"Dull?" said Lady Henrietta.
The girl became aware of her with a start.
Barnaby had just gone, and the house was quiet. Late as usual, he had come clinking down in his spurs, and run out to his waiting horse; and she had seen him off, but had not yet turned away from the door. Lady Henrietta's uncommon earliness had surprised her. She did not know how wistful her aspect was.
"No," she said. "Oh no. I was only watching——"
"To see the last of him," retorted Lady Henrietta smartly. "I know—I know. One glimpse of him as he crosses the wooden bridge, and again a peep before he cuts across by the willows. How dare you let him set off day after day without you?"
She paused. There was mischief in her eye, an unwonted touch of excitement. One would have said she was plotting.
"You are too lamb-like," she said. "I'll give you a horse. Tell him you'll go hunting with him to-morrow."
She laughed outright at the girl's look of consternation.
"No," she said, "you wouldn't. My dear, you have got him, and you must keep him. It's a woman's business to look after her husband, to throw herself into his occupations, and rescue him from the ravening lions that run up and down in the earth. Why didn't you back me up when I attacked him last night, and he put me off with his nonsense about a quiet pony? Why didn't you insist?"
Susan flushed scarlet, remembering Lady Henrietta's unexpected onslaught and Barnaby's good-humoured amazement; his vague promise of giving her a riding lesson. He glanced at her mirthfully, and that look of his had called up a hot disclaimer of any wish. Was it not in their bargain that as far as possible they were not to haunt each other?
"Since you are so meek," said Lady Henrietta, who did not miss her confusion, "Imust put my finger in the pie."
Her eyes were not young, but they were far-seeing; she turned from the prospect at which Susan had been gazing, and laid authoritative fingers on her sleeve.
"Run upstairs," she said, "and get into your habit. I've told Margaret to have it ready. It won't fit, probably, but you are not vain;—it's borrowed. Don't stare at me, you baby! Rackham and I settled it the night he dined here, while you and Barnaby were trying not to talk to each other. I don't know whether you can ride or not, but you must begin."
She finished up with a chuckle. The sight of Susan's face—well, that was enough for her. She had turned a more potent key than she knew.
Two horses were pawing the gravel beside the door, and one of them had a side-saddle on his back. She had seen them coming when she despatched her daughter-in-law to dress. Rackham himself was waiting on the steps. Lady Henrietta beckoned to him with the joy of a bad child firing a train of powder.
"I've told her," she said. "She'll be down in a minute. Take her once or twice round the park, and if she doesn't fall off——"
"She won't fall off," said Rackham.
"You brought her a quiet horse?"—the conspirator was feeling a slight compunction.
Barnaby's cousin, his ancient rival, smiled under his moustache. "I'll take good care of her, my aunt," he said.
"You are an obliging demon, Rackham," she observed. "It was good of you to give up your hunting."
"They'll be at Ranksboro' about twelve," he said significantly. "If you really wanted us to give Barnaby a surprise——"
Lady Henrietta favoured him with an enlightening nod. Whether or no he was bent on furthering her purposes, assuredly she might trust him.
"Villain," she said. "You understand me; it's an experiment,—it's a squib!"
Twice Susan rode solemnly round the park. To her, remembering how, as a child, she had ridden, cross-legged, bare-backed, anyhow, anything—their solicitude was absurd. She swung her foot in the stirrup, lifting a transfigured face.
"Youare all right," said Rackham, glancing backwards towards the distant windows. "I knew you could ride."
He bent over in his saddle to unlatch the hand-gate that Barnaby had ridden through before them, taking his short cut over the wooden bridge by the willows. Keeping his horse back, he held it open.
"Come out this way," he said. They went cantering up the lane.
Dim and dark was the landscape, threatening rain, and the clouds were sinking lower and lower, rubbing out the hills. A kind of expectation hung in the air. A storm gathering perhaps. They rode up and up, until the narrow green lane came to a sudden stop, and a break in the high barriers of hawthorn let them on to a ridge that hung over a wide sweep of valley. Underneath lay a fallow strip, reddish brown amidst the green waves of pasture, and a party of rooks rose cawing above the idle plough.
Susan, her heart still dancing, laid a happy hand on her horse's mane,—the willing horse that carried her so smoothly.
"You like it?" said Rackham.
There was a subtle difference between his guardianship and that of his cousin. She missed that queer sense of security that she had with Barnaby. Why, she knew not, but Rackham's neighbourhood troubled her. She felt a nervous inclination to burst into hurried chatter.
"It was awfully kind of Lady Henrietta to arrange it,—and of you," she said; "though you were both afraid that I should disgrace you. Yes, you were watching;—and she too: her mind misgave her when she saw me in the saddle.—What is the matter with the horses?"
"Look!" he said, smiling broadly.
And immediately she guessed. Far on the right she distinguished a flick of scarlet.
"Oh!" she said, in an awed whisper, understanding.
"That's one of the whips riding on," he explained; "they are going to draw the spinney down there, just underneath. We're in for it, aren't we?—Shall we stay where we are, and chance Barnaby's displeasure? I'll open the gates for you, and give you a lead. Can you jump?"
