Still She Wished for Company

by Margaret Irwin

  “Thank God,” said Mr. Daintree’s voice.

  “What has happened?” she contrived to ask.

  “You had fainted.”

  “Fainted? I do not remember that. I have been asleep for a long time.” She added, drowsily, “Over a hundred years.”

  “I was passing the lodge gates and saw you at the side of the drive. You lay so still, I could not wake you at first. You must have fainted. Juliana, what has happened? For God’s sake tell me what has happened.”

  There was an agony of distress and anxiety in his voice. She tried to raise herself, but with a firm though gentle movement he pressed down her shoulder on to his knee again. Well, perhaps she was not yet quite strong enough, and it was certainly very comfortable. She wondered what had happened.

  “You were riding by, on the high road?” she began, and then something swam back into her brain. “The high road? What was it like? Was it different? Was it black and shining and a little curved?”

  “No, it was not different. What is it, child?”

  “I want to see it. I want to see the drive. Is it all precisely the same?”

  She felt herself shaking. His arm came round her shoulders, lifting her a little higher, and his voice sounded very calm and reassuring.

  “It is all precisely the same. And now will you not tell me what it is all about?”

  But that was just what she could not do. Besides, for some reason or other, in this position she found it very difficult to remember. That was odd, for as soon as she was with Lucian she knew she would remember it all clearly and want to tell him.

  “Can you not tell me? Why can you not?” he was urging.

  “I think,” she said, pursuing her own thoughts, “it is because you are not Lucian.”

  He started back from her.

  “Ah, it is he, then——” he began in a voice that was unrecognizable. He stopped quickly, however, and was very still.

  Juliana felt miserable and uncomfortable. She again tried to raise herself, and this time he did not prevent her. She sat up, looked round, and at the sight of her bewildered face his own softened a little.

  “I am sorry if I startled you,” he said. “I think you know that Lord Chidleigh and I are not friends.”

  “I regret it,” said Juliana.

  Mr. Daintree did not look as though he regretted it. He had sucked in his under lip in a way she had not seen him do before, so that his mouth made a thin, tight line across his face. His eyes were half shut and gave a quick, she thought an angry, glance at her as she spoke. She did not think just now that he had a nice way of looking at one. But the next moment he stretched out his hand and said, “I beg you, do not let me offend you. Tell me, you love your brother Lucian very much, do you not? You would do anything that he wishes?”

  “It is my duty to obey his wishes.”

  “In some things, not in all. You also owe obedience to a higher authority.”

  “Do you mean to my mamma or to the Almighty?”

  “I mean to God,” he said simply, which seemed to dispose of her reference to the Almighty as prim and unreal. “Are you sure that Lord Chidleigh always wishes you to do what is right?”

  Was he thinking of the marriage to Monsieur le Due? she wondered. Monsieur le Due—what a long time ago—whose face was so round and red—no, of course, she meant so white. And long, as long as an egg. Or was he thinking—but how could he know—of the experiments? Were they not right? She had wondered; they were so very strange. And why did she now continue to see such unaccountable things?

  What had those experiments in the library to do with them, those bewildering, enthralling experiments? She remembered Lucian’s strange excitement when she had told him of her first glimpse, from the windows of her closet, of the girl in brown. She could glow now herself at the thought of his triumph. He had not seen her, yet he knew what she looked like, and he seemed to claim a share in that vision, he had spoken of “preparations “—later, he had spoken of his “industry” and her “parts.” What did it, what could it all mean?

  She felt the blood flow to her face and leave it in the quick alternations of excitement and fear. She had gone far away indeed from Mr. Daintree, and now as she raised her eyes she found that his were fixed upon her with disconcerting intensity. They seemed to see right through her. What did they see to make him look so grave and so severe; and so anxious, so terribly anxious? She did not want him to look at her like that. It made her feel ashamed, she did not know why, and frightened, she did not know of what. It was not of Mr. Daintree. Could it be of Lucian?

