Poppy Part 65

Suddenly Bram remembered the sensations and scents that had a.s.sailed him earlier in the night; catching up the same pink-shaded lamp, he once more entered Carson's room. He gave one searching glance about him, and then instinct took him to the only possible cover--a narrow curtained recess in which to hang clothes. He thrust his hand between the curtains. Mary Cap.r.o.n spared him further trouble--she swept out from the recess, and from the room, giving him one burning glance of hatred as she pa.s.sed.

In the dining-room she stood still, the centre of attraction for the second time that night. Her cloak had fallen from her shoulders, and her beautifully-_coiffe_ hair was ruffled and limp, her eyes were long gleams of topaz light in a carved-stone face. And for some reason she poured the full measure of her rage and scorn upon poor Bramham, who had dazedly followed her, stepping carefully to avoid her train, and standing there now with the little pink lamp in his hand.

"Have you peered and pried enough?" she asked, piercing him with her eyes. "Is your curiosity satisfied--now that you have dragged me out? I came here to speak to Evelyn Carson--hearing voices, I foolishly hid....

Is your taste for scandal appeased?"

Poor, gallant, woman-loving Bramham! He paled and started, like a man who has unexpectedly been struck in the face; then, turning, still dazed, he walked away with the lamp in his hand from the room, and from the house--_his_ house! In the pathway he discovered the lamp in his hand and put all his strength and disgust into flinging the hapless thing with a crash into a bush.

In the room the girl, still sitting in her chair, but with an awakening look of amazement and hope upon her face, said some words very softly to Mary Cap.r.o.n:

"So you lied! ... false woman! ... and _base friend_!"

But Mary Cap.r.o.n turned from her. Shaking with rage and defeat, she flung a torrent of low, rus.h.i.+ng words at Carson.

"_You_ love this girl ... girl! ... her confessions to Luce Abinger here to-night were not very girlish ... I could not hear all that she said to him, but I heard enough.... She told him that she gave herself to some man in a garden three years ago ... that she belonged _only_ to that man and could never love any other----"

"No more," broke fiercely from Carson's white lips.

"But you _shall_ hear!" she cried, flinging out a hand and catching his arm. "_She has had a child_ ... she boasted of it ... _the child of the man in the garden_.... Do you deny it? Do you deny it?" she cried, turning to Poppy. But Poppy did not deny, did not speak: only lifted her head proudly and smiled.

"There ... there ... you see?... let her deny it if she can!"

Stiffly Carson turned his head now and looked at Poppy; his lips twisted like a man's who is tasting poison; his eyes demanded.

"Yes, I have borne a son," she said simply.

For a moment there was such a silence as is found in rooms where the dead are lying. Then Mary Cap.r.o.n broke it again:

"She is proud of it!... You _see_ ... you see what you love? Is it possible that for a woman like _that_ ... that for _her_ you can turn from my love, I who would let men brand me in the face for you--who----"

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake!--are you mad?... be silent." Carson caught her hands roughly and made to draw her away. But she was beyond herself.

"And now Nick is dying ... I have heard them saying it ... and they are looking for me to go to him, but I will not ... I will not!... I will stay here with you, Eve--I am terrified of blood--I--" she finished on a high note that was almost a shriek, for Abinger had risen quietly from his chair in the corner and was before her with his scarred, bleeding face. Then at last she was silent. What there was to be said, Abinger said--blandly, softly.

"Oh! I think you had b-better come, Mary. It will not be the first t-time you've seen a man cut about. You remember the night this was done?" He touched his face and she shrank away blenching. "The night Carmen punished me for _our_ sins. You were quite brave then. You saw the whole performance without uttering a scream or a cry that might have brought people to the scene and discovered you. No one should blame you for that, but--I think you could be brave enough to see Nick." He held out his hand to her. She shrank from him, wilting with shame, her eyes frozen in her face; but he was inexorable.

"I think you had better come. It seems to me that you have said enough for one night to Carson and Miss Chard. She is free of me for ever--I have told her so. And Carson is free of you. Is not that plain to you?

They love each other ... let us leave them to settle their affairs. You and I--have many old memories to discuss--unless you would rather discuss them here?"

She went at that, with hurrying feet; and the man with the bleeding, smiling face followed her.

