The Price of Things Part 33

And he, too, was thinking of what their new life would be should he chance to come through. The ache in his heart would gradually subside, he supposed, but how would he bear the long years, knowing that Amaryllis was thinking of Denzil--and longing for him--and if fate made them meet--what then?

How could he endure to know that these two beings were suffering?

There seemed no clear outlook ahead. But, as he knew only too well death could hardly fail to intervene, and if it should claim Denzil, then he must console Amaryllis' grief. But if happily it could be he who were taken, then their future path would be clear.

He could not forget the third eventuality, that he and Denzil might both be killed. He thought and thought over them all, and at last he decided to add a letter to his will. If he should be killed he would ask Denzil to marry Amaryllis immediately, without waiting for the conventional year. The times were too strenuous, and she must not be left unprotected--alone with the child.

He got up and began the letter to his lawyer, and so the instructions ran:

"I request my cousin Denzil Benedict Ardayre to marry Amaryllis, my wife, as soon as possible after my death, if he can get leave and is still alive. I confide her to his care and ask them both not to let any conventional idea of mourning stand in the way of these, my urgent last commands. And I ask my cousin Denzil, if he lives through the war, to take great care of the bringing up of the child."

He read thus far, and when he came to "the child" he scratched it out and wrote "my child" deliberately, and then he went on to add his wishes for its education, should it be a boy. The will had already amply provided for Amaryllis, so that she would be a rich woman for the rest of her days.

When all this was clearly copied out and sealed up in an envelope addressed to his lawyer, the clock struck twelve.

The silence in the old house was complete; there was no revelry for the first time for many years, even the servants far off in their wing had gone to rest.

It seemed to John that the shadow of sorrow was suddenly removed from him, and as though a weight of care had been lifted from his heart. He could not account for the alteration, but he felt no longer sad. Was it an omen? Was this New Year going to fulfill some great thing after all? A divine peace fell upon him, and then a pleasant sensation of sleep, and he turned out the lights and went softly to his room, and was soon in bed.

And then he slept soundly until late in the morning, and awoke refreshed and serene on New Year's day.

His leave was up on the third of January and he returned to London, but he would not let Amaryllis undergo the fatigue of accompanying him. He said good-bye to her there at Ardayre. She felt extremely sad and unhappy.

Had she done well, after all, to have told John the truth? Should she have borne things as they were and waited until the end of the war? But no, that would have been impossible to her nature. If she might not have Denzil for her lover, she would have no other man.

John's cheerfulness astonished her--it was so uniform, it could not be a.s.sumed. Perhaps she did not yet understand him, perhaps in his heart he was glad that all pretences had come to an end.

They had the most affectionate parting. John never was sentimental, and he went off with brave, cheery words, and every injunction that she was to take the greatest care of herself.

"Remember, Amaryllis, that you are the most precious thing on earth to me--and you must think also of the child."

She promised him that she would carry out all his wishes in this respect and remain quietly at Ardayre until the first of April, when perhaps he could get leave again and then she would go to London for the birth of the baby.

John turned and waved his hand as he went off down the avenue, and Amaryllis watched the motor until it was out of sight, the tears slowly br.i.m.m.i.n.g over and running down her cheeks.

She noticed that at the turn in the avenue a telegraph boy pa.s.sed the car and came straight on. The wire was not for John evidently, so she would wait at the door to see. It proved to be for her, and from Denzil's mother, saying that she was en route for Dorchester, motoring, and would stop at Ardayre on the chance of finding its mistress at home. Amaryllis felt suddenly excited; she had often longed for this and yet in some way she had feared it also. What new emotions might the meeting not arouse?

It was quite early after luncheon that Mrs. Ardayre was announced.

Amaryllis had waited in the green drawing room, thinking that she would come. She was playing the piano at the far end to try and lighten her feeling of depression, when the door opened, and to her astonishment quite a young, slight woman came into the room. She was a little lame, and walked with a stick. For a moment Amaryllis thought she must be mistaken, and rose with a vague, but gracious look in her eyes.

Mrs. Ardayre held out her hand and smiled:

"I hope you got my telegram in time," she said cordially. "I felt I must not lose the opportunity of making your acquaintance. My son has been so anxious for us to meet."

"You--you can't be Denzil's mother, surely!" Amaryllis exclaimed. "He is much too old to be your son!"