She laughed at him, carried out of herself, back in remote adventures when there had been nothing she would not dare. Her blood was up, and she felt her horse quivering beneath her. Hounds were in the spinney; she had glimpses of dappled bodies ranging among the trees; at the eastern side an interminable troop of riders were pouring into the field. There seemed no limit to their numbers as they massed thicker and thicker on the skirts of the cover till there was but the south side clear.
"Keep still!" said Rackham in a breath, and as he whispered a living flash passed by. It vanished across the fallow, as a whistle shrilled from below. One of the whips had seen him.
"Steady!" said Rackham. "Hounds are coming out. He broke at that bottom corner.—Now!"
Her horse bounded away with his. She was close behind him as they raced down the headland. The fence at the end was low; a thorn-crammed ditch and a rotten rail. She took it, hardly knowing, but for her horse's excitement, that she had jumped. He broke into a gallop then, and she let him go.
"Who's the lady out with Rackham?" called one man, waiting his turn at a gap. The man ahead of him squeezed through before replying.
"Don't know. She's chosen a damn reckless pilot!"
But no man's recklessness could have beaten hers. She followed him blindly; nothing daunted her, nothing dimmed the eagerness in her soul. This was to live indeed.
They were hard on the pack. She could hear them in front, could sometimes catch a view of them flickering on. A great noise of galloping filled the air behind, drumming hard; but she was still keeping her lucky place in the van. She and Rackham....
There was something formidable ahead. She felt her horse faltering in his stride, not afraid, but doubtful;—those that were close behind were parting right and left; some of them were falling back. Without turning her head she knew it. Recklessly she kept on. The others might blench.... She would not.
Up went her horse, and in mid-air she had time to ask herself what would happen, to guess that it was touch and go. It seemed a great while before they came down, with a jar and a stagger, galloping rather wildly on.
She was too excited still to feel tired, too ignorant of danger to know what a wild line she was taking now. Just ahead of her Rackham had disappeared with a crack of timber, and she must not be left behind.
An ominous crash pursued her as she went through a stiff barrier of thorns; a loose horse was flying past. She looked dizzily for Rackham, wondering if it was his. It tried to clear the next fence riderless, but was too unsteady, and swerving crosswise, nearly brought her down. In the field beyond it was stopped by an oxer. Someone behind cracked his whip....
"We've beaten the lot!" called Rackham; his voice came a little hoarse in her ear. "Half of 'em funked that bullfinch, and there's one fellow in the ditch——"
She reeled in her saddle.
"I've—no—breath left," she panted.
"Pull up. Pull up!" said Rackham, and leaned over as she managed to stop her horse. Her knees trembled and she held on a minute; she thought she was going to fall off out of sheer fatigue.
Hounds were baying on the other side of the hedge. They had got their fox. People were coming up on all sides, in haste to mingle with the few who had ridden straight. She was vaguely conscious of their interested regard; she heard a general buzz of gossip.
"There's Barnaby," said Rackham. He had dismounted, and stood by her horse's shoulder, pretending to do something with a buckle, but in reality waiting for her to recover. His arm was ready to catch her if she should slide off; his wild eyes were fixed on her.
"Don't forget it was with me, not with him, you rode your first run," he said. The triumph in his whisper made her afraid. She felt like a truant.
What would Barnaby think of her? Would he be very angry? Had he watched her riding, wondering who she was? She lifted her face, a little proud, but troubled. All at once her glorious adventure wore the look of an escapade.
He had ridden up, but he was not looking at her at all. The set of his mouth was hard.
"I'll take charge of my wife," he said.
How strange it sounded. Would she never get used to it? She had an immediate sense of protection, of happiness out of all reason. But what else could he call her, before the world?
His cousin grinned at him brazenly.
"If you haven't too much on your hands," he said darkly. "Oh, take over your responsibilities if you like. You needn't fight me. It was your mother's idea.... But she's tired. She mustn't stop out too long."
"It was a mad thing to do," said Barnaby curtly; "risking her life over these fences—!"
"Come, come," said Rackham, "don't paint me too black. I took the greatest care of her. Didn't I?"
"I was looking on," said Barnaby.
He had turned to Susan at last, and she saw that his face was pale. Something in him responded to her look of rapture dashed.
"Poor little girl!" he said. "I didn't know—you cared about it—" Then he smiled ruefully. "By Jove!" he said. "You gave me a fright. I thought you'd get yourself killed a dozen times. And I had a bad start. I couldn't get up to you. There, don't let's look as if we were quarrelling, though under the circumstances,—do you think we should?"
She plucked up spirit to answer him in kind. "On the stage," she said, "the audiences would expect it."
"Well," he said, "we'll disappoint the audience.... You won your bet, Kilgour; it is my wife. Wasn't it wicked of her?"
She found herself trotting on at his side. Rackham had fallen back. It was Barnaby who directed her, who rode at her right hand; and a cheery crowd hemmed her in.
At the head of the procession hounds were moving on. Occasionally the authorities called a halt while they searched a patch of trees by the wayside, or turned aside to examine a hollow tree. But these were not serious diversions. Once, indeed, there was a whimper as the pack ran scampering into a small plantation, and the huntsman went in to see what it was, his scarlet glancing in the bare brown mist of larches.
