised?” he said under his breath, but she went on without appearing to mark him :

  “He wished to hear my answer from myself. And I gave it to him—indeed, brother, I did—as firmly as you yourself could have wished.”

  “And since then,” said Lucian, with his head slightly bent to one side, “you have much regretted your firmness, your prim, mincing, pert, missish firmness.”

  It was too much. Two large tears glistened on her eyelashes, welled slowly over and rolled down her cheeks.

  “You are my dear sweet pretty little sister,” he exclaimed, and caught her to him and spoke all in a rush, only pausing occasionally (generally in the very middle of a word) to kiss her, each time in a different part of her face. “You are not to call yourself ugly names. I won’t have it, even from you. How pretty you are when you cry! No other woman can do it as well. No, no, I didn’t mean you did it on purpose. I am only your great, rough, awkward brother and you must put up with my teasing. And do you think I’d let a great rough awkward lout of a country squire, a widower, a grandfather, or if he isn’t one, he ought to be, carry off my dear sweet pretty little sister and shut her up in his great country house where she’d never go to the town and have balls and parties and see the gay world, when I have a beautiful French duke all in readiness for her as a surprise that not even mamma knows anything about—an accomplished courtier, a favourite with the King— no, with the French king, simpleton—can you imagine I would mean our heavy Hanoverian?—who owns châteaux out of fairyland and lakes and great forests where he hunts the wild boar with cavalcades of gallant gentlemen, a prince so absolute that in his own country the law permits him to disembowel any of his peasants if, on his return from the chase, he should wish to warm his feet by placing them in the belly of a freshly killed man. Juliana, what great round eyes you have! Have you never read in your French history of the ‘droits des Seigneurs’? No, of course they don’t carry them out. No, never; and would you like to look at his portrait?”

  He drew out a snuffbox of blue Sèvres enamel and gold and opened it. Juliana, leaning against his shoulder, looked, and saw inside the lid a miniature of a young man’s face. His powdered hair curled back from a high, white forehead, his eyelids, dropping over clear blue eyes, showed delicate veins on the white skin, a veritable triumph of the miniaturist’s art, as was the painting of his lace cravat. His high-bridged nose was aquiline, haughty, contradicting the expression of his indolent eyes. The chin was long and pointed, the mouth too perfect for a man—but then miniatures are apt to err on the side of perfection. His complexion also erred in this respect, but it was of the pale and not the wild-rose variety of miniature complexions.

  “Do you like him?” asked Lucian.

  “He is beautiful,” breathed Juliana. “Brother—do you— mean it?”

  “We are great friends,” said Lucian, as though he had not heard her. “It chanced that I was able to render him a service when he was in some danger, and he wished to exchange snuffboxes in recognition of it and of our friendship.”

  “And did yours have your portrait inside, too?”

  “No, it had a very pretty picture of Antiope surprised by Jupiter.”

  “Oh, and was she much surprised?” murmured Juliana, repeating his former tone.

  “You rogue!”

  They laughed together. She was deliciously happy, not so much because of the French duke whose name she had forgotten to ask, as because Lucian had never been quite so charmingly easy and friendly with her.

  “There is mamma come out on to the lawn,” said Lucian. “Shall we show the portrait to her?”

  “Oh, no—not now.” She had flushed deeply. “You said it was a secret even mamma did not know.’*

  “So we’ll keep it a secret at present just for our two selves, shall we?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  Mamma had begun to approach them, her wine-coloured, hooped skirts filling the path below them like a vast inverted tulip. Juliana sighed.

  “And I had so much to tell you.”

  For she was wishing now to tell him of that day when she had seen the strangers in the courtyard. Lucian would tell her if it could really have happened so.

  “Come to the library to-night after you have gone to bed,” said Lucian. “Be there at quarter to twelve, and be punctual.”

  “But why? I can tell you at any time.”

  “It is not for that, child. I had meant to speak of it before —it was, at first, why I wished to see you. There is no time to tell you now. But be there.”

  “Lucian—” (mamma was advancing up the steps at the end of their terrace, her skirts heaved and billowed in the rhythm of her stately progress)—” it is not for further experiments?”

  “Certainly. The mornings are liable to be interrupted— besides, it is not such a good time.”

  “But why do you want me?”

  “You, my angel? You are a most important part in them. Have you not always wanted to be there?”

  “Yes, but——” She had felt a sudden and unaccountable aversion from the experiments. Was it because Lucian had said she was an important part in them, and she had never before known this? But very likely he was only laughing at her when he said that. She could not think why Mr. Daintree’s eyes came before her at that moment, his look when he had kissed her hand and said he would give his life to serve her.

  “I think I will not come,” she said in a little gasp.

  Mamma was now quite near them.

  “What are you both about?” she inquired benignan
tly.

  “I have been discussing possible matches for my sister, Madam,” said Lucian gaily, as he stepped out into the path to meet her. “She has, I find, a catholic taste.”

  Lady Chidleigh did not approve of this light tone on a subject that had caused her so much displeasure. But she did not address her son.

  “Juliana,” she said, “you are treading on a lupin. And your backbone—pray remember your backbone.”

  Chapter XII

  Juliana sat at the top of the staircase and peered through the banisters down into the hall below. She had gone up to her room more than an hour ago and had dismissed Molly after her hair had been taken down and her stiff dress exchanged for a loose wrap. She had not altered her refusal to go down to the library that night but she thought it would be as well to be ready in case she should alter it.

  Lucian had said nothing more to her about it. He had never reproached her nor even laughed at her for her sudden decision, nor had he urged her to revoke it, though he had plenty of opportunity to do so, for they had ridden some way together that afternoon. He had suggested they should all ride over to the Hilburys for dinner, and Vesey, who knew that his Cousin Sophia was quite as likely to be at the Hilburys as at her own home, was nothing loth. George, too, wished to ask Mr. Hilbury about the new roan he had bought as a brood mare, and Aunt Emily was always glad of “a little excursion.”

  It was on the ride that Juliana, finding herself some way ahead with Lucian, had told him about the extraordinary events of that day on which she had found the papers under the trees in the park. She also told him, as nearly word for word as she could, what she had read on those papers so unfortunately lost.

  He did not seem much disappointed at the loss of the paper— in fact he remarked that it was probably inevitable, though she could not make him say what he meant by this. He made little further comment and was peculiarly thoughtful. She missed the eager interest he had shown before, an interest that had seemed to give him the satisfaction of a personal triumph, and asked if he found the recital tedious. He replied gravely that he could never find tedium in a recital that paid so high a tribute to her parts and to his industry—an answer she found as incomprehensible as the glance that accompanied it.