Part 22 (1/2)

We sat down to dinner, with John and Seecombe waiting on us, and the full regalia of the candlesticks and the silver upon the table, and the lace napery too, in honor of my birthday, and there was boiled fowl and bacon as of long custom, from my schoolboy days, which Seecombe bore in with great pride, his eye upon me. We laughed, and smiled, and toasted them and ourselves, and the five-and-twenty years that lay behind me; but all the while I felt that we forced our spirits into jollity for the sake of Seecombe and for John, and left to ourselves would fall to silence.

A kind of desperation came upon me, that it was imperative to feast, imperative to make merry, and the solution therefore was to drink more wine, and fill her gla.s.s as well, so that the sharper edge of feeling could be dulled and both of us forget the granite slab and what it stood for in our inner selves. Last night I had walked to the beacon head under the full moon, in exultation, sleepwalking, in a dream. Tonight, though in the intervening hours I had woken to the wealth of the whole world, I had woken to shadows too.

Muzzy-eyed, I watched her across the table; she was laughing over her shoulder to Seecombe, and it seemed to me she had never looked more lovely. If I could recapture my mood of early morning, the stillness and the peace, and blend it with the folly of the afternoon among the primroses under the tall beech trees, then I would be happy once again. She would be happy too. And we would hold the mood forever, precious and sacred, carrying it into the future.

Seecombe filled my gla.s.s again and something of the shadow slipped away, the doubts were eased; when we are alone together, I thought, all will be well, and I shall ask her this very evening, this very night, if we can be married soon, but soon, in a few weeks perhaps, in a month, for I wanted everyone to know, Seecombe, John, the Kendalls, everyone, that Rachel would bear her name because of me.

She would be Mrs. Ashley; Philip Ashley's wife.

We must have sat late, for we had not left the table when there came the sound of carriage wheels upon the drive. The bell pealed and the Kendalls were shown in to the dining room where we were still seated amid the confusion of crumbs and dessert and half-empty gla.s.ses, and all the aftermath of dinner. I rose, unsteadily I recollect, and dragged two chairs to the table, with my G.o.dfather protesting that they had already dined, and only came in for a moment to wish me good health.

Seecombe brought fresh gla.s.ses and I saw Louise, in a blue gown, look at me, a question in her eyes, thinking, I felt instinctively, that I had drunk too much. She was right, but it did not happen often, it was my birthday, and time she knew, once and for all, that she would never have the right to criticize me, except as a childhood friend. My G.o.dfather should know too. It would put an end to all his plans for her, and put an end to gossip also, and ease the mind of anyone who cared to worry on the subject.

We all sat down again, with buzz of conversation, my G.o.dfather, Rachel and Louise already eased to each other's company through the hours spent at luncheon; while I sat silent at my end of the table, scarce taking in a word, but turning over in my mind the announcement I had resolved to make.

At length my G.o.dfather, leaning towards me gla.s.s in hand and smiling, said, ”To your five-and-twenty years, Philip. Long life and happiness.”

The three of them looked at me, and whether it was the wine I had taken, or my own full heart within me, but I felt that both my G.o.dfather and Louise were dear and trusted friends, I liked them well, and Rachel, my love, with tears already in her eyes, was surely nodding her head and smiling her encouragement.

This was the moment then, opportune and fit. The servants were from the room, so the secret could be held among the four of us.

I stood up and thanked them, and then with my own gla.s.s filled I said, ”I too have a toast I wish you to drink tonight. Since this morning I have been the happiest of men. I want you, G.o.dfather, and you Louise, to drink to Rachel, who is to be my wife.”

I drained my gla.s.s, and looked down upon them, smiling. No one answered, no one moved, I saw perplexity in my G.o.dfather's expression and turning to Rachel I saw that her smile had gone, and that she was staring at me, her face a frozen mask.

”Have you quite lost your senses, Philip?” she said.

I put my gla.s.s down upon the table. I was uncertain of my hand, and placed it too near the edge. It toppled over, and s.h.i.+vered in fragments on the floor. My heart was thumping. I could not take my eyes away from her still white face.

”I am sorry,” I said, ”if it was premature to break the news. Remember it is my birthday, and they are both my oldest friends.”

I gripped the table with my hands for steadiness, and there was a sound of drumming in my ears. She did not seem to understand. She looked away from me, back to my G.o.dfather and Louise.

”I think,” she said, ”that the birthday and the wine have gone to Philip's head. Forgive this piece of schoolboy folly, and forget it, if you can. He will apologize when he is himself again. Shall we go to the drawing room?”

She rose to her feet and led the way from the room. I went on standing there, staring at the debris of the dinner table, the crumbs of bread, the spilled wine on the napery, the chairs pushed back, and there was no feeling in me, none at all, but a kind of vacuum where my heart had been. I waited awhile, and then, stumbling from the dining room before John and Seecombe should come to clear the table, I went into the library, and sat there in the darkness, beside the empty grate. The candles had not been lighted, and the logs had fallen into ash. Through the half-open door I could hear the murmur of the voices in the drawing room. I pressed my hands to my reeling head, and the taste of the wine was sour on my tongue. Perhaps if I sat still there, in the darkness, I would recover my sense of balance, and the numb emptiness would go. It was the fault of the wine that I had blundered. Yet why should she mind so much what I had said? We could have sworn the pair of them to secrecy. They would have understood. I went on sitting there, waiting for them to go. Presently-the time seemed endless but it may not have been more than ten minutes or so-the voices grew louder and they pa.s.sed into the hall, and I heard Seecombe opening the front door, bidding them good night, and the wheels drive away, and the clanging and bolting of the door.

