The Second Fiddle Part 7

Lady Verny's lips closed tightly. She wasn't going to tell Julian anything, because she did not believe in telling things to people who will in the course of time find them out for themselves. She knew that Marian would not marry him at a moment's notice. She knew that he was asking Marian already to stand a very serious burden, and she did not think Marian's was the type of love that cares for very serious and unexpected burdens. She gazed at the bushes of blue anchusa; the gardener had planted pink monthly roses a little too thickly among them.

She could alter that; she did not think there was anything else she could alter.

Julian strode toward the downs full of seriousness, eagerness, and pride, and in her heart Lady Verny prayed not that G.o.d's will might be done, which seemed to her mind superfluous, but that it might as far as possible be made to square with Julian's. She was a wise and even a just woman, but she thought that Providence might be persuaded to stretch a point or two for Julian.

CHAPTER IX

Julian walked easily and swiftly up the slopes of the downs, whistling as he went. He knew the point from which he would be sure to see his flying nymph. The air was full of the songs of larks; beneath his feet the short gra.s.ses and wild thyme sent up a clean and pungent fragrance.

The little, comfortable beauties of the summer's day filled his heart with gladness. There was no sound in all the sleepy country-side; the peaceful shining clouds floated over the low green hills as vague as waking dreams.

The cropping of the sheep upon the downs, the searching, spiral laughter of the larks, were part of the air itself; and the shadows ran an interminable race across the long green meadows.

Julian had had experiences of love before, but he had never been in love as he was now. He compared these earlier efforts in his mind with the light clouds that melted into the sunshine. Marian was the sunshine; she thrilled and warmed his whole being. She was like an adventure to him. He felt very humble in his heart to think the sun had cared to shine upon him, and very strong to meet its shining.

He noticed little things he had never noticed before: the feathery, fine stalks of the harebells, and the blue b.u.t.terflies that moved among them like traveling flowers. Usually, when he walked, he noticed only the quickest way to reach his goal. He noticed that now, but he tried not to crush the small down flowers on his way.

He caught sight of Marian from a ridge of down, sitting motionless and erect upon the rim of an old chalk-pit. A long, blue veil hung over her shoulders like the wings of a blue b.u.t.terfly fluttering before him. She saw his shadow before he reached her, and threw her head back with a little gesture that was half a welcome and half a defiance.

He came swiftly across the gra.s.s toward her, but it was she who was breathless when he took her in his arms.

"Trying to run away from me, are you?" he asked, smiling down at her.

"The world's too small here, and it's mine, you know. You shouldn't have come here if you had wanted to escape me."

"Let me go, Julian," she murmured. "I'm sure there's a shepherd close by. Sit down and be sensible."

"Shepherds be hanged!" said Julian, kissing her. "Do you suppose anybody's ever been more sensible than I feel now? Kissing you is the most sensible thing a man ever did; but don't let anybody else guess it."

He sat down at her feet and looked up into the beautiful, flushed face above him. It was as lovely as a lifted flower; but unlike the flower, it was not very soft. It was even like a slightly sophisticated hothouse flower; but she had the look of race he loved. Her level, penciled brows, small, straight nose, curved lips, and chin like a firm, round apple, were the heritage of generations of handsome lives. Her coloring was only a stain of pink upon a delicate, clear whiteness; but the eyes beneath the low, smooth forehead, were disappointing. They were well-cut hazel eyes, without light in them. They lay in her head a little flat, like the pieces of a broken mirror.

Just now they were at their tenderest. Her whole face, bending over him, cool and sweet as the southwest wind and as provocative as the flying clouds, moved his heart almost unbearably. She was like an English summer day, and he knew now what it would mean to leave her.

"I couldn't bear to stay down there," she explained. "I was frightened, not of you, you absurd person, but of being glad. I'm afraid I don't like big feelings very much. I can't explain exactly, but the papers frightened me. I wanted to see you too much. Yes, sir, you may keep that for a prize to your vanity; and I knew that if there should be war--"

She stopped, her lovely lips trembled a little. "I shall have to let you go so soon!" she whispered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I'm afraid I don't like big feelings much"]

He bowed his head over her hand and kissed it pa.s.sionately.

