The Mating of Lydia Part 55

"I have done my best," he said doggedly. "I have argued--and entreated.

To no avail!"

"But you are taking the money"--the quiet intensity of the tone affected him strangely--"the money, that should be theirs--the money which has been wrung--partly--from this wretched estate. You are accepting gifts and benefits from a man you must loathe and despise!"

She was trembling all over. Her eyes avoided his as she sat downcast; her head bent under the weight of her own words.

There was silence. But a silence that spoke. For what was in truth the meaning of this interview--of his pleading--and her agonized, reluctant judgment? No ordinary acquaintance, no ordinary friends.h.i.+p could have brought it about. Things unspoken, feelings sprung from the flying seeds of love, falling invisible on yielding soil, and growing up a man knoweth not how--at once troubled and united them. The fear of separation had grown, step by step, with the sense of attraction and of yearning. It was because their hearts reached out to each other that they dreaded so to find some impa.s.sable gulf between them.

He mastered himself with difficulty.

"That is one way of putting it. Now let me put it my way. I am a man who has had few chances in life--and great ambitions--which I have never had the smallest means of satisfying. I may be the mere intriguer that Tatham and his mother evidently think me. But I am inclined to believe in myself. Most men are. I feel that I have never had my opportunity. What is this wealth that is offered me, but an opportunity? There never was so much to be done with wealth--so much sheer _living_ to be got out of it, as there is to-day. Luxury and self-indulgence are the mere abuse of wealth. Wealth means everything nowadays that a man is most justified in desiring!--supposing he has the brains to use it. That at any rate is my belief. It always has been my belief. Trust me--that is all I ask of my friends. Give me time. If Mr. Melrose were to die soon--immediately--I should be able all the quicker to put everything to rights. But if his death is delayed a year or two--my life indeed will be a dog's life"--he spoke with sudden emotion--"but the people on the estate will not be the worse, but the better, for my being there; and in the end the power will come to me--and I shall use it. So long as Melrose lives his wife and daughter can get nothing out of him, whether I am there or not. His obstinacy is immovable, as Lady Tatham has found, and when he dies, their interests will be safe with me."

Lydia had grown very pale. The man before her seemed to her Faversham, yet not Faversham. Some other personality, compounded of all those ugly, sophistic things that lurk in every human character, seemed to be wrestling with, obscuring the real man.

"And the years till this stage comes to an end?" she asked him. "When every day you have to do what you feel to be wrong?--to obey--to be at the beck and call of such a man as Mr.

Melrose?--hateful--cruel--tyrannical!--when you must silence all that is generous and n.o.ble--"

Her voice failed her.

Faversham's lips tightened. They remained looking at each other. Then Faversham rose suddenly. He stooped over her. She heard his voice, hoa.r.s.e and broken in her ears:

"Lydia--I love you!--I _love you_--with all my heart!--and all my strength! Don't, for G.o.d's sake, let us make believe with each other!

And--I believe," he added, after a moment, in a lower tone, "I believe--that you love me!"

His att.i.tude, his manner were masterful--violent. She trembled under it.

He tried to take her hand.

"Speak to me!" he said, peremptorily. "Oh, my darling--speak to me! I only ask you to trust to me--to be guided by me--"

She withdrew her hand. He could see her heart fluttering under the soft curves of the breast.

"I can't--I can't!"

The words were said with anguish. She covered her face with her hands.

"Because I won't do what you wish? What is it you wish?"

They had come to the deciding moment.

She looked up, recovering self-control, her heart rus.h.i.+ng to her lips.

"Give it up!" she said, stretching out her hands to him, her head thrown back, all her delicate beauty one prayer. "Don't touch this money! It is stained--it is corrupt. You lose your honour in taking it--and honour--is life. What does money matter? The great things that make one happy have nothing to do with money. They can be had for so little! And if one loses them--honour and self-respect--and a clear conscience--how can _money_ make up! If I were to marry you--and we had to live on Mr. Melrose's money--everything in life would be poisoned for me. I should always see the faces--of those dead people--whom I loved. I should hear their voices--accusing. We should be in slavery--slavery to a bad man--and our souls would die--"

Her voice dropped--drowned in the pa.s.sion of its own entreaty.