Carson and Poppy were left alone. They stared into each other's eyes with an agony of love and longing and fear. Anger was all gone from Carson's face; only fear was there--fear that was terror. It was the girl who stood now; he had fallen into a chair, wearily, desperately.

"Is it true?" he muttered; "is it true, after all?--_a child!_" His own sins were forgotten in this overwhelming, bitter revelation.

She went over to him, and kneeled between his knees.

"Yes; it is true, Eve ... _your_ child! ... child of the night you dreamed that poppies grew upon the eternal hills.... _I am Poppy!_ Do you not know me?" He sat up straight then and looked down at her, looked down deep into the glimmering eyes. "I am Poppy," she said, and her voice was wine in a crystal beaker. She dragged the malachite comb from her hair, and it came tumbling down upon her shoulders in long black ropes. "I am Poppy who gave you all her gifts."

The sea helped her; it sent into the room a strong, fresh wind that blew the veils of her hair across his face and lips. He breathed sharply.

G.o.d! What strange scent of a lost dream was here? What sweet, elusive fragrance of a most dear memory!

He took hold of her hair as though he would have torn it from her head.

A light was in his face--he drew her to him, staring into her eyes.

"Poppy? ... _Poppy!_ ... _not_ a dream?... _Not_ the ravings of fever?... Poppy!" He held her hair across his face as though smelling some wonderful flower.

"Eve ... did you not say to me, '_If I were stricken blind in this hour_--'" she stopped.

"'--_from ten thousand women I could search you out by the scent of your hair_,'" he finished.

Again they stayed long, staring into each other's eyes. Staring--glance falling to glance and rising again; staring with the brave, shame-stricken looks that women give to men they adore and endow, and men to women they rob, and bless--and rob again. Strange that two people who love each other cannot for long bear the ardent flame of each other's eyes.

"Part of it is lost--for ever," he said at last.... "Gone! ... only fragments remain. But there never was a dream like the dream we dreamt on that lost night." And after a long time:

"Poppy--where is my son?"

She lifted her eyes to him. The tears which she could never shed for herself would always come rus.h.i.+ng forth for that sweet memory.

"All my love could not keep him, Eve."

She pulled a child's framed face from her bosom and held it up to his eyes. He saw the little familiar face he had looked at once before, pictured in a field of corn and poppies, and trembled. He gave it one swift, sorrowful look and then he wrapped his arms about her, and she lay on his breast.

"Do you regret?" he asked. "Have you ever regretted? Oh, G.o.d! how can I ask?"

"No, no," she cried, but her voice was faint. Even while she spoke she knew--none better than she--how vain were denials against the truth of the past. How all their memories and all their gladness to come must ever be salted with pain and tainted with the bitter gall of regret.

How, when she laid a child in his arms, their thoughts would terribly fly to that lost son of a lost dream lying far from them in an alien land. They were transgressors--and the reward of transgressors must ever be theirs!

Not much more was said. Only enough to chase the shadows of others from the road of life they meant to take together and make it clear before them. For the rest--they had all the years to come in which to understand and suffer and forgive.

He thought of the turmoil and transgression and "tremendous disarray" of his life--and of dark, still nights far away in Borapota, with this woman of his dreams by his side--and his heart sent up a cry that was not unworthy of it.

"O, Lord G.o.d--forgive me my sins!"

When Bramham came into the room long after, she was still kneeling there in her white gown and her loosened hair, and she thought it no shame for him to find her so. She rose to her feet and gave him her hand, and he held it closely, preciously--for he, too, loved this woman.

"Thank G.o.d that out of this jumble and carnage comes one good thing!" he said. "_Your_ s.h.i.+p is home in port. Take her out to the gate, Carson.

Mrs. Portal is waiting, and they're going to pick up Portal at the Club.

Cap.r.o.n will recover, Ferrand says."

When Poppy had hastily fastened her hair, and Carson had wrapped her in her cloak, they went down to the gate where Clem waited half in and half out of a carriage window. Her face was radiant, too. She drew Poppy in beside her.

"Are you two happy?" she whispered. "So am I." But she told nothing of the golden moment that had been hers within the past hour, when, in the darkness of the Club verandah, a big, sullenly handsome man had taken her in his arms and just whispered:

"Forgive!--_Loraine!_"