"If I could spare you this pain," he said, "I'd take a thousand lives--and lose them to do it!"

"No! no!" she murmured. "Keep one, Julian!"

He lifted his head and looked at her steadily.

"I swear I'll keep it," he said. "I'll keep it, and bring it back to you, cost what it may."

It did not look as if it were going to cost very much, with the light clouds pa.s.sing overhead, and the soft down gra.s.ses under them; and their great citadels of youth and love about them, unmenaced and erect.

"I've a piece of work I've got to do," Julian went on, "and I can't tell you anything about it. It'll take me three months, I fancy. I can fight afterward."

She looked at him with eyes in which astonishment turned almost hostile.

"Not fighting?" she said. "But what do you mean, Julian? If we go in, every one must fight. I know you're not a soldier, but there'll be volunteers. With all your adventures and experiences, they are sure to give you a good post. Everybody knows you. What do you mean--a job you can't tell me about--unless, of course it's something naval?"

Julian turned his face to the wild thyme. He shook his head.

"No, not that," he said. "Can't you trust me, Marian?"

"Trust you!" she said impatiently. "Of course I can trust you, but why be so mysterious? Mightn't I equally say, 'Why don't you trust me?'"

"It's part of my job," said Julian quietly, "not to trust the ground we're on or the larks in the sky or the light of my heart,--that's you, Marian,--and it doesn't happen to be the easiest part of my job."

He waited for her to make it easier for him, but he waited in vain.

Marian expected easy things, but she did not expect to have to make things easy. These two expectations seldom go together.

"Do you mean to tell me that you are going to be some kind of spy?" she asked in a tone of frank disgust. "Oh, Julian! I couldn't bear it! It's so--so--un-English!"

Julian chuckled. He ought not to have chuckled. If a man does not like a woman with brains, he must learn not to laugh at their absence. Marian stiffened under his laughter.

"England's got to be awfully un-English in some ways if it wants to win this war," he explained. "But you mustn't even to yourself put a name to what I'm going to be. I'm just on a job that'll take me three months, and I'm afraid, my darling, I can't send you a word. That cuts me all to bits, but you're so brave, so brave, you'll let me go."

He buried his head in the gra.s.s; he was not brave enough to bear to see the strain he was putting on her courage. Nor was Marian.

"No, Julian," she said, "you mustn't ask such a thing of me. Not to know where you are, and not to be able to tell any one what you are doing! To let you go out into the dark at a time like this! It's too much to ask of me. Promise me you'll give up all idea of it, and try to get a commission like other people. Surely that's hard enough for me. But I'll bear that; I will never make it difficult for you by a word or a look; I wouldn't hold you back a day! You've not settled anything of course?"

He told her that he had settled everything, and that in two days he must go.

A terrible silence fell between them, a cold silence that was like the pressure of a stone. Neither of them moved or looked at the other.

Julian took her hand. She did not withdraw it from him, but she left it in his as unresponsive as a fallen leaf.

"Marian," he whispered, "Marian. Love me a little."

She would not turn her face to him.

"Why do you talk to me of love," she asked bitterly, "when without consulting me you do something which involves your whole life and mine!"

He caught her in his arms and held her close to him, kissing her cold lips till they answered him.

"My darling! my darling!" he whispered, "I love you like this and like this! It's sheer murder to leave you! I feel as if it would break me.

But I've got to go. Don't you see, don't you understand? It's work I do well, it's important, just now it's more important than fighting; it's not one man's life that hangs on it, but it's thousands. Believe me, there's no dishonor in it. Love me or you'll break me, Marian! Don't be against me. I couldn't stand it. Say you'll let me go, for if I go and you don't say it, I'll go as a broken man."

She pushed him gently away from her, considering him. She knew her terrible power. She was very angry with him, and she had hurt him as much as she meant to hurt him. She had no intention whatever of breaking him. If he was going to do this kind of work, he must do it well.

Perhaps, after all, it was rather important; but important or not, he should have asked her first. She laid her small hand over his big one with a delicate pressure.

"Never settle such a thing again without telling me," she said gravely.