Miranda of the Balcony Part 21

Charnock was perplexed. "How long have you known Wilbraham?" he asked.

Miranda stammered, bent her head, and smiled as it were in spite of herself.

"A long while," she answered, and then she sighed. "A long while," she repeated softly. Charnock was exasperated to a pitch beyond his control.

"If you want to make me believe that you are in love with him," he returned sharply, almost roughly, "you will fail, Mrs. Warriner. I should find it hard to believe that he is even one of your friends."

The words were hardly out of his lips before he regretted them. They insulted her. She was hardly the woman to sit still under an insult; but her manner again surprised him. He was almost prepared to be sent curtly to the right about, whereas she made no answer whatever. She coloured hotly, and rode forward ahead of him until they were well out of the town and descending the hill into the bottom of the valley.

Then she fell back again by his side, and said: "Why is your face always so--illegible?"

"Is it?" he asked.

"It's a lid--a shut lid," she said. "One never knows what you think, how you are disposed." She spoke with some irritation perhaps, but sincerely, and without any effort at provocation.

"I was not aware," returned Charnock. "You must set it down to habit, Mrs. Warriner. I was brought up in a hard school, and learned, no doubt, intuitively the wisdom of reticence."

"Is it always wisdom?" she asked doubtfully, and it seemed a strange question to come from her whose business it was to speak, just as it was his to listen. But very likely her doubt was in this instance preferable to his wisdom. Some word of surprise at the change in her, perhaps one simple gesture of impatience, would have broken down the barrier between them. But he had taken the buffets of her provocations and her advances with, as she truly said, an illegible face.

"Is it always wisdom?" she asked, and she added: "You were not so reticent when I first met you;" and just that inconsistency between his bearing at Lady Donnisthorpe's ball, and his inexpressive composure of these few last days, might have revealed to her at this moment what he thought, and how he was disposed, had she brought a cooler mind to consider it. For the man was not chary of expression when the world went well with him; it was only in the presence of disappointments, rebuffs, and aversions that his face became a lid.

They left their horses at a farm-house, and climbed up the rough, steep slope to the windy ridge on which the old Roman town was built.

They sat for a while upon the stones of the old wall, looking across the great level plain of olive trees, and poplars, and white villages gleaming in the sunlight. Here was a fitting moment for the story to be told, Charnock thought, and expected its telling. But he only saw that Miranda scrutinised his looks, and he only heard her gabbling of this triviality and that with a feverish vivacity. And no doubt his face betrayed less than ever what he thought and felt.

"Shall I see you to-morrow?" she asked as they parted that afternoon outside her door.

"I will come round in the morning after lunch," he replied, and she uttered a quick little sigh of pleasure, which made Charnock turn his horse with a sharp, angry tug at the rein, and ride quickly away across the bridge.

That first impulse to leave Ronda had gone from him. He was engaged, through his own wish and action, to serve Mrs. Warriner, and he was resolved to keep the engagement to the letter. But he was beginning to realise that he should be serving a woman whom in the bottom of his heart he despised. The message of his mirror became a fable; he recalled what Miranda herself had suggested, that the look of distress which he had seen upon the face was due to his chance visit to _Macbeth_; and certain words which a woman had spoken at Lady Donnisthorpe's dance as she sat by the window recurred to him.

"There's a coquette" was one phrase which on this particular evening recurred and recurred to his thoughts.

However, he returned to the house upon the rim of the precipice the next morning, and being led by a servant through the patio into the garden, came upon Miranda unawares. She was busy amongst her flowers, cutting the choicest and arranging them in a basket, and she did not notice Charnock's appearance. Charnock was well content with her inattention. For in the quiet grace of her movements, as she walked amongst her flowers, he caught a glimpse of the Miranda whom he knew, the Miranda of the balcony. The October sunlight was golden about them, a light wind tempered its heat, and on the wind were borne upwards to his ears the distant cries of peasants in the plain below.

He had a view now and then of her face, as she rose and stooped, and he remarked a gentleness and a simplicity in its expression which had been foreign to it since he had come to Ronda.

But the expression changed when she saw Charnock standing in the garden.

"Who do you think I am cutting these flowers for?" she asked with an intolerable playfulness. "You will never guess."

Charnock stepped over to her side.

"Mrs. Warriner," said he, "will you give me one?"

She looked at him with a whimsical hesitation.

"They are intended for Gibraltar," she said, as she caressed the bunch which she held--but she spoke with a great repugnance, and the playfulness had gone from her voice before she had ended the sentence.

"For Gibraltar?" he exclaimed, remembering the gentle look upon her face as she had culled them. "For whom in Gibraltar? For whom?" He confronted her squarely; his voice commanded her to answer.

