The Dark Flower Part 30

Mischief incarnate, but something deeper than mischief, too! He came up with her at last, and leaned over to seize her rein. With a cut of her whip that missed his hand by a bare inch, and a wrench, she made him shoot past, wheeled in her tracks, and was off again like an arrow, back amongst the trees--lying right forward under the boughs, along the neck of her little horse. Then out from amongst the trees she shot downhill.

Right down she went, full tilt, and after her went Lennan, lying back, and expecting the bay mare to come down at every stride. This was her idea of fun! She switched round at the bottom and went galloping along the foot of the hill; and he thought: Now I've got her! She could not break back up that hill, and there was no other cover for fully half a mile.

Then he saw, not thirty yards in front, an old sandpit; and Great G.o.d!

she was going straight at it! And shouting frantically, he reined his mare outwards. But she only raised her whip, cut the magpie horse over the flank, and rode right on. He saw that little demon gather its feet and spring--down, down, saw him pitch, struggle, sink--and she, flung forward, roll over and lie on her back. He felt nothing at the moment, only had that fixed vision of a yellow patch of sand, the blue sky, a rook flying, and her face upturned. But when he came on her she was on her feet, holding the bridle of her dazed horse. No sooner did he touch her, than she sank down. Her eyes were closed, but he could feel that she had not fainted; and he just held her, and kept pressing his lips to her eyes and forehead. Suddenly she let her head fall back, and her lips met his. Then opening her eyes, she said: "I'm not hurt, only--funny.

Has Magpie cut his knees?"

Not quite knowing what he did, he got up to look. The little horse was cropping at some gra.s.s, unharmed--the sand and fern had saved his knees.

And the languid voice behind him said: "It's all right--you can leave the horses. They'll come when I call."

Now that he knew she was unhurt, he felt angry. Why had she behaved in this mad way--given him this fearful shock? But in that same languid voice she went on: "Don't be cross with me. I thought at first I'd pull up, but then I thought: 'If I jump he can't help being nice'--so I did--Don't leave off loving me because I'm not hurt, please."

Terribly moved, he sat down beside her, took her hands in his, and said:

"Nell! Nell! it's all wrong--it's madness!"

"Why? Don't think about it! I don't want you to think--only to love me."

"My child, you don't know what love is!"

For answer she only flung her arms round his neck; then, since he held back from kissing her, let them fall again, and jumped up.

"Very well. But I love you. You can think of THAT--you can't prevent me!" And without waiting for help, she mounted the magpie horse from the sand-heap where they had fallen.

Very sober that ride home! The horses, as if ashamed of their mad chase, were edging close to each other, so that now and then his arm would touch her shoulder. He asked her once what she had felt while she was jumping.

"Only to be sure my foot was free. It was rather horrid coming down, thinking of Magpie's knees;" and touching the little horse's goat-like ears, she added softly: "Poor dear! He'll be stiff to-morrow."

She was again only the confiding, rather drowsy, child. Or was it that the fierceness of those past moments had killed his power of feeling? An almost dreamy hour--with the sun going down, the lamps being lighted one by one--and a sort of sweet oblivion over everything!

At the door, where the groom was waiting, Lennan would have said good-bye, but she whispered: "Oh, no, please! I AM tired now--you might help me up a little."

And so, half carrying her, he mounted past the Vanity Fair cartoons, and through the corridor with the red paper and the Van Beers' drawings, into the room where he had first seen her.

Once settled back in Dromore's great chair, with the purring kitten curled up on her neck, she murmured:

"Isn't it nice? You can make tea; and we'll have hot b.u.t.tered toast."

And so Lennan stayed, while the confidential man brought tea and toast; and, never once looking at them, seemed to know all that had pa.s.sed, all that might be to come.

Then they were alone again, and, gazing down at her stretched out in that great chair, Lennan thought:

"Thank G.o.d that I'm tired too--body and soul!"

But suddenly she looked up at him, and pointing to the picture that to-day had no curtain drawn, said:

"Do you think I'm like her? I made Oliver tell me about--myself this summer. That's why you needn't bother. It doesn't matter what happens to me, you see. And I don't care--because you can love me, without feeling bad about it. And you will, won't you?"

Then, with her eyes still on his face, she went on quickly:

"Only we won't talk about that now, will we? It's too cosy. I AM nice and tired. Do smoke!"

But Lennan's fingers trembled so that he could hardly light that cigarette. And, watching them, she said: "Please give me one. Dad doesn't like my smoking."

The virtue of Johnny Dromore! Yes! It would always be by proxy! And he muttered:

"How do you think he would like to know about this afternoon, Nell?"