  “For God’s sake, speak!” he broke out suddenly. “What is it you think of as you sit there, what is it you are afraid of? What is this power he has over you? How can he call to you from the terrace and you know it far down in the park? Your face—yes, by Heaven, it was that!—how was it your face grew like his for a moment—-just now—but just now——”

  He had sprung to his feet and catching her by the arms he dragged her up till she was standing facing him, white and amazed at this new creature that confronted her. He stood there, holding her by the shoulders, that tight line across his face again that changed it from its pleasantly familiar aspect to something alien and terrible. He was speaking agitated, incoherent words. He spoke like a man in mortal fear, and again and again he asked her, “What is it you are afraid of?”

  Suddenly he caught her to him and kissed her. She tried to break from him, but he held her and was speaking again, though very differently now, in a low voice that she recognized, though immeasurably more tender than she had ever heard it. “Juliana, I cannot let you go. My love, I want to keep you always. I would keep you safe. Juliana, sweetest, dearest, forget that I frightened you, that I asked you more than you can answer. Forget it all—yes, all—all that you fear, all that you hate, yet love. Come with me. Come now—on my horse. I will take you to Crox Hall and we will start at once for Scotland. It is the only possible way. Juliana, you know I would never urge such a course on you if—if it were not—oh, God, do not cry like that!”

  But Juliana could not at once stop crying. She was tired, so tired, she would like to sleep for over a hundred years—no, not for that, not for a hundred years. And here was Mr. Daintree of all people urging an elopement on her! Mr. Daintree, so grave, so quiet, so elderly, a widower whom she had known all her life. She tried hard to think of him as she had known him all her life. But it was impossible since he had kissed her. How he had kissed her! She would like to do what he told her and not have to decide nor think about anything. But an elopement! Even mamma, who favoured the match, would be scandalized. And Lucian—she shivered.

  “You are my dear sweet pretty little sister,’* hummed in her head. But not in the tender, mockingly caressing tones in which Lucian had said it. No, it was said slowly, mockingly caressing still, but cruelly so.

  “I cannot come with you,” she said, and sighed. She had disengaged herself from his arms. She stood leaning against the trunk of a tree, her face averted. As soon as she had spoken she forgot what she had said. An extreme lassitude and vacancy of mind had come over her; it was an effort to remember what they were talking about.

  “You did not say that as though you wished it,” said Mr. Daintree.

  “I do wish it. I wish to be left in peace. I will do nothing to cause a breach between my brother and myself. I intend to follow his wishes and abide by his choice. It is not only my duty but my desire. If you have any consideration or regard for me, sir, you will best show it by leaving me.”

  Juliana was herself amazed at the cold and fixed determination of her tones. She did not think she had felt like that a minute or so ago. But now she sounded as though she actually disliked Mr. Daintree. Well, so no doubt she did, since he persisted in troubling her. He had no right to try and persuade her to defy Lucian’s wishes. It was odd how vividly Lucian’s face had come before her mind just before she spoke. She had actually to rub her eyes to make sure that he was not there in front of her.
He had looked straight into her eyes, and his lips were parted as though to speak. Almost she had expected to hear him speak instead of herself.

  She saw Mr. Daintree’s face flush dark red; he looked at her for one instant, then turned and strode away very fast. She felt no compunction, though there had been pain and bewilderment behind the anger in his eyes.

  It had been a dreadful anger. Even her father, whose rages had been so terrible, had never looked so. Yet she had felt no fear when he looked at her. She could feel nothing. She wandered away through the trees in the direction of the house, and entered the gardens. She noticed that there was no flowerbed under the great cedar on the lawn. The trees, the flowers, the statues, all were the same as she had always known them. She ought to feel glad, though she could not remember why, but she could feel nothing. Nothing but an intense weariness.

