The Shadow of the East Part 17

In the pa.s.sage she met her maid and, giving her her hat and gloves, ordered tea to be sent to her.

Mouston trotted on ahead into the room with the confident air of a proprietor, fussily inspecting the contents with the usual canine interest as if suspicious that some familiar article of furniture had been removed during his absence and anxious to rea.s.sure himself that all things were as he had left them. Then he curled up with a satisfied grunt on the chesterfield beside which he knew tea would be placed.

Gillian looked about her with a sigh. The room, much as she loved it, had never been the same to her since that December afternoon that seemed so much longer than a bare eighteen months ago. The peace it had given formerly was gone. Now there was a.s.sociated with it always the memory of bitter pain. She had never been able to recapture the old feeling of freedom and happiness it had inspired. It was her refuge still, where she came to wrestle with herself in solitude, where she sought forgetfulness in long hours of work but it was no longer the antechamber to a castle of dreams. There were no dreams left, only a crus.h.i.+ng numbling reality. She thought of her husband, and the question that was always in her mind seemed to-day more than ever insistent. Why had he married her? The reason he had given had been disproved by his subsequent att.i.tude. He had asked her to take pity on a lonely man--and he had given her no opportunity. She had tried by every means in her power to get nearer to him, to be to him what she thought he meant her to be and all her endeavour had come to nothing. Had she tried enough, done enough? Miserably she wondered would another have succeeded where she had failed? And had she failed because, after all, the reason he had given was no true reason? And suddenly, for the first time, in a vivid flash of illuminating comprehension she seemed to realise the true reason and the quixotic generosity that had prompted it. It was as if a veil had been rudely torn from before her eyes. It explained much, letting in an entirely new light upon many things that had puzzled her.

It placed her in a new position, changing her whole mental standpoint.

How could she have been so stupidly blind, so dense--how could she have misunderstood? He had lied to her, a kindly n.o.ble lie, but a lie notwithstanding--he had married her out of pity, to provide for her in the lack of faith he had in her power to provide for herself. To him, then, her dreams of independence had been only a childish ambition that he judged unsubstantial, and in his dilemma he had conceived it his duty to do what seemed to her now a thing intolerable. A burning wave of shame went through her. She was humiliated to the very dust, crushed with the sense of obligation. She was only another burden thrust upon him by a man who had had no claim to his liberality. Her father--the superman of her childish dreams! How had he dared? If love for him had not died years before it would have died at that moment in the fierce resentment that burned in her. But to the man who had so willingly accepted such an imposition her heart went out in greater love and deeper grat.i.tude than she had yet known.

Yet, how, with this new knowledge searing her soul, could she ever face him again? She longed to creep away and hide like a stricken animal--and he was coming home to-day. Within a few hours she would have to meet him, conscious at last of the full extent of her indebtedness and conscious also of the impossibility of communicating her discovery. For she knew that she could never bring herself to refer to it, and she knew him well enough to be aware that any such reference was out of the question. The gulf between them was too wide. The two days she had spent alone at the Towers had seemed interminable, but with a revulsion of feeling she wished now that his coming could be delayed. She shrank from even the thought of seeing him. Though she called herself coward she determined to postpone the meeting she dreaded until dinner, when the presence of Forbes and a couple of footmen would brace her to meet the situation and give her time to prepare for the later more difficult hours when she would be alone with him. For he made a practice, rigidly adhered to, of sitting with her in the evenings during the short time she remained downstairs. He was punctilious in that courtesy as in all other acts of consideration. His own bed-hour was very much later and she often wondered what he did, what were his thoughts, alone in the solitary study that was his refuge as the studio was hers.

But she had come almost to fear the evening hours they spent together, the feeling of constraint was becoming more and more an embarra.s.sment.

The last two weeks in Scotland had been more difficult than any preceding them. Craven's restlessness had been more apparent, more p.r.o.nounced. And looking back on it now she wondered whether it was a.s.sociation with the men with whom he had travelled and shot in distant countries that was stirring in him more acutely the wander-hunger that was in his blood. During the after dinner reminiscences in the Scotch shooting lodge he had himself been curiously silent, but he had sat listening with a kind of fierce intentness that to her anxious watching eyes had been like the forced calm of a caged animal enduring captivity with seeming resignation but cheris.h.i.+ng always thoughts of escape.

It was then that her vague dread leaped suddenly into concrete fear.

An incident that had occurred a few days after the big game hunters had left them had further disquieted her. On going to him for advice on some domestic difficulty she had found him poring over a large map. He had rolled it up at her approach and his manner had made it impossible for her to express an interest that would otherwise have seemed natural.

