The Mayor of Warwick Part 23

"We are all his students," Mrs. Parr put in, "whether we wish to be or not." She spoke with such feeling that the others were moved to laughter. For some time she had been looking from Leigh to Felicity with that birdlike movement of the head, until she had made a woman's great discovery, that her friend was not indifferent to his admiration.

Without going so far as to wish Felicity to marry him, she was deeply pleased that he seemed to have driven away the more unworthy fancy.

This was enough for the present, and her content shone in her glances toward the young man like an unspoken message of good-will.

As they stood on the curb outside while Mr. Parr went to find his carriage, the scene before them presented such a contrast with the experiences of the evening that instinctively they were hushed in contemplation. The bare branches of the trees in the park across the way were silvered by the rays of the full moon, which wrought a motionless tracery on the thin remnant of snow beneath. Through a gap could be seen the white shaft of the soldiers' monument, lifting high above the trees a splendid figure of Victory, with wings outspread against the pale sky. Modelled after the Pillar of Trajan, only more lovely in the purity of its white marble, it was one of the rare objects of art that gave Warwick a claim to distinction and justified the pride of its citizens. Around it were carved innumerable figures of soldiers, climbing a spiral pathway. Indistinguishable now in the moonlight, they still remained in the memory, like the echo of a martial song.

This was the first appeal of the night, made to the eye alone; but presently, despite the random noises of the street, they became aware of a dull, continuous sound, and knew that the stream which intersected the park on its way to the river had been freed from ice by the January thaw, and was pouring its swollen waters over the dam. The note was deep and full, like a solemn recitative, as if Nature's diurnal harmonies had sunk to this one transitional key. Above all, the mildness of the air, full of the alluring witchery of a false spring, affected the imagination like a delicate, ethereal wine.

Leigh lifted his head and swept the sky with the keenness of the scientist to whom its vast s.p.a.ces are a familiar book; yet when he suddenly desisted and looked down at Felicity, she saw in his eyes the rare expression of the poet.

"It would almost seem," he said, "that Nature has gradually been taking on a more serene and mysterious beauty every moment, to rebuke the feverish struggles of men."

Their glances lingered, and he read in her a wild unhappiness and a suggestion of reckless daring that stirred his heart to he knew not what tempestuous emotions. He found in that look a license for his dreams, and made her the guardian of his conscience. He had no wish to be more honourable than she, and this surrender was attended by an ecstasy that derived its final sweetness from a sense of transgression.

When the carriage came round, he handed Mrs. Parr in, and then hesitated.

"We ought to walk home such a night as this, Miss Wycliffe," he suggested.

Mrs. Parr leaned forward and laughed lightly with appreciation.

"Felicity, dear," she said, "if you're going to walk, do draw up your hood, or you'll catch cold."

Leigh's heart grew warm with grat.i.tude at this friendly interposition, and to his surprise even Parr himself seemed not indifferent to his cause. "Yes," he added, pulling at his cigar till it glowed redly, "this is the kind of weather when one catches cold easily. The worst cold I ever caught was during one of these January thaws." With this advice they drove away, pleased with their innocent cooperation.

Felicity, laughing at their warning, nevertheless accepted the suggestion. The long Shaker cloak gave a demure and Puritanical effect to her figure as her head disappeared beneath the hood, an effect of outline merely, for the richness of its crimson hue suggested other a.s.sociations. For some time they walked in comparative silence through the park, pausing for a moment on the stone arch that spanned the stream to note the glint of the moon on the swirling water, and even when they found themselves at last in Birdseye Avenue, their talk was all of the night and the sorcery of its effects, veiling and again unconsciously betraying the nature of their inward thoughts.

A realisation of the fact that his opportunity was slipping by moved Leigh to desperation. Yet an opportunity for what? Try as he might, he could never understand how she had come to marry Emmet; her practical repudiation of the act could not undo it. What was he to hope for from this cruel and beautiful woman? He was indifferent to the fact that for some time he had not spoken.

"What are you thinking of?" she asked, turning upon him with a hint of challenge. "Has the moonlight bewitched you, Mr. Leigh?"

"Not the moonlight," he answered shortly, "though I am bewitched."

She regarded him with an air of inquiry, even of invitation. Was it possible that she failed to know what might result? Did she hunger for further evidences of her power?