Mrs. Ardayre smiled again--while Amaryllis made her sit down on the sofa beside her and helped her off with her furs. "I am forty-nine years old, Amaryllis--if I may call you so--but one ought never to grow old in body.

It is not necessary, and it is not agreeable to the eye!"

Amaryllis looked at her carefully in the full side light. It was the shape of her face, she decided, which gave her such youth. There were no unsightly bones to cause shadows and the skin was smooth and ivory--and her eyes were bright brown; their expression was very humorous as well as kindly, and Amaryllis was drawn to her at once.

They talked about their desire to know one another and about the family, and the place, and the war--and at last they spoke of Denzil, and Mrs.

Ardayre told of what his life was, and his whereabouts now, and then grew retrospective.

"He is the dearest boy in the world," she said. "We have been friends always, and now he will not allow me to be anxious about him. I really think that as far as the frightfulness of things will let him be, he is actually enjoying his life! Men are such queer creatures, they like to fight!"

Amaryllis asked what was her latest news of him, and where he was, and listened interestedly to Mrs. Ardayre's replies:

"The cavalry have not had very much to do lately, fortunately," she remarked. "My husband has just gone back, but I suppose if there is a shortage of men for the trenches, they will be dismounted perhaps."

"I expect so--then we shall have to use all our courage and control our fears."

Amaryllis turned the conversation back to Denzil again, and drew his mother out. She would like to have heard incidents of his childhood and of how he looked when he was a little boy, but she was too timid to ask any deliberate questions. She felt drawn to this lady, she looked so young and human. Perhaps she was not so wonderful in evening dress, but her figure was boyish in its slim spareness--in these serge travelling clothes she hardly looked thirty-five!

She wondered what Denzil had told his mother about her--probably that she was going to have a child, but nothing more.

They talked in the most friendly way for half an hour, and then Amaryllis asked her guest if she would like to come and see the house and especially the picture gallery and the Elizabethan Denzil hanging there.

"It is just my boy!" Mrs. Ardayre cried, when they stood in front of it.

"Eyes and all, they are bold and true and so loving. Oh! my dear child, you can't think what a darling he is; from his babyhood every woman has adored him--the nurse maids were his slaves, and my old housekeeper and my maid are like two jealous cats as to who shall do things for him when he comes home. He has that queer quality which can wile a bird off a tree. I daresay I am the silliest of them all!"

Amaryllis listened, enchanted.

"You see he has not one touch of me in him," Mrs. Ardayre went on, "but I was so frantically in love with my husband when he was born, he naturally was all Ardayre. Does it not interest you, Amaryllis, to wonder what your little one, when it comes, will look like? It ought to be p.r.o.nouncedly of the family, your being also an Ardayre."

"Indeed yes, I am very curious. And how we all hope that it will be a son!"

"Is there a portrait of your husband here? Denzil says they are alike."

"There is one in my sitting room; it is going to be moved in here presently, when mine is done next year. It is by Sargent, almost the last portrait he painted. Let us go there now and see it."

"But there is no likeness," Mrs. Ardayre exclaimed presently, when they had gone to the cedar parlour and were examining the picture of John.

"Can you discover it?"

"I thought they were very alike once--but I do not altogether see it now."

Mrs. Ardayre smiled. "I cannot, of course, think any one can compare with my Denzil! And yet I am not a real mother at all! I am totally devoid of the maternal instinct in the abstract! Children bore me, and I am glad I have never had any more. I adore Denzil because he is Denzil. I loved my husband and delighted in being the mother of his son."

"There are the two sorts of women, are not there? The mother woman and the mate woman--we have to be one or the other, I suppose. I hardly yet know to which category I belong," and Amaryllis sighed, "but I rather think that I am like you--the man might matter even more to me than the child, and I know that the child matters to me enormously because of the man. It is all a great mystery and a wonder though."

Beatrice Ardayre looked up at the portrait of John; his stolid face did not give her the impression that he could make a woman, and such a fascinating and adorable creature as Amaryllis, pa.s.sionately in love with him, or fill her with mysterious feelings of emotion about his child!

Now, if it had been Denzil she could have understood a woman's committing any madness for him, but this stodgy, respectable John!

Her bright brown eyes glanced at Amaryllis furtively, and she saw that she was looking up at the picture with an expression of deep melancholy on her face.

There was some mystery here.

She went over again in her mind what Denzil had told her about Amaryllis.