"I know what'll happen to us," grumbled Kilgour, as the verdict was issued that it was empty. "We'll climb up on the top of Ranksboro' and the heavens will open on us."
The ranks closed up again as the pack tumbled back sadly into the road. Kilgour was a true prophet; they were bent at last towards that unfailing harbour. On they pushed, up hill and down, through a grey village where the trees shut out the sky from the winding street, and then slap in at a gate that let them on to the grass again.
"Where are we?" asked Susan, as she was squeezed in the press through the gate, finding elbow-room as her neighbours scattered on the other side, spreading downward.
"On the wild side of Ranksboro'," said Barnaby. "Stick to me if you are thinking of getting lost. You'll see where you are when we reach the top, and you can look down on the cover;—but that's at the other side. Don't you remember the black look of it on the hillside, off the Melton and Oakham road?"
All were hurrying across the rough bottom, with its hillocks and furze bushes, and patches of withered bracken; then, gathering in the narrow bit that let them in under a fringe of trees, mounting upwards. On the farther side of the summit they came out above a thick plantation; and there they drew rein and waited, unsheltered, bare to the sky overhead.
Down came the rain.
"I wish I was dead," said a lank man behind Kilgour. "I wish I was fighting a bye-election!"
Those who were near huddled into the bristling hedge that might break an east wind, but was useless against this downpour. A few slunk back over the brow, and herded under the trees; the rest sat stubbornly on their horses, humping their shoulders, their dripping faces set grimly towards the cover below; hearkening to hounds.
"Would you rather be pelted with words?" said Kilgour, ramming his hat over his nose.—"Surely they trickle off you.... Jerusalem! we'll be drowned."
The lank man turned up his collar, feeling for a button.
"Well, they are dry!" he said.
"They don't give you rheumatism, I grant you," said a fat man beside him; "but they aren't healthy. I don't care what a man's trade is, if he can discourse about it, it's improbable he can do his job. And yet we poor devils of politicians have to spin our brains into jaw——"
"True," said Kilgour. "You don't trust a glib fellow to dig your garden.... And yet you turn over your country to him."
The fat man grunted.
"Inever want to open my mouth again," he said. "I'm addressing six meetings a week in my constituency, and nothing will go down with 'em but ranting. Tell you what, Kilgour, we're going on wrong principles altogether. What we want is Government by Minority. Just you get on a platform and look down on their silly faces—! The fools are in the majority in any walk of life; they swamp the sensible chaps, even Solomon noticed that. And it's the fools we must please, because they are many. We take their opinion; we let them settle things. The whole system is upside down."
"There's something in that," said Kilgour. "It always amuses me how you vote-catchers despise a man who works with his head; and bow down to your ignorant fetish the working man."
There was a slight disturbance in the cover, but nothing came of it. People shifted backwards and forwards; there was a smell of wet leather and steaming horses.
"Are you cold?" said Barnaby.
Susan smiled. He was between her and the worst of it; the rain beat on his upturned face as he sheltered her. She liked watching him ... she was not unhappy.
The lank man was trying to light a cigar. He glanced up between his hollowed fingers, his eyes twinkling in a creased red face.
"Our lives aren't worth living, Mrs. Barnaby," he said. "We are all made so painfully aware of our inferior status. The tail wagging the dog; that's what we have come to."
The fat man followed his glance, and his disgusted expression gave way to a friendly gleam. His puffy eyelids quivered.
"Let us grumble," he said. "You see how the weather behaves to us when we escape for a week-end from bondage. There isn't a bright spot anywhere but one tale I heard lately in my division."
The lank man tossed away his match; the cigar was drawing.
"And what was that?" he said.
"Well, it seems they got a Cabinet Minister down to rant against me," said the fat man, chuckling. "He had made himself particularly obnoxious to our militant sisters, and there were terrible hints as to what the ladies were going to do about him. So a London paper commissioned their blandest reporter to call on 'em, and incidentally get at their intentions;—and he stuck a flower in his buttonhole and tackled an engaging young suffragette, who confided in him the tremendous secret. Swore him, of course, to silence——"
"And the wretch betrayed her?"
The politician grinned.
"They were going to disguise themselves as men," he explained, "and pervade the meeting in the likeness of divers of my rival's most prominent supporters.Shewas to make up as a well-known farmer who happened to have lumbago;—leggin's, and corporation, and side-whiskers gummed on tight."
"Pity she let it out," said Kilgour.
"Aha!" said the other man, "she was artless. Well the news got down to 'em somehow, just in time for the meeting, and they set a bodyguard over anybody who looked suspicious. Couldn't keep out their principal backers, or insult 'em by explaining, and hadn't time to investigate.—And my rival got on his legs.—I'm told they were all more or less in hysterics, each man glaring at his neighbour. And these whiskers looked jolly unnatural in the artificial light. My rival had got as far as to mention his 'right honourable friend who, at great inconvenience'—when that old farmer started to blow his nose. 'Turn her out!' he screeched, and four men seized the astonished old chap, and hoisted him, kicking and bellowing, to the door.... There was a glorious row, I'm told. It practically broke up the meeting."
