Lady Cassandra Part 39

Would he care? Would he really care? Guiltily she allowed her mind to wander down the forbidden path. He would hear nothing. Bernard would keep everything from him until--the divorce. The case would be undefended, no savoury morsels would appear in the newspaper to whet the appet.i.tes of the unclean, the vast majority of readers would not notice its presence. Eventually, of course, something would have to be said.

Ca.s.sandra winced as she imagined Bernard's bluff words to his son: "Look here, boy, never speak of your mother again. She's not coming back.

Some day you'll understand; until then do as you're told, and keep your mouth shut. She's dead. D'you understand that? Dead and buried so far as concerns us. Never speak of her again."

Bernard would not abuse a mother to her son, his sense of fair play was too strong; he would simply shut her out from his life, and leave the boy to form his own judgment later on. But with the sharpness of dawning adolescence Bernard junior would sense something wrong, something shameful, flush unhappily beneath the servants' gaze, and return to school miserably dreading that the fellows had heard!

No! Ca.s.sandra could not do it. She could not shame her child. She could not step down from the pedestal on which the most prosaic of sons instinctively places a mother. Every fresh struggle ended in the same most piteous, most womanly cry: "I can't. I can't. But oh, Dane, Dane, I _want to_!"

During these three days Ca.s.sandra stayed entirely within the grounds and denied herself to visitors, but she had a constant terror that Teresa would call and force an interview. The girl must suspect some such meeting as had taken place in the summer-house; must realise that her own fate hung in the balance. What more natural than that she should want to plead her own cause? Ca.s.sandra stiffened in antic.i.p.ation.

Nothing, she knew, would induce such a reckless disregard of duty as to hear it advocated from Teresa's lips. For Heaven's sake, for her _own_ sake, let the girl keep away!

But the days slipped past, and Teresa did not appear, and a new terror dawned in Ca.s.sandra's heart. Suppose instead of coming to herself, the girl went to Bernard and warned him of the threatened danger to his house! Every time that her husband entered the room afresh, Ca.s.sandra glanced at his face with an eager scrutiny, and every time Bernard smiled with unruffled cheerfulness and said, "Feeling better, old girl?

Had your tonic?"

Grizel had laid down strict injunctions as to the treatment of her patient on her return to the Court, and had perjured herself by giving the Squire a highly pessimistic opinion of his wife's health, the result of which had been a certain amount of bluff kindliness and unfailing enquiries as to the consumption of tonics. Ca.s.sandra detested the idea of Bernard's hearing the truth from Teresa's lips, but there were occasions when she burned to tell him herself, occasions when it would have been the greatest relief in the world to say, "I am not ill. I am not suffering from shock. I am in love. I want to elope with your friend Dane Peignton. I am breaking my heart because it's my duty to stay."

Imagination pictured his face as he stood and listened. The steely eyes, the glint of teeth, the ruddy colour surging up over the thick throat, the large clean-shaven face, up to the roots of the short sandy hair. "You can look me in the face," he would say, "and _dare_ to say such a thing? Have you no shame?"

"Why should I have shame?" she could hear herself answer. "I have done no wrong. I am breaking my heart to do what is right. I am not ashamed, but I am dreadfully, dreadfully unhappy!" But Bernard would have no compa.s.sion. He would make no distinctions. She would henceforth be contemptible in his eyes. To the end of their life together he would regard her with suspicion; enquiring into her every action, reading guilt into the simplest friendship. The horror of that suspicion sealed Ca.s.sandra's lips.

The days pa.s.sed by, Wednesday arrived, and Teresa had not moved.

Ca.s.sandra vouchsafed a grudging admiration. There was--as Grizel had said--something fine about the girl's restraint. What was she thinking, what was she doing all these days, when of a certainty Dane must be standing aloof, waiting for the message which never came? How could she bear it, caged in that tiny house, with the terrible mother probing for explanations? Ca.s.sandra recalled how Mary had declared that it was impossible even to cry without attracting curious rappings at the door.

She heaved a sigh of thankfulness for the blessing of s.p.a.ce.