  She saw someone in a mulberry-coloured coat come down the steps of the terrace towards her. It was Vesey. He called out before he came up to her—“Julie—come, Julie. What’s happened to you? It’s almost dinner time. Lucky you, to be a girl—pretend to feel faint and slip out through the window. They’ve been at it ever since, chatter, chatter, chatter.”

  “Is Lucian there still?” asked Juliana. She knew that she must see Lucian soon, that she had a great deal to tell him, though at the moment she could hardly remember what it was, and had no wish to make the effort.

  “Lucian? Yes, of course. You’re always with Lucian now. There was a time——”

  He finished by mumbling something under his breath that she could not catch.

  “Vesey?” She touched his sleeve anxiously. He looked hard in front of him and spoke the thought that had been too absurd and childish to say before.

  “Oh, well, I used to be your favourite brother once. You liked me a deal better than George, didn’t you?”

  “And I do now, dear Vesey.”

  “Not better than Lucian, though, who’s turned up from God knows where after not being seen for years, and upsets all our plans and wants to marry you to a filthy toad of a Frenchman— not better, not as much as Lucian, hey?”

  She had always known Vesey’s was a jealous nature. But that he could be jealous of her! When she had been in the nursery George used to try and bully her and Vesey would prevent him. She had adored the big handsome brother who was kind to her. Also, once, he had floated paper boats with her on the stream. Squatting under the little bridge, they had baptized them by the names of kings and queens and started them on their voyage “to the river and then to the sea.” He had made her promise that she would never tell anyone of this, for he was ashamed of playing with a sister so much his junior.

  And for years she had never thought of all this. It might have been because for years Vesey had never thought of her, but that did not occur to her. She tucked her hand under his arm and said, “Dear Vesey.”

  She could not think of anything more to say. She was remembering the boats under the bridge and how the one she had called “King Edward VI” had been wrecked by a branch in the stream. But Vesey found it quite enough and told her she was a good girl. He was surprised to discover how fond he was of her, and reflected what an excellent husband and parent he would make.

  They were all in the drawing-room as she had left them. In answer to Lady Chidleigh’s enquiries, she said she had felt faint and gone out to take the air. She looked at the clock, at its fat gold cupids, and at all the things on the mantelpiece. She could not remember what she was looking for, but she knew that she was glad it was not there.

  Monsieur le Due de Saint Aumerle sat in the high-backed armchair and talked and talked. She looked at his face and was glad to see that it was long and white, like an egg. Of course it was so. Why should it be different? And of course it was a cane that he carried, a long ebony cane with the knob shaped like a negress’ head.

  “Conversation?” Monsieur le Due was saying, “but, my dear Madam, there is no conversation nowadays. Not even in France. I assure you, it is a lost art.”

  She looked from him to Lucian who had started as their eyes first met, and was now looking intently at her. Suddenly she remembered all that had happened, all that she had to tell him. The inert weight that had hung on her thoughts fell from her. She felt alert, vigorous and eager, tingling with excitement at the thought of sharing with Lucian the extraordinary events of the last—two hours, was it? There was no fear now, nor dismay, but triumph such as Lucian himself had shown when she had first told him of her adventures. For, with Lucian’s eyes upon her, she felt there was little she had to tell. He knew. That was the most amazing adventure of all, that they should share this secret with no word passed between them. How could she ever for one moment have wished to marry Mr. Daintree? To be shut up in his great country house where nothing would ever happen any more than it had ever happened in this house—until Lucian came.

  The long hours at her flower-paintings, at her bead embroidery, at her journal (more occupied in wondering what to write than in writing)—how could she have endured them all this time and never comprehended their unutterable ennui? Surely bewilderment, even terror, was better than that vacuity. Besides, she was not frightened when Lucian was there, Lucian who shared this secret with no word passed between them, a secret from all the stiff-figures who sat round them and talked and talked. She had much ado to keep herself from laughing aloud with this strange new elation, as she looked at Monsieur le Due in the chair where the creature called Mr. Harris had sat.