"Ah," said Kilgour, "politics aren't always an arid waste."
"No, occasionally there is rain in the desert. Are we ever going to move. I'm soaking."
In the dark heavens the clouds were frayed by glimmering streaks of light. Barnaby moved impatiently, and beyond him Julia Kelly passed by, changing her station. The girl who was sheltered by his shoulder had forgotten that Julia must be there. She felt suddenly that she was a stranger.
How often must he and Julia have hunted together, how often they must have ridden side by side, sharing the day's fortunes; whispering contentedly to each other as he shielded her from the storm!—More telling than speech had been Julia's half-sad, half-reproachful smile.
"They've got him out!" cried Kilgour, spinning round and heading a mad stampede. As the rest imitated him, Barnaby turned to Susan. "I'm not going to let you out of my sight!" he said.
Down the hill they raced. Hounds were flinging themselves across, bursting louder and louder into cry, proclaiming that they were on his line. And now nobody minded rain.
For a little while Susan felt the magic of it again; the swing of the gallop, the exhilaration of the jumps as they came; but all too soon she flagged. They were hunting slower; hounds were not so sure of the scent; they were slackening, losing faith. The huntsman went forward, and the Master stopped the field. Then they went on again, running in a string up the hedge.
Barnaby turned his horse's head and let the crowd go by. He looked at her significantly. How did he know that she could not keep on much longer?
"I'll take you home now," he said.
"Oh, don't!" she cried. "I am so sorry.... Don't let me spoil your day."
He laughed.
"I'll pick them up again later on," he said. "We must do the correct thing, mustn't we? It would look bad if I let you go home alone.—Good heavens, how tired you are! You can hardly sit on your horse."
*****
Lady Henrietta, the mischief-maker, waited with equanimity for Barnaby to come home. He had brought Susan back and gone off again on a fresh horse, giving her no opportunity of a passage-at-arms with him.
When he did return his coolness was disappointing. She waited until she could contain herself no longer.
"Why don't you ask after Susan?" she said at last. He looked up then. His clothes had dried on him, he had changed lazily into slippers, and was warming his shins at the fire. They had finished the day with a clinking run. "She's not ill?" he said.
"I put her to bed," said Lady Henrietta, "when she came in. The poor child could hardly move.... I suppose you bullied her frightfully when she turned up?"
Barnaby went on stirring his tea and stretching himself to the blaze.
"I told her to have a hot bath and a good long rest," he said, in a grandmotherly tone. "What did you expect? Were you hoping that I should beat her?"
"I was hoping all kinds of things," said Lady Henrietta.
"Such as—?"
She lost all patience. What was the use of plotting if nothing she could devise would rouse him? Anything would be more satisfactory than that maddening smile of his.
"Do you want to break the child's heart?" she cried.
For a moment she fancied that he was startled; she could not see his face so well, but the cup clattered in his hand. Then she discovered that he was laughing at her.
"Has Susan complained?" he said.
"She?" said Lady Henrietta. "Oh, how little you understand her! She'll never complain of you. All I hear I have to screw out of other people. From what they tell me—! Oh,she'llnever complain, though you and your Julia make yourselves a by-word!"
She paused there, confident that there would be an outburst. Her triumphant expectation was dashed; she was nearly struck dumb with astonishment when she heard his voice.
"It's a queer world, mother."
This was indeed serious. He was not even angry;—and she had hoped to make him furious. She scanned him anxiously, stricken with alarm.
"You aren't well?" she said.
"I'm a little bothered," he said. "Look here, mother; supposing—well, supposing a man were horribly, irretrievably, fond of a woman,—and would be a regular cur if he let her know;—would you condemn him for building up a kind of rampart, playing with fire that he knew couldn't burn him, to keep him from losing his head, and hurting the thing he—the thing that was precious to him? Oh, damn it all, you can't possibly understand."
It was plain as a pikestaff. Lady Henrietta was justified of her mischief-making. Something must be done. There was law and order in any tactics that might vex the siren who was still robbing her of her boy. Never in this world would there be peace between her and Julia.
"If," she said, "you want me to believe that you married Susan to stick her up like a ninepin between you and a woman who threw you over, who can't bear us to imagine you are consoled——!"
She broke off indignantly, but Barnaby would not quarrel. He got up and laid his hand caressingly on her shoulder.
"Don't excite yourself, mother," he said. "I was talking nonsense. So are you.... If I were you I wouldn't meddle. It's more dangerous than you know."
Then he went away to change out of his hunting clothes, and she watched his departure with a wistful exasperation, lying back on her sofa.
"What a nuisance a heart is!" she said to herself. "He would have had it out with me but for that."
Susan was in the garden.
There had been a frost in the night, and the bushes crackled; the late winter sun was thawing it in the branches. Behind the cloudy glass in the greenhouses were primulas and hyacinths, and all manner of scented things, a bright blur against the panes; but she walked rather the slippery paths in the lifeless garden.
She tried to picture the blackened tufts tall spikes of blossom, and the long line of rose trees, all muffled in dried fern, a bewildering lane of sweetness. Imagination failed her. The blackbird that shot out of the yew tree, screaming his sharp, sweet call; the little wagtail running at a wise distance in the path behind;—they might guess and remember what they would find in spring. She would be gone then; she would have stepped off the stage.