My brain was clearer now. I sat and listened. I heard the rustle of her gown. It came near to the half-open door of the library, paused an instant, then pa.s.sed away; and then her footstep on the stair. I got up from my chair and followed her. I came upon her at the turn of the corridor, where she had paused to snuff the candles at the stair-head. We stood staring at one another in the flickering light.

”I thought you were gone to bed,” she said. ”You had better go, at once, before you do more damage.”

”Now that they are gone,” I said, ”will you forgive me? Believe me, you can trust the Kendalls. They won't give away our secret.”

”Good G.o.d, I should hope not, since they know nothing of it,” she replied. ”You make me feel like a backstairs servant, creeping to some attic with a groom. I have known shame before, but this is the worst.”

Still the white frozen face that was not hers.

”You were not ashamed last night at midnight,” I said, ”you gave your promise then, and were not angry. I would have gone at once if you had bidden me.”

”My promise?” she said. ”What promise?”

”To marry me, Rachel,” I answered.

She had her candlestick in her hand. She raised it, so that the naked flame showed on my face. ”You dare to stand there, Philip,” she said, ”and bl.u.s.ter to me that I promised to marry you last night? I said at dinner, before the Kendalls, that you had lost your senses, and so you have. You know very well I gave you no such promise.”

I stared back at her. It was not I who was out of my mind, but she. I felt the color flame into my face.

”You asked me what I wanted,” I said, ”as a birthday wish. Then, and now, there was only one thing in the world I could ever ask, that you should marry me. What else could I mean?”

She did not answer. She went on looking at me, incredulous, baffled, like someone listening to words in a foreign language that cannot be translated or comprehended, and I realized suddenly, with anguish and despair, that so it was, in fact, between us both; all that had pa.s.sed had been in error. She had not understood what it was I asked of her at midnight, nor I, in my blind wonder, what she had given, therefore what I had believed to be a pledge of love was something different, without meaning, on which she had put her own interpretation.

If she was ashamed then I was doubly so, that she could have been mistaken in me.

”Let me put it in plain language now,” I said. ”When will you marry me?”

”But never, Philip,” she said, with a gesture of her hand, as if dismissing me. ”Take that as final, and forever. If you hoped otherwise, I am sorry. I had no intention to mislead you. Now, good night.”

She turned to go, but I seized hold of her hand, and held it fast.

”Do you not love me then?” I asked. ”Was it pretense? Why, for G.o.d's sake, did you not tell me the truth last night and bid me go?”

Once again her eyes were baffled; she did not understand. We were strangers, with no link between us. She came from another land, another race.

”Do you dare to reproach me for what happened?” she said. ”I wanted to thank you, that was all. You had given me the jewels.”

I think I knew, upon that instant, all that Ambrose had known too. I knew what he had seen in her, and longed for, but had never had. I knew the torment, and the pain, and the great gulf between them, ever widening. Her eyes, so dark and different from our own, stared at both of us, uncomprehending. Ambrose stood beside me in the shadows, under the flickering candlelight. We looked at her, tortured, without hope, while she looked back at us in accusation. Her face was foreign too, in the half light. Small and narrow, a face upon a coin. The hand I held was warm no longer. Cold and brittle, the fingers struggled for release, and the rings scratched, cutting at my palm. I let it go, and as I did so wanted it again.

”Why do you stare at me?” she whispered. ”What have I done to you? Your face has changed.”

I tried to think what else I had to give. She had the property, the money, and the jewels. She had my mind, my body, and my heart. There was only my name, and that she bore already. Nothing remained. Unless it should be fear. I took the candle from her hand and placed it on the ledge, above the stairs. I put my hands about her throat, encircling it; and now she could not move, but watched me, her eyes wide. And it was as though I held a frightened bird in my two hands, which, with added pressure, would flutter awhile, and die, and with release would fly away to freedom.

”Never leave me,” I said, ”swear it, never, never.”

She tried to move her lips in answer, but could not do so, because of the pressure of my hands. I loosened my grasp. She backed away from me, her fingers to her throat. There were two red weals where my hands had been, on either side of the pearl collar.

”Will you marry me now?” I said to her.

She gave no answer, but walked backwards from me, down the corridor, her eyes upon my face, her fingers still to her throat. I saw my own shadow on the wall, a monstrous thing, without shape or substance. I saw her disappear under the archway. I heard the door shut, and the key turn in the lock. I went to my room, and catching sight of my reflection in the mirror paused, and stared. Surely it was Ambrose who stood there, with the sweat upon his forehead, the face drained of all color? Then I moved and was myself again; with stooping shoulders, limbs that were clumsy and too long, hesitant, untutored, the Philip who had indulged in schoolboy folly. Rachel had told the Kendalls to forgive me, and forget.

I flung open the window, but there was no moon tonight and it was raining hard. The wind blew the curtain, and ruffling the almanac upon the mantelpiece brought it to the floor. I stooped to pick it up, and tearing off the page crumpled it, and flung it in the fire. The end of my birthday. All Fools Day was over.

23.

In the morning when I sat to breakfast, looking out upon the bl.u.s.tering windy day with eyes that saw nothing, Seecombe came into the dining room with a note upon the salver. My heart jumped at the sight of it. It might be that she asked me to call upon her in her room. But it was not from Rachel. The handwriting was larger, rounder. The note was from Louise. ”Mr. Kendall's groom has just brought this, sir,” said Seecombe, ”he is waiting for an answer.”

I read it through. ”Dear Philip, I have been so much distressed by what occurred last night. I think I understand what you felt, more so than my father. Please remember I am your friend, and always will be. I have to go to town this morning. If you want someone to talk to, I could meet you outside the church a little before noon. Louise.”