With the reticence to which she had schooled herself she had made no comment, but the thought of that rolled up hidden canvas and its possible significance remained with her. It might mean only a renewed interest in the scenes of past exploits--fervently she hoped it did. But it might also mean the projection of new activities....

The arrival of a footman bringing tea put a period to her thoughts.

While the man arranged the simple necessaries that were more suited to the studio than the elaborate display Forbes considered indispensable downstairs, she crossed the room to an easel where stood a half-finished picture. She looked at it critically. Was he right--was there, after all, nothing in her work but the mediocre endeavour of an amateur? She had been so confident, so sure. And the master in Paris who had taught her--he also had been confident and sure. Yet as she studied the uncompleted sketch before her she felt her confidence waver. It had not satisfied her while she was working on it, it seemed now hopelessly and utterly bad. With a heavy sigh she stared at it despondently, seeing in it the failure of all her hopes. Then in quick recoil courage came again. One piece of bad work did not const.i.tute failure--she would not admit failure. She had worked on it at a time of extreme depression, when all the world had seemed black and hopeless, and the deplorable result was due to lack of concentration. She had allowed her own disturbed thoughts to intrude too vividly, and her wandering attention, her unhappiness, had reacted disastrously on her work. It must be so. Her own judgment she might have doubted, but the word of her teacher--no. She _had_ to succeed, she had to justify herself, to justify de Myeres. "_Travaillez, travaillez, et puis encore travaillez_," she murmured, as she had heard him say a hundred times, and tore the sketch across and across, tossing the pieces into a large wicker basket. With a little shrug she turned to the tea table beside which Mouston was sitting up in eager expectation, watching the dancing kettle lid with solemn brown eyes. She made tea and then drew the dog close to her, hugging him with almost pa.s.sionate fervour. It was not a frequent event, but there were times when her starved affections, craving outlet, were expended in default of other medium upon the poodle who gave in return a devotion that was entirely single-minded. Yos.h.i.+o was still the only member of the household who could touch him with impunity, and toward Craven his att.i.tude was a curious mixture of hatred and fear. To Mouston--her only confidant--she whispered now the new projects she had formed during the last two solitary days for a better understanding of the obscure mind that had hitherto baffled her, for a further endeavour to break through the barrier existing between them. To speak, if only to a dog, was relief and she was too engrossed to notice the sound the poodle's quick ears caught directly. With a growl he wrenched his head free of her arm and, startled, she looked up expecting to see a servant.

She saw instead her husband. His unexpected appearance in a room he habitually avoided robbed her, all unprepared to meet him as she was, of the power of speech. White-lipped she stared at him, unable to formulate even a conventional greeting, her heart beating rapidly as she watched him cross the room. He, too, seemed to have no words, and she saw with increased nervousness that his face was dark with obvious displeasure.

The silence that was fast becoming marked was broken by Mouston who with another angry snarl leaped suddenly at Craven with jealous hostility, to be caught up swiftly by a pair of powerful hands and flung into a far corner, where he landed heavily with a shrill yelp of surprise and pain that died away in a broken whimper as, cowed by the unlooked-for retribution, he crawled under a big bureau that seemed to offer a safe retreat.

"Barry!" Gillian's exclamation of incredulous amazement made Craven sensible that the punishment he had inflicted must seem to her unnecessarily severe. She could not be expected to see into his mind, could not possibly know the feeling of loathing inspired by the sight of the poodle in her arms. He was jealous--of a dog and in no mood to curb the temper that his jealousy roused.

"I am sorry," he said shortly. "I didn't mind him going for me, it's perhaps natural that he should--but I hate to see you kiss the dam'

brute," he added with a sudden violence in his voice that braced her as a more temperate explanation would not have done. To be deliberately cruel to an animal, no matter how great the provocation, was unlike Craven; she felt convinced that Mouston was not the primary cause of his irritability. Something must have occurred previously to disturb him--the business, perhaps, for which he had waited in London, and, seeking her, the scene he had surprised had grated on fretted nerves.

He had never before commented on her affection for the dog who was her shadow; he had never even remonstrated with her, as Peters had many times, for spoiling him. His present att.i.tude seemed therefore the more inexplicable--but she realised the impossibility of remonstrance. The dog had behaved badly and had suffered for his indiscretion; she could not defend him--had she wanted to. And she did not want to. At the moment Mouston hardly seemed to matter--nothing mattered but the unbearable fact of Craven's displeasure. If she could have known the real cause of that displeasure it would have made speech easier. She feared to aggravate his mood but she knew some answer was expected of her. Silence might be misconstrued.