Faversham pressed her hands, released them, and slowly straightened himself to his full height, as he stood beside her on the hearthrug.

A vision rose and spread through the mind. In place of the little sitting-room, the modest home of refined women living on a slender income, he saw the great gallery at Threlfall with its wonderful contents, and the series of marvellous rooms he had now examined and set in order. Vividly, impressively the great house presented itself to him in memory, in all its recovered grace and splendour; a treasury of art, destined to be a place of pilgrimage for all who adore that lovely record of itself in things subtle and exquisite which the human spirit has written on time. Often lately he had wrung permission from Melrose to take an English or foreign visitor through some of the rooms. He had watched their enthusiasm and their ardour. And mingled with such experience, there had been now for months the intoxicating sense that everything in that marvellous house was potentially his--Claude Faversham's, and would all some day come into his hands, the hands of a man specially prepared by education and early circ.u.mstance to enjoy, to appreciate.

And the estate. As in a map, he saw its green spreading acres, its mult.i.tude of farms, its possessions of all kind, spoilt and neglected by one man's caprice, but easily to be restored by the prudent care of his successor. He realized himself in the future as its owner; the inevitable place that it would give him in the political and social affairs of the north. And the estate was not all. Behind the estate lay the great untrammelled fortune drawn from quite other sources of wealth; how great he was only now beginning to know.

A great sigh shook him--a sigh of decision. What he had been listening to had been the quixotism of a tender heart, ignorant of life and affairs, and all the wider possibilities open to man's will. He could not yield.

In time she must be the one to yield. And she would yield. Let him wait, and be patient. There were many ways in which to propitiate, to work upon her.

He looked down upon her gravely, his dark pointed face quivering a little. Instinctively she drew back. Her expression changed.

"I can't do that." His voice was low but firm. "I feel the call to me.

And after all, Melrose has claims on me. To me, personally, his generosity--has been incredible. He is old--and ill. I must stay by him."

Her mind cried out, "Yes--but on your own terms, not his!"

But she did not say it. Her pride came to her aid. She sprang up, a glittering animation flas.h.i.+ng back into her face, transforming its softness, its tenderness.

"I understand--I quite understand. Thank you for being so plain--and bearing with my--strange ideas. Now--I don't think we can be of any further use to each other--though--" she clasped her hands involuntarily--"I shall always hope and pray--"

She did not finish. He broke into a cry.

"Lydia! you send me away?"

"I don't accept your conditions--nor you mine. There is no more to be said."

He looked at her sombrely, remorse struggling with his will. But also anger--the anger of a naturally arrogant temperament--that he should find her so resistant.

"If you loved me--"

"Ah--no," she shook her head fiercely, the bright tears in her eyes; "don't let's talk of love! That has nothing to say to it."

She turned, and took up a piece of embroidery lying on a table near. He accepted the indication, turning very white. But still he lingered.

"Is there nothing I could say that would alter your mind?"

"I am afraid--nothing."

She gave him her hand. He scarcely dared to press it; she had become suddenly so strong, so hostile. Her light beauty had turned as it were to fire; one saw the flame of the spirit.

A tumult of thoughts and regrets rushed through him. But things inexorable held him. With a long, lingering look at her, he turned and went.

A little later, Susy entering timidly found Lydia sitting alone in a room that was nearly dark. Some instinct guided her. She came in, took a stool beside her sister, and leant her head against Lydia's knee. Lydia said nothing, but their hands joined, and for long they sat in the firelight, the only sounds, Lydia's stifled sobbing, and the soft crackling of a dying flame.

BOOK IV

XIX