"Don't look at me like that," he went on, "if you wish me to remember that you once forbade me to love you. Don't I know how hopeless my love is? Your eyes have come between me and my work day and night to invite me to take what you can never give, and what I believe you would not give if you could. Is n't it enough that you have been cruel to one man?"

They were pa.s.sing her house, but neither paused. His pa.s.sion had led him to disclose his knowledge of her secret, and her heart was gripped in a sudden fear. For the moment, it seemed to her that all Warwick must know, that the fact she now desired to conceal was common property, to be to-morrow the wonder of the town.

"See how deserted the street is," he said. "It is as if you and I were walking alone in the world, and who can tell when we shall be alone again?"

Presently he paused and faced her. She stood looking up at him, her face, framed by the gathered edge of her crimson hood, ethereally beautiful in the full moonlight.

"Do you know how a man feels when he loves you, Felicity?" he demanded.

It was the first time he had ever addressed her by that name, but she accepted it without protest, waiting with parted lips for his next words. "How can you be so quiet?" he went on pa.s.sionately. "It is n't possible that you can be as cruel as you seem! Why did n't you treat me brutally at the very first, and give me my answer before I was such a fool as to ask the question? That would have been kindness. But you let me hope, I don't know why, perhaps because you wanted to use me, perhaps to feed your vanity. Just now I hardly know what I am saying to you; but don't think that I shall be one of your victims. You owe me something, Felicity, some memory to carry with me the rest of my life. That at least I will have, even if I must pay for it by never seeing you again."

Before she could forestall his intention, he had drawn her into his arms. Her hand faltered in a vain effort against his breast, and she was lost. She leaned against him helplessly. "There," he said, kissing her once and again, "now you know how I love you."

They stood apart, trembling. In his eyes shone a mournful triumph, while her indignation was rendered speechless by a full knowledge of her responsibility for the act. She could have averted it, had she wished.

"I did not dream," he said at last, as if speaking to himself alone, "that a woman could be so sweet."

"Have you forgotten that I am"--She could not frame the word that hovered on her lips, nor maintain the dignity for which she strove against the suffocating tumult of joy that rioted in her heart.

"Your husband gave me his confidence," he answered bitterly. "You see how well I deserved it."

"Then you realise what you have done." There was a note of finality in her voice, and, turning slowly, she began to retrace her steps. She was unconscious of the fact that they were walking close together until the sound of a carriage overtaking them caused her to draw away instinctively and to glance with apprehension at the roadway. The vehicle pa.s.sed within a few feet of the curb, and the bishop leaned forward with a look of recognition.

"Father has been to the reception," she said. "I must go in now."

"There is so much I want to say," he protested.

She smiled drearily. "You must spare me further humiliation," she answered. He knew her meaning without more words. He must not speak to her of her mistake, nor hint of the possibility of her freedom. Yet it was this possibility that struggled dumbly within them for recognition, so that now their mood was one of storm, all the more intense from its repression. They were conscious each moment of the man who stood between them, no longer the familiar figure, but one evoked by their mutual guilt and sublimated by Cardington's prophetic words, strong to avenge himself upon his enemies and betrayers. Leigh, convinced that Emmet would claim his own, suffered already the anguish of renunciation, more poignant that the pressure of her unresisting lips was still felt warmly on his own. Before her house he stooped and kissed her again without fear of repulse, chastened and subdued.

"Since it is to be good-bye," she said quietly.

He stood where she left him, watching her figure lessening between the trees until it was swallowed up in the shadow of the house. The door opened, he saw the crimson flash of her cloak for a moment in the light from within, and then she was gone.

The bishop, sitting beside the lamp with a book in his hand, glanced up as his daughter entered, with a keen inquiry in his deepset eyes.

"I thought I just pa.s.sed you with Mr. Leigh," he remarked, watching the effect of his words. Her unusual colour and the brilliancy of her eyes served to confirm his suspicions, though her manner was as studiedly indifferent as his own. It was with difficulty that she restrained the trembling of her fingers fumbling with the fastening of her cloak.

"Yes," she answered. "Mr. Leigh met us at the Bradford after the President's speech, and the night was so beautiful that we walked home together."

Looking at her attentively, he was struck by a new softness and radiance in her beauty, and by the fact that the Shaker cloak was singularly becoming. He thought of his sermon on personal adornment, and in spite of his anxiety, a deep amus.e.m.e.nt dawned in his eyes. "And went around Robin Hood's barn, by the way," he supplemented.

