Man and Maid Part 26

"Let us end this play-acting, at least," he said. Ten minutes of fuming ended in tepid tea poured by a beautiful brown-haired girl.

He watched her in silence.

"It's horrible," he broke out. "You're a strange woman, and there you sit, pouring tea out as if---- Who are you? I don't know you."

"Don't you?" she said quietly. And then he remembered all the old talks with the old wife.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I don't want to be a brute."

"It's no use my saying I'm sorry," she said.

"_Are_ you?" He leaned forward to put the question.

"We must make the best of it," she said. "Perhaps---- Look here, don't let's speak of it till after Christmas; let's just go on as we did before."

So the days wore on. But the situation when Michael lived in torment in the company of his old wife was simplicity itself compared to his new life with a wife--young, beautiful, and a stranger, yet in all essentials his dearest friend. This discomfort grew daily--hourly branching out into ever fresh embarra.s.sments--new and hara.s.sing, vexatious, half understood, wholly resented.

The wife had her burden to bear also. The laundress had only known the old wife as "Mrs Wood."

"She thought I was your mother," the wife said when Michael propounded the difficulty. But the laundress's att.i.tude to the new Mrs Wood had a sting that was almost punishment enough to the wife, had Michael only known, for all that she had done amiss.

The hour of departure for the Christmas festivities at Wood Grange came as a relief from the persistent pinp.r.i.c.ks of unexplained emotion which tormented him. His wife was young and beautiful, yet he was only conscious of repulsion. He hated her for her trickery. But most he hated her because she had cheated him of the old wife--the friend, the _confidante_, who had grown to be so much, and so much the best part, in his life. For now there was no confidence between the two--no talk, no reading, no music to brighten the Temple rooms. They lived in an almost complete silence.

Every window of the Grange shone out with yellow light across the snow.

For once Christmas had been kind and seasonable--a white sheet covered the world. Holly gleamed against old oak. Priceless silver, saved from the smelting-pot in Cromwell's hard days, shone above white napery on the long tables. The tenants' dinner was over, and now was the moment when, according to the will, Michael Wood's wife must be presented to the tenants then a.s.sembled.

The slender figure in white woollen cloth and white fur, with Christmas roses at its breast, stood on the das at the end of the great hall, and the tenants cheered themselves hoa.r.s.e at the mere sight of her beautiful face, her kind eyes.

"It went off very well," Michael said when, the last guest gone, the last shutter closed, the last servant departed, the two stood alone in the long drawing-room.

"Yes; think if you had had to present to them the old white-haired wife----"

"I loved the old wife," he said obstinately; but his voice was not quite steady.

"I wish," she said, playing with the Christmas roses she wore, "I wish you would try to forgive me. It was horribly wrong; but I began it as a joke. You see, I had only just come over from the convent where I was brought up. I thought it would be such fun: I was always good at theatricals. I will never do anything silly again. And to-morrow I'll go away, and you need never see me again. And you _have_ got the money and the old place, haven't you? And I got them for you--and--do forgive me.

It began as a silly schoolgirl's joke indeed."

"But--a convent! You have read and thought----"

"It was my father. He made me read and think; and when he died all the money went, and my mother is poor. Oh, Michael, don't be so flinty! Say you forgive me before I go! It all began in a joke!"

"Began. Yes. But why did you go on?"

"Because I--I didn't like Sylvia--and I liked you--rather--but I won't be a nuisance. I'll go back to mother. Say you forgive me. I'll go by the first train in the morning."

"The first train," said Michael absently, "is the 9.17; but to-morrow is Christmas Day--I daresay they'll run the same as on Sunday."

She took her white cloak from the settle by the fire.

"Good night," she said sadly; "you are very hard. Won't you even shake hands?"

"We had no roses at our wedding," he said, still absently; "but there are roses at Christmas." He raised his hand to the white flowers she wore, and touched them softly. "White roses, too, for a wedding," he said.

"Good night!" she said again.

"And you will go to your mother to-morrow by the 9.17 train, or the 10.5, if the trains run the same as on Sunday. And I am to forgive you, and shake hands before we part. Well, well!"

He took the hand she held out, caught the other, and stood holding them, his grey eyes seeking hers. Her head thrown back, her hands stretched out, she looked at him from arm's length.

"Dear!" he said.

A mute glance questioned him. Then lashes longer than Sylvia's veiled the dark eyes.

He spoke again. "Dear!"

"You know you hate me," she said.

He raised her hands to his lips.

"Have you forgotten Sylvia?"

"Absolutely, thank G.o.d! And you--I--after all, we are married, though there were no roses at our June wedding."

Again her eyes questioned mutely.

He leaned forward and touched the Christmas roses with his lips. Then he dropped her hands and caught her by the shoulders.

"Oh! foolish, foolish, foolish people!" he said. "We two are man and wife. My wife! my wife! my wife! We are, aren't we?"

"I suppose we are," she said, and her face leaned a little towards his.

"Well, then!" said he.

X

THE HOUSE OF SILENCE

The thief stood close under the high wall, and looked to right and left.

To the right the road wound white and sinuous, lying like a twisted ribbon over the broad grey shoulder of the hill; to the left the road turned sharply down towards the river; beyond the ford the road went away slowly in a curve, prolonged for miles through the green marshes.

No least black fly of a figure stirred on it. There were no travellers at such an hour on such a road.