Margarita's Soul Part 17

April 2.

Long cable to-day about Wilkes case. Cannot possibly attend to it from here. Cabled to make every effort to postpone it.

Bound to get in a mess, if they don't. R----should have been disbarred long ago. M. spoke again of the beach at home to-day. The second time since we were married. Sometimes I think she has no heart, in the ordinary sense, and then again her sweetness and kindness would win over a statue.

She cannot, of course, be judged by ordinary standards.

April 6.

Heard from Jerry to-day. Has been in England all the time, the rascal, playing chess and learning Persian! Has promised to run over to Paris and we are going back there. M. wants to go on with her music lessons. Have never known her so steady at anything. Expected to stay here indefinitely, but must be very patient with her now. Is wonderfully well.

Wouldn't mind getting back to work, myself, but she can't very well sail now, I suppose.

PARIS, April 11.

Perfect weather. Paris very gay. As a holiday, all very well: as a business, what a life! Mme. M----i advises stop lessons now for a while. M. very disappointed, but yields finally very gracefully. How changed Jerry will find her! He agrees to stay a fortnight at least, which delights M. And me, too. We must have one of our old walking-trips, perhaps try an ascension. Have got at the _Code_ again.

April 15.

Weather still holds. Jerry expected to-morrow. M. has taken to reading. She and J. read aloud _David Copperfield_, turn about. What good work it is, after all! Hester taught her to read unknown to her father, who seems to have forbidden it.

It was her only disobedience, it seems. I wonder what that woman's real name was? She learned to read from the Psalms, but never read much. The Wilkes case going badly, I'm afraid: no postponement. They will be able to appeal, however.

CHAPTER XVIII

MY PEARL OF TOO GREAT PRICE

Kitchener and I were very philosophic as we crossed the Channel that fine day in April. We had got thoroughly fitted to each other, now, the rough edges smoothed down, all idiosyncrasies allowed for; we knew when to press hard, so to speak, and when to go light, and the result was a good, seasoned intimacy that lasted twelve long years.

I have always been a good sailor, a slight headache in an unusually nasty roll being my only concession to Neptune, and Kitch and I viewed with cynical tolerance the depressing antics of our less fortunate fellow-travellers. As we neared the French coast I realised gradually how good it would be to see Roger again, and found time to regret a little of my solitary lingering through the damp English winter, which seemed more oppressive in retrospect than it had been in reality.

For Margarita I had only the kindest feelings and the friendliest hopes that she would develop into a good wife for Roger. To marry such a bewitching knot of possibilities was of course more or less a risk, but on the other hand, if any man could succeed in such an undertaking, surely that man was our placid, patient Roger! I had learned patience myself during the winter, by dint of chess and philosophy, and somehow, as the little Channel boat pitched under me and the shifty April clouds rolled along the sky over me, life, as it stretched out for me and Kitchener, was not too gloomy: was even flavoured with a certain easy freedom that rather tickled my middle-aged epicurean palate--for the middle thirties were, even twenty years ago, reasonably middle-aged.

Nevertheless it was impossible not to remember that my feelings had not always been thus ordered, and when, a few hours later, the guard let me out of the carriage, and I saw only Roger on the platform, I realised that I had braced myself a little for a meeting that did not take place.

"It's good to see you again, Jerry," he said heartily, "mighty good!"

And with his hand gripping mine, I had a moment of whimsical wonder that any woman born should have been able to threaten such a friendship for (or by!) the twinkling of an eye.

We talked of our plans, mine, such as they were, being only too ready to merge into his, which included a stiff climb through the Swiss Alps; of my Oxford sojourn; of Margarita's music and his readiness to get back to America as soon as she should feel equal to it. It amused me a little to discover how simply Roger accepted his role of indulgent American husband: those men are born to it, I believe--there seems no crisis, no period of instruction, even. I never pretended to half his real strength of character, but I could not have imagined myself stopping in circ.u.mstances more or less distasteful to me until my wife's whim should release us! I had spoken to no woman for many months, you must remember, but my landlady and the Professor's trained nurse, and unflattering though it may sound to the much-desired s.e.x, I had not been conscious of any special lack, after the first few weeks.

To this day I have never known the name of the street nor the number of that Paris _appartement_. We were deep in our plans for mountaineering, and except that I noted the wheezy little lift of Mrs.

