East of the Shadows Part 25

"It is most beautiful," she agreed. "Look at the line of the sea--how wonderfully blue it is. You can see the smoke of a steamer on the horizon--over there." She pointed with the whip in her hand. "When I was a child I used to watch the s.h.i.+ps, and make up all sorts of stories as to where they were going and the wonderful adventures they would meet with--pirates and desert islands and s.h.i.+pwrecks and sea-serpents.

I think I must have had a very vivid imagination. But my stories always ended up happily. After endless perils and hairbreadth escapes my vessels sailed home laden with treasure. Where is that s.h.i.+p going, and what sort of pa.s.sengers does she carry? I wonder if they are all very unhappy at leaving England, or full of hope about the new land they are going to?"

"Perhaps they are bound for the Magical Island," Francis said, smiling.

"Is it north, south, east or west, that fairyland? And is it really more beautiful than Bessmoor after all? Just think of it. If I hadn't been ill we might be there now, and by this time I should have discovered your secret. Tell me where it is, darling."

"No, no," she replied, laughing. "I won't tell you. You want to know too much. You must be patient. It is to be a surprise for you."

"I wish we were sailing there now, in that s.h.i.+p over there," he said.

"But anyway I am sure of one thing, and that is that even on the Magical Island we couldn't be happier than we are now."

"No, I don't think we could," a.s.sented Philippa, in a tone of great contentment.

"I cannot say how glad I am that we should have come here for our first drive together since all the shadows rolled away. It seems right, somehow. Thank you, dear one, for bringing me. It is a perfect spot, isn't it? It seems a worthy setting for the perfect joy which came to me here. Phil, I wonder--when you promised to marry me--here--standing by that gate--did you love me as much as you do now?"

Again that curious chill ran through the girl, but this time it was much more definite, so strong that it gave her a feeling of physical sickness. It was only with an effort that she could wrench her mind free from the grip of it and answer calmly and with perfect truth, "I have never loved you so well as I do to-day."

His arm pressed hers with a movement full of affection, and he smiled into her eyes.

"We must be going back now. You will have been out long enough." So saying she turned the pony round and they retraced their road.

"Oh, how it all comes back to me!" Francis continued. "You were so full of life and spirits that day, I thought I should never get a chance to say the words which were burning on my lips--to tell you what I was longing you should know. I don't know which I love best, the Phil who was always overflowing with fun and laughter, or the sweet serious Phil of to-day."

He changed his tone instantly as he saw her face. "I was only speaking in jest, dear one," he whispered. "I, too, can say as you said just now, that I have never loved you so well as at this moment. But I have a happy memory of the old Phil as she was before I was such an anxiety to her that she almost forgot how to smile. But never mind, soon you will forget all the sadness, and I will teach you your old trick of laughter."

But Philippa did not speak. She was wrestling with the most insupportable sensation of mingled misery and revolt, and she seemed to hear words as clearly spoken as though the speaker were actually by her side--"He does not love you. It is not you he loves."

A surge of anger blotted out the suns.h.i.+ne and darkened the whole world, and through the darkness one lightning flash shot through the girl's sick heart. This was jealousy. Suddenly she felt she could not bear it--she could not sit there beside the man she loved and hear him talk of other days which she had never known and of his love for another woman. In a minute or two the storm pa.s.sed, but it left her faint and numb, with the beautiful veil which had enveloped her dream of bliss torn to ribbons.

She fought desperately to recover her self-possession and succeeded to a certain extent, but her hands were so cold that she could hardly feel the reins, and in her ears there sounded the rus.h.i.+ng of great waters.

Step by step the old pony trod down the steep, uneven track, and the necessity for careful driving seemed sufficient excuse for her preoccupation.

"We must come here again," said Francis thoughtfully. "It will help me to remember;" and then, as though his thoughts had gone back to the scene enacted long ago on the place they had just visited, he added half to himself, "Dear little girl, with her happy face and clouds of dark hair under a scarlet cap!"

Philippa suppressed a wild desire to scream aloud. The words were like a knife turning in her heart at the moment; but to her relief he did not speak again until they reached the house.

Keen and a footman were waiting for them at the door, and he was carried up-stairs to rest as usual after his drive. Philippa followed, and arranged his cus.h.i.+ons and attended to his comfort in the way that had become habitual to her, but she left him as quickly as she could and sought the privacy of her own room. She wanted to be alone to battle with the unexpected enemy which had in some unaccountable way stormed the stronghold of her heart and threatened to lay it in ruins.

The words Marion had spoken--words which had been utterly unheeded at the time--now battered for admission to the fortress and met with slight resistance. "His love is not for you--every bit of the love in his heart belongs to another woman." It was not true! It could not be true! Francis loved her--now--to-day. What right had the woman who had failed him to rob her, the living Philippa, of one corner of his heart? For she wanted it all. She, by right of her love for him, claimed his every thought, she could not spare one.

