Second String Part 27

"Oh, I--I oughtn't to have said that. You're right, Isobel. It's--it's too sacred. But I was so happy in it. Do forgive me, dear. I've got no mother to talk to, Isobel. Not even a sister! I know what you felt, but you must forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive, child. I meant nothing when I took my hand away. I was going to pick up the paper."

"Then kiss me, Isobel."

Isobel slowly turned her head and kissed the girl's cheek. "I know what you mean, Vivien," she said with a smile that to the girl seemed wistful, almost bitter.

"You dear!" she whispered. "Some day you must be very happy too." Her voice carolled in song as she sped upstairs.

"The good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." That--and possibly one other--reminiscence of the Scriptures came back to Isobel Vintry when, with a kiss, she had dismissed Vivien to her happy rest. There was another law, warring against the law of her mind--the law of the Restless and Savage Master. He broke friends.h.i.+p's power and blurred the mirror of loyalty. He drove her whither she would not go, commanded her to set her hand to what she would not touch, forced love to mate with loathing. "The child is so beautifully happy,"

her spirit cried. "Aye, in Harry Belfield's kisses," came the Master's answer. "Wouldn't she be? You've tasted them. You know." She knew. They were different now! From those he had given Vivien before? Yes. From the one he had given her? Or like that one? Her jealousy caught fresh flame from Vivien's shy revelation--fresh flame and new shame. Harry was repenting--with smiles of memory. She was sinning still, with groans, with all her cunning, and with all her might. Pa.s.s the theory that it is each man for himself in this fight, and each woman for her own hand. No doubt; but should not the fight be fair? The girl did not so much as know there was a fight, and should not and must not, unless and until it had gone irrevocably against her. "All's fair in love--and war." Yet traitors suffer death from their own side and the enemy's contempt.

His kisses were different now--that set her aflame. Aye, and to mark how under their new charm Vivien opened into new power and took hold on new weapons! The new kisses somehow made a woman of her! It might be tolerable to see him make his marriage of convenience, doing no more than somewhat indolently allowing himself to be adored. But to see him adoring this other--that was to be worsted on the merits--not merely to be impossible, but to be undesired. Was that coming about? Had it come about--so soon after the stolen kiss? Then the kiss had been all failure, all shame; he had mocked while he kissed. She was cheapened, yet not aided. The cunning of the last six days had been bent to prove that she had been aided--her value not cheapened but enhanced.

Looking again out of the window whence she had watched the pair at their love-making, looking over the terrace, now empty, across the water (water seems ever to answer to the onlooker's mood), she exclaimed against the absence of safeguards. Were she a wife--or were Vivien! That would be a fence, making for protection--a st.u.r.dy fence, which to break down or to leap over would be plain trespa.s.sing, a profanation, open offence. Were she--or were Vivien--a mother! The Savage Master himself must own a worthy foe in motherhood--one that gave him trouble, one that he vanquished only after hard fighting, and then saw his victory bitterly grudged, piteously wept over, deplored in a heart-rending fas.h.i.+on; you could see that in the morning's paper. She chanced to have read such a case a day or two before. The letter of confession was signed "Mother the outcast." To have to sign like that--if you let the Master beat you--was a deterrent, a safeguard, a s.h.i.+eld. Such defences she had not. Vivien was neither wife nor mother; no more was she. The engagement seemed but victory in the first bout; was it forbidden to try the best of three? Nothing was irrevocable yet--on either side. "At lovers' vows--!" Or a stolen kiss! Or a stolen victory?

Suddenly she remembered, and with the same quality of smile as Vivien had marked, that she had been an exemplary child, ever extolled, never punished; a pattern schoolgirl, with the highest marks, Queen on May-day (a throne not to be achieved without the Princ.i.p.al's _conge d'elire!_), a model student at Cambridge. Hence the unexceptionable credentials which had introduced her to Nutley, had made her Vivien's preceptress, Vivien's bulwark against fear and weakness, Vivien's s.h.i.+eld--and destined to be a s.h.i.+eld to successive young ladies after Vivien. Who first had undermined that accepted view of destiny, had disordered that well-schooled, almost Sunday-schooled, scheme of her life? Vivien's father, who came back to-morrow. At whose challenge was the shaken fortress like to fall? Vivien's lover, who came yesterday and the day before, to-morrow and the day after, every day till he went out of life with Vivien.

As with minds greatly preoccupied, the ordinary traffic of the hours pa.s.sed unnoticed; bed, sleep, breakfast, were a moment. She found herself greeting Wellgood, newly arrived, ruddy and robust, confident, self-satisfied--as she saw in a moment, eager. His kiss to his daughter was carelessly kind, and with it he let her go, she not unwilling; Harry was due at the gate. Wellgood's real greeting was for the woman whom to see was his home-coming. He led her with him into his study; he laid his hand on her arm as he made her sit down near him.

"Well, have the lovers bored you to death with their spooning since I've been away?"

"There's been a good deal of it, and not much relief. Only Andy Hayes now and then."