Upgrove's letter, I remember literally nothing about that excursion but the familiar odour of the Paris asphalt, the snapping and cracking of the Gallic horsewhip, and the smoke of my own cigarette which blew into my eyes as I threw it away on entering the house.

The late afternoon sun poured into the gay little drawing-room, all buff and dull rose, in the charming French style, and full of sweet spring flowers in bowls and square jars of Majolica ware. The height of the _appartement_ made it delightfully airy and bright, and through the western windows I glimpsed the feathery tips of the delicate new green of the trees. A small grand piano stood near an open window and a gorgeous length of Chinese embroidery on the opposite wall was reflected in a tall, narrow mirror that doubled the apparent size of the room and gave a pleasant depth and richness to all the airy clearness of the spring that seemed to fairly incarnate itself in the spot and the hour. I have never liked Oriental embroideries since that day, and the clogging scent of hyacinth is a thing I would take some trouble to avoid; those sad little spires of violet, pink and white spell only sorrow to one man, at least: sorrow and memories of pitiful and unmanly weakness.

For standing by the piano, one hand with its cloudy, flashing sapphire white among the pale stiff spikes, her deer-like head dark against the fantastic rose and orange of the embroidered dragons, was Margarita, a lovely smile curving her lips and the warm light in her deep slate-coloured eyes burning down, down into my very vitals. In that one rich, welcome smile all my calm English months melted like wax in a furnace, and Oxford was a drab dream and Surrey a stupid sick-bay!

As I faced her, the old wound burst and widened, with that torturing sweet shock that I had relegated sagely to poets and youthful heats, and I knew that I loved her hopelessly, with a love that put out my love for Roger and my mother as the sun puts out the small and steady stars.

I had left a bewitching, unlikely elf; I found a magnificent woman.

She seemed to my gloating eyes to have grown tall, though that might have been the effect of her loosely flowing, long-trained gown, which was as if she had put on a garment of shot green and blue silk and then another over it of rich, yellowish lace. The neck was cut in a sort of square, such as one sees in the pictures of Venetian ladies in the _cinque cento_, and at the base of her full throat lay an antique necklace of aqua marines. Heavens! How perfect she was! As she moved over in her grand free stride and took my hands in both of hers, vitality and glowing strength seemed to pour along her veins into mine; she seemed almost extravagantly alive, and I a pallid, stupid dabbler on the sh.o.r.e of things. Her figure was much fuller; her arm, where the loose lace sleeve fell back from it, was plump and round, and this and the increased softness of her throat and chin added a year or two--yes, three or four--to what I had hitherto believed to be her age. She was a fit mate for Roger now; no longer a captured child-witch.

I bent over her hands, to cover my emotion, and ceremoniously kissed the backs of them; there was a creamy dimple below each finger now. As I lifted my head and heard Roger's chuckle of delight at my amazement at her, I saw for the first time that we three were not alone in the room, and found myself bowing to a neat, chill British spinster, big and white of tooth, big and flat of waist, big and bony of knuckle.

She wore sensible, square-toed boots and the fashion of her clothing suggested a conscientious tailor who had momentarily lost sight of her s.e.x. She bore a _pince-nez_ upon her flat chest, the necessity for which was obvious, but her short-sighted blue eyes were kind and the grasp of her knuckly hand was human. She was a thorough-going lady if she was a trifle grotesque, and my respectful friendship for Barbara Jencks, late of the household of the Governor-General of Canada, has never waned.

"You find Mrs. Bradley somewhat changed, I dare say," she remarked, by way of breaking a rather strained silence, for Roger, never talkative, was hunting among a pile of guide-books and Margarita was staring dreamily into the sunset, now a miracle of golden rose.

"Somewhat, indeed," I responded politely, my mind darting back to that girl in the red jersey who had sat cross-legged like a Turk on the sand, and told me that I loved her. What would the Governor-General have thought of that girl?

Again a pause, and now Miss Jencks addressed Margarita, affectionately, but firmly--oh, very firmly!

"What do you find so absorbing out of the window, my dear?"

Margarita started like a forgetful child, blushed a little, murmured impatiently in French and then smiled delightfully at me.

"But this is Jerry, Miss Jencks, Roger's and my Jerry," she said beseechingly. "You do not mean that I must be polite to Jerry?"

"Most a.s.suredly," returned Miss Jencks. "When a gentleman, even though he be an old friend, makes a journey to see one after a long absence, he expects and deserves to be entertained!"

