Beyond The Rocks Part 31

It was the first time Theodora had ever been into a company of people like this, and her eyes wandered over the scene when Lady Ada had to go back to her place.

"Tell me what you are thinking of?" said Hector, in her ear.

"I was thinking," she answered, "it is so interesting to watch people's faces. It seems to me so queer a way to spend one's time, the whole of one's intelligence set upon a game of cards and a few pieces of money for hours and hours together."

"They don't look attractive, do they?" he laughed.

"No, they look haggard, and worried, and old," she said. "Even the young ones look old and watchful, and so intent and solemn."

Lady Harrowfield had been losing heavily, and a deep mauve shade glowed through all her paint. She was a bad loser, and made all at her table feel some of her chagrin and wrath. In fact, candidates for the light of her smile found it advisable to let her win when things became too unpleasant.

There was a dreary silence over the room, broken by the scoring and remarks upon the games, and those who were out wandered into the saloon beyond, where iced drinks of all sorts were awaiting the weary.

"Every one must enjoy themselves how they can, of course," said Theodora. "It is absurd to try and make any one else happy in one's own way, but oh, I hope I shall not have to pa.s.s the time like that, ever! I don't think I could bear it."

The voices became raised at the table where Josiah sat. He had made some gross mistake in the game and his partner was being fretful over it. Her complaints amounted to real rudeness when the counting began. She had lost twenty pounds on this rubber, all through his last foolish play, she let it be known.

Josiah was angry with himself and deeply humiliated. He apologized as well as he could, but to no purpose with the wrathful dame.

And Theodora slipped behind his chair, and laid her hand upon his shoulder in what was almost a caress, and said, in a sweet and playful voice:

"You are a naughty, stupid fellow, Josiah, and of course you must pay the losses of both sides to make up for being such a wicked thing," and she patted his shoulders and smiled her gentle smile at the angry lady, as though they were children playing for counters or sweets, and the twenty pounds was a nothing to her husband, as indeed it was not.

Josiah would cheerfully have paid a hundred to finish the unpleasant scene.

He was intensely grateful to her--grateful for her thought for him and for her public caress.

And the lady was so surprised at the turn affairs had taken that she said no more, and, allowing him to pay without too great protest, meekly suggested another rubber. But Josiah was not to be caught again. He rose, and, saying good-night, followed his wife and Lord Bracondale into the saloon.

XXV

After the rain and gloom of the week, Sunday dawned gloriously fine.

There was to be a polo match on Monday in the park, which contained an excellent ground--Patrick and his Oxford friends against a scratch team.

The neighborhood would watch them with interest. But the Sunday was for rest and peace, so all the morning the company played croquet, or lay about in hammocks, and more than half of them again began bridge in the great Egyptian tent which served as an out-door lounge on the lawn. It was reached from the western side down wide steps from the terrace, and beautiful rose gardens stretched away beyond.

Theodora had spent a sleepless night. There was no more illusion left to her on the subject of her feelings. She knew that each day, each hour, she was growing more deeply to love Hector Bracondale. He absorbed her thoughts, he dominated her imagination. He seemed to mean the only thing in life. The situation was impossible, and must end in some way. How could she face the long months with Josiah down at their new home, with the feverish hopes and fears of meetings! It was too cruel, too terrible; and she could not lead such a life. She had thought in Paris it would be possible, and even afford a certain amount of quiet happiness, if they could be strong enough to remain just friends. But now she knew this was not in human nature. Sooner or later fate would land them in some situation of temptation too strong for either to resist--and then--and then--She refused to face that picture. Only she writhed as she lay there and buried her face in the fine pillows. She did not permit herself any day-dreams of what might have been. Romauld himself, as he took his vows, never fought harder to regain his soul from the keeping of Claremonde than did Theodora to suppress her love for Hector Bracondale. Towards morning, worn out with fatigue, she fell asleep, and in her dreams, released from the control of her will, she spent moments of pa.s.sionate bliss in his arms, only to wake and find she must face again the terrible reality. And cruellest thought of all was the thought of Josiah.

She had so much common-sense she realized the position exactly about him. She had not married him under any false impression. There had been no question of love--she had frankly been bought, and had as frankly detested him. But his illness and suffering had appealed to her tender heart--and afterwards his generosity. He was not unselfish, but, according to his lights, he heaped her with kindness. He could not help being common and ridiculous. And he had paid with solid gold for her, gold to make papa comfortable and happy, and she must fulfil her part of the bargain and remain a faithful wife at all costs.

This visit must be the last time she should meet her love. She must tell him, implore him--he who was free and master of his life; he must go away, must promise not to follow her, must help her to do what was right and just. She had no sentimental feeling of personal wickedness now. How could it be wicked to love--to love truly and tenderly? She had not sought love; he had come upon her. It would be wicked to give way to her feelings, to take Hector for a lover; but she had no sense of being a wicked woman as things were, any more than if she had badly burned her hand and was suffering deeply from the wound; she would have considered herself wicked for having had the mischance thus to injure herself. She was intensely unhappy, and she was going to try and do what was right.

That was all. And G.o.d and those kind angels who steered the barks beyond the rocks would perhaps help her.

Hector for his part, had retired to rest boiling with pa.s.sion and rage, the subtle, odious insinuations of Mildred ringing in his ears. The remembrance of the menace on Morella's dull face as she had watched Theodora depart, and, above all, Wensleydown's behavior as they all said good-night: nothing for him actually to take hold of, and yet enough to convulse him with jealous fury.