Foolishly she counted up the memories she would carry with her, looked back at the great old house, so warm inside. Strange to think of the time, so impossibly near, when Barnaby would release her, would tell her that he had made his arrangements for her to slip out of this fantastic life without scandal.
Well, she had played up to him; she had never lifted a miserable face, imploring him not to make her suffer so.
Something was choking in her throat. She had not realized how utterly she must pass out of his life until it struck her that she would never see one of these English flowers. The garden became unbearable, taunting her with its unknown mysteries, its hidden promise; and she hurried down the weather-stained wooden steps into the park.
There were rabbit tracks in the grass, and live things rustled in the spinney. A mat of beech-leaves kept the primroses warm. She leant wistfully over the rail, gazing down from the slatted bridge at the water. It was rushing past, very deep.
And then she found a snowdrop....
She heard the dogs scampering and looked up.
"There you are," said Barnaby, putting his arm through hers in friendly fashion. "—The servants, you know!" he reminded her in parenthesis, jerking his head towards the distant windows. "Let's gratify 'em, poor souls. They'll like to see us arm in arm."
He threw a stick to the dogs, and they scurried down the bank to retrieve it, but, missing it, found distraction in rummaging for a water rat. Then he turned again to Susan. She had plucked the snowdrop. That at least was given to her....
"You looked like that flower," he said, unexpectedly, "when I saw you first."
She answered him valiantly.
"Was I so pale with fright?"
"I wasn't thinking of that," he said; "but—the thing hasn't been so difficult, has it, after all? I didn't ask too much of you? We have been good comrades and all that, haven't we, Susan? You have never wished——?"
Wished it undone? She could not speak. It was over. He was going to tell her that it was over. She thought of that far-off night of amazement, of her panic-stricken impulse, of his hand on her shoulder that had stopped her flight.... Ah, it had been worth it all. Passionately she was glad of it. She had had so much.
"No," she said, "I have never wished——" and, like him, she left the words unfinished.
And then, with the past close upon her, she forgot everything but him. How she used to think of him, dream of him, dead, who had come to her rescue!
"Oh!" she cried softly, touching his rough tweed sleeve, "isn't it wonderful that you are alive!"
They stood a minute or two in silence, neither speaking, and then Barnaby broke the spell.
"Why did you wander down here in all that drenching grass?" he said. "Your feet are wet."
She began to laugh, helplessly, and almost against her will.
"How like a man!" she said. "You all think it the direst calamity that can happen. You remind me of Vernon Whitford, who, when the poor heroine was despairing, was principally troubled because her boots were damp."
"I know," said Barnaby. "That's my mother's beloved book. She got me to read it too. Some of it stumped me, but I remember that much. How did it go?" his voice dropped. "'He clasped the visionary little feet, to warm them on his breast.'"
It hurt her to feel her cheek burning scarlet. There was no reason. She hurried to defend herself from the wild fancies that might fill a dangerous pause.
"If," she said, and it was anger at herself that made her voice unsteady, "I had thrown myself over this bridge into the river, you would have cried out indignantly—'She'll catch cold!'"
"I might," he said gravely. "We are material wretches. You must come back with me and change your stockings."
He marched her towards the house. One startled, serious look he gave her, but his voice maintained the determined lightness with which it was necessary to face the realities of their bargain. The funny side of it was the only side that would bear looking at.
"You're not impatient?" he said. "You like the hunting? and the life over here? Can you stand it a little longer? We'll clear as soon as we decently can, and think out the tragedy that shall part us."
"Yes," she said; she was a little breathless. The windows yonder were winking flame; it looked as if the house was on fire, but it was only the setting sun....
"There's that horse my mother presented to you," he went on. "You will have to keep him as a souvenir. Hang him round your neck in a locket, what?"
She could but laugh at his whimsical suggestion.
"I'll keep nothing," she said. "An actress doesn't claim the stage properties; her paper crown, her gilt goblet, her royal dresses. Not a poor strolling actress like me, at least. Please, please—" her voice shook a little. He must be made to understand so much, jest and earnest. "Let me go out as you snuff a candle."
"Will you?" he said.
They had nearly reached the house; the glancing windows that had shone afire in their eyes were dark.
"I didn't come out to plan tragedies," said Barnaby. "I was sent to fetch you. The Duchess is in there with my mother. There's the Hunt Ball on in a day or two, and she wants us to dine and go with her party. I think she has some notion of keeping her eye on you. She thinks that I treat you badly."
Susan hung back.
"Must I go?" she said.
"Of course," he said cheerily. "I'd never hear the last of it if I went without you. And my mother is awfully keen on you eclipsing the rest. She's sending in to the bank for all the family trinkets."
"I wonder you are not afraid of my running away with them," she flung at him recklessly.
Barnaby laughed at her as one might at a foolish child.
"Oh," he said. "I'll be there, mounting guard."
*****
The Duchess was lodged in a ramshackle way over a shop. She was not particular. After hiring all the stabling that was to be had in Melton, she had packed herself into a few odd rooms, approached by a dark entry and a narrow stair. It made her feel, she said, like an eagle.
