Lady Cassandra Part 33

"Then--Why? I _don't_ understand!"

"Ah, Teresa, neither did I... That's the pity of it. It was a mistake from the beginning. I was lonely, and I wanted a wife, and I liked you better than any of the other girls. I was honestly fond of you, dear.

I am now,--but, Teresa! it was affection, not love. I had no idea what that meant.--It is only the last few days that I have known... There is a world of difference between the two things."

The colour flamed in Teresa's cheeks.

"There _is_ a world of difference. One is right. The other is--sin!

It is wicked to love your friend's wife."

Dane's lips twisted in a grim smile.

"It is a misfortune, Teresa, a horrible misfortune for us all, but there is nothing that could possibly be called wicked about it, as matters stand to-day. Don't be too hard on me. I am about as miserable as a man can be. There seems no way out of it. I'd give everything I possess, if I could go back and be as I was when we were first engaged, content and happy, with the prospect of happiness to come."

"I _did_ make you happy for a time, then, even though it wasn't--the best?" Teresa's face relaxed from its hard composure; a faint twitching showed at the corner of the mouth. "Dane! what was it? Tell me! I must know. What was it made you love her more? She's beautiful, but I'm pretty too, and so much younger, and she wears lovely clothes, but you liked me to be simple; and she's clever and amusing--sometimes! but other times she's quite dull, and we had always plenty to say, you and I. I took an interest in all you did."

Dane's sigh was compounded of pity for Teresa, and for himself at the memory of that "interest." It was true that she had questioned him ceaselessly about his affairs, and had on frequent occasions offered advice concerning their management. He had been mildly bored, mildly amused; looking back on his intercourse with _his fiancee_, a contented boredom seemed to have been his normal condition. And she compared herself with Ca.s.sandra, wanted--pitiful heavens! to have the difference defined. He shook his head in dumb helplessness, but Teresa's flat voice obstinately repeated the request.

"Dane! You must tell me _why_?"

"Teresa, it's impossible. Good G.o.d, don't you realise how impossible it is? Why did you care for me instead of other fellows, younger, better looking--that young Hunter, for example?"

"Mr Hunter never paid me any attention."

"You mean to say," he stared at her blankly, "that if he had, if _any_ man had--"

But at that she showed a wholesome anger.

"You know I don't. You know I would not. At once, from the very beginning I cared for you. I prayed every night of my life that you would love me back. I used to watch for you wherever I went. If I saw you drive past in the dog-cart, I was happy for hours. When you were ill that time I was ill too. They thought it was a chill, but it wasn't, it was misery, and not being able to help. One day there was a b.u.t.ton hanging loose on your coat. I _longed_ to mend it! That's all I wanted,--just to be able to look after you, and mend your things, and make you comfortable, and sit beside you in the evenings and talk, and watch you smoke. I'm old-fashioned and domesticated. Lady Ca.s.sandra used to laugh at me, and call me Victorian and men laugh too. They say they like old-fashioned girls, but they don't. They may be 'fond' of them, as you are fond of me, but they get tired, and then--then... they meet the Ca.s.sandras... and forget everything! duty, faithfulness-- honour--"

"There is no loss of honour in this case, Teresa. That is one of the things you must not say. This is a bad enough business for us all-- don't make it worse than it is! There has been no deceit, no double dealing. It was only two days ago that I realised how things were, and then I determined to leave. It was that accident which took us unawares."

Before he realised his slip, Teresa had pounced upon the word.

"_Us_! You mean that? _She_ cares too? How do you know? How do you know?"

"I did not mean to imply anything of the kind," Peignton said sternly, and his eyes sent forth a warning flash. Not for the world would he have answered, not for a hundred worlds have confessed to a living creature--the wondrous, incredible fact that even in her deadly exhaustion Ca.s.sandra had understood, and responded to his love. Her eyes had met his, her lips had moved, the tiny flutterings of movement had brought her nearer to his heart. He knew that her spirit had responded, and through all the bristling difficulties of the moment the knowledge brought joy. "We will leave Lady Ca.s.sandra's name out of the discussion," he said coldly. "You are not concerned with her, only with me. It's ba.n.a.l to go on repeating that I'm sorry, you know that well enough. The question now is,--how can we break off our engagement in the way least unpleasant for _you_? It's bound to be unpleasant, but-- things pa.s.s! In a year or two you'll meet another fellow, and look back upon this episode, and be glad that it came to nothing. I'm giving you a lot of trouble, but I've not made a hash of your whole life, as I have of my own... Think of that, Teresa, and try to forgive me!"

"I shall never care for another man while you are unmarried, and I should be miserable living on at home, as Mary has done, year after year, with nothing happening to break the monotony. So you _would_ spoil my life as well as your own. And what would you do living alone?

You are not strong. You said you needed a home. You'll have to leave this place and go away among strangers. You'll be miserable!"

"Very miserable, Teresa!"

"And I shall be miserable too. It's senseless. Dane! will you do something for me--to show that you really are sorry, and to help us both to,--to get over this?"

"I will indeed, Teresa. Only try me."

"Then marry me at once, and let us go away together to live in another place."

He stared at her, stunned, incredulous. Of all the wild, impossible requests this was the last which he had expected. He could hardly believe that he had heard aright.

"_Marry_ you? Teresa! You can't mean it. When you know that I love--"

She held up a warning hand.

"I thought she was not to be mentioned! Yes! I do mean it, Dane. It's the best thing for you, as well as for me. Can't you see that it's the best thing?"