She drew back from him; the colour went from her cheeks; her fingers were interclasped convulsively; it seemed as though the words she tried to speak were choking her. But her emotion lasted for no more than a moment, though for that moment Charnock could not doubt that it was real. He took a step forwards, and she was again mistress of herself.

"Yes, I will give you one," she said hurriedly. "I will even fix it in your b.u.t.ton-hole. Will you be grateful if I do? Will you be very grateful?" Charnock neither answered nor moved. He stood in front of her with a face singularly stolid. But Miranda's hands touched his breast, and at the shock of her fingers he drew in his breath, and his whole body vibrated.

And how it came about neither of them knew, but in an instant the flowers were on the ground between them, and her hands gripped his shoulders as they stood face to face and tightened upon them in a pa.s.sionate appeal. He read the same pa.s.sionate appeal in her eyes, which now frankly looked up to his.

"You don't know," she cried incoherently, "you don't know."

"But I wish to know," he exclaimed, "tell me;" and his arms went about her waist. She uttered a cry and violently tore and plucked his arms from her.

"No," she cried, "no, not now," and she heard the latch of the door click. Charnock heard it too.

"When?" said he, as he stood away, and the door opened and Major Wilbraham with his hat upon his heart bowed, with great elegance, upon the threshold. Miranda started. She looked from Charnock to Wilbraham, from Wilbraham to Charnock.

"So he is one of your friends," said Charnock.

"Have you the right to choose my friends?" she asked, and she greeted Wilbraham warmly.

The Major seemed very much at his ease. It was the first occasion on which he had had the effrontery to push his way into the house, but from his manner one would have judged him a family friend. He waved a hand to Charnock.

"So you are there, dear old darling boy!" he cried. His endearments increased with every meeting. "I saw you come in and thought I might as well call at the same time, eh, Mrs. Warriner? So pleasant, I meet Charnock everywhere. Destiny will have us friends. That dear Destiny!"

And as Charnock with an ill-concealed air of distaste turned from them towards the valley, Wilbraham whispered to Miranda, "You need have no fear. I shall not say a word--unless you force me to."

Miranda drew back. She stood for a moment with her hands clenched, and her eyelids closed, her face utterly weary and ashamed. Then with a gesture of revolt she turned towards Charnock.

Instantly the Major stepped in front of her.

"May I beg one?" said he, pointing to the basket of flowers. It was all very well for him to threaten Miranda that he would tell Charnock of her husband; but it would not suit his purpose at all for her actually to tell him on an impulse of revolt against the deception and the hold he himself had upon her. So he fixed his eyes steadily upon her face.

"May I beg one?" and he bent towards the stool on which the basket was set.

"Not of those!" she cried, "not of those!" and she s.n.a.t.c.hed up the basket and held it close.

"But you shall have one," she continued with a forced laugh, as over Wilbraham's shoulder she saw Charnock watching them, and she snapped off some flowers from their stems with her fingers until she held a bunch. "There! Make your choice, Major. A flower sets off a man."

"Just as a wife sets off a husband, eh, Mrs. Warriner?" returned the Major, with a sly gallantry, as he fixed the flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole. "Eh, Charnock, did you hear?"

He joined Charnock as he spoke, and Miss Holt coming from the house, the talk became general. But Charnock noticed that at one moment Miranda moved carelessly away from the group, and leaning carelessly over the wall, carelessly dropped down the face of the cliff the whole bunch of flowers from which Wilbraham had chosen one. As she lifted her eyes, however, she saw Charnock watching her, and at once and for the rest of the time during which her guests remained, she made her court to Wilbraham with a feverish a.s.siduity. She laughed immoderately at his jokes, she was extremely confused by his compliments, she displayed the completest deference to his opinions; so that even the un.o.bservant Miss Holt was surprised.

Charnock was the first to break up the gathering.

"I must be going," he said curtly to Miranda.

"It would almost seem that you were displeased with us," she answered defiantly.

"I beg your pardon," said he, coldly. "I do not claim the privilege to be displeased."

"Jolly afternoon," murmured the Major, in a cheery desire to make the peace, "good company, dear old friends"--and he saw that Miranda was unmistakably bowing good-bye to himself. He took the hint at once. The Major was in a very good humour that afternoon, and as the party walked back to the house, he fell behind to Miranda, who had already fallen behind.

"Clever, clever," he remarked encouragingly, "to play me off against the real man. A little overdone perhaps, but clever. I trust I did my part. We'll make it a thousand per annum."

Miranda quickened her pace and took her leave of her visitors at the door of the garden. Wilbraham was in no particular hurry to settle his business; he was quite satisfied for that afternoon, and he entered genially into conversation with Miss Holt upon the subject of her grievances.