Footsteps of Fate Part 8

"But why do you not stay in London?"

He looked at her. He had begun this conversation without knowing whither it might lead him, abandoning himself to chance. But now, with this look which her eyes met in response, there suddenly blazed up in him a little diabolical flame. He knew now what he was driving at; he weighed every word he uttered as if they were grains of gold; he felt himself very lucid, very logical and calm, free from the painful, incoherent agitation of the last few minutes. And he spoke very slowly, in a mournful, hollow voice like a sick man:

"In London! No, Eva, I cannot remain here."

"Why not?"

"I cannot, dear girl. I cannot, not with any decency. It is impossible."

The hypocrisy of his eye, the languor of his tone, his a.s.sumption of inconsolable grief, distilled into her mind a vague suspicion like an insidious poison--the suspicion that it was on her account that he could not remain in London, because he would have to meet her as his friend's wife. It was no more than a suggestion. The wordless despair which seemed to exhale from him inspired the inference. But her mind rebelled against it; it was a mere suspicion and groundless. He went on, still very slowly, considering every word as if with mathematical accuracy.

"And when I am gone and you are left with Frank, always with him, will you be happy, Eva?"

"Why, Bertie?" She paused. It would be almost cruel to say "Yes," in the security of her happiness, in the face of his pain.

"Why do you ask?" she said, almost timidly.

He gazed into her face with the deep, soft, misty blackness of his fine eyes. Then he bent his head, and they filled with tears, and he clutched his hands as if they were cold.

"Why--why?" Eva insisted.

"Nothing, nothing. Promise me that you will be happy. For if you were not happy I should be heart-broken."

"What should hinder my being happy; I love Frank so dearly?" she exclaimed, though still fearing lest she should hurt his feelings.

"Yes; and so long as you are happy all is well," he murmured low, still rubbing his hands.

Then, on a sudden, while her inquiring gaze still rested on his face, he said: "Poor child!"

"What--why poor child?" she asked in dismay.

He seized her hands, his tears dropped on her fingers.

"Oh Eva, Eva! G.o.d, who can read my heart--If you--oh! I feel such pity, such great, pa.s.sionate pity for you. I would do I know not what--I would give my life if I--if you.... Poor, poor child!"

She was standing up now, trembling, and as pale as death; her fingers clutched the table-cover, which slipped as she pulled it, and a gla.s.s vase, in which a few flowers were fading, was upset; the water trickled over the velvet cloth in great silvery beads. She let it flow into pools, staring at it with wide, terrified eyes, while he covered his face with his hands.

"Bertie," she cried, "oh, Bertie! Why do you speak thus? What is it all?

Tell me. Tell me everything. I must know. I desire you to speak out."

His reply was a gesture--a perfectly natural gesture of deprecation, with no touch of theatrical insincerity, a gesture as though he would retract his words, and had said something he should have kept to himself; then he, too, rose, and his face had changed; its expression was no longer one of suffering or of pity, but of cool decision.

"No, no. There is nothing to tell, Eva."

"Nothing! And you could exclaim, 'Poor child!' And you pity me! Good G.o.d, but why? What is this--what evil threatens me?" She had Frank's name on her lips, but dared not utter it, and he was conscious of this.

"Nothing, really and truly, nothing, dear Eva. I a.s.sure you, nothing. I sometimes have the most foolish thoughts, mere fancies. Look, the vase has fallen over."

"But what were you thinking then--what fancies?"

He wiped the water off the table-cloth with his pocket-handkerchief, and replaced the flowers in the gla.s.s.

"Nothing; nothing at all," he murmured, huskily; he was tremulous with nervousness, and his tone was deeply compa.s.sionate, as if his words were meant to shroud some awful secret. Then, as he said no more, she sank on the sofa and broke into uncontrolled and pa.s.sionate sobs, scared by the undefinable terror which rose up in her soul.

"Eva, dear Eva, be calm!" he entreated her, fearing lest some one should come into the room. And then--then he knelt down close by her, taking her hands, and pressing them tenderly.

