The Tragic Bride Part 11

"What beauties," Gabrielle cried.

"Yes, they come from Banbury," he said. "I'll get you a pup next term if you'd like one."

Their evening was crowded with such small wonders. "I can't show you half the things I want to," he said. "It's ridiculous that you should only be here for three days." He would have gone on for ever, and she had to warn him when the clock in the stables struck seven that they had only just time to dress for dinner. On the way upstairs he showed her his new study, with the bookshelves that he had bought in the last holidays.

"I do all my writing here," he said, and then suddenly but shyly emboldened: "it was here that I wrote to you when I sent you the cowslips."

He had never dared to mention the incident before.

"You didn't answer me," he went on. "Why didn't you answer me? I wish you'd tell me."

"Arthur--I couldn't--you know that I couldn't."

A panic seized her and she went blus.h.i.+ng to her room.

She was still flushed with excitement or pleasure when she came down to dinner. Mrs. Payne, in a matronly dress of black, sat at the head of the table with Arthur and Gabrielle on either side of her facing each other. The arrangement struck her as a triumph of strategy. From this central position she could see them both and intercept any such glances as had pa.s.sed between them in the church at Lapton. In this she was disappointed, for there was nothing to be seen in the behaviour of either but a transparent happiness. "They only want encouragement,"

she thought, and settled down deliberately to put them at their ease, a proceeding that was quite unnecessary for the last feeling that could have entered either of their minds was that of guilt.

So the evening pa.s.sed, in the utmost propriety. No look, no sign, no symptom of unusual tenderness appeared. It even seemed that Gabrielle was particularly anxious to make the conversation general. "Oh, you're artful!" thought Mrs. Payne, "but I'll have you yet." They talked of Lapton, of Considine and of the Traceys. Only once did Mrs. Payne surprise a single suspicious circ.u.mstance.

"I showed Mrs. Considine the dogs, mother," he said. "She's fallen in love with Boris."

"Yes, his eyes are like amber," said Gabrielle.

"So I thought I'd like to write to Banbury to-morrow and get her a puppy."

"Certainly, dear," said Mrs. Payne suavely. Bedtime came. Gabrielle and Arthur shook hands in the most ordinary fas.h.i.+on. Mrs. Payne, seeing Gabrielle to her door and submitting, once again, to an uncomfortable kiss, felt that her triumphant plan had already shown itself to be a failure. She went along the pa.s.sage to her own room with a sense of bewilderment and defeat. She could not sleep for thinking. She wondered, desperately, if when all other methods had failed, as she now expected they would, she could possibly approach their secret from another angle, laying aside her watchful inactivity and becoming in defiance of all her principles an "agent provocateuse."

If it came to the worst she might be forced to do this, for very little time was left to her. If she remained static she would be powerless.

Next day, she reflected, they had planned a ride over the flat top of Bredon Hill. She could not go with them; she could not even watch them; yet who knew what shames might be perpetrated in that secrecy as they rode through the green lanes of the larch plantations? Never was a better solitude made for lovers. Her imaginings left her tantalised and thwarted, for she was sure now, more than ever, that there was a secret to be surprised.

She lay there sleepless in the dark till the stable clock slowly struck twelve. Then she sighed to herself and decided that she must try to sleep.

XVIII

Lying thus, upon the verge of slumber, Mrs. Payne became aware of a sound of light steps in the corridor outside her room. She opened her eyes and lay with tense muscles listening. The sound was unmistakable, and the steps came from the direction of Arthur's room, the only one on that side of hers that was occupied. The steps came nearer. Pa.s.sing her bedroom door they became tiptoe and cautious, as though the walker, whoever he might be, was anxious not to arouse her attention. The sound pa.s.sed and grew fainter down the length of the corridor, and she knew then that the very worst had happened, for Gabrielle's room lay at the end of the pa.s.sage. Many things she had dreaded, but not this last enormity.

She crept out of bed, neglecting in her anxiety to put on a dressing-gown, and went softly to the door. She wondered how she could open it without making a noise, and if, when she had opened it, she could hear at such a distance.

Very carefully with her hot hand she turned the door handle and opened a small c.h.i.n.k that fortunately allowed her to look along the pa.s.sage towards Gabrielle's room. Through a window halfway down the corridor moonlight cut across it, throwing on the floor the distorted shadow of an Etruscan vase. She remembered that Arthur's father had bought it in Italy on their honeymoon, yet, while this thought went through her mind, her ears were strained to listen. She could do no more, for the further end of the pa.s.sage was plunged by this insulating flood of moonlight into inscrutable darkness.

It was so quiet that she felt that she had missed him; he had already entered her room; but while she considered the awful indignity of surprising him there, the sound of a light tapping on the door's panel relieved her. She thanked G.o.d that she was still in time.

The knock was repeated and evidently answered, for now she heard him speak in a whisper. He called her Mrs. Considine--it was ridiculous!

"Are you awake?" she heard. "The nightingale--yes, the nightingale.

We could go down into the garden under the trees. If you're game. How splendid of you! ... Yes, I'll wait below .... Outside, under your window."

Before Mrs. Payne could pull herself together she heard his steps returning. She closed the door fearfully. He came along the pa.s.sage and stopped for a moment just outside her room. There was nothing between them but an oak door, so thin, she felt, that he must surely hear her anxious breath. She dared not breathe, but in a moment he pa.s.sed by.