"I see that it's impossible. Excuse me, if I'm brutal. If you could do it, I couldn't. I should be wretched. I should make you wretched."

"You weren't wretched when we were first engaged! You chose me, and you were satisfied, until this happened. If we were far away in a new place, you would be satisfied again--I could make you satisfied.--I...

I don't say--" the even voice quavered over the admission--"that it would be the _same_. It can never be the same for either of us, it would be better than nothing. We would find a little home, and make it pretty. You would be interested in the land. There'd be the shooting, and you could keep a horse, and hunt. We'd grow all our own fruit and vegetables. There would be neighbours... They would ask us out, and we could give little parties in return. Quite cheaply. There would be quite a lot of things to interest you, and fill up the time. And...

there might be children!"

These last words came with a gasp, rendered additionally touching by the effort which they entailed. Teresa did not approve of such allusions, and did violence to her own feelings in giving them utterance. It was only the desperation of her need which made her daring. Her chin quivered with a childlike helplessness, and Dane looking on felt a pang of tenderness and remorse.

"You poor little girl! You dear little girl! You are too kind to me.

I don't deserve it, but I'll be grateful to you all my life. I'll never forget you, but, I can't do it, dear--I can't! Try to understand. Put yourself in my place... _I'm in love_."

"But it's no use," Teresa repeated stolidly. "It's no use." She was fighting doggedly with her back to the wall, fighting for love, and for something only less precious than love, the preservation of her own position among her neighbours. In the estimation of the village Teresa Mallison was a social success. Lady Ca.s.sandra had "taken her up," and while other girls hung on season after season without sign of an admirer, Teresa at twenty-two had become engaged to the most eligible bachelor of the neighbourhood. At the present moment she had reached the zenith of her success, and was actually visiting "in the county."

Only those who have had their habitation in country towns can realise the devastating burden of public opinion. In the first bitterness of disappointed love, Teresa could still think with a shudder of what "they" would say; could imagine eyes peering from behind short blinds, hear the jangle of the bell announcing callers, sympathetically curious, and full of commiseration for the "Poor Dear!..." It was torture to Teresa to think of becoming a Poor Dear!

"It's no use. You can't live here. It would only mean--Dane! have you thought for a moment what it _would_ really mean? Of course you will have to leave Chumley."

"Is it 'of course'?"

Her eyes rebuked him for his weakness.

"It would be _wicked_ to stay. The Squire would never have you in his house if he knew, but he would _not_ know, and he would keep worrying you to go... if you stayed away you would have to lie and pretend; if you went, it would be just the same--lies and pretence! And it would get worse, not better. There could be no happiness meeting each other like that. Only misery and deceit. Think of what it would be, and then of the other life, the life with me... Doing right... Comfort.

_Peace_."

The tears came now, and rolled down her cheeks. She looked very young, and pitiful, and appealing, with her hand stretched out towards him, the hand on which shone the ring he had given!

Dane took that hand and folded it between his own, he was touched into tenderness by the girl's clinging devotion, and his conscience told him that she was right in her prophecies. He was one of the many Englishmen whose religion amounted to a determination to be straight in their dealings with their fellows. He knew himself to be guilty of many failings, but it had seemed inconceivable that he could ever stoop to double dealing, far less to the extremity of deceit involved in making love to the wife of a friend. Six months ago had such a case been presented to him he would have tolerated no excuse, no palliation, would have poured forth condemnation with relentless lips, but now... G.o.d knew his ideals were unchanged, G.o.d knew he wished to do the right, but he was no longer confident of his own strength. If in the future he found himself alone with Ca.s.sandra, and she looked at him as she had looked for that one breathless moment, if her hand clung again to his, as it had clung, what about honour then, what about loyalty to his friend, and fealty to the girl to whom he was engaged? By the beat in his heart, by the throb in his veins, he knew that such considerations would be but straws upon the wind, to be hurled aside by the rushing forces of nature. Despicable, base, unworthy it might be, but if that moment came, it would find Ca.s.sandra in his arms!

It came to this then, that there was only one course open to him as an honourable man, and that course was--flight! He must leave Chumley, put a barrier of distance between himself and his temptation, and start life afresh.

"I made you happy once.--I could do it again if we were alone."

Teresa's voice broke in upon his reverie, repeating her former argument in insistent tones. Her blue eyes were so wistful that it seemed cruel to point out the difference between then and now. Nevertheless it had to be done.

"I am afraid it would not be so easy. At that time I had no other thought. Now I _know_!"

"It is not going to make you happy to hanker after a married woman. It will make you wicked. You will begin to wish in your own heart that he would--die! It would be like committing a murder in your heart. We are taught to pray to be delivered from temptation, it would be walking into it deliberately to stay here,--to allow yourself to go on caring... Oh, Dane, wouldn't it be better for you, wouldn't it, wouldn't it, to have me beside you, loving you, helping you, making a home? I don't say it could be the best thing--the best thing is over--but wouldn't it, wouldn't it, be better than loneliness, and wandering, or... sin?"

Peignton looked at her helplessly. The deadly logic of her words there was no denying. A man must have been a stone who had failed to be touched by her earnestness.

"Teresa, if it were possible--anything that is possible I would promise at once. But I cannot face marrying just now."

"But you won't break it off!" Teresa cried eagerly. She had now the first advantage in the fight, and her eye lightened with hope. "Promise me that, and we will leave the rest... You can make an excuse and go abroad. There was no time fixed for our wedding, so no one will talk.

And in a few months I could come out to you, and we could be married abroad, and travel until you heard of another post. I've always wanted to travel. You said you looked forward to showing me things."