With calmness she did not feel she forced her voice to steadiness.

"Most women make fools of themselves over some animal, _faute de mieux,"_ she said lightly. "I only follow the crowd."

"Is it _faute de mieux_ with you?" The sharp rejoinder struck her like a physical blow. Unable to trust herself, unable to check the quivering of her lips, she turned away to get another cup and saucer from a near cabinet.

"Answer me, Gillian," he said tensely. "Is it for want of something better that you give so much affection to that cringing beast"--he pointed to the poodle who was crawling abjectly on his stomach toward her from the bureau where he had taken refuge--"is it a child that your arms are wanting--not a dog?" His face was drawn, and he stared at her with fierce hunger smouldering in his eyes. He was hurting himself beyond belief--was he hurting her too? Could anything that he might say touch her, stir her from the calm placidity that sometimes, in contradiction to his own restlessness, was almost more than he could tolerate? She had fulfilled the terms of their bargain faithfully, apparently satisfied with its limitation. She appeared content with this d.a.m.nable life they were living. But a sudden impulse had come to him to a.s.sure himself that his supposition was a true one, that the outward content she manifested did not cover longings and desires that she sought to hide. Yet how would it benefit either of them for him to wring from her a secret to which he, by his own doing, had no right?

In winning her consent to this divided marriage he had already done her injury enough--he need not make her life harder. And just now, in a moment of ungovernable pa.s.sion, he had said a brutal thing, a thing beyond all forgiveness. His face grew more drawn as he moved nearer to her.

"Gillian, I asked you a question," he began unsteadily. She confronted him swiftly. Her eyes were steady under his, though the pallor of her face was ghastly.

"You are the one person who has no right to ask me that question, Barry." There was no anger in her voice, there was not even reproach, but a gentle dignity that almost unmanned him. He turned away with a gesture of infinite regret.

"I beg your pardon," he said, in a strangled voice. "I was a cur--what I said was d.a.m.nable." He faced her again with sudden vehemence. "I wish to G.o.d I had left you free. I had no right to marry you, to ruin your life with my selfishness, to bar you from the love and children that should have been yours. You might have met a man who would have given you both, who would have given you the full happy life you ought to have. In my cursed egoism I have done you almost the greatest injury a man can do a woman. My G.o.d, I wonder you don't hate me!"

She forced back the words that rushed to her lips. She knew the danger of an unconsidered answer, the danger of the whole situation. The durability of their future life seemed to depend on her reply, its continuance to hang on a slender thread that, perilously strained, threatened momentarily to snap. She was fearful of precipitating the crisis she had long realised was pending and which now seemed drawing to a head. An unconsidered word, an intonation even, might bring about the catastrophe she feared.

She sought for time, praying for inspiration to guide her. The waiting tea table supplied her immediate want.

Mechanically she filled the cups and cut cake with deliberate precision while her mind worked feverishly.

His distress weighed with her more than her own.

Positive as she now was of the true reason that had prompted him to marry her she saw in his outburst only another chivalrous attempt to hide that reason from her. He had purposely endeavoured to misrepresent himself, and, understanding, a wave of pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude filled her.

Her love was clamouring for audible expression. If she could only speak!

If she could only break through the restrictions that hampered her, tell him all that was in her heart, measure the force of her living love against the phantom of that dead past that had killed in him all the joy of life. But she could not speak. Pride kept her silent, and the knowledge that she could not add to the burden he already bore the embarra.s.sment of an unsought love.

But something she must say, and that before he noticed the hesitation that might rob her words of any worth. Only by refusing to attach an undue value to the significance of what he had said could she arrest the dangerous trend of the conversation and bring it to a safer level.

She sat down slowly, re-arranging the simple tray with ostentatious care.

"You didn't force me to marry you, Barry," she said quietly. "I knew what I was doing, I realised the difficulties that might arise. But you have nothing to reproach yourself with. You have been kind and considerate in everything. I am enormously grateful to you--and I am very content with my life. Please believe that. There is only one thing that I could wish changed; you said that we were to be friends--and you have let me be only a fair weather friend. Won't you let me sometimes share and help in the difficulties, as well as in the pleasures? Your interests, your obligations are so great--" she went on hurriedly, lest he should think she was aiming at deeper, more personal concerns--"I can't help knowing that there must be difficulties. If you would only let me take my part--" She looked up, meeting his gloomy stare at last, and a faint appeal crept into her eyes. "I'm not a child, Barry, to be shown only the sunny side of life."

An indescribable expression flitted across his face, changing it marvellously.

