Sinister Street Volume I Part 67

"Tell me," whispered Stella. "Ah, do."

"I've found out that Lily is quite ready to flirt with anybody. With anybody!"

"What a beastly girl!" Stella flamed.

"Well, you can't expect her to remain true to a creature like me," said Michael, declaring his self-abas.e.m.e.nt.

"A creature like you?" cried Stella. "Why, Michael, how can you be so absurd? If you speak of yourself like that, I shall begin to think you _are_ 'a creature' as you call yourself. Ah, no, but you're not, Michael. It's this Lily who is the creature. Oh, don't I know her, the insipid puss! A silly little doll that lets everybody pull her about. I hate weak girls. How I despise them!"

"But you despise boys, Stella," Michael reminded her. "And this chap she was flirting with was much older than me. Perhaps Lily is like you, and prefers older men."

Michael had no heart left even to maintain his stand against Stella's alarming opinions and prejudices so frankly expressed.

"Like me," Stella cried, stamping her foot. "Like me! How dare you compare her with me? I'm not a doll. Do you think anyone has ever dared to kiss me?"

"I'm sorry," said Michael. "But you talk so very daringly that I shouldn't be surprized by anything you told me. At the same time I can't help sympathizing with Lily. It must have been dull to be in love with a schoolboy--an awkward lout of eighteen."

"Michael! I will not hear you speak of yourself like that. I'm ashamed of you. How can you be so weak? Be proud. Oh, Michael, do be proud--it's the only thing on earth worth being."

Stella stood dominant before him. Her grey eyes flashed; her proud, upcurving mouth was slightly curled: her chin was like the chin of a marble G.o.ddess, and yet with that brown hair lapping her wide shoulders, with those long legs, lean-flanked and supple, she was more like some heroic boy.

"Yes, you can be proud enough," said Michael. "But you've got something to be proud of. What have I got?"

"You've got me," said Stella fiercely.

"Why, yes, I suppose I have," Michael softly agreed. "Let's talk about your first appearance."

"I was talking about it to mother when a man called Prescott came."

"Prescott?" said Michael. "I seem to have heard mother speak about him.

I wonder when it was. A long time ago, though."

"Well, whoever he was," said Stella, "he brought mother bad news."

"How do you know?"

"Have you ever seen mother cry?"

"Yes, once," said Michael. "It was when I was talking through my hat about the war."

"I've never seen her cry," said Stella pensively. "Until to-day."

Michael forgot about his own distress in the thought of his mother, and he sat hushed all through the evening, while Stella played in the darkness. Mrs. Fane went up to her own room immediately she came in that night, and the next morning, which was Sat.u.r.day, Michael listlessly took the paper out to read in the garden, while he waited for Stella to dress herself so that they could go out together and avoid the house over which seemed to impend calamity.

Opening the paper, Michael saw an obituary notice of the Earl of Saxby.

He scanned the news, only half absorbing it:

"In another column will be found the details--enteric--adds another famous name to the lamentable toll of this war--the late n.o.bleman did not go into society much of late years--formerly Captain in the Welsh Guards--born 1860--married Lady Emmeline MacDonald, daughter of the Earl of Skye, K.T.--raised corps of Mounted Infantry (Saxby's Horse)--great traveller--unfortunately no heir to the t.i.tle which becomes extinct."

Michael guessed the cause of his mother's unhappiness of yesterday. He went upstairs and told Stella.

"I suppose mother was in love with him," she said.

"I suppose she was," Michael agreed. "I wish I hadn't refused to say good-bye to him. It seems rather horrible now."

Mrs. Fane had left word that she would not be home until after dinner, and Michael and Stella sat apprehensive and silent in the drawing-room.

Sometimes they would toss backwards and forwards to each other rea.s.suring words, while outside the livid evening of ochreous oppressive clouds and ashen pavements slowly disl.u.s.tred into a night swollen with undelivered rain and baffled thunders.

About nine o'clock Mrs. Fane came home. She stood for a moment in the doorway of the room, palely regarding her children. She seemed undecided about something, but after a long pause she sat down between them and began to speak:

"Something has happened, dear children, that I think you ought to know about before you grow any older."

Mrs. Fane paused again and stared before her, seeming to be reaching out for strength to continue. Michael and Stella sat breathless as the air of the night. Mrs. Fane's white kid gloves fell to the floor softly like the petals of a blown rose, and as if she missed their companions.h.i.+p in the stress of explication, she went on more rapidly.

"Lord Saxby has died in the Transvaal of enteric fever, and I think you both ought to know that Lord Saxby was your father."

When his mother said this, the blood rushed to Michael's face and then immediately receded, so that his eyelids as they closed over his eyes to s.h.i.+eld them from the room's suddenly intense light glowed greenly; and when he looked again anywhere save directly at his mother, his heart seemed to have been crushed between ice. The room itself went swinging up in loops out of reach of his intelligence, that vainly strove to bring it back to familiar conditions. The nightmare pa.s.sed: the drawing-room regained its shape and orderly tranquillity: the story went on.

"I have often wished to tell you, Michael, in particular," said his mother, looking at him with great grey eyes whose l.u.s.trous intensity cooled his first pained sensation of shamefulness, "Years ago, when you were the dearest little boy, and when I was young and rather lonely sometimes, I longed to tell you. But it would not have been fair to weigh you down with knowledge that you certainly could not have grasped then. I thought it was kinder to escape from your questions, even when you said that your father looked like a prince."

"Did I?" Michael asked, and he fell to wondering why he had spoken and why his voice sounded so exactly the same as usual.

"You see ... of course ... I was never married to your father. You must not blame him, because he wanted to marry me always, but Lady Saxby wouldn't divorce him. I dare say she had a right to nurse her injury.

She is still alive. She lives in an old Scottish castle. Your father gave up nearly all his time to me. That was why you were both alone so much. You must forgive me for that, if you can. But I knew, as time went on that we should never be married, and.... Your father only saw you once, dearest Stella, when you were very tiny. You remember, Michael, when you saw him. He loved you so much, for of course, except in name, you were his heir. He wanted to have you to live with him. He loved you."

"I suppose that's why I liked him so tremendously," said Michael.

"Did you, dearest boy?" said Mrs. Fane, and the tears were in her grey eyes. "Ah, how dear it is of you to say that."

"Mother, I can't tell you how sorry I am I never went to say good-bye. I shall never forgive myself," said Michael. "I shall never forgive myself."

"But you must. It was my fault," said his mother. "I dare say I asked you tactlessly. I was so much upset at the time that I only thought about myself."

"Why did he go?" asked Stella suddenly.

"Well, that was my fault. I was always so dreadfully worried over the way in which I had spoilt his life that when he thought he ought to go and fight for his country, I could not bear to dissuade him. You see, having no heir, he was always fretting and fretting about the extinction of his family, and he had a fancy that the last of his name should do something for his country. He had given up his country for me, and I knew that if he went to the war he would feel that he had paid the debt. I never minded so much that we weren't married, but I always minded the feeling that I had robbed him by my love. He was such a very dear fellow. He was always so good and patient, when I begged him not to see you both. That was his greatest sorrow. But it wouldn't have been fair to you, dear children. You must not blame me for that. I knew it was better that you should be brought up in ignorance. It was, wasn't it?" she asked wistfully.

"Better," Michael murmured.

"Better," Stella echoed.

Mrs. Fane stood up, and Michael beheld her tall, tragical form with a reverence he had never felt for anything.

"Children, you must forgive me," she said.

And then simply, with repose and exquisite fitness she left Michael and Stella to themselves. By the door Stella overtook her.

"Mother darling," she cried. "You know we adore you. You do, don't you?"