Jane Oglander Part 18

"I am so glad," said Jane in a low voice; and indeed she was glad that the two had "made friends."

But again she was touched with vague discomfort, again she shrank, when Mrs. Maule, leading her back into the room, rained eager, insistent questions on her----

"Do tell me all about it! How did it all begin? How did you ever come to know each other so well before he went away? What made him first write to you? Were they love letters, Jane? Come, of course you must know whether they were love letters or not! You're not so simple as all that comes to--no woman ever is!"

But at last, driven at bay, her heart bruised by the other's indelicate curiosity, Jane said slowly, "I dare say I'm foolish--but I would rather not talk about it, Athena."

A look of deep offence pa.s.sed over Mrs. Maule's face. Later on--much later on--Jane wondered whether she had been wrong in saying those few words--words said feelingly, apologetically.

"Of course we won't speak of your engagement if you would rather not.

I'm sorry. I had no idea you would mind. I must go and dress now. But just one word more, Jane. Of course you and General Lingard will like to be a good deal alone together--I'll give d.i.c.k a hint."

"No, no!" cried Jane. "Please don't do that, Athena. I don't want anything of the sort said to d.i.c.k."

But Mrs. Maule went on as if she had not heard the other's words, "And you can always sit together in my boudoir. Mrs. Pache was saying to-day that it was a pity I didn't use the drawing-room more than I do. She thought--it was so like an Englishwoman to say so--that it smelt damp!"

"As if we should think of turning you out of your own room! How can you imagine such a thing? I don't want you to make the slightest difference while I'm here. Hew and I will have plenty of opportunities of seeing one another when we get back to London. Please don't speak to d.i.c.k--I should be very, very sorry if you spoke to d.i.c.k, Athena."

CHAPTER XI

"Tu peux connaitre le monde, tu peux lire a livre ouvert dans les plus caverneuses consciences, mais tu ne liras jamais, oh! pauvre femme, le coeur de ton ami."

And then there came a short sequence of days, full of deep calm without, full of strife and disturbance within.

Jane was ailing, and each day she fought with the knowledge of what ailed her as certain strong natures fight, and even for a while keep at bay, physical disease.

But there came a moment when she had to face the truth; when she had to tell herself that the new, the agonising pain which racked her soul night and day, leaving her no moment of peace, was that base pa.s.sion, jealousy.

It was horrible to feel that it was of Athena she was jealous--Athena who seemed to be always there, between Lingard and herself. She could not think so ill of her friend as to suppose that this was Mrs. Maule's fault; still less would she accuse Lingard.

Gradually the knowledge had come to her that when they three were together--Athena, Jane, and Lingard--it was as if she, Jane, was not, so entirely was Lingard absorbed in, possessed by, Athena.

Jane Oglander could not fight with the weapons another woman in her place might have used. She could not, that is, make the most of such odd moments, of such scanty opportunities as she might have s.n.a.t.c.hed from Athena Maule. How could the trifling events which made up the sum of five or six days have brought about such a change?

She had thought to be so happy at Rede Place. She had come there filled with a sense of tremulous and yet certain gladness; in the mood to be sought by, rather than in that which seeks, the beloved. Athena, Richard, and d.i.c.k, if they did not love each other, surely each loved her sufficiently to understand, to respect her joy.

The circ.u.mstances of her brother's death which had fallen like a pall on her young life had set Jane Oglander apart from happy, normal women. To her the world had only contained one lover--Hew Lingard; and those days they had spent together in a peopled solitude had taught her all she knew of the ways of love.

It was instinct which had made her shrink, that first night of her stay at Rede Place, from Athena's insistent questioning; natural delicacy which had made her refuse, almost with disgust, the suggestion that she and Lingard should be set apart in an artificial solitude. As yet their engagement was secret from the world which seemed to take so great, so--so impertinent an interest in Hew Lingard, and she wished to keep it so as long as possible.

Then there was another reason, one which she now told herself Athena should have divined, why Jane wished little notice to be taken of her engagement. She had no wish to flaunt her happiness before d.i.c.k Wantele.

But now there was no happiness to flaunt--in its place only a dumb misery and a jealousy of which she felt an agonising shame.

To Jane Oglander it was as if another ent.i.ty had entered Hew Lingard's bodily shape--the bodily shape that was alas! so terribly dear to her.

Lingard was not unkind, he was ever careful of her comfort in all little ways, but when they were alone together--and this happened strangely seldom--he would fall into long silences, as if unaware that she, his love, was there.