"I would never have you know the dark side," he said briefly, as he took the cup she held out to him.

She was conscious that the tension, though lessened had not altogether disappeared. There was in his manner a constraint that set her heart throbbing painfully. She glanced furtively from time to time at his stern worn face, and the weariness in his eyes brought a lump into her throat.

He talked spasmodically, of friends whom he had seen in London, of a hundred and one trivial matters, but of the business that had kept him in town he said nothing and she wondered what had been in his mind when he had departed from an established rule and deliberately sought her in a room that he never entered. Had he come with any express intention, any confidence that had been thwarted by Mouston's stupid behaviour? She stifled a sigh of disappointment. He might never again be moved by the same impulse.

With growing anxiety she noticed that his restlessness was greater even than usual. Refusing a second cup of tea he lit a cigarette, pacing up and down as he talked, his hands plunged deep in his pockets.

In one of the silences that punctuated his jerky periods he paused by a little table on which lay a portfolio, and lifting it idly looked at the sketches it contained. With a sudden look of apprehension Gillian started and made a half movement as if to rise, then with a shrug she sank back on the sofa, watching him intently. It was her private sketch book, and there was in it one portrait in particular, his own, that she had no wish for him to see. But remonstrance would only call attention to what she hoped might pa.s.s unnoticed. Craven turned over the sketches slowly. He had seen little of his wife's work since their marriage, she was shy of submitting it to him, and with the policy of non-interference he had adopted he had expressed no curiosity. He recognised many faces, and, recognising, remembered wherein lay her special skill. He found himself looking for characteristics that were known to him in the portraits of the men and women he was studying. There was no attempt at concealment--vices and virtues, liberality of mind, pettiness of soul were set forth in naked truth. A sympathetic picture of Peters arrested him, though the name written beneath it puzzled. He looked at the kindly generous countenance with its friendly half-sad eyes and tender mouth with a feeling of envy. He would have given years of his life to have possessed the peace of mind that was manifested in the calm serenity of his agent's face.

His lips tightened as he laid the sketch down. With his thoughts lingering on the last portrait for a second or two he looked at the next one absently. Then a stifled exclamation broke from him and he peered at it closer. And, watching, Gillian drew a deep breath, clenching her hands convulsively. He stood quite still for what seemed an eternity, then came slowly across the room and stood directly in front of her. And for the first time she was afraid of meeting his eyes.

"Do I look like--that?"

Her head drooped lower, her fingers twining and intertwining nervously, and her dry lips almost refused their office.

"I have seen you like that," very slowly and almost inaudibly, but he caught the reluctant admission.

"So--_d.a.m.nable_?"

She flinched from the loathing in his voice.

"I _am_ sorry--" she murmured faintly.

"Good G.o.d!" the profanity was wrung from him, but had he thought of it he would have considered it justified, for the face at which he was staring was the beautiful tormented face of a fallen angel. He looked with a kind of horror at the hungry pa.s.sionate eyes fierce with unsatisfied longing, shadowed with terrible memory, tortured, hopeless; at the set mouth, a straight grim line under the trim golden brown moustache; at the bitterness and revolt expressed in all the deep cut lines of the tragic face. He laid it down with a feeling of repulsion.

She saw him like that! The pain of it was intolerable.

He laughed with a harsh mirthlessness that made her quiver.

"It is a truer estimation of my character than the one you gave me a few minutes ago," he said bitterly, "and you may thank heaven I am your husband only in name. G.o.d keep you from a nearer acquaintance with me."

And turning on his heel he left her. Long after he had gone she sat on motionless, her fingers picking mechanically at the chintz cover of the sofa, staring into s.p.a.ce with wide eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears. She knew it was a cruel sketch, but she had never meant him to see it. It had taken shape unconsciously under her hand, and while she hated it she had kept it because of the remarkable likeness and because it was the only picture she had of him.

The dreams of a better understanding seemed swept away by her own thoughtlessness and folly. She had hurt him and she could never explain.

To refer to it, to try and make him understand, would do more harm than good. With a pitiful sob she covered her face with her hands, and, beside her, Mouston the pampered cringed and whimpered unheeded and forgotten.

She had looked forward to his return with such high hopes and now they lay shattered at her feet. During a brief hour that might have drawn them nearer together they had contrived to hurt each other as it must seem to both by deliberate intent. For herself she knew that she was innocent of any such intention--but was he? He had never hurt her before, even in his most difficult moods he had been to her unfailingly kind and considerate. But to-day--shudderingly she wondered did it mark a new era in their relations? And in miserable futile longing she wished that this afternoon had never been.