Oh, if she were only his own! No man should dare to look at her like that. But Josiah had stood by and not even noticed it.

Pa.s.sionate jealousy is not a good foster-parent for prudence.

The Sunday came, and with it a wild, mad longing to be near her again--never to leave her, to prevent any one else from so much as saying a word. Others besides Wensleydown had begun to experience the attraction of her beauty and charm. If considerations of wisdom should keep him from her side, he would have the anguish of seeing these others take his place, and that he could not suffer.

And as pa.s.sion in a man rages higher than in the average woman, especially pa.s.sion when accelerated by the knowledge of another's desire to rob it of its own, so Hector's conclusions were not so clear as Theodora's.

He dared not look ahead. All he was conscious of was the absolute determination to protect her from Wensleydown--to keep her for himself.

And fate was gathering all the threads together for an inevitable catastrophe, or so it seemed to the Crow when the long, exquisite June Sunday evening was drawing to a close and he looked back on the day.

He would have to report to Anne that the two had spent it practically together; that Morella had a sullen red look on her face which boded ill for the part she would play, when she should be asked to play some part; that Mildred had done her best to render Theodora uncomfortable and unhappy, and thus had thrown her more into Hector's protection. The other women had been indifferent or mocking or amused, and Lady Harrowfield had let it be seen she would have no mercy. Her comments had been vitriolic.

Hector and Theodora had not gone out of sight, or been any different to the others; only he had never left her, and there could be no mistaking the devotion in his face.

For the whole day Sir Patrick had more or less taken charge of Josiah.

He was finding him more difficult to manipulate over money matters than he had antic.i.p.ated. Josiah's vulgar, round face and snub nose gave no index to his shrewdness; with his mutton-chop whiskers and bald head, Josiah was the personification of the smug grocer.

As she went to dress for dinner it seemed to Theodora that her heart was breaking. She was only flesh and blood after all, and she, too, had felt her pulses throbbing wildly as they had walked along by the lake, when all the color and lights of the evening helped to excite her imagination and exalt her spirit. They had been almost alone, for the other pair who composed the _partie carree_ of this walk were several yards ahead of them.

Each minute she had been on the verge of imploring him to say good-bye--to leave her--to let their lives part, to try to forget, and the words froze on her lips in the pa.s.sionate, unspoken cry which seemed to rise from her heart that she loved him. Oh, she loved him! And so she had not spoken.

There had been long silences, and each was growing almost to know the other's thoughts--so near had they become in spirit.

When she got to her room her knees were trembling. She fell into a chair and buried her face in her hands. She s.h.i.+vered as if from cold.

Josiah was almost angry with her for being so late for dinner. Theodora hardly realized with whom she went in; she was dazed and numb. She got through it somehow, and this night determined to go straight to her room rather than be treated as she had been the night before. But one of the women whom the intercourse of the day had drawn into conversation with her showed signs of friendliness as they went through the anteroom, and drew her towards a sofa to talk. She was fascinated by Theodora's beauty and grace, and wanted to know, too, just where her clothes came from, as she did not recognize absolutely the models of any of the well-known _couturieres_, and they were certainly the loveliest garments worn by any one in the party.

One person draws another, and soon Theodora had three or four around her--all purring and talking frocks. And as she answered their questions with gentle frankness, she wondered what everything meant. Did any of them feel--did any of them love pa.s.sionately as she did?--or were they all dolls more or less bored and getting through life? And would she, too, grow like them in time, and be able to play bridge with interest until the small hours?

Later some of the party danced in the ballroom, which was beyond the saloon the other way, and now a definite idea came to Hector as he held Theodora in his arms in the waltz. They could not possibly bear this life. Why should he not take her away--away from the smug grocer, and then they could live their life in a dream of bliss in Italy, perhaps, and later at Bracondale. He had a great position, and people soon forget nowadays.

His pulses were bounding with these wild thoughts, born of their nearness and the long hours of strain. To-morrow he would tell her of them, but to-night--they would dance.

And Theodora felt her very soul melt within her. She was worn out with conflicting emotions. She could not fight with inclination any longer.

Whatever he should say she would have to listen to--and agree with. She felt almost faint. And so at the end of the first dance she managed to whisper:

"Hector, I am tired. I shall go to bed." And in truth when he looked at her she was deadly white.

She stopped by her husband.

"Josiah," she said, "will you make my excuses to Lady Ada and Uncle Patrick? I do not feel well; I am going to my room."

Hector's distress was intense. He could not carry her up in his arms as he would have wished, he could not soothe and pet and caress her, or do anything in the world but stand by and see Josiah fussing and accompanying her to the stairs and on to her room. She hardly said the word good-night to him, and her very lips were white. Wensleydown's face, as he stood with Mildred, drove him mad with its mocking leer, and if he had heard their conversation there might have been bloodshed.

Josiah returned to the saloon, and made his way to the bridge-room to Sir Patrick and his hostess; but Hector still leaned against the door.

"He'll probably go out on the terrace and walk in the night by himself,"

thought the Crow, who had watched the scene, "and these dear people will say he has gone to meet her, and it is a ruse her being ill. They could not let such a chance slip, if they are both absent together."

So he walked over to Hector and engaged him in conversation.