Phil had renounced her privilege, had thrown it aside as something of no value, had broken the tie which bound her to Francis the first moment that it galled. Could Philippa then be blamed if she had riveted the chain afresh and possessed herself of what Phil had discarded as worthless? Surely not. This was a point which Philippa had considered thoroughly at the time of making her first decision. In her first interview with Francis she had, as has been stated, blamed herself for listening to words of love intended for another; but once she had learned the rights of the whole affair she had altered her opinion, and had deliberately set aside all thoughts of Phil. So entirely had she identified herself with the woman whom Francis loved, that she had ceased to allow her a separate individuality at all. She, Philippa, was in effect that woman, as she was in reality the woman who loved him. His allusions to Phil had never troubled her up to the present, save, of course, that they required careful answering.

Marion's plain speaking had glanced off the armour of her security without even denting it--why should she think of it now?

It was so dreadful to be jealous--she had always considered jealousy a vulgar failing--and her face flushed with shame and humiliation that she, who had always prided herself upon being above petty weakness, should harbour so despicable a sentiment, and that of a dead woman.

And yet she could only acknowledge honestly that it was torture to her to hear Francis speak of Phil in terms of such affection. Now that this odious whisper had made itself heard, how could she submit to his embrace? Could she ever forget? What could she do? Her deep, pa.s.sionate love craved for evidences of his in return. Was this horrible ghost always to stand between them?

She paced up and down the room, striving with all her might to straighten out this abominable coil. Of all the pains to which poor human nature is liable, and not a few are self-inflicted, none is sharper than jealousy. It has been well described as the child of love and the parent of hate.

But for all that at the moment Philippa was suffering acutely, she was by no means prepared to permit this vile thing to conquer. She would fight it and root it out. It had come upon her so suddenly. What was the cause? Was it merely a freak of that incomprehensible phenomenon the human mind that had twisted the chain of her affection into so mischievous a knot, or merely a figment of the brain springing from inner consciousness to torment her with devilish ingenuity? or did the fault lie with her in some simpler, more tangible way? Was it possible that her love was not the great and boundless force that she had imagined, but weak, in that it could not dispel and overcome any thought that dimmed its purity--such a poor selfish thing that she allowed an idea to influence her to its despite?

She had been so utterly happy--had she been thinking only of herself?

But no, Francis had been happy too. Had Marion been right when she had accused her of defrauding not only herself, but him, of the best part of what love should mean--confidence and trust--and was this her punishment? And little by little, as she thought and puzzled over it all, the scales fell from her eyes and she knew the truth. She knew that she had "drugged her brain against realities, and lived in dreams,"--dreams which had been, as most dreams are, strange compounds of self-deception and hallucination, distorted, imaginary and futile.

And yet, while her hope and joy vanished like a vapour before the searching heat of truth, one thing remained firm--her love for Francis.

Whatever mistakes she had made, whatever fancies she had taken for fact, this was actual, pure and irrefutable. It seemed to her suddenly that this was the only saving clause in the long list of errors, and she saw the difference it would have made if Francis had known the truth. No possible cloud could have come between them then, and all the rosy dreams in which she had indulged might have proved waking joys.

And even now she could not see how she could have acted differently--certainly not at the outset--it was impossible then to undeceive Francis; but later, supposing that when she first became aware of her love for him--supposing she had told him the truth then, making clear her affection at the same time, could he not have borne it? Had that been in reality her one hour of choice to which regret now turned with longing? At the time she had been so engrossed in her own rapture that she had pa.s.sed it unheeding. And now, was it possible to tell him? And if she did so, how could she explain, how vindicate her own actions? She had taken his protestations, his tenderness under a false pretence. How could she tell him now, when his memory was groping back slowly and painfully, and he had already so much to bear in the fuller knowledge of his limitations--when he had no one but her?

She could not do it. The only thing she could do was to go on, to carry on what she had undertaken; and after all, if he did not love her he was absolutely dependent on her. She must school herself to listen to this talk of old days. It could be only for a time, for in the future there would be so many new interests for him that he would cease to think of the past. She would so fill his life that if she were only patient, surely she might hope for the day when she could say that he was hers in every thought. She would practise self-control and self-abnegation, and perhaps after a time this dull heartache and sense of loss would pa.s.s away.

Fortified by these excellent resolutions, she took up a book which she and Francis were reading together and went to his sitting-room. As she entered she saw him standing in front of a tall mahogany bookcase, the bottom drawer of which was open and filled with papers. He held one in his hand, but as he glanced up and saw her he replaced it and closed the drawer without speaking. His face was very white, and she asked him anxiously if he was tired.

