The Judgement Of Love Part 16

Then she heard a movement in the room where he painted and she walked through the doorway to see, him placing his pictures in a packing-case.

She stood still, looking at him while he continued to pack the canva.s.ses neatly side by side in the wooden container as if she was not there.

She knew he was aware of her presence although he gave no sign of it.

At last because she could bear the silence no longer she said: "I ... I want to talk to ... you, Vulcan."

She was surprised how strange her own voice sounded. "There is nothing to talk about, " he replied without looking up, apparently intent on what he was doing.

"Will you ... listen to me?"

"I will listen, but it is a waste of words."

"But why? Why must you ... behave like ... this?"

"You know the answer to that. You live in one world and I live in another, and nothing we do or say can bridge it."

"That is not ... true."

Astara moved forward as she spoke drawing nearer to him until she stood beside the packing-case.

He picked up another canvas and she asked: "Are you ... angry with me?"

"No, why should I be? But if you play with fire you are liable to get burnt."

"You thought I was a village maiden and wanted me to pose for your picture."

"If I remember rightly, I thought you were Aphrodite come from Olympus to help in what to me was a real dilemma. "

"I wanted to help you ... I was glad to do so, but now you ... share no ... further ... use for me."

There was so much unhappiness in her tone that almost involuntarily he raised his eyes to look at her for the first time.

She was standing the other side of the packing-case and because the curtains were not drawn over the window the light on her hair made it appear that she was haloed by it.

But her eyes, which seemed to fill her whole face were dark and unhappy and her lips trembled as she said : "Please ... Vulcan, do not ... leave me."

For a moment it seemed as if he found it impossible to answer her, as if despite every resolution his whole being went out towards her.

Then in a voice that was harsh and over-loud and seemed to echo round the big room, he said: "For G.o.d's sake, do not make it worse! You know as well as I do that we have to part."

"Why? Why?" she asked. "I love you! I am not ashamed to say it ... I love you!"

"You will forget me."

"That will be ... impossible!"

"You are very young. However unhappy you may feel now these things pa.s.s and when you are older you will know that I am doing what is right."

"Can it ever be right to refuse love? To turn your back on something so perfect ... so wonderful that I know we ... belong to each other ... or at least ... I belong to you."

There was a note in her voice which seemed to vibrate between them and she thought for a moment that she had broken through his defences, and that he would take her in his arms.

Then he walked away moving towards the North window to stand looking out over the mill-pool and the green fields which bordered the village.

"Go home, Astara," he said, "and think of my uncle's plans for you the money, the social acclaim and the position you will occupy at Worfield House."

"It could ... be yours."

Astara only whispered the words but he heard them.

"I am not the right man for such a position. You had far better marry one of my cousins and, personally, I should choose Lionel. He is by far the nicer of the two."

Vulcan spoke coldly, but Astara felt that underneath the indifference he forced upon his voice he was suffering in much the same way as she was.

"Do you really imagine that ... loving you as I ... do I would ... marry anyone else?" she asked.

"Of course you will marry! "

Again his voice was loud and over-positive.

"What you feel for me now is the calf-love which every girl experiences with her first love-affair. I can promise you from experience that it is very easy to forget."

"Do you really ... believe that is how I ... feel?" Astara asked. "Do you think that if I were so shallow and so inconsequential I could have portrayed Persephone as you ... wished me to do? It was the love that you ... awoke in me that made you ... see her ... enveloped in... light. "

She had not consciously thought the words but felt that they were there, put into her mind by some power beyond herself.

Vulcan did not answer.. he only stood with his back to her, and suddenly through a mist of tears Astara felt as if he had already left her and she was alone.

With a little exclamation that was a cry of pain she ran towards him.

She reached him and inserted herself between him and the window to look up at him, the tears running down her cheeks, her eyes beseeching him as she said : "I love you! Oh, Vulcan, I love you! I will do ... anything you wish ... you need not ... marry me ... I will come with you to Paris ... or anywhere else in the world. Take me ... please ... take me with... you!"

Her voice broke on the last words so that they were almost incoherent, and now as if he could no longer resist her Vulcan pulled her into his arms and his mouth carne down on hers.

He kissed her fiercely, almost brutally, first her lips, then her dyes, the tears from her cheeks, and again her lips.

It was as if a tempest swept over her, and yet she was not afraid. She only knew his mouth evoked the same wonder and glory within her as he had done before.

She felt as if her whole body was invaded with the light he had painted in his picture, but now it was no longer clear 7.nd cold but burning as if it came from the very heart of the sun.

He kissed her until she could think of nothing but the wonder of him and a rapture which seemed to grow in intensity within herself.

She only knew she was his and he was hers.

He picked her up in his arms, still holding her lips captive. Her eyes were shut but she felt him carrying her across the room.

"I love you! Oh, Vulcan, I love you!" she wanted to cry, but everything was too glorious, too perfect for speech and her whole body was burning with the flames of love.