Wednesday morning pa.s.sed by, lunch hour came bringing with it Bernard, and the inevitable enquiry _re_ tonics, two o'clock arrived, three o'clock. In another half-hour she would leave the house, take her way to the summer-house, meet Dane once more, look deep into his eyes, feel the clasp of his arms. All life seemed concentrated into those next few hours, the expectation had been in her heart since the moment when she had parted from him four days before; the near prospect of meeting had mitigated every pang. Now that that meeting was at hand every other feeling was merged in joy. The moment was hers, she seized it greedily, with no consciousness of guilt. She was going to do right, she was going to say goodbye,--surely even Teresa would not grudge her her short hour!

Ca.s.sandra put on a shady hat, and stood before the long mirror regarding her own reflection as a woman will who is about to meet her lover. The white dress fell in soft lines accentuating her long slimness, the hat was white also, a simple affair of straw, with a twisted scarf of _crepe_, the gold-flecked hair, the soft carmine of the cheeks, the blue, pathetic eyes gained an added beauty from the lack of colour.

Ca.s.sandra knew that she was beautiful at that moment, she also knew that that beauty would plant a sharper thorn in Dane's heart, but being a woman she rejoiced nevertheless. If she could have made herself more lovely, she would have done it unto ten times ten. She turned from the mirror, opened the door of her room, and crept quietly downstairs. It was her desire that no one should see her or know that she had left the house. Once the great hall was reached she would slip into the library, and thence through the open window to a side path giving access to a shrubbery, thereby avoiding observation from upstair windows or from the gardeners at work on the terrace beds. Then let what might happen, she would be undisturbed for the afternoon.

She had reached the lowest step, the library was but a few yards away, when fate shot her bolt. The door of Bernard's office opened, and he came towards her, telegram in hand. Many telegrams arrived at the Court. Ca.s.sandra was too much a woman of the world to share the fear with which many of her sisters regard the orange-coloured sheets, but she needed no words to tell her that this message was no mere business communication. At the mere sight her heart died within her. There was just one thing on earth which she lived for at that moment, and the telegram had come to block her way. She stood still and cold waiting Bernard's explanation.

"Look here, I say,--here's bad news! The old Mater. Taken worse this morning. Another stroke. The second this time, so it may mean the end.

Jevons has been looking up the trains."

Ca.s.sandra did not speak. The old Mater was a venerable and disagreeable old lady whose bronchitic tendencies had made it necessary to abandon the dower house and make her abode in a more southern county. The necessity had been to the daughter-in-law a matter of continual thanksgiving, but to the Squire a real regret. His intensely conventional nature recognised the duty of honouring a parent, and he had a genuine and rather touching affection for the cross old woman, who rarely opened her mouth except to grumble and lament. To Ca.s.sandra the mother-in-law had been an unmitigated trial, and she could not affect to feel regret at the prospect of an end to a weary invalidism. The knife-like pang which rent her heart had no connection with the house of Raynor.

"You--you are going down at once?"

"What do you think! Of course we're going. I was just coming up to tell you to get ready."

The pang of presentiment had been well founded. Ca.s.sandra felt the hopelessness of a trapped animal, but desperation nerved her to a feeble protest.

"Me? Bernard! _ought_ I to come? She'll be unconscious. I couldn't _do_ anything. I should only be another person in the house--giving more trouble."

The blue eyes had their most steely glance as he turned upon her.

"More shame to you if you did! You can nurse her, can't you? Take your turn with the maid? She has a prejudice against hired nurses. Good heavens, have you no feeling? My mother ill--dying--and you talk of staying at home! What's the matter if she is unconscious? Your duty is to go and look after her, and I'll see that you do it." He pulled out his watch and looked at it hastily. "You have twenty-five minutes before the car comes round. Get Rogers to put a few things in a bag-- just what you want for to-night. She can bring along the boxes to-morrow. Goodness knows how long we may have to stay..."

He wheeled round and went back to his room, and Ca.s.sandra dragged wearily upstairs. Twenty-five minutes--in twenty-five minutes' time Dane would be awaiting her in the summer-house, and she herself would be leaving the house, leaving the neighbourhood, travelling down to the wilds of Devon, there to remain for goodness knew how long, out of sight, out of touch,--a prisoner, when of all times in her life she most longed to be free.