  Chapter XVI

  The Chidleighs’ distinguished guest spent the next day in bed. He was not fatigued by the journey, so his valet assured Lady Chidleigh; it was merely in order to pass the time. No, he required neither books nor company, he was agreeably occupied with his embroidery.

  “My master is passionately attached to his embroidery frame,” said Chrysole, regarding Lady Chidleigh with his melancholy, anxious eyes.

  Sophia, who had ridden over in the hope of seeing the rare foreigner, broke into an ill-suppressed titter.

  “Why, what in the world can the man be like?” she demanded in an undertone of Juliana.

  “Oh!” She drew a deep breath of relief as Lady Chidleigh left the room to interview the cook on the subject of Monsieur le Due’s meals. “Vesey says he is the strangest little creature, and not like a man at all. Is it true that he is but five feet high and looks at Lucian as though he is afraid of him?”

  “It is not in the least true,” said Juliana, with some annoyance. “Because Vesey is over six feet himself, he thinks that everybody beneath that height is a dwarf. And as for looking at Lucian as though he were afraid of him, I have never observed him look at anyone at all, and certainly not with any expression.”

  “What, not even at you, my love?”

  “No, indeed, not at me. I know because——”

  “Because? Because?”

  “Because I looked at him, more than mamma would have approved.”

  There was a rush of laughter from them both.

  “And tell me, my dear,” urged the eager Sophia, “do you like him, can you fancy him as a lover? Oh, yes, I know that he has come here to court you. Vesey may look as glum and reserved as he likes, but I know, I know. Poor Mr. Daintree! A Duchess of France! It sounds mighty fine, does it not?”

  “Sophy, how you rattle! Tell me, is there any more talk of the water party?”

  Sophia’s attention was easily diverted. There had been talk of the water party for over three months, and it was always certain there would be more talk of the water party. It was to be given by one Mr. Bolsover who was immensely rich—he had had an uncle in the Indies, and was as yellow as if he had always lived in them himself. ’Twas true he had visited them, and— so Sophia informed her cousin on this occasion—some said he had a whole harem of Indian wives there, and all as yellow as a guinea. Was it possible, asked Juliana, that if you have several wives all like each other, you would grow like them? Sophia thought not. Nor was she certain about the Indian w
ives or, at any rate, the exact number. In any case, Mr. Bolsover gave the most delightful parties, and all the young people in the countryside would be going to this one.

  They would progress down the river in a monstrous barge and stop at Steynes and at Lord Haversham’s place, and have a cold collation there in the evening—yes, it was to be a “fete champêtre,” sitting about on the lawns like shepherds and shepherdesses, and they would walk about the beautiful grounds and feed Lord Haversham’s famous gazelles, and they would have fiddlers and dance till quite late, probably till midnight. Sophia thought it might be one o’clock before they came home. She had bought the sweetest puce-coloured ribbons—a trifle sober, but then her gown was so brilliant they would be the very thing for it. Did not Juliana think so? Or did she favour the straw-colour? And what would her darling Juliana wear for the occasion? Juliana was prompt with her decision.

  “Dear Fanny has sent me a white China silk from the town. It is embroidered all over with little silver flowers and Lucian says I must wear nothing with it but a white hat à la bergère.”

  “Lucian? Does he take an interest in your clothes?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed he does, and his taste is always correct.”

  They chattered on in the deep window seat where the sun shone in a bright chequer work through the branches of the great elm outside. Above them, in the chief guest chamber, the sunshine penetrated only in thin golden stripes between the brocade window curtains.

  In the bed, hung with crimson, as large as a small room and towering almost to the ceiling, sat a slight, stooping figure in a turban and a blue night-rail, drawing fine threads of gleaming coloured silk through an embroidery frame. A couple of lap-dogs lay curled on the bed; about the room Chrysole, the valet, moved noiselessly, anxiously. In the room only one thing could be heard—a very low, tuneless humming like the humming of a gnat. It was Monsieur le Due singing to himself as he worked.