"A little," he answered, "but not too tired for some reading."

He lay down, and Philippa drew a chair to her accustomed place and began to read. She read steadily for a while, but presently she noticed that Francis was paying no attention to the story, although he had hitherto been interested in it, so she suggested some music. He a.s.sented readily enough, and she went to the piano and played several of his favourite pieces, but she could see he was not listening. She took up a song with the intention of singing, but laid it down again, feeling thankful that he had not asked for it, for the effort would have been beyond her to-night. To-morrow she would be calmer and stronger.

But the music soothed her and she sat on, playing from memory, pa.s.sing from one thing to another almost without heeding what she was doing.

Many times before she had played to Francis like this in the earlier days when he had been too weak for sustained conversation, but never had his silence lasted so long as to-night. It rather alarmed her at last, and she rose and went to his side.

"Is anything the matter?" she asked. "Are you sure you are not feeling ill?"

"What should be the matter?" he replied. "No, thank you, darling, I am not feeling ill, but----" he pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead with a gesture of perplexity--"I seem to be thinking of so many things to-night, that is all."

"Do not tire yourself with thinking," she said earnestly. "Put thought aside until you are more fit for it--or let me do the thinking for you.

What is it that you want to know?"

"Oh, so many things," he answered, with an attempt at lightness. Then rising he added: "Perhaps I am a little tired. Will you ring the bell for Keen? I think I will go to bed. I am sorry, dearest, but I don't feel like talking to-night. The fresh air has gone to my head, I think; but I shall be all right after a night's rest."

He kissed her as usual and she left him, feeling rea.s.sured about him.

The expedition of the morning was enough to account for a little extra fatigue.

CHAPTER XXI

POOR RIP

"Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy It is not safe to know."--DAVENANT.

The early post brought Philippa two letters next morning. One was from Marion, who wrote to say that their plans were suddenly changed, and that Philippa must not be surprised to receive a telegram at any moment announcing their immediate return; the truth being that d.i.c.kie, who up to now progressed well towards recovery, had begun to pine for his own belongings and his familiar surroundings, and that, with all the fretfulness of childhood in convalescence, he asked unceasingly to go home. His demand had become so persistent, in spite of all his parents could say or do to pacify him, that the doctor had said it might be wiser to take the risk of moving him sooner than was expedient rather than allow him to wear himself out with tears and unhappiness.

"He is not really naughty, dear little boy," so ran the mother's words, "but he cannot be content. He won't pay any attention to toys or games, and whatever I do to amuse him he turns away his head and his little lip quivers pathetically. 'Thank you very much,' he says wearily, 'but I don't want it. I want to go home.' So there is nothing to be done but move him as soon as possible--the sooner the better, I think, but the doctor wants to put it off a day or two if he can. Will you tell the servants to get the rooms ready, and I will let you know when we actually start? We shall motor all the way, as we can make up a bed for d.i.c.kie in the car; I am sure he will be perfectly quiet so soon as he knows he is really going home.

"Both Bill and I are most anxious that our coming should not disturb Francis in any way, and if you will let us know exactly what the doctor's wishes are we will see that they are carried out. If he thinks it wiser that Francis should not see us we will arrange our comings and goings so that we do not meet him. I gather from your letters that except for the time he spends out of doors, he is mostly in his own rooms, and if it is desirable we will keep away from that part of the house altogether. I shall be so glad to be home again--almost as glad as d.i.c.kie, I think, and I shall be glad to be at hand in case you need me in any way."

Marion wrote very affectionately, and did not in any way allude to their difference of opinion at their last meeting, but Philippa was a little distressed at the subject of her letter. She would so infinitely rather have continued alone with Francis, following their usual routine until their marriage. She had no doubt that Marion was right when she said that their coming need not disturb Francis in any way; but still it would not be quite the same as when they had the house to themselves. One cannot entirely ignore the presence of one's host and hostess, however self-effacing they may be, and in a sense it would be a danger, for now that Francis was able to walk he might at any time choose to depart from his custom and so come upon them without warning. However, it was impossible to make any contrary suggestion in the face of the reason which compelled their change of plans, and it only remained for her to be constantly on the watch to guard against any accidental meeting.

The other letter was from her mother, who wrote in her gayest style, describing all she was doing--the last party--the last fas.h.i.+on in dress--the craze of the moment--and the new dancer whose fascination both on and off the stage kept the gossips busy. She ended by asking Philippa for the address of a certain dressmaker in Paris whom she had previously employed. She had lost it, and would Philippa be an angel, underlined, and telegraph it to her at once, underlined, as she wanted it immediately.