She shuddered: “Why, the mere bringing of such a suit means her social ruin no matter what verdict is brought in! Her only salvation has been in remaining inconspicuous; and a sane girl would have realised it. But” — and she made a gesture of despair— “you see what she has done. . . . And Phil — you know what she has done to you — what a mad risk she took in going to your rooms that night—”
“Who said she had ever been in my rooms?” he demanded, flushing darkly in his surprise.
“Did you suppose I didn’t know it?” she asked quietly. “Oh, but I did; and it kept me awake nights, worrying. Yet I knew it must have been all right — knowing you as I do. But do you suppose other people would hold you as innocent as I do? Even Eileen — the sweetest, whitest, most loyal little soul in the world — was troubled when Rosamund hinted at some scandal touching you and Alixe. She told me — but she did not tell me what Rosamund had said — the mischief maker!”
His face had become quite colourless; he raised an unsteady hand to his mouth, touching his moustache; and his gray eyes narrowed menacingly.
“Rosamund — spoke of scandal to — Eileen?” he repeated. “Is that possible?”
“How long do you suppose a girl can live and not hear scandal of some sort?” said Nina. “It’s bound to rain some time or other, but I prepared my little duck’s back to shed some things.”
“You say,” insisted Selwyn, “that Rosamund spoke of me — in that way — to Eileen?”
“Yes. It only made the child angry, Phil; so don’t worry.”
“No; I won’t worry. No, I — I won’t. You are quite right, Nina. But the pity of it; that tight, hard-shelled woman of the world — to do such a thing — to a young girl.”
“Rosamund is Rosamund,” said Nina with a shrug; “the antidote to her species is obvious.”
“Right, thank God!” said Selwyn between his teeth; “Mens sana in corpore sano! bless her little heart! I’m glad you told me this, Nina.”
He rose and laughed a little — a curious sort of laugh; and Nina watched him, perplexed.
“Where are you going, Phil?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I — where is Eileen?”
“She’s lying down — a headache; probably too much sun and salt water. Shall I send for her?”
“No; I’ll go up and inquire how she is. Susanne is there, isn’t she?”
And he entered the house and ascended the stairs.
The little Alsatian maid was seated in a corner of the upper hall, sewing; and she informed Selwyn that mademoiselle “had bad in ze h’ead.”
But at the sound of conversation in the corridor Eileen’s gay voice came to them from her room, asking who it was; and she evidently knew, for there was a hint of laughter in her tone.
“It is I. Are you better?” said Selwyn.
“Yes. D-did you wish to see me?”
“I always do.”
“Thank you. . . . I mean, do you wish to see me now? Because I’m very much occupied in trying to go to sleep.”
“Yes, I wish to see you at once.”
“Particularly?”
“Very particularly.”
“Oh, if it’s as serious as that, you alarm me. I’m afraid to come.”
“I’m afraid to have you. But please come.”
He heard her laugh to herself; then her clear, amused voice: “What are you going to say to me if I come out?”
“Something dreadful! Hurry!”
“Oh, if that’s the case I’ll hurry,” she returned, and a moment later the door opened and she emerged in a breezy flutter of silvery ribbons and loosened ruddy hair.
She was dressed in some sort of delicate misty stuff that alternately clung and floated, outlining or clouding her glorious young figure as she moved with leisurely free-limbed grace across the hall to meet him.
The pretty greeting she always reserved for him, even if their separation had been for a few minutes only, she now offered, hand extended; a cool, fragrant hand which lay for a second in his, closed, and withdrew, leaving her eyes very friendly.
“Come out on the west veranda,” she said; “I know what you wish to say to me. Besides, I have something to confide to you, too. And I’m very impatient to do it.”
He followed her to the veranda; she seated herself in the broad swing, and moved so that her invitation to him was unmistakable. Then when he had taken the place beside her she turned toward him very frankly, and he looked up to encounter her beautiful direct gaze.
“What is disturbing our friendship?” she asked. “Do you know? I don’t. I went to my room after luncheon and lay down on my bed and quietly deliberated. And do you know what conclusion I have reached?”
“What?” he asked.
“That there is nothing at all to disturb our friendship. And that what I said to you on the beach was foolish. I don’t know why I said it; I’m not the sort of girl who says such stupid things — though I was apparently, for that one moment. And what I said about Gladys was childish; I am not jealous of her, Captain Selwyn. Don’t think me silly or perverse or sentimental, will you?”
“No, I won’t.”
She smiled at him with a trifle less courage — a trifle more self-consciousness: “And — and as for what I called you—”
“You mean when you called me by my first name, and I teased you?”
“Y-es. I was silly to do it; sillier to be ashamed of doing it. There’s a great deal of the callow schoolgirl in me yet, you see. The wise, amused smile of a man can sometimes stampede my self-possession and leave me blushing like any ninny in dire confusion. . . . It was very, very mean of you — for the blood across your face did shock me. . . . And, by myself, and in my very private thoughts, I do sometimes call you — by your first name. . . . And that explains it. . . . Now, what have you to say to me?”
“I wish to ask you something.”
“With pleasure,” she said; “go ahead.” And she settled back, fearlessly expectant.
“Very well, then,” he said, striving to speak coolly. “It is this: Will you marry me, Eileen?”
She turned perfectly white and stared at him, stunned. And he repeated his question, speaking slowly, but unsteadily.
“N-no,” she said; “I cannot. Why — why, you know that, don’t you?”
“Will you tell me why, Eileen?”
“I — I don’t know why. I think — I suppose that it is because I do not love you — that way.”
“Yes,” he said, “that, of course, is the reason. I wonder — do you suppose that — in time — perhaps — you might care for me — that way?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced up at him fearfully, fascinated, yet repelled. “I don’t know,” she repeated pitifully. “Is it — can’t you help thinking of me in that way? Can’t you be as you were?”
“No, I can no longer help it. I don’t want to help it, Eileen.”
“But — I wish you to,” she said in a low voice. “It is that which is coming between us. Oh, don’t you see it is? Don’t you feel it — feel what it is doing to us? Don’t you understand how it is driving me back into myself? Whom am I to go to if not to you? What am I to do if your affection turns into this — this different attitude toward me? You were so perfectly sweet and reasonable — so good, so patient; and now — and now I am losing confidence in you — in myself — in our friendship. I’m no longer frank with you; I’m afraid at times — afraid and self-conscious — conscious of you, too — afraid of what seemed once the most natural of intimacies. I — I loved you so dearly — so fearlessly—”
Tears blinded her; she bent her head, and they fell on the soft delicate stuff of her gown, flashing downward in the sunlight.
“Dear,” he said gently, “nothing is altered between us. I love you in that way, too.”
“D-do you — really?” she stammered, shrinking away from him.
“Truly. Nothing is altered; nothing of the bond between us is weakened. On the contrary, it is strengthened.
You cannot understand that now. But what you are to believe and always understand is that our friendship must endure. Will you believe it?”
“Y-yes—” She buried her face in her handkerchief and sat very still for a long time. He had risen and walked to the farther end of the veranda; and for a minute he stood there, his narrowed eyes following the sky flight of the white gulls off Wonder Head.
When at length he returned to her she was sitting low in the swing, both arms extended along the back of the seat. Evidently she had been waiting for him; and her face was very grave and sorrowful.
“I want to ask you something,” she said— “merely to prove that you are a little bit illogical. May I?”
He nodded, smiling.
“Could you and I care for each other more than we now do, if we were married?”
“I think so,” he said.
“Why?” she demanded, astonished. Evidently she had expected another answer.
He made no reply; and she lay back among the cushions considering what he had said, the flush of surprise still lingering in her cheeks.
“How can I marry you,” she asked, “when I would — would not care to endure a — a caress from any man — even from you? It — such things — would spoil it all. I don’t love you — that way. . . . Oh! Don’t look at me that way! Have I hurt you? — dear Captain Selwyn? . . . I did not mean to. . . . Oh, what has become of our happiness! What has become of it!” And she turned, full length in the swing, and hid her face in the silken pillows.
For a long while she lay there, the western sun turning her crown of hair to fire above the white nape of her slender neck; and he saw her hands clasping, unclasping, or crushing the tiny handkerchief deep into one palm.
There was a chair near; he drew it toward her, and sat down, steadying the swing with one hand on the chain.
“Dearest,” he said under his breath, “I am very selfish to have done this; but I — I thought — perhaps — you might have cared enough to — to venture—”
“I do care; you are very cruel to me.” The voice was childishly broken and muffled. He looked down at her, slowly realising that it was a child he still was dealing with — a child with a child’s innocence, repelled by the graver phase of love, unresponsive to the deeper emotions, bewildered by the glimpse of the mature rôle his attitude had compelled her to accept. That she already had reached that mile-stone and, for a moment, had turned involuntarily to look back and find her childhood already behind her, frightened her.
Thinking, perhaps, of his own years, and of what lay behind him, he sighed and looked out over the waste of moorland where the Atlantic was battering the sands of Surf Point. Then his patient gaze shifted to the east, and he saw the surface of Sky Pond, blue as the eyes of the girl who lay crouching in the cushioned corner of the swinging seat, small hands clinched over the handkerchief — a limp bit of stuff damp with her tears.
“There is one thing,” he said, “that we mustn’t do — cry about it — must we, Eileen?”
“No-o.”
“Certainly not. Because there is nothing to make either of us unhappy; is there?”
“Oh-h, no.”
“Exactly. So we’re not going to be unhappy; not one bit. First because we love each other, anyway; don’t we?”
“Y-yes.”
“Of course we do. And now, just because I happen to love you in that way and also in a different sort of way, in addition to that way, why, it’s nothing for anybody to cry about it; is it, Eileen?”
“No. . . . No, it is not. . . . But I c-can’t help it.”
“Oh, but you’re going to help it, aren’t you?”
“I — I hope so.”
He was silent; and presently she said: “I — the reason of it — my crying — is b-b-because I don’t wish you to be unhappy.”
“But, dear, dear little girl, I am not!”
“Really?”
“No, indeed! Why should I be? You do love me; don’t you?”
“You know I do.”
“But not in that way.”
“N-no; not in that way. . . . I w-wish I did.”
A thrill passed through him; after a moment he relaxed and leaned forward, his chin resting on his clinched hands: “Then let us go back to the old footing, Eileen.”
“Can we?”
“Yes, we can; and we will — back to the old footing — when nothing of deeper sentiment disturbed us. . . . It was my fault, little girl. Some day you will understand that it was not a wholly selfish fault — because I believed — perhaps only dreamed — that I could make you happier by loving you in — both ways. That is all; it is your happiness — our happiness that we must consider; and if it is to last and endure, we must be very, very careful that nothing really disturbs it again. And that means that the love, which is sometimes called friendship, must be recognised as sufficient. . . . You know how it is; a man who is locked up in Paradise is never satisfied until he can climb the wall and look over! Now I have climbed and looked; and now I climb back into the garden of your dear friendship, very glad to be there again with you — very, very thankful, dear. . . . Will you welcome me back?”
She lay quite still a minute, then sat up straight, stretching out both hands to him, her beautiful, fearless eyes brilliant as rain-washed stars.
“Don’t go away,” she said— “don’t ever go away from our garden again.”
“No, Eileen.”
“Is it a promise . . . Philip?”
Her voice fell exquisitely low.
“Yes, a promise. Do you take me back, Eileen?”
“Yes; I take you. . . . Take me back, too, Philip.” Her hands tightened in his; she looked up at him, faltered, waited; then in a fainter voice: “And — and be of g-good courage. . . . I — I am not very old yet.”