"Rather tiresome to be the onlooker all the time. Wouldn't you like a little on your own account?"

"I'm in no hurry." She looked him straight in the face, rather defiantly.

"I've made up my mind since I've been away. I'm not a good hand at speeches or at spooning, but I'm fond of you, Isobel. I'll make you a good husband--and it's for you to consider whether you'll ever get a better chance."

"I should like more time to think it over."

"Oh, come, don't tell me you haven't been thinking it over for weeks past. What's the difficulty?"

"I'm not in love with you--that's all."

"I don't expect to inspire a romantic pa.s.sion, like young Harry."

"Can't you leave Harry Belfield out of it?" she asked irritably.

"I see he has bored you," chuckled Wellgood. "But you like me? We get on together?"

"Yes, I like you, and we get on together. But I don't want to marry yet."

"No more do I--just yet!" He rose and went to the mantelpiece to choose a pipe. "Have you got any friends you could stay a month with?"

His back was to her; he was busy filling the pipe. He saw neither the sudden stiffening of her figure nor the fear in her eyes. Was he going to send her away--now? But she answered coolly, "Yes, I think I could arrange it, if you wish."

"Somehow a man feels rather a fool, being engaged himself while his girl's getting married. We should have all the idiots in the neighbourhood buzzing about with their jokes and congratulations. I've made a plan to avoid all that. We keep it quite dark till Vivien's wedding; then you go off, ostensibly for good. I stay here and give the place an overhauling; then I'll join you in town, we'll be married there, and go for a jaunt. By the time we come back they'll have cooled down--and they'll be jolly glad to have s.h.i.+rked their wedding presents."

By now he had turned round; the strain and the fear had pa.s.sed from Isobel; the month's visit to friends was not to come now. "How do you like the scheme?" he asked.

"I like the scheme very much, and I'm all for keeping it quiet till Vivien is disposed of."

He stood before her, smoking his pipe, his hands in his pockets. "Shall we call it settled?"

"I don't want to call it settled yet."

He put down his pipe. "Look here, Isobel, because I can't make pretty speeches, don't you think I don't feel this thing. I want you, and I want the thing settled. You ought to know your mind by now. If you want to say no, you can say it now, but I don't believe you do. Then why can't you say yes? It's devilishly uncomfortable to go on living in the house with you while the thing's unsettled."

Would the visit come into play after all, unless she consented? Isobel sat in thought.

"Just understood between ourselves--that's what I mean. I shan't bother you with much love-making, as I daresay you can guess."

She had cried out for a fence, a protection. Did not one offer itself now? It might prove of service. She saw that the man loved her in his rough way; his love might help her. For the time, at least, his honest sincerity of affection touched her heart. His "I want you" was grateful to her. That other thing--the thing to which the stolen kiss belonged--was madness. Surely she had resolution to withstand it and to do what was wise? Surely she could be honest? If only because, in all likelihood, dishonesty led nowhere.

"Suppose I said yes--and changed my mind?" She was trying to be honest--or perhaps to put herself in a position to maintain that she had been honest, if need arose.

"I must take my chance of that, like other men," laughed Wellgood. "But, like other men too, I don't suppose I should be very pleasant about it.

Especially not if there was another fellow!"

"No, I don't suppose you would." She smiled at him for a moment; he showed there a side of him that she liked--his courage, his self-confidence, his power to stand up for himself.

"You leave it to me to keep you when once I've got you," he went on, smiling grimly. "That's my affair; you'll find I shall look after it."

She smiled back at him--defiance in return for his grimness. "Very well, I'll leave it to you to keep me. After all, there's no reason to expect compet.i.tion."

"Not in Meriton, perhaps! But what of London, Miss Isobel? I must keep an eye on you there!" He took hold of her hands and pulled her to her feet. "It's a promise?"

"In the way I've told you--yes."

"Oh, that's good enough for me!" He drew her to him and kissed her. "We shan't have many chances of kissing--or we should give the thing away.

But give me one now, Isobel!"

She did as she was bid in a very friendly fas.h.i.+on. His kiss had been hearty but not pa.s.sionate, and hers was an adequate response. It left Wellgood entirely content.

"That's all right! Gad, I feel ten years younger! You shan't repent it.

I'll look after you well--while I'm alive and after I'm gone too. Don't be afraid about that. Perhaps there'll be somebody else to look after you, by the time I get notice to quit. I'd like to leave a Wellgood of Nutley behind me."

"Do you know, that's sentimental?" said Isobel. "Mere sentiment!"

"Not a bit of it, miss. It's a sound natural instinct, and I'm proud of it." He kissed her again. "Now be off, there's a good girl. I've got a thousand things to do, and probably everything's been going to the devil while I've been away."

"I rather pity everybody now you've come back!"

"Don't you worry. I know I shall find your department in good order. Be off!" He took her by the shoulders in a rough playfulness and turned her towards the door. She left him chuckling to himself. He was very content with the issue of his suit.

Was her department in good order? Her lips twisted in a wry smile.

As she approached the drawing-room door, Harry Belfield came out of it.