Then suddenly, so suddenly that she could hardly realise what was happening, Vulcan set her down on her feet.

"Go home and forget me," he said, "and G.o.d knows, I shall try to forget you."

Astara could not realise what was happening or where she was!

The suddenness of Vulcan's movement had left her un-steady so that she put out her hand and found she was holding onto the side of the door: It was the front door of the Mill.

She heard it close behind her, heard the key turn in the lock. Then there were Vulcan s footsteps moving heavily along the flagged pa.s.sage.

She was outside, alone in the sunshine which had no warmth in it.

Somehow, she could never afterwards remember anything about it, Astara walked back to Worfield House.

By the time she reached it she felt as if her whole body had gone numb and there was a darkness in her mind which made it almost impossible to think.

She must have gone upstairs, because a little while later she came down again to the Breakfast-Room.

It was as if her body acted instinctively without her will, without her conscious volition.

She could no longer think, she was past tears. "Good-morning, Astara!" Sir Roderick said.

She kissed his cheek as she always did and took her place opposite him at the end of the table.

William and Lionel who had risen as she entered resumed their seats and continued their breakfast.

The servants poured out her coffee and she refused several dishes that were offered to her.

"We shall not be able to ride until about half-past ten, " Sir Roderick said. "It is annoying, but I have to see these men from the Council."

"They are usually very long-winded," Lionel remarked sympathetically.

"Not with me," Sir Roderick replied.

"I have an idea that while we are waiting for Uncle Roderick," William said addressing Astara, "you might like to try out my new team of bays."

Astara did not answer and he went on : "I will drive them for a short while to take the freshness out of them, then if you wish you can drive them home. I know you will appreciate how easy they are to handle."

Vaguely at the back of her mind Astara remembered that she had always wanted to drive a team of four, but now it seemed' unimportant whether she did or not.

"Shall we do that?" William asked.

She knew he would be astonished if she refused such an offer.

"Y .. yes ... yes, of course," she replied.

"I will order them for nine-thirty," he said.

Then he looked across the table at Lionel and said: "I regret that my Phaeton will not hold more than two people."

"I am aware of that, Lionel answered.

William smiled as if he thought he had scored a point over his cousin in ensuring that he had Astara to himself. Sir Roderick rose from the end of the table.

"I imagine the Councillors will be waiting for me," he said, "but I a.s.sure you I shall be back at the house by half after ten."

"We will be ready, Uncle Roderick," Lionel replied. As if Sir Roderick's departure made Astara realise that she too could leave the Breakfast-Room she rose.

Lionel opened the door for her and followed her into the pa.s.sage.

"Do not let William monopolise you for too long," he said. "He is taking an unfair advantage in offering to let you drive his Phaeton. I could hardly invite you to share the saddle of my charger if I had him with me !"

Astara tried to smile at his joke but it was a pitiful effort.

She wondered if she should refuse to go with William and instead lock herself in her bed-room.

Then she told herself that tears would not help her nor would anything else.

Vulcan had meant what he said and somehow her life must go on, even though she felt as if she was crippled and maimed in a way that no-one except he would under-stand.

He must have known, she thought, that by sending her away, by refusing the love she offered him, he had struck a mortal blow not at her body but at her very soul.

Only Vulcan knew that their love was not only physical but spiritual, and without him everything he had aroused in her would wither away and die so that she could only be a ghost of herself.

"How can he do this to me?" she asked.

Then her education, her training, the self-control that her father and mother had taught her to exert ever since she was a child, forced her to behave in what an uninformed on-looker would have thought a normal manner.

She told her maid what bonnet she required and which of her expensive silk shawls she would take with her in case it was cold in the Phaeton.

Now that the sun had risen fully it was obvious it would be a hot day, and Astara did not change from the thin white gown she had put on first thing.

She had chosen it deliberately because it was like the one in which she had posed for Vulcan as Persephone, and instinctively she had thought she would remind him that he had called her 'Aphrodite' and 'his little G.o.ddessHer white gown was unrelieved by colour but her bonnet was trimmed with a wreath of small pink roses and there were pink ribbons to match, to tie under her chin.

She looked very lovely as she came down the stairs to where William was waiting for her in the Hall.

Only someone more perceptive than he would have realised that she was very pale and her eyes had a glazed look as if she was suffering from shock.

The Phaeton was waiting outside the door. William's exceptionally fine team of bays were fidgeting to be off and the grooms were finding it hard to hold them.

Lionel helped Astara up into the Phaeton.

"Take care of yourself," he said. "These vehicles can be dangerous in narrow country lanes."

"Are you casting aspersions on my driving?" William asked truculently.

"I think I am more apprehensive in case Astara is not as experienced as you," Lionel replied.

William did not answer and he went on: "Personally I think, whatever you may say about your horses, they are too head-strong for a woman to control."