She withdrew her hands and bent her head, sitting there, still as a white-browed novice, listlessly considering the lengthening shadows at her feet. But, as he rose and looked out across the waste with enchanted eyes that saw nothing, his heart suddenly leaped up quivering, as though his very soul had been drenched in immortal sunshine.
An hour later, when Nina discovered them there together, Eileen, curled up among the cushions in the swinging seat, was reading aloud “Evidences of Asiatic Influence on the Symbolism of Ancient Yucatan”; and Selwyn, astride a chair, chin on his folded arms, was listening with evident rapture.
“Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy! — and yours are pale blue, Eileen! — you’re about as self-conscious as Drina — slumping there with your hair tumbling à la Mérode! Oh, it’s very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better. Get up, little blue-stockings and we’ll have our hair done — if you expect to appear at Hitherwood House with me!”
Eileen laughed, calmly smoothing out her skirt over her slim ankles; then she closed the book, sat up, and looked happily at Selwyn.
“Fogy and Bas-bleu,” she repeated. “But it is fascinating, isn’t it? — even if my hair is across my ears and you sit that chair like a polo player! Nina, dearest, what is your mature opinion concerning the tomoya and the Buddhist cross?”
“I know more about a tomboy-a than a tomoya, my saucy friend,” observed Nina, surveying her with disapproval— “and I can be as cross about it as any Buddhist, too. You are, to express it as pleasantly as possible, a sight! Child, what on earth have you been doing? There are two smears on your cheeks!”
“I’ve been crying,” said the girl, with an amused sidelong flutter of her lids toward Selwyn.
“Crying!” repeated Nina incredulously. Then, disarmed by the serene frankness of the girl, she added: “A blue-stocking is bad enough, but a grimy one is impossible. Allons! Vite!” she insisted, driving Eileen before her; “the country is demoralising you. Philip, we’re dining early, so please make your arrangements to conform. Come, Eileen; have you never before seen Philip Selwyn?”
“I am not sure that I ever have,” she replied, with
a curious little smile at Selwyn. Nina had her by the hand, but she dragged back like a mischievously reluctant child hustled bedward:
“Good-bye,” she said, stretching out her hand to Selwyn— “good-bye, my unfortunate fellow fogy! I go, slumpy, besmudged, but happy; I return, superficially immaculate — but my stockings will still be blue! . . . Nina, dear, if you don’t stop dragging me I’ll pick you up in my arms! — indeed I will—”
There was a laugh, a smothered cry of protest; and Selwyn was the amused spectator of his sister suddenly seized and lifted into a pair of vigorous young arms, and carried into the house by this tall, laughing girl who, an hour before, had lain there among the cushions, frightened, unconvinced, clinging instinctively to the last gay rags and tatters of the childhood which she feared were to be stripped from her for ever.
It was clear starlight when they were ready to depart. Austin had arrived unexpectedly, and he, Nina, Eileen, and Selwyn were to drive to Hitherwood House, Lansing and Gerald going in the motor-boat.
There was a brief scene between Drina and Boots — the former fiercely pointing out the impropriety of a boy like Gerald being invited where she, Drina, was ignored. But there was no use in Boots offering to remain and comfort her as Drina had to go to bed, anyway; so she kissed him good-bye very tearfully, and generously forgave Gerald; and comforted herself before she retired by putting on one of her mother’s gowns and pinning up her hair and parading before a pier-glass until her nurse announced that her bath was waiting.
The drive to Hitherwood House was a dream of loveliness; under the stars the Bay of Shoals sparkled in the blue darkness set with the gemmed ruby and sapphire and emerald of ships’ lanterns glowing from unseen yachts at anchor.
The great flash-light on Wonder Head broke out in brilliancy, faded, died to a cinder, grew perceptible again, and again blazed blindingly in its endless monotonous routine; far lights twinkled on the Sound, and farther away still, at sea. Then the majestic velvety shadow of the Hither Woods fell over them; and they passed in among the trees, the lamps of the depot wagon shining golden in the forest gloom.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 352
