Rest Harrow: A Comedy of Resolution Part 11

"I don't want to marry Nevile. It bores me. And he doesn't want me, really. He thinks he does, because he thinks that he can't have me any other way. But he would be miserable, and so should I. It seems to me impossible. You can't put life into dead things. When he came back here the other day he had been away a year: a year and ten days. He had written to me twice--"

Chevenix interrupted. "Excuse me," he said. "How many times had you written to him?" He had guessed at pique; but he was wrong.

She replied slowly. "I forwarded his letters. I hadn't written at all."

Her simplicity! Chevenix allowed her to go on.

"The thing--all that it began with--was over. I felt that. I showed him that the first evening he was here. He has never spoken to me again--of that sort of thing, and I don't think he ever will. He doesn't understand being refused anything. I suppose he never has been before in his life."

"Weren't you, perhaps, a little bit short?" he hazarded; and she considered the possibility.

"No, I don't think so. I wasn't more abrupt than he was--after a year."

She paused. "He threw out her death--Mrs. Ingram's death--" she forced herself to the name--"quite casually, as if he had been saying, 'By-the- by, the Rector's coming to dine.' If he had wanted me, do you think he would have put it like that?"

"Nevile," said Chevenix, "would put anything--like anything. He's that sort, you know. He'd take for granted that you understood lots of things which he couldn't express. But I will say this for Nevile. He's not petty.

He's fairly large-minded. For instance, I'll bet you what you like he didn't mind your not writing to him--or reproach you with it."

She opened her eyes. "Of course he didn't. He was perfectly happy. He told me he had been idiotically happy. He knew I was here, because I forwarded his letters--and that was all he cared about. I was here for--when he chose. I a.s.sure you he didn't want me at all until I showed him that he couldn't have me."

"But he did, you know," said Chevenix; "he does. He was sure of you all through, from the beginning, as you say. That's why he didn't write or expect letters from you. He nattered himself that he was secure. Poor old Nevile!" He felt sorry now for Ingram. She was really adamantine.

She arose, with matches in her hand, knelt before the fire and kindled it.

She blew into it with her mouth, and watched the climbing flames. "I don't think you need pity Nevile, really," she said. "He will always be happy.

But I am going to be made unhappy." She proclaimed her fate as a fact in which she had no concern at all. Chevenix rose and paced the room.

"Well, you know--I must be allowed to say--your happiness is so entirely in your own hands. It's difficult--I've no right to suggest--to interfere in any way. I'm nothing at all, of course--"

"You are my friend, I hope," she said, watching the young fire--still on her knees before it, wors.h.i.+pping it, as it seemed. Chevenix expanded his chest.

"You make me very proud. I thank you for that. Yes, I am your friend.

That's why I risk your friends.h.i.+p by asking you something. You won't answer me unless you choose, of course. But--come now, Sancie, is there, might there be--somebody else?"

She looked round at him from where she knelt. Her hands were opened to the fire; her face was warmed by its glow; it was the pure face of a seraph.

"No. There's n.o.body at all--now."

He was again standing before the little photograph of the nymph thigh-deep in water. That seemed to attract him; but he heard her "now," and started.

"I take your word for it, absolutely. But, seeing what you felt for Nevile in the beginning, I should have thought--in any ordinary case--there must have been a tender spot--unless, of course, you had changed your mind--for reasons--"

She got up from her knees, and stood, leaning by the mantelpiece. Her low voice stirred him strangely.

"There are reasons. The spot, as you call it, is so tender that it's raw."

"Good Lord," said Chevenix. "What do you mean?"

She was full of her reasons, evidently. Rumours of them, so to say, drove over her eyes, showed cloudily and angrily there. Her beautiful mouth looked cruel--as if she saw death and took joy in it. "I think he is horrible," she said. "I think he is like a beast. He doesn't love me at all until he comes here--and then he expects me--Oh, don't ask me to talk about it." She stopped her tongue, but not her thought. That thronged the gates of her lips. She hesitated, fighting the entry; but the words came, shocked and dreadful. "He wants me, to ravage me--like a beast."

Chevenix began to stammer. "Oh, I say, you mustn't--Oh, don't talk like that--"

The door opened, and Ingram came in.

He looked from one to the other, sharply. "Hulloa," he said. "What are you two about in here?"

Sanchia looked at the fire, and put her foot close to it, to be warmed.

"Tea-party," said Chevenix. "That's it, Nevile." He nodded sagely at his host, and saw his brow clear. Ingram shut the door and came into the room, to a chair. "That's all right," he said. "I hope it was a livelier one than mine. That old Devereux was on her high-stepper. I'm sick of being trampled. I thought, though, that you had been having words. You looked like it."

Sanchia said, smiling in her queer way, "Oh, dear no. Mr. Chevenix is much too kind for that. He's been talking very nicely to me. He's been charming."

"Oh, come, Sancie--" cried the brisk young man, quite recovered.

Ingram, in a stare, said, "Yes, Sancie, you may trust him. He's a friend of ours."

"I do trust him," she said.

Chevenix said, "I shall go out on that. I declare my innings. Good-bye, you two. I'll go and pacify the Devereux." He hoped against hope that he might have warmed her.

Ingram, when they were alone, threw himself back in his chair, crossed one leg, and clasped the thin ankle of it. He had finely-made, narrow feet, and was proud of his ankles. Sanchia was now again kneeling before the fire.

"Quite right to have a fire," he said. "It's falling in cold. There'll be a frost. What was Chevenix saying about me?"

She had been prepared. "Nothing but good. He's your friend, as you said."

"I said 'our friend,' my dear."

She looked at him. "Yes, certainly. He's my friend, too."

"I hope he'll prove so. Upon my soul, I do." He remained silent for a time. Then he leaned forward suddenly, and held out his arms.

"Oh, Sancie," he said, his voice trembling. "Love me."

She looked at him with wide, searching, earnest eyes. They seemed to search, not him, but her own soul. They explored the void, seeking for a sign, a vestige, a wreck; but found nothing.

"I can't," she said. Her voice was frayed. "The thing is quite dead."

Ingram flushed deeply, but sat on, biting his lip, frowning, staring at the young, mounting fire, which she, stooping over it, cherished with her breath and quick hands.

VII

Ingram, at supper in his private room, had his elbows on the table, and spoke between his fists to Chevenix, let into these mysteries for the first time.

"I ought not to complain, you'll say, and in my heart of hearts I don't, because I'm a reasonable man, and know that you don't make a row about sunstroke or lightning-shocks. We call 'em the Act of G.o.d, and rule 'em out in insurance offices. No, no, I see what I've let myself in for. I've been away too much; she's got sick of it. I shall have to work at it--to bring her round. By G.o.d, and she's worth it. She's a wonder."

"Pity," said Chevenix, "you've only just found it out."

Ingram frowned, and waxing in rage, stared at his friend as if he had never known him. "You don't know what you're talking about. Why, she adored me. I was never more in love with a woman in my life than I was with Sancie."