But sometimes her hospitality outdid her accommodation. On the night of the ball she had asked as many people as could be squeezed into her dining-room; all intimate enough not to mind rubbing elbows; and dinner was a scramble.
"The youngest," she proposed, "shall sit with his back to the door, and duck when the plates are handed in over his head.... Do be careful. I put a little man there last year, but when the door opened he used to chuck up his head like a horse, and smashed no end of china."
Having settled this, she threw up a window and rang a bell violently up and down.
"That is for dinner," she said. "It has to be cooked outside, and my people dawdle so. Would you believe it, I was ten minutes ringing for my maid when I came in from hunting. She lodges a few doors higher up, and I had quite a crowd in the street."
"I remember," said Kilgour, "last time I dined with you, one or two bets were laid as to what was happening to the soup in the street below."
"Accidents do happen," she acknowledged. "It isn't quite true, however, that I stuck out my head once and caught them scooping up the sauce."
Susan, wedged in a corner between Kilgour and another equally massive person, was puzzled by the face of a woman opposite, who was smiling at her.
"Don't you know me?" said she. "I recognized you by the dress you have on. I am Mélisande."
She noticed the girl's bewildered look at her yellow hair.
"I keep a black transformation for the shop," she said. "My own idea. But didn't you know my nose? How dear of you to forget it. People call it my trade mark, and say it's Jewish. The worst is, I haven't really shut up shop. I have a young hedgehog to chaperon here to-night. Oh, I am perfectly unashamed!—She is all prickles, but worth a great deal of money. I really couldn't bring her down with me, so she is coming by herself in a special train, or some such extravagance. I thought she might do for Rackham."
"What?" said Barnaby. "Aren't you rather hard on my cousin?"
"It is because he is your cousin," said Mélisande, "I am offering him the hedgehog. Have you ever considered what your reappearance meant to him? Don't we all know how hard up he is, and what a boon your inheritance would have been? If I don't step in with my benefaction he'll possibly murder you."
"Scarcely!" said Barnaby.
"Let me see," said Mélisande. "Give me your hand."
But he would not.
"You will frighten my wife," he said.
"Give me the glass he was drinking out of," said Mélisande. Barnaby's neighbour pushed it over to her, and she peered into it with alarming gravity. Silence waited on her prediction. She raised the glass, swung it round thrice, and spilt a little water.
"I've thrown out a misfortune," she said. "A terrible misfortune," and looked round for applause.
"I am eternally obliged to you," said Barnaby. "Thanks!" But she would not give up his glass.
"There are strange things here," she said, clasping her hands, and gazing into it with half-shut eyes. Barnaby reached over and captured the glass.
"We don't want her to reveal all our secrets, do we, Susan?" he said, and saved the situation by drinking the secrets down.
His presence of mind turned the laugh against Mélisande, whose expression was a study. Ignoring public ridicule, she affected to meditate on his disturbing action.
"I wish I could remember what that portends," she said solemnly. "I rather think it was fatal."
But Barnaby refused to be overawed. He was in a mood of tearing gaiety that Susan did not quite understand. She herself, although she knew that it was absurd, had had a superstitious fear of that glass of water....
"Let's go on to the ball," said the Duchess.
In the general confusion the girl found herself on the stairs with Mélisande, still ruffled. Somehow their glances met.
"Barnaby would turn anything into a joke. He was always like that," said she. "He hasn't any sense of decorum."
"—And you witches," remarked Kilgour, who was close behind, "haven't a sense of humour."
The sorceress pursed her lips.
"Was there anything—bad?" asked Susan.
She was ashamed of the foolish impulse that made her ask. Mélisande looked at her indulgently. But her disclaimer was too hasty to be convincing. In a way, it was more disquieting than if she had overwhelmed the sinner's wife with evil prognostications.
"There was nothing in it. Nothing!" she said, but her voice lacked conviction.
"That's right. Don't frighten us," said Kilgour.
Susan was not frightened. But she could not shake off an unaccountable nervousness;—could not forget Mélisande's wild sayings.... Why was she afraid of Rackham?
It was odd that as soon as they came into the ballroom her eyes should light on him. Everybody was arriving at once, jammed in under the gallery;—and Rackham was pushing through the crowd to her side, and she could not fly.
"What is the matter?" said Barnaby. "Why, you're trembling?"
The truth came out before she could stop herself, though she could not explain it.
"I am shy," she said. "—And I don't want to dance with your cousin."
He did not scoff at her. He took her programme and scribbled his name across it.
"See," he said. "Whatever he asks you for, say you're dancing it with me. How will that do? Fill it in with any of the others, of course, just as you like; and let me know what I am booked for later."
He moved on in the swaying throng, distracted by somebody signalling to him, hailed on all sides, nodding to his friends. Other men were surrounding Susan. She could smile at them now, although Rackham was at her side.
"They're just finishing number one," he said. "Will you give me number two?"
"I am dancing it with my husband."
"Number three, then?"
"I am dancing it with my husband."
Another claimed her attention; she gave him a dance quickly. Kilgour, who could not get near her, held up five fingers to her above the bobbing heads in the crowd. She counted them gaily, putting down the number.