Roger caught my eye, made his old whimsical grimace, and rooted deeper into the guide-books. Margarita sighed gently, seated herself in a high carved chair and inquired, with her lips, adorably, after my health and my journey, but laughed naughtily with her eyes, an accomplishment so foreign to my knowledge of her as to reduce me to utter ba.n.a.lity; which suited Miss Jencks perfectly, however, so that she resigned the conversational rudder to her pupil and concerned herself with knitting a hideous grey comforter (for the Seaman's Home, I learned later), giving the occupation a character worthy the most _comme-il-faut_ clubman.

A neat, black uniformed _bonne_ brought in tea, in the English fashion, and Margarita served us most charmingly under the eagle eye of Miss Jencks, eating, herself, like a hungry school-girl, and stealing Roger's cakes impudently when the sometime directress of the Governor-General's household affected a well-bred deafness to her request for more. After tea Miss Jencks departed with her knitting and we three were comfortably silent; Margarita dreamy, I all in a maze at her, Roger relishing my wonder. The hyacinths smelled strong in the growing dusk, the Chinese dragons burned against the wall: colour and odour were alike a frame for her beauty and her richness. I can never wholly separate that hour in my memory from the visions of a fever and the burning heat of worse than the African Desert.

Later we sat about the candle-shaded dinner table, a meal where English service faded in the greater glory of French cooking, and I rebelled with Roger at Miss Jencks's curtailment of her charge's appet.i.te.

"Surely, Miss Jencks, this _escarole_ is harmless," Roger protested, with a smile at Margarita's empty plate, but when that lady repeated, nodding wisely:

"I a.s.sure you, Mr. Bradley, she is better without it," he succ.u.mbed meekly, even slavishly, I thought, and shook his head at Margarita's pleading eyes.

In the centre of the table was a graceful silver dish, filled with fruit, and as the attendant _bonne_ left the room, Margarita, with a little cooing throaty cry, reached over to it, seized with incredible swiftness two great handfuls of the fruit, and leaping from her seat retreated with her booty to the _salon_. For a second she stood in the doorway, two yellow bananas hugged to her breast among the rich lace, an orange in her elbow, her teeth plunged into a great black Hamburg grape, her eyes two dark blue mutinies.

Roger burst into a Homeric laugh and even Miss Jencks smiled apologetically.

"I suppose we must let her have the fruit," she conceded, "an old friend like Mr. Jerrolds will make allowance--"

"We expect the child in June," said Roger simply, and then something seemed literally to give way in my brain and I clutched the table-cloth as a sharp hard pain darted through my temples. Strange, unbelievable though it may seem, I had never thought of such a thing as this!

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOR HOURS AND HOURS I WALKED, MUTTERING AND CURSING]

My face must have excused my brusque departure, my utter inability to eat or drink another mouthful. I muttered something about a rough voyage and my land-legs (I, who never knew the meaning of _mal-de-mer_!) and I know my forehead must have been drawn, for Miss Jencks pressed _sal volatile_ upon me solicitously. Roger, manlike, let me get off immediately and alone, as I begged, and once at the bottom of the interminable stairs, I flung myself into a wandering _fiacre_, and drove through the merry, lighted Paris boulevards, a helpless prey to pa.s.sions black and bitter--to a wicked, seething jealousy such as I had never dreamed possible to a decent man.

_That_ was the deep throat, the large and lovely arm! _That_ was the dreamy, full-fed calm, the woman ruminant! G.o.d! how the thought tortured and tore at me! I, who had thought myself cured and a philosopher--a kindly philosopher! My first fit of love for her had carried its exaltation with it, but in this grinding, physical rage there was only shame and madness.

I caught, somehow, a train for Calais, I stumbled onto a boat there in a driving rain, and walked the deck in it all night. I travelled blindly to Oxford and tramped through soggy, steaming lanes, through sheets of drizzle, through icy runnels and marshy gra.s.s. For hours and hours I walked, muttering and cursing, my teeth chattering in my head, my brain on fire, my feet slushing in my soaking boots. I did not know clearly where I was, I did not know why I was walking nor where, but walk I must, like the convicts on the treadmill. Something laughed horribly in the air just behind me and said like a parrot, over and over again:

"We expect the child in June! We expect the child in June! We expect the child--"