Wild impulses flocked into her mind, an impulse to turn back, make her escape into the shrubbery, and fly to keep her tryst. If Dane were waiting, would it be possible to reach him, to explain, feel for one moment the grip of his arms, and get back in time to change her dress, and be ready for the car? No, it was impossible. Moreover, what if Dane had not yet arrived? When she had gone so far, would she have courage to drag herself from the spot, where at any moment she might behold him approaching? She knew she had not, and for one wild moment wondered if she could dare still further; deliberately disappear, deliberately _stay_ away until Bernard was forced to depart alone, but even while one by one the questions raced through her brain she continued to drag wearily up the great staircase. Here was an ill.u.s.tration of the greater struggle on a lesser plane. Her heart was vagrant, panting to escape, but the chains of duty held. Bernard was her husband; he was in trouble; he demanded her help; at whatever cost to herself that help must be given.

Ca.s.sandra gave instructions to her maid, and retired to her boudoir to send a telephone message to the one person in Chumley who would come to her aid. Grizel was at home, and her voice came over the wire clear and distinct.

"Yes, it's me. I'm alone. What is it?"

Ca.s.sandra's words came haltingly. Her proud spirit had difficulty in framing that message.

"This is Wednesday... Wednesday afternoon. You remember what was to happen on Wednesday afternoon?... Bernard has just had a wire to say that his mother has had a stroke. He is going to her at once--we are both going. He says I am to nurse her... We leave in--er--in a quarter of an hour... Grizel! I... I was just starting for the summer-house, when he met me with this news. There is no time for--anything... Will _you_ explain?"

Grizel's voice came back in instant rea.s.surement.

"Ca.s.sandra, I will! Leave it to me... Ca.s.sandra, darling, _how_ long are you to be away?"

"I don't know. How should I? Goodness knows!" cried Ca.s.sandra bitterly.

Like a faint, sweet echo came back the words in Grizel's deepest tones:

"Goodness knows!"

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

FAREWELL!

The old Mater was not unconscious. The mysterious physical lightning had smitten the left side of the body, left a drawn, disfigured face, and a helpless arm and leg, but the spirit within was untouched. By the time that her son arrived, the old Mater had realised what had happened to her, and was seething with bitterness and rebellion. It was a terrible sight to see the blaze of the living eye in the dead face; a piteous thing to listen to the mumbled words which proceeded from the twisted lips.

The tears came into the Squire's eyes as he stood by his mother's bed, he knelt on the floor beside her, and stroked her brow with his big sunburnt hand; with extraordinary sharpness he divined the meaning of her m.u.f.fled speech. Throughout that evening, and for hours at a time throughout the days which followed, he sat by her bedside, ministering to her wants with clumsy eagerness. Ca.s.sandra was for the time being too intensely absorbed with the tragedy of her own life to feel any active interest in what was pa.s.sing before her eyes, but subconsciously the various pictures photographed themselves on her mind. Bernard smiling, indifferent to snubs, persuading his mother to eat, to swallow her medicine; Bernard, suppressing yawns, sitting up to the small hours to be "at hand"; Bernard holding the cold hand between his own warm palms, and by force of his strong electric current soothing the patient to sleep. He was not _trying_ to be patient; he _was_ patient, out of pure loving kindness and compa.s.sion. Slowly, gradually, the knowledge penetrated into Ca.s.sandra's brain, and she asked herself sadly wherein she had failed, that this quality of tenderness was so lacking towards herself! For some months after their marriage Bernard had been the most ardent of lovers, then pa.s.sion waned, and with no appreciable second stage, neglect had taken its place. She had been bitterly surprised, bitterly wounded, but what had she done to recapture her husband's love, and turn it into a more enduring form? Had she once realised, as Grizel Beverley had realised in the midst of her bridal joy, that love is a tender plant, which can only preserve its fragrance when tended with unremitting care? Ca.s.sandra looked back and saw herself retiring into a chilly reserve, meeting neglect with neglect, indifference with indifference, disdaining to invite a love which was not voluntarily bestowed. It had seemed, at the time, the only way of preserving her dignity, but as she watched her husband by his mother's bedside, there came a sudden realisation that if she had thought less of pride, and more of love, the barrenness of their joint lives might have been averted. If she had used her woman's wiles,--smiled, cajoled, even in those early days, wept a few,--just a few, pretty, becoming tears, to enforce her need, the barrier would never have grown so high: Ca.s.sandra had been accustomed to put all the blame on her husband's shoulders, and to congratulate herself on being immaculately free from blame; never till this moment had she realised that to a man of the Squire's temperament, her att.i.tude of chill detachment, and smiling indifference, was of all things the most exasperating. If she had blazed in anger, even to the extent of facing an occasional battle royal, the corroding bitterness would have found a vent, and reconciliation opened the way to fresh tenderness.