Why had he stopped outside her door? What curious filial instinct had made him think of her at that moment? Had he thought kindly, or only perhaps suspiciously, wondering if she were safely asleep? She couldn't tell. Her mind was too full of disturbing emotions to allow her to think. One thing emerged foremost from her confusion, a feeling of devout thankfulness that her first fears had not been justified, and as the dread of definite and paralysing defeat lifted from her mind, she realised with a sudden exultation that chance had given her the very opportunity for which she had been waiting and scheming. If she went carefully she might see them together, alone and unsuspecting, and know for certain by their behaviour how far matters had gone.

She dared not switch on the light or strike a match for fear that her windows might become conspicuous. Very gently she released one of the blinds, admitting the light of the luminous sky. She dressed hurriedly, catching sight of her figure in the long pier gla.s.s as she pulled on her stockings. For the moment it struck her as faintly ludicrous to see this middle-aged woman in a long white nightdress behaving like a creature in a detective story. It was extravagant.

People of her age and figure and general sobriety didn't do this sort of thing in real life. But the seriousness of her mission recalled her, and while she had been considering the picturesque aspects of the case she found that she had actually, unconsciously dressed ... and only just in time, for now she heard the lighter step of Gabrielle in the pa.s.sage.

The sound gave her a sudden flush of anger. She wanted, there and then, to open her door and ask Gabrielle where she was going. It was tantalising to let the thing go on and hold her hand. She clutched on to the foot of the bed to save herself from doing anything so rash.

Gabrielle's steps pa.s.sed, and the house was quiet again. The most difficult moment had come. "I hope to goodness none of the servants are awake," she thought...

Reaching the top of the staircase she heard them whispering in the hall. It seemed that they were going out brazenly by the front door, and since it seemed to her that to follow them closely would be dangerous she herself hastened round to the back staircase and let herself out of the house by a side door set in an angle of the building that sheltered her.

An eastward drift of cloud came over, hiding the moon, and she was glad of this, for the crude moonlight had put her to shame by its brilliance. She wondered to see the clouds moving so fast, for in the garden not a tree stirred but one aspen that made a sound as of gentle rain. She heard the grating of their feet on the drive, and then, by the sudden cessation of this sound, guessed that they had stepped on to the lawn. Arthur's low voice came to her clearly. "He's stopped singing, but I think he'll sing again," and from Gabrielle a whispered "Yes."

Mrs. Payne could scarcely be certain of the words she heard: she knew that she ought in some way to get nearer to them, but the expanse of dewy turf by which they were surrounded made it impossible for her to approach without being seen. Very cautiously she cut across to the left and into the shelter of the privet hedge, along which she stole until she reached their level.

They stood together in the middle of the lawn without speaking. At last Gabrielle s.h.i.+vered. Arthur noticed it quickly. "I hope you're not cold," he said.

"No, I'm not cold--only--only we're so exposed out here. If we could get a little more into the shadow I should feel more comfortable----"

"That's easily managed," he said laughing. "We can go over by the sundial. It's called a yew-parlour, I think. It might have been made for us."

So they pa.s.sed into its shade. Mrs. Payne noticed eagerly that his hand was not on her arm. The yew hedge that now sheltered them concealed her also from their sight, and, greatly relieved, she crept along her cover of privet into the shadow of a mulberry tree where, by stooping a little, she could watch them unperceived.

"What a wonderful night," Gabrielle whispered.

"I never knew such a night," he said. "It feels a bit like that evening when we stood leaning over the bridge by the lake."

"Don't," she said. "I want to forget it. Can you smell the dew?"

"Yes, and the scent of may coming over from the meadows."

"We call it whitethorn in Ireland."

There was a long pause, then he spoke again.

"I think you look sad to-night," he said. "Are you sorry that you came?"

"No, no--of course not. It's the moonlight that makes me paler than usual. But I'm always pale. You shouldn't look at me so closely, Arthur."

"I love to look at you. It isn't always that I get the chance. I just wanted to be certain that you weren't anxious. You don't think that we oughtn't to have come here?"

"No, why shouldn't we?" she said, turning her face away.

Then suddenly, in the edge of the copse beyond the nearest field, the nightingale began. The song was so beautiful in the stillness of the night that even Mrs. Payne, who had other things to think of, felt its influence. It was a strange, unearthly moment.

"You hear it?" Arthur whispered; but Gabrielle did not answer; she laid her hand on his sleeve and Arthur trembled at her touch. So they stood listening, close together, while Arthur took the hand that held him.

She smiled and turned her eyes towards him but they could not look at each other for long. She surrendered herself to his arms and they kissed.

Mrs. Payne saw their faces close together in the dusk and their shadowy bodies entwined. She could bear it no longer, but turned and groped her way back along the privet hedge to the door from which she had first come. She did not know where she was going or how she went until she found that she had reached her own bedroom again. There, in her dressing-gown, she threw herself on the bed and fell into a fit of violent sobbing. She lay there shaken by sobs like a disconsolate child. Over in the coppice the nightingale sang exultantly as if he knew of the wonder that his song had revealed to the lovers who listened to him with their lips together.