Rackham was still at her side, insisting, but her answer was the same. He looked at her queerly.
"You seem to be dancing everything, more or less, with your husband."
Kitty Drake, floating in like a smoke wreath, put in her word.
"A husband," she said sapiently, "is the only possible partner for a frock like hers.Ialways come to the Melton Ball in rags."
But when Rackham had departed, she looked curiously at Susan.
"You were rude to him," she whispered. "Was it the frock, or what? I am safe."
"I don't know," said Susan. "It is very unreasonable of me, but—I am always a little frightened when he is near me."
Kitty seemed to think that she understood.
"Reason?" she said. "My good girl, I've known more women wrecked because they were ashamed to give in to their frightened instincts than I dare remember. Don't begin to reason! It's simply a machine for making mistakes; it never mends them. Go and be happy. Go and dance with your husband!"
Barnaby had come to her, and there was pity as well as liking in Kitty's little push.
"Shall we begin?" he said, and his arm went round her as she swung out with him on to the shining floor. Dimly she was aware of music, of lights and people; an atmosphere of enchantment.
"Tired?" he said, pausing.
"Tired? Oh, no," she panted, as if he had asked her the strangest question.
"I didn't know you could ride," he said, "and I didn't know you danced. I really know very little about you, Susan."
They had stopped a minute near a ring of idlers who had drifted on to the floor, and somebody caught up his words.
"Have you never danced with her before, Barnaby?"
"No," he said, and bent to gather her train himself, that the weight of it should not tire her arm.
"Do you hear that?" chuckled the man behind them. "Never rode with her, never danced with her. What on earth did he find to do?"
"Made love to her, of course."
Susan felt his arm tighten round her as they whirled into the dizzy spaces.
"I've never made love to you, have I, Susan?"
He was breathing quicker; her cheek almost touched his as he bent his head; her pulses were beating in tune with his. In a sudden faintness she shut her eyes.
And then the music crashed into silence and she was leaning against a pillar, stupidly watching the brilliant scene. There was a great buzz of talking under the gallery, and Barnaby was turning to his friends. She heard his voice now and then amidst the babel, but it was Kilgour and Gregory Drake who were trying to amuse her, picking out the celebrities, good and wicked, in that assembly of glittering dresses and scarlet coats.
"You'll notice," Kilgour was saying, "it's the older men who are dancing, and the young 'uns are looking on. They've no stamina, the lads! Do you see that woman like a tub, with hungry eyes?—She was a beauty once, but when her admirers began to slink off she went in for spirits—that awfully unpleasant kind that you can't absorb. She's always calling 'em up and setting 'em on to tell tales about her dearest friends."
"Yes," said Gregory, "it's really more unhealthy to offend her now than when she was an anarchist and used to spring little clicking machines on you and offered to explain how they worked. She got into hot water once, while it lasted, making herself a side-show at a bazaar. Some foreign personage was attending, and a rumour started that she meant to wind up her clock in earnest. It emptied the hall like winking. The Board of Charitables were no end annoyed."
"They say her fellow anarchists begged her to take her name off their books. Said she brought 'em into contempt."
"That wasn't why," said Gregory. "It was because she would bring Toby, her mastiff, to all their meetings. He and Biff, the thing she carried in her muff, used to scare 'em out of their lives."
"Look at that shop window!" said Kilgour, as another woman, smothered in diamonds, canted past.
"American, isn't she?—Cummerbatch married her for her money, and of course they're wretched. It never pays——"
Susan was conscious that the speaker had checked himself, in his face a ludicrous awkwardness. Had the world jumped to a similar conclusion about her and Barnaby? Instinctively she turned her head. She wanted to share the joke with him, to see his delighted appreciation;—but he was not near.
And he did not dance with her any more. The night dragged on, and one man after another bent his sleek head and offered her his arm. All Barnaby's friends were rallying to her flag. Still, in its turn, would come a star in her card, a dance that found her waiting for a partner who did not come.
After one of these blanks she came face to face with him in the Lancers. He was romping as violently as the rest, charging down the room;—and as the chain of dancers burst it was his arm that kept her from falling into a bank of pale tulips against the wall.
"Wasn't the last dance ours?" he said. "I'm awfully sorry:—but you are getting on all right, aren't you? Plenty of substitutes? I've been watching them buzzing round you."
She smiled at him bravely. How like life this dancing was ... meeting and parting, and strange companions.... For the first and last time she was linking arms with Julia.
Later on she saw Rackham on his way to her. It was almost the first time that evening that she was unsurrounded. She had felt him watching her; awaiting his time to swoop. Barnaby had not been visible during the last two dances, and this, alas! was one that was glorified with a star.
"Yes," said Rackham, before she could speak, "I know;—you are dancing it with your husband."
There was no anger in his voice; only a kind of sardonic amusement, as if he could afford to forgive her for that rebuff. She looked vainly for Barnaby.
"As a matter of fact," said Rackham coolly, "he has delegated his privilege to me."
"I am tired," she said. It was true; very tired and forsaken.
"Then we'll sit it out," said Rackham, no whit abashed. He carried his point over her weariness; she wondered dully why she had been afraid of him, and she was too sad to struggle. She let him take her up the stairs into the far corner of the gallery, now deserted, and sat with her arms on the rail, gazing absently on the flitting brightness that mocked her wistful mood below.