"It's my fault as much as his!" Ca.s.sandra acknowledged, and the admission softened her heart.

The old Mater did not die. The critical days dragged slowly past, and she grimly held her own. In all human probability she would live on for months, for years, until the lightning fell for the third time. To Ca.s.sandra such a recovery seemed a piteous thing, but the Squire's rejoicings were whole-hearted, and the old Mater herself wore an air of triumph. Apparently life was dear to her still, and the prospect of lying in bed, with one half of her body already dead, held more attractions than the celestial choirs on which she pinned her faith.

There was a grim irony in hearing the twisted lips murmur fragments of her favourite hymn--"Oh, Lamb of G.o.d, I come!" and Ca.s.sandra's sense of humour could not resist the reflection that the old lady was exceedingly loath to go!

Grizel wrote that she had given Dane the necessary explanation, and after four days' incessant consideration, Ca.s.sandra wrote and despatched the following letter:

"I was coming to you, as I promised; I had counted every moment of every day as it pa.s.sed, longing for the time to arrive; in another minute I should have been on my way, and then,--what was it?--fate, chance, providence, G.o.d?--_Something_ intervened, and it became impossible for me to meet you, then, or later. I don't know how long we shall be here.

My husband's mother is recovering, but she cannot bear him out of her sight. He is an angel of goodness to her, and in some wonderful way seems to be able to lend her some of his own strength. We may be here for months; it will certainly be many weeks; so I can't come, Dane, I can't have the one joy I longed for... the one more hour together, before we said good-bye!

"It may be for the best. I may look back in years to come, and be thankful, but I'm not thankful now. It seems hard, and cruel, and unjust, that I could not have that little hour, and it made it harder, being so near. Oh, Dane, that journey! Can you for a moment imagine how desperately, achingly miserable I was, steaming farther and farther away with every moment; thinking of you sitting waiting! I wonder what you thought.--I wonder what you feared? But you must have been sure of one thing, at least,--that my heart was with you!

"Dane! I want you to burn this letter after you have read it. I must tell you all that is in my heart, but it is best for both of us that it should not be preserved. I was going to say, that you should forget it, but I know that will not be possible.

"I am going to stay at my post, Dane, and try to make more of it than I've done till now. I told you that in making my decision I had no consideration for Bernard, but that was a mistake. I _must_ consider him, for he is the princ.i.p.al person in life. He does not love me, but since coming here, I have begun to see that that is partly my own fault.

I was very young when we married, and I took it for granted that he would remain for ever an adoring lover. When he grew cool and careless--it was humiliatingly soon!--my miserable pride made me treat him as indifferently as he treated me, and so we have grown apart. I thought he was incapable of tenderness, but watching him with his mother, I wonder if it is simply that I have shown no need. Oh! I've made a failure of it all--with the boy too, it seems, though I _did_ love him; I did pour out my love... What is wrong with me, that the people who should love me _don't_, and when someone comes along who does, we must be parted?

"Did you think I should come to you that night? Now that it is past and over, I can tell you that I very nearly did! An impulse came over me about nine o'clock, so overwhelmingly strong, that it was all I could do not to rush out, as I was, and make my way to you, bareheaded, across the park. The effort to resist left me cold and faint.--I wondered if you were thinking of me, willing me to come! And once again, though never quite so violently, the impulse returned, but each time I resisted, and the end finds me here, tied in a sick room, doing my duty, and bidding you goodbye.