Audrey Craven Part 19

He implied that if her ambition had been literary he would have raised her to a position just below him, on the highest pinnacle of earthly fame. Then he pa.s.sed, by a gentle transition, to another subject.

"By-the-bye, have you two seen much of my cousin Audrey?"

This second utterance of the name was too much for Ted's overstrained nerves. He got up, stifled a yawn, and held out his hand to Hardy.

"I say, do you mind if I go to bed now? I can't for the life of me keep awake."

"Good-night, old fellow; I'm afraid I've sent you to sleep with my yarns."

"Not a bit. We'll have some more to-morrow."

To-morrow?

"What's the matter with the boy, Kathy? He looks seedy."

"Oh, nothing. He's not over-strong, perhaps, but he's all right."

"What's he doing with himself here?"

"Painting. Oh, Vincent, I should like you to see some of his things, now he's gone!"

All her pride in her brother was roused, perhaps by Vincent's boasting.

She lifted the white linen cloth that covered one of Ted's easels, and revealed the portrait of Audrey. She had not guessed the truth; if she had, she would not have looked at Vincent just then. The effect she had produced was unmistakable. The blood rose to his face in a wave that died suddenly away, leaving a yellowish pallor under its sunburn.

"How beautiful!" he said softly, more to himself than Katherine.

He gazed at the portrait as if his eyes would never be satisfied with seeing. The pathos in his face gave it a sort of spirituality; and Katherine noticed his hand trembling as he helped her to cover the picture again.

"It's like her--as only genius could make it."

Only genius? Did he think that only genius had wrought that work of transfiguration, in which Katherine found it hard to see any likeness to the woman as she knew her now? She had read the secret of Vincent's hope. Ought she to let him believe a lie? Did not she, Ted's sister, of all people owe him the truth? No. Vincent's eyes looked as if they wanted sleep before everything. Sufficient unto the night is the evil thereof. And perhaps, after all, she had been mistaken. Hardy held out his hand, said a short good-night, and was gone before she could say more.

There flashed back on her the memory of Audrey's first visit to her. She recalled her little self-conscious air of possession in speaking of her cousin. She was morally certain that Audrey had treated Vincent as she had treated Ted.

"Beware of the woman who kisses you on both cheeks; it's too much for friends.h.i.+p, and too little for love!"

Hardy went out of doors, turned on to the Embankment, and so on to Chelsea, for the third time that day. He wanted to a.s.sure himself of Audrey's nearness by one more sight of the brown brick shrine that held her. The house stood as he had seen it once before, asleep in the yellow gaslight, shut in from the road by the trees, screened from the lamps on the Embankment by the storm-shutters folded over its windows, guarding its secrets well, all but two windows on the second floor, which were open to the night. That was Audrey's room, he knew. Little fool! Ill with a feverish cold, and sleeping with open windows! For about half an hour he walked up and down on the Embankment opposite, like a sentry on duty, his long shadow blackening and fading as he pa.s.sed from light to light.

When he got back to his rooms, he felt a sensation that had sometimes come upon him after a long day's hunting, a feeling of deadly fatigue and stifling emptiness, as if the rest of his body were drained of the blood that choked his heart. He opened his travelling-bag, took out a large silver flask, looked at it, sighed, shuddered slightly, poured about two tablespoonfuls of brandy down his throat; and then, with a gesture of indescribable disgust, emptied the remainder out of the window into the yard below. He undressed and got into bed quickly, turned over on his right side for greater ease, and was soon asleep and dreaming of to-morrow.

CHAPTER XVI

There was no sleep for Ted that night. Towards morning he fell into a doze, broken by unpleasant dreams, and woke with a confused consciousness of trouble. It had been connected in his dreams with Hardy's return, and, once awake, the knowledge that he was in the same house with him was insupportable. Not that he had yet guessed how Vincent stood to Audrey; he had simply a nervous dread of hearing him talk about her. The casual utterance of her name went through him like a sword, and in his present mood Vincent's boisterous spirit disturbed and irritated him. More to get away from him than with any definite idea of work, he spent his morning at the National Gallery, touching up the copy of the Botticelli Madonna which Katherine had begun long ago for Audrey.

He had set to work almost mechanically, with a sense that whatever he did at the present moment was only provisional,--only a staving off of the intolerable future; but soon the technical difficulties of his task absorbed him, and he became interested in spite of himself. He was so pa.s.sive to the spiritual influences of line and colour, that perhaps the beauty of the grey-eyed girl Madonna may have given him something of its own tranquillity.

Unfortunately the good effects of his morning's industry were undone when he got home, by finding Hardy alone in the studio, sitting before Audrey's portrait. He had dragged the easel to the light, and had been studying the canvas for some minutes before Ted came in. The boy stifled an angry exclamation.

"Ted," said Hardy, "what do you want for this picture?"

"I don't want anything for it."

"Nonsense! Every good picture has its price."

"This one hasn't, anyway."

"Look here, and don't be a young fool. This is the best thing you've done in your life or ever will do. I'm in rather low water at present, but wait till I've heard from my British Columbian agent, or, better still, wait till the Pioneer-book comes out, and I'll give you a hundred for it, honour bright, if you'll let me have it at once."

"I can't let you have it at once, and I won't let you have it at all."

"The deuce you won't! Come, fix your own price."

"I'm not a swindling dealer, and I'm not a liar, though you mightn't think it. I told you I wasn't going to let you have it at any price."

"H'm. Do you mind telling me one thing? Are you going to sell it to any one else?"

"I'm not going to sell it to any one. I'm going to keep it myself."

They looked at each other with steady eyes, each understanding and each defying the other's thought. Hardy's face was the first to soften. He put his hand on Ted's shoulders. "All right, old boy. We've hit each other hard this time. The least we can do is to hold our tongues about it." And he left him.

Hardy spoke with the magnanimity of imperfect comprehension. He had been defeated in his purpose of buying Audrey's portrait; but however great his discomfiture, he, being the successful lover, could afford a little pity for Ted as the victim of a hopeless pa.s.sion. To Ted, on the other hand, the revelation of Hardy's feelings threw light on Audrey's conduct. It accounted for everything that was most inexplicable in it.

It must have been the news of Hardy's return that made her break off her engagement so suddenly. His instinct told him that she had probably given her word to her cousin before he left England; jealousy suggested that she had cared for him all the time. He tried to reason it out, but stopped short of the obvious conclusion that, if these things were altogether as he supposed, her engagement to himself must have been merely an amus.e.m.e.nt hit upon by Audrey to fill up a dull interval. He preferred to regard it as a mystery. And now all reasoning gave way before the desire to see her again, and know the truth from herself once for all.

To Audrey, as the fountain of truth, he accordingly went, choosing a time between half-past two and three when she was most likely to be in.

As he reached her door, it was being held open for her to go out, and she was standing in the outer hall b.u.t.toning her gloves. She drew back when she saw Ted, but escape was impossible. He saw the movement and the flash of her little white teeth as she bit her lip with annoyance.

She came forward smiling.

"Oh, is it you, Ted? As you see, I'm just going out."

"You will see me before you go?"

"I can't possibly. I've got to go and call on an uncle and aunt at the Hotel Metropole."

"I'm very sorry. But I won't keep you more than ten minutes."

"I can't spare ten minutes. I'm late as it is, and I have to be back by half-past three. I've got an appointment."

"You've not time to get there and back. You'd better put it off."

"I can't, Ted. They're only up from Friday till Monday. Dean Craven has to preach at the Abbey to-morrow. Come again."

"I can't come again."

"Well, then----" she hesitated. "You may walk part of the way with me."