"I don't care." Then peering up through the kitten's fur she murmured: "Oliver wants me to go to a dance on Sat.u.r.day--it's for a charity. Shall I?"

"Of course; why not?"

"Will YOU come?"

"I?"

"Oh, do! You must! It's my very first, you know. I've got an extra ticket."

And against his will, his judgment--everything, Lennan answered: "Yes."

She clapped her hands, and the kitten crawled down to her knees.

When he got up to go, she did not move, but just looked up at him; and how he got away he did not know.

Stopping his cab a little short of home, he ran, for he felt cold and stiff, and letting himself in with his latch-key, went straight to the drawing-room. The door was ajar, and Sylvia standing at the window. He heard her sigh; and his heart smote him. Very still, and slender, and lonely she looked out there, with the light shining on her fair hair so that it seemed almost white. Then she turned and saw him. He noticed her throat working with the effort she made not to show him anything, and he said:

"Surely you haven't been anxious! Nell had a bit of a fall--jumping into a sandpit. She's quite mad sometimes. I stayed to tea with her--just to make sure she wasn't really hurt." But as he spoke he loathed himself; his voice sounded so false.

She only answered: "It's all right, dear," but he saw that she kept her eyes--those blue, too true eyes--averted, even when she kissed him.

And so began another evening and night and morning of fever, subterfuge, wariness, aching. A round of half-ecstatic torment, out of which he seemed no more able to break than a man can break through the walls of a cell....

Though it live but a day in the sun, though it drown in tenebrous night, the dark flower of pa.s.sion will have its hour....

XII

To deceive undoubtedly requires a course of training. And, unversed in this art, Lennan was fast finding it intolerable to scheme and watch himself, and mislead one who had looked up to him ever since they were children. Yet, all the time, he had a feeling that, since he alone knew all the circ.u.mstances of his case, he alone was ent.i.tled to blame or to excuse himself. The glib judgments that moralists would pa.s.s upon his conduct could be nothing but the imbecilities of smug and pharisaic fools--of those not under this drugging spell--of such as had not blood enough, perhaps, ever to fall beneath it!

The day after the ride Nell had not come, and he had no word from her.

Was she, then, hurt, after all? She had lain back very inertly in that chair! And Sylvia never asked if he knew how the girl was after her fall, nor offered to send round to inquire. Did she not wish to speak of her, or had she simply--not believed? When there was so much he could not talk of it seemed hard that just what happened to be true should be distrusted. She had not yet, indeed, by a single word suggested that she felt he was deceiving her, but at heart he knew that she was not deceived.... Those feelers of a woman who loves--can anything check their delicate apprehension? . . .

Towards evening, the longing to see the girl--a sensation as if she were calling him to come to her--became almost insupportable; yet, whatever excuse he gave, he felt that Sylvia would know where he was going. He sat on one side of the fire, she on the other, and they both read books; the only strange thing about their reading was, that neither of them ever turned a leaf. It was 'Don Quixote' he read, the page which had these words: "Let Altisidora weep or sing, still I am Dulcinea's and hers alone, dead or alive, dutiful and unchanged, in spite of all the necromantic powers in the world." And so the evening pa.s.sed. When she went up to bed, he was very near to stealing out, driving up to the Dromores' door, and inquiring of the confidential man; but the thought of the confounded fellow's eyes was too much for him, and he held out.

He took up Sylvia's book, De Maupa.s.sant's 'Fort comme la mort'--open at the page where the poor woman finds that her lover has pa.s.sed away from her to her own daughter. And as he read, the tears rolled down his cheek. Sylvia! Sylvia! Were not his old favourite words from that old favourite book still true? "Dulcinea del Toboso is the most beautiful woman in the world, and I the most unfortunate knight upon the earth. It were unjust that such perfection should suffer through my weakness. No, pierce my body with your lance, knight, and let my life expire with my honour...." Why could he not wrench this feeling from his heart, banish this girl from his eyes? Why could he not be wholly true to her who was and always had been wholly true to him? Horrible--this will-less, nerveless feeling, this paralysis, as if he were a puppet moved by a cruel hand. And, as once before, it seemed to him that the girl was sitting there in Sylvia's chair in her dark red frock, with her eyes fixed on him. Uncannily vivid--that impression!... A man could not go on long with his head in Chancery like this, without becoming crazed!

It was growing dusk on Sat.u.r.day afternoon when he gave up that intolerable waiting and opened the studio door to go to Nell. It was now just two days since he had seen or heard of her. She had spoken of a dance for that very night--of his going to it. She MUST be ill!

But he had not taken six steps when he saw her coming. She had on a grey furry scarf, hiding her mouth, making her look much older. The moment the door was shut she threw it off, went to the hearth, drew up a little stool, and, holding her hands out to the fire, said: