Rosa Mundi and Other Stories Part 37

"Don't hold me at arms' length!" she pleaded gently. "It makes things so difficult."

"What is it you want to know?" he asked without relaxing.

She stood silent for a few seconds as if summoning all her courage. Then at length, her voice very low, she spoke.

"When you said that you wanted me for your wife, did you mean that you--loved me?"

He made an abrupt movement, and his fingers closed tightly upon her wrist. For a moment or more he sat in tense silence, then he got to his feet.

"Why do you want to know?" he demanded harshly.

She stood before him with bent head.

"Because," she said, and there was a piteous quiver in her voice, "I am lonely, and I have a very empty heart. And--and--if you love me it will not frighten me to know it. It will only--make me--glad."

He put his hand on her shoulder. "Do you know what you are saying?" he questioned.

"Yes," she said under her breath.

"Are you sure?" he persisted.

She raised her head impulsively, and, with a gesture most winning, most confident, she stretched up her arms to him.

"Yes," she said. "I mean it! I mean it! I want--to be loved!"

His arms were close about her as she ended, and she uttered the last words chokingly with her face against his breast. The effort had cost her all her strength, and she clung to him panting, almost fainting, while panic--wild, unreasoning panic--swept over her. What was this man to whom she had thus impulsively given herself--this man whom all men feared?

Nevertheless, she grew calmer at last, awaking to the fact that though his hold was tense and pa.s.sionate, he still retained his self-control.

She commanded herself, and turned her face upwards.

"Then you do love me?" she said tremulously.

His eyes shone into hers, red as the inner, intolerable glow of a furnace. He did not attempt to make reply in words. He seemed at that moment incapable of speech. He only bent and kissed her fiercely, burningly, even brutally, upon the lips. And so she had her answer.

VII

It was a curious establishment over which Sybil found herself called upon to preside. The native, Beelzebub, was her only domestic, and, as Mercer had predicted, she found him very willing if not always efficient. One thing she speedily discovered regarding him. He went in deadly fear of his master, and invariably crept about like a whipped cur in his presence.

"Why is it?" she said to Curtis once.

But Curtis only shrugged his shoulders in reply.

He was a continual puzzle to her, this man. There was no servility about him, but she had a feeling that he, too, was in some fashion under Mercer's heel. He made himself exceedingly useful to her in his silent, un.o.btrusive way; but he seldom spoke on his own initiative, and it was some time before she felt herself to be on terms of intimacy with him.

He was an excellent cook; and he and Beelzebub between them made her duties remarkably light. In fact, she spent most of her time riding with her husband, who was fully occupied just then in overlooking the shearers' work. She also was keenly interested, but he never suffered her to go among the men. Once, when she had grown tired of waiting for him, and followed him into one of the sheds, he was actually angry with her--a new experience, which, if it did not seriously scare her, made her nervous in his presence for some time afterwards.

She had come to regard him as a man whose will was bound to be respected, a man who possessed the power of impressing his personality indelibly upon all with whom he came in contact. There were times when he touched and set vibrating the very pulse of her being, times when her heart quivered and expanded in the heat of his pa.s.sion as a flower that opens to the sun. But there were also times when he filled her with a nameless dread, when the very foundations of her confidence were shaken, and she felt as a prisoner behind iron bars. She did not know him, that was her trouble. There were in him depths that she could not reach, could scarcely even realize. He was slow to reveal himself to her, and she had but the vaguest indications to guide her. She even felt sometimes that he deliberately kept back from her that which she felt to be almost the essential part of him. This she knew that time must remedy. Living his life, she was bound ultimately to know whereof he was made, and she tried to a.s.sure herself that when that knowledge came to her she would not be dismayed. And yet she had occasional glimpses of him that made her tremble.

One evening, after they had spent the entire day in the saddle, he went after supper to look at one of the horses that was suffering from a cracked hock. Curtis was busy in the kitchen, and Sybil betook herself to the step to wait for her husband. She often sat in the starlight while he smoked his pipe. She knew that he liked to have her there.

She was drowsy after her long exercise, and must have dozed with her head against the door-post, when suddenly she became conscious of a curious sound. It came from the direction of the stable which was on the other side of the house. But for the absolute stillness of the night she would not have heard it. She started upright in alarm, and listened intently.

It came again--a terrible wailing, unlike anything she had ever heard, ending in a staccato shriek that made her blood run cold.

She sprang up and turned into the house, almost running into Curtis, who had just appeared in the pa.s.sage behind her.

"Oh, what is it?" she cried. "What is it? Something terrible is happening! Did you hear?"

She would have turned into the kitchen, that being the shortest route to the stable, but he stretched an arm in front of her.

"I shouldn't go if I were you," he said. "You can't do any good."

She stood and stared at him, a ghastly fear clutching her heart.

"What--what do you mean?" she gasped.

"It's only Beelzebub," he said, "getting hammered for his sins."

She gripped her hands tightly over her breast. "You mean that--that my husband--?"

He nodded. "It won't go on much longer. I should go to bed if I were you."

He meant it kindly, but the words sounded to her most hideously callous.

She turned from him, sobbing hysterically, and sprang for the open door.

The next moment she was running swiftly round the house to the stable.

Turning the corner, she heard a sound like a pistol-shot. It was followed instantly by a scream so utterly inhuman that even then she almost wheeled and fled. But she mastered the impulse. She reached the stable-door, fumbled at the latch, finally burst inwards as it swung open.

A lantern hung on a nail immediately within. By its light she discovered her husband--a gigantic figure--towering over something she could not see, something that crouched, writhing and moaning, in a corner. He was armed with a horsewhip, and even as she entered she saw him raise it and bring it downwards with a horrible precision upon the thing at his feet.

She heard again that awful shriek of anguish, and a sick shudder went through her. Unconsciously, a cry broke from her own lips, and, as Mercer's arm went up again, she flung herself forward and tried to catch it.

In her agitation she failed. The heavy end of the whip fell upon her outstretched arm, numbing; it to the shoulder. She heard Mercer utter a frightful oath, and with a gasp she fell.

VIII

When she came to herself she was lying on her bed. Someone--Curtis--was bathing her arm in warm water. He did not speak to her or raise his: eyes from his occupation. She thought he looked very grim.

"Where is--Brett?" she whispered.

Curtis did not answer her, but a moment later she looked beyond him and saw Mercer leaning upon the bed-rail. His eyes were fixed upon her and held her own. She sought to avoid them, but could not. And suddenly she knew that he was angry with her, not merely displeased, but furiously angry.

She made an effort to rise, but at that Curtis laid a restraining hand upon her, and spoke.

"Go away, Mercer!" he said. "Haven't you done harm enough for one night?"

The words amazed her. She had never thought that he would dare to use such a tone to her husband. She trembled for the result, for Mercer's face just then was terrible, but Curtis did not so much as glance in his direction.