From these abstracted moods Jane soon learnt that she could rouse him only in one way. He was ever ready to talk of Athena,--of their n.o.ble, lovely, and ill-used friend; and Jane, a.s.senting, would tell herself that it was all true, and that only long familiarity with the strange conditions of existence at Rede Place had made her take as calmly as she did the tragedy of Athena Maule's life--that tragedy which now weighed so heavily on Lingard that it blotted out for him everything and everybody else.

"I have told her she can always come and stay with us when things get intolerable here," he had exclaimed during one such talk, looking at Jane with eager, ardent eyes; and she had bent her head.

Then it was with Athena he discussed their future, his and Jane's--the future in which Mrs. Maule was, it seemed, to have so great a share.

It was on the seventh day of Jane's stay at Rede Place that her lover for the first time, or so it seemed to her sore heart, sought her company.

It fell about in this wise. Athena had been caught by Mrs. Pache, who, taking a drive in her old safe brougham for the first time since the motor accident, had naturally chosen Rede Place. Lingard and d.i.c.k Wantele at last escaped, leaving Mrs. Maule prisoned by her guest. They had gone out of doors, and chance had led them across Jane--Jane on her way back from the Small Farm where Mabel Digby, for the first time in her young life, lay ill in bed, unwilling to see anyone, excepting Jane.

On hearing who had called, Miss Oglander had wished to hurry in, but Lingard had cried imperiously, "No! you shan't be made to endure Cousin Annie's congratulations! Come instead for a walk with me!" He had said the words in his old voice--the voice Jane knew, loved, obeyed.

d.i.c.k Wantele looked quickly at them both. Was it possible that Lingard was working himself free of the fetters of which he was--d.i.c.k wished to think it possible--still unaware? "Take him to the Oakhanger," he said to Jane. "You can get there and back in an hour----"

Side by side they hastened, walking not as lovers walk, but as do those who feel themselves to be escaping from some danger which lies close behind them. Jane was taking Lingard the shortest way out of the park.

At last, at last she and Lingard would be alone, away from Athena as they had never yet been away from her during these long, to Jane these most miserable, days.

For a while neither spoke to the other, then, as they turned into one of the narrow streets of the little country town, Lingard broke into hurried, disconnected speech, only to fall into moody silence as they again emerged into the lonely country lane leading to the large, enclosed piece of ground for which they were bound.

The Hanger, as it was familiarly called in the neighbourhood of Redyford, was a huge natural mound rising from a low, undulating stretch of wild furze-covered common. Through the eighteenth century it had formed part of the estate of Rede Place, or rather it had been enclosed and appropriated, together with other common land.

Thanks to the generosity, perhaps it should be said the sense of justice, of Theophilus Joy, The Hanger now belonged to the little town of Redyford. In warm weather it was used by the town folk as a picnic resort, though the nature and formation of the ground, and of the mountainous height which gave the place its name, made the playing of games there impossible. This was as well, for the huge mound remained unspoilt, and in its stark way beautiful.

Sharply the two breasted the rising ground. The wind swept athwart them in short, strong gusts. Now and then there fell a spot of rain.

There was something in Jane Oglander's nature, something hidden from those about her, which responded to wild weather. She now welcomed the battle against wind and rain, and mounted with secret exhilaration the steep slippery path winding its way through and under the oak-trees which clothed the right flank of The Hanger.

Once she tripped, and Lingard for a moment put his arm round her, but she sprang forward, away from its strong shelter; surprised, and a little piqued, he kept behind her, letting her lead the now darkling way, for twilight was falling.

On they climbed, till at last, emerging from under the low oak branches, they stood, solitary figures, on a gra.s.sy ridge, bare save for a clump of high twisted fir-trees which swayed gauntly against the vast grey expanse of sky.

Owing to its peculiar formation, The Hanger presented, especially at this time of the early evening, an impression of almost monstrous height and loneliness.

Sheer down on the right from whence they had come lay the little town of Redyford, the grey and red roofs partly hidden by the thick-set oaks.

On the left the ground sloped away more gently; but it looked to-night as if a leap over the edge would fling one down, down into the valley of meadowlands now white with curling mists.

Slowly they turned and walked along the ridge, their feet sinking into the short soft turf growing in patches of pale green among the mauve-grey and brown heather. The path led up to a summer house, a curious circular building crowning the apex of the hill, and so wide open to wind, rain, and view that only the deep-eaved roof afforded any shelter to those under it.

It was there that Lingard, after a moment of hesitation, led the way.

"Jane," he said, "let us come and sit down for a moment. I have something to ask you." And she followed him into the poor shelter the summer house afforded. It had stopped raining; the high wind reigned alone, victorious.

The bench on which they sat down was heavily scored with the initials of generations of Redyford lovers; for the little round building had ever been a temple of innocent courts.h.i.+p, and in the spring and summer evenings never lacked couples sitting in silent, inarticulate happiness.