Love and Lucy Part 22

"I know," said dreamy Lancelot. "That's what would happen to me, I expect." Then he added, "That's what will happen to my father."

"Good c.o.c.kroach," said Urquhart, looking ahead of him. "You think she won't want him to go."

Lancelot snorted. "_Won't_ want him! Why, she doesn't already. And he'll do what she wants, I'll bet you."

"Does he always?"

"He always does now. It's the air, I fancy."

CHAPTER XXI

THE DEPARTURE

But pout as she might, she could not prevail with James, whose vanity had been scratched.

"My dear girl, I'd sooner perish," he said. "Give up a jolly walk because Jimmy Urquhart talks about my heart and his own neck--preposterous! Besides, there's nothing in it."

"But, James," she said, "if I ask you--"

He kissed the back of her neck. She was before the gla.s.s, busy with her hair. "You don't ask me. You wouldn't ask me. No woman wants to make a fool of a man. If she does, she's a vampire."

"Mr. Urquhart is very impulsive," she dared to say.

"I've known that for a long time," said James. "Longer than you have, I fancy. But it takes more than impulse to break another man's neck.

Besides, I really have no reason to suppose that he wants to break my neck. Why should he?"

Here they were up against the wall again. If there were reasons, he could not know them. There was no getting over it yet. They were to start betimes in the morning, and sleep that night at Brattebo, which is the hithermost spur of the chain. Dinner and beds had been ordered at Odde, beyond the snow-field.

Dinner was a gay affair. They toasted the now declared lovers. True to his cornering instincts, Lingen had told Lucy all about it in the afternoon. "Your sympathy means so much to me--and Margery, whose mind is exquisitely sensitive, is only waiting your nod to be at your feet, with me."

"I should be very sorry to see either of you there," Lucy said. "I'm very fond of her and I shouldn't take it at all kindly if she demeaned herself. When do you think of marrying?"

He looked at her appealingly. "I must have time," he said; "time to build the nest."

"A flat, I suppose," she said, declining such poetical flights.

"A flat!" said Francis Lingen. "Really, it hadn't occurred to me."

From Lucy the news went abroad, and so the dinner was gay. Urquhart confined himself to the two boys, and told them about the Folgefond--of its unknown depth, of the creva.s.ses, of the glacier on its western edge, of certain white snakes, bred by the snow, which might be found there. Their bite was death, he said.

"Frost-bite," said Patrick Nugent, who knew his uncle's way; but Lancelot favoured his mother.

"Hoo!" he said. "I expect that you'd give him what for. One blow of your sword and his head would lie at your feet."

"That's nasty, too," said Urquhart. "They have white blood, I believe." Lancelot blinked.

"Beastly," he said. "Did Mamma hear you? You'd better not tell her.

She hates whiteness. Secretly--so do I, rather."

It was afterwards, when the boys had gone to bed, that a seriousness fell upon those of them who were given to seriousness. James and Vera Nugent settled down squarely to piquet. Francis Lingen murmured to his affianced bride.

"I don't disguise from myself--and from you I can have no secrets--that there is danger in the walk. The snow is very treacherous at this season. We take ropes, of course. Urquhart is said to know the place; but Urquhart is--"

"He's very fascinating," said Margery Dacre, and Francis lifted his eyebrows.

"You find that? Then I am distressed. I would share everything with you if I could. To me, I don't know why, there is something crude--some harsh note--a clangour of metal. I find him brazen--at times. But to you, my love, who could be strident? You are the very home of peace. When I think of you I think of doves in a nest."

"You must think of me to-morrow, then," said Margery. He rewarded her with a look.

Lucy, for her part, had another sort of danger in her mind. It seemed absolutely necessary to her now to speak to Urquhart, because she had a conviction that he and James had very nearly come to grips. Women are very sharp at these things. She was certain that Urquhart knew the state of her heart, just as certain as if she had told him of it. That being so, she dreaded his impulse. She suspected him of savagery, and as she had no pride where love was concerned she intended to appeal to him. Modesty she had, but no pride. She must leave great blanks in her discourse; but she trusted him to fill them up. Then there was another difficulty. She had no remains of tenderness left for him: not a filament. Unless she went warily he might find that out and be mortally offended. All this she battled with while the good-nights to Lancelot were saying upstairs. She kissed his forehead, and stood over him for a moment while he snuggled into his blankets. "Oh, my lamb, you are worth fighting for!" was her last thought, as she went downstairs full of her purpose.

The card-players sat in the recess; the lovers were outside. Urquhart was by himself on a divan. She thought that he was waiting for her.

With a book for shield against the lamp she took the chair he offered her. "Aren't they extraordinary?" she said. He questioned.

"Who is extraordinary? Do you mean the card-sharpers? Not at all. It's meat and drink to them. It's we who are out of the common: daintier feeders."

"No," she said, "it's not quite that. James's strong point is that he can keep his feelings in separate pigeonholes. I'm simply quaking with fear, because my imagination has flooded me. But he won't think about the risks he's running--until he is running them."

Urquhart had been looking at her until he discovered that James had his eye upon her too. He crossed his leg and clasped the knee of it; he looked fixedly at the ceiling as he spoke.

"I should like to know what it is you're afraid of," he said in a carefully literal but carefully inaudible tone. He did that sort of thing very well.

Lucy was pinching her lip. "All sorts of things," she said. "I suffer from presentiments. I think that you or James may be hurt, for instance--"

"Do you mean," said Urquhart--as if he had been saying "Where did you get this tobacco?"--"Do you mean that you're afraid we may hurt each other?"

She hung her head deeply.

"You needn't be. If you can fear that you must forget my promise." He saw her eyes clear, then cloud again before her difficulties.

"James, at least," she said, "has never done you any harm." It was awfully true. But it annoyed him. d.a.m.n James!

"None whatever," he answered sharply. "I wonder if I haven't done him any good."

Looking at her guardedly, through half-closed eyes, he saw that she was strongly moved. Her bosom rose and fell hastily, like short waves lipping a wharf. Her hands were shut tight. "You have been the best friend I ever had," she said. "Don't think I'm not grateful."

That came better. He tapped his pipe on the ash-tray at hand. "My dear," he said, "I intend to live on your grat.i.tude. Don't be afraid of anything. _Lascia fare a me._" She rewarded him with a shy look. A rueful look, it cut him like a knife; but he could have screwed it round in the wound to get more of such pain. There's no more bitter-sweet torment to a man than the thanks of the beloved woman for her freedom given back to her.

He felt very sick indeed--but almost entirely with himself. For her he chose to have pity; of Macartney he would not allow himself to think at all. Danger lay that way, and he did not intend to be dangerous. He would not even remember that he was subject to whims. The thought flitted over his mind, like an angel of death, but he dismissed it with an effort. After all, what good could come of freebooting? The game was up. Like all men of his stamp, he cast about him far and wide for a line of action; for directly the Folgefond walk was over he would be off. To stay here was intolerable--just as to back out of the walk would be ignominious. No, he would go through with that somehow; but from Odde, he thought, he might send for his things and clear out.

It did not occur to him that he might have to deal with Macartney.

What should Macartney want that he had not? He had vindicated the law!

But the hour was come when Macartney was to know everything. Lucy was adorable, and he simply adored her; then in the melting mood which follows she sobbed and whispered her broken confession. He had the whole story from the beginning.