"Is n't the longest way round the shortest way home?" she asked coolly.

His smile had rea.s.sured her. Whatever he suspected, it was much less than the truth.

It was not in the bishop's nature to come out with a direct question that might precipitate a scene, except as a last resort, and he presently bade her good-night, after commenting upon the events of the evening with the casual interest of one accustomed to public spectacles. In reality, his interest had been deep, but now another matter demanded his thought, and he was willing to be alone. He was reminded by the encounter in the street that it was high time to put the machinery in operation by which the young professor was to be quietly dismissed from St. George's Hall. Satisfied with his a.n.a.lysis of his daughter's state of mind, he perfected his plan, and went to bed in comparative content.

Leigh sat for a long time staring at the flame of his lamp and striving to take reckoning with himself. He could no more have told how he found his way to his room than if he had been carried thither in a state of insensibility, but there he was, trying to think, while mere emotion still held a riotous sway. He had kissed her, and the touch of her lips, the fragrance of her skin, were even now present in his senses. The experience caused him to readjust his impression of her.

She had lost something in his eyes. What was it? Not height; though she seemed less tall. The change was not in stature. Like Pygmalion, he had found the marble grow warm and human beneath his caress; he was still bewildered by the wonder of it, and mad with a sense of triumph.

She had lost her inaccessibility, her inviolable distance, but she had gained in womanly quality, gained infinitely upon his heart, so that now he longed for only one thing--to take her in his arms once more.

At the thought he flushed warmly; but suddenly his heart grew cold, as her words came back so vividly to his mind that they seemed spoken audibly in the room: "Since it is to be good-bye."

He arose from his chair and walked rapidly up and down the room, as if to escape from his own condemnation. Had he, then, no honour at all?

The question brought him face to face with his naked soul, and he was afraid. What sophistry was that by which he had justified his act? He had argued that it was to be a kiss of farewell, and no sooner had he attained his wish than all thought of the stipulation vanished utterly from his mind, leaving only a more insatiable longing. The last vestige of his morality seemed to be swept away, and memory made the taste of stolen waters still sweet to his lips. When he judged Emmet so severely, he was proudly sure of his own standards, but now he felt he had none. Her husband's scornful and warning look, the day they encountered each other in the street, was then prophetic. The man estimated him unerringly, and knew what he had to fear.

Reflection had come at last, and would not down. Surely, Emmet was the more honourable of the two, and had been more sinned against than sinning. He had slipped, had recovered himself, and was honestly striving to make amends. How shamefully cruel his treatment had been from every hand, from his wife's, his friend's, his political opponents'! Where was now his own guilty triumph of a few moments since? He sank into his chair once more, and faced the fact that Emmet had given him an example to follow, that he must keep his promise not to see Felicity again.

His eye fell upon his pipe and he seized it avidly. At the table, he had not smoked with Cardington and Parr; he had scarcely eaten. Now, the tobacco brought peculiar relief to his over-wrought mind, and dulled for a few moments the edge of his remorse. In the wavering clouds of smoke he saw her eyes once more. And the crimson cloak! Was ever a wrap worn by mortal woman so bewitching, so deliciously contradictory in its suggestions? The Shaker women never married, and this was their peculiar garment, though they always wore one of sad, monotonous gray. Every winter they came to Warwick and sold cloaks of worldly colours to the rich young women of the town, seeking money for their dwindling settlement. In the contradiction between the demureness of outline and the warmth of colour the wearer found a weapon of coquetry.

Presently the pipe was smoked out, and then the second and the third, with gradual lessening of narcotic power. The vision of the senses was gone, and the relentless reality of duty returned. Once more he left his chair and began his restless pacing to and fro. Thus the miserable night wore on, until he threw himself upon his bed to win the oblivion of sleep.

But now another memory a.s.sailed him: the night following his meeting with Felicity in the woods, when, during fitful dreams, a vision of that strange figure rising up in the shadows beyond the fire returned to haunt him. Suddenly he was sitting up in bed, staring into the darkness. In despair he went to his windows and raised the curtains to see if it were near the dawn. It was four o'clock, but night still covered the wintry landscape. The full moon was setting in the west.

Transformed from a natural object by the medium of his over-strained and weary mind, it now presented a sinister and mocking face, as it peered through the diamonded panes and poured a flood of yellow light upon the floor.

CHAPTER XVI