"Look at me, Eva. I a.s.sure you; I swear to you there is nothing wrong--nothing at all, but what exists in my own imagination. But, you see, I care for you so fondly: you will let me say so, won't you? For what I feel for you is only guileless, devoted friendship for my friend's bride and my own little sister. I love you so truly that I cannot help asking myself, Will my dear Eva be happy? It is a foolish thought, no doubt; but in me it is not strange, because I am always thinking of those I love. You see, I have known so much sorrow and suffering. And when I see any one I care for so truly as I do for you--see her so full of confidence in life and of fair illusions, the thought comes over me, terrible, but irresistible: Will she be happy? Is there, indeed, any such thing as happiness? Oh, I ought not to say such things; I only darken your outlook, and give you pessimistic notions; but sometimes when I see you with Frank, my heart is so full! For I love Frank, too. I owe so much to him, and I should so gladly see him happy with some woman--with some one--Still, I can only say, Trust wholly in Frank. He loves you, though he is a little fickle, a little capricious in his feelings; but he adores you. The delicate shades of a woman's nature are above his comprehension, perhaps, and he is apt to carry his light-heartedness a little too far--still, he means no harm. He is so candid, so honest; you know always so exactly what he is at. And so, Eva, dear Eva, never let any misunderstanding come between you--always be open with each other; will you not, my child. Oh, my poor Eva!"

And he, too, sobbed low in his mysterious anguish, which was not altogether a pretence, for he was really in despair at the prospect before him. She looked down on him in dismay, greatly distressed by his words, from which she inferred something which he would not reveal: each word a drop of subtle venom, and the germ of strange doubts, which shot up like poisonous weeds.

"Then there is nothing to tell?" she said once more, in a weary tone of entreaty, clasping her hands.

"No, dear Eva, nothing at all. Only I am worn out, you see--quite an old man--and so I worry myself sometimes about you two. When I am far away--far from London--will you be happy? Tell me, Eva, will you be happy? Promise me, swear to me that you will."

She gently nodded in the affirmative, with a sigh of regret that he must leave London--regret for what he had suggested, worst of all for what he had left unsaid: the mystery, the terror! He, meanwhile, had risen; holding out his hands to her, and shaking his head, as though over the follies of man, he said, with his most pathetic smile:

"How silly you must think me, to torment myself so about nothing. I ought not to have said so much; perhaps I have saddened you with it all.... Have I?"

"No," she replied with a gentle smile, shaking her head. "No, not really."

He let himself drop into a chair, sighing deeply.

"Alas! such is life!" he murmured, with a fixed gaze full of sinister significance. She made no answer, her heart was too full.

By this time it was dark. Van Maeren took his leave. Frank alone had been asked to stay to dinner.

"Have you forgiven me?" he asked, very humbly, with his most insinuating and romantic air, as the last rays of daylight shed an ethereal glow on his face.

"For what?" she said, but she was silently weeping.

"For having distressed you, even for a minute?"

She nodded, and rose, trembling, exhausted, and tottering.

"Oh, yes; you gave me a great fright. But you will not do so again, I beg."

"Never," he murmured.

He kissed her hand; a courteous caress he was accustomed to bestow, with a touch of foppery like an eighteenth-century marquis; and he went away.

She was left alone. Standing there, in the middle of the room, she closed her eyes, and she felt as though a mist had fallen and enwrapped her. And in that mist she saw Moldeho and the spectral fjord gleaming between the two ranges of protecting mountains, and far away, in the west, those three thin bars of gold. And suddenly she felt, as she had never felt before, so forlorn, so lonely, in the midst of the cloud, without even a thought of Sir Archibald and Frank, remembering nothing but her long-dead mother. A weight pressed on her brain, like the icy palm of a giant's hand; dusky gloom closed in upon her, and suddenly the living warmth within her was chilled as with a deadly frost. She felt as if she were standing in vast s.p.a.ce, and through it--invisible, intangible, and yet sensibly and undeniably real--she was aware of a coming horror, rolling dully on like distant thunder. She stretched out her hands, feeling for some support. But she did not fall senseless; she recovered herself; and found that she was still in the middle of the room, now almost dark, a little tremulous, and with a feeble sensation about the knees. And she could not but think that there was something yet--something which Bertie had concealed from her.

VIII.

Next day she thought it all over once more. What was it? What was it?