All at once she started. Her wandering thoughts were fixed.
"What are you saying to me?" she cried.
Rackham was very near her, his head bent, his voice low and passionate in her ears.
"What I have always wanted to say to you," he said. "You guessed it, didn't you? You were a little afraid of me;—just a little. You've been trying to put it off.... But don't you remember the first time we met—and that afternoon down by the spinney, when I told you I was your friend?"
She began to shiver. His hand, shutting the idle fan, was imprisoning hers as it clenched itself on her knee.
"I was not listening to you!" she cried desperately. "I was not thinking of you. How dare you?"
"What were you thinking of then?" said Rackham. "Not of Barnaby, who has gone back to his first love and forgotten that you exist."
"He sent you to me," she said piteously.
"Oh, that was a lie," said Rackham. "He didn't even trouble as much as that."
She had sprung to her feet and her face was as white as ashes. For how long had this man been telling her that he loved her? She had been deaf to him, had caught his words without understanding their import, murmuring "Yes" to him, while her eyes and her heart were searching for one figure to pass in the dizzy scene below.
"You are mad," she said.
"Mad if you like," said Rackham. "After all, I am Barnaby's cousin, and it's probably in our blood. Look at him, still crazed over a woman who jilted him years ago!"
She flung up her head, compelled by a piteous instinct to play her part.
"And I am Barnaby's wife," she said bravely.
He looked at her fixedly, making no motion to let her pass him.
"Are you?" he said.
The band seemed to burst into clamour and die away; but they were all dancing; there must be music still, although she could not hear anything but these two syllables. She kept her eyes steady. Perhaps he did not grasp the significance of his words.
"You have insulted me enough," she said to him slowly.
A wild eagerness lighted his face.
"I'm not insulting you," he said. "I leave that to him.... I'm asking you to be my wife, Susan. Let him go. Let him release himself. Leave him to the woman from whom you can't keep him.—Come away with me,—and marry me!"
"I—cannot," she said.
He had to fall back then and let her go. But he followed her down the stairs. The light in his eyes flickered out, leaving a sullen admiration.
"Well," he said, "I warn you. I've a bit of a score to settle with Barnaby."
She turned on him. She had reached the bottom; her foot was on the crimson carpet that lay under the gallery; a little way off a handful of men were talking with their backs turned, hilarious at the climax of a sporting tale. She looked at the dark face above her; her lips were white now, her eyes were blazing. "Are you threatening—him?" she cried, and the devil in Rackham smiled.
She took a few rash steps, hardly knowing in what direction.
"You needn't look for him here," said Rackham bitterly. "Don't let his friends think you jealous."
From where she stood she could see in at the open doorway of one of the sitting-out rooms, a dim, mysterious haunt of palms, the chairs drawn back in the shadow. Was not that Barnaby and a woman in a glittering green dress, listening with her face uplifted—?
Ah, what right had she to run to him?—One of the men standing about under the gallery had looked round. She heard him mutter it was a shame. What was a shame? Not anything that could be spoken or done to her.... She threw up her head, walking straight on as if she were walking in her sleep. The Duchess and Kitty Drake were together half-way up the room; they moved down to meet her, exchanging looks.
"My dear," said the Duchess solemnly, "you look fatigued."
"I am tired," she said.
"I thought so. Fagged out. You have danced too much. Major Willes—"
She called a man to her side and sent him on an immediate errand. When he was gone she returned to Susan.
"I've sent somebody to fetch your husband," she said. "He ought to take more care of you. I shall scold him."
"Oh, don't!" she cried faintly, but her champions took no notice; and soon Barnaby himself came swinging along the room.
"Barnaby," said the Duchess, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Take your wife up to supper."
The first rush was over upstairs in the supper-room, and Barnaby found a corner. She sat with him at a little round table behind a tall plant that shut off the world with its wide green fronds, some sheltering exotic. And he was pouring out champagne, a drink she hated. She put her hand over the top of the glass, and he caught it and lifted it off, holding it in his while he poured on unchecked.
"It's not good stuff,—but it's good for you. Drink!" he said.
He seemed to be laughing at her from an immeasurable distance; his prescription had made her dizzy.
"It will go off in a minute; you wanted it badly," he was saying, in a voice that sounded far away and unlike his own.
"It has gone to my head," she said, appealing to him. "I'm afraid I shall say something silly. Don't let me. Don't let me talk....'"
"Why not? There is nobody listening," he was saying, encouraging her; amused.
And Susan heard her own voice. Her head was spinning; she was talking against her will.
"Why did you never come back and dance with me?" she was asking. It seemed to her that there was a long pause, and then his answer came, low and close.
"I did not dare," he said.
"Oh," she said piteously;—no, not she, but the imprudent, tired girl whose head was giddy, and who did not know what she said. "Oh,—how funny!"
Perhaps he was throwing dust in people's eyes,—trying to blind them to his fluttering, like a burnt moth, round Julia. If they saw him sitting up here in a corner with her, and she was happy, they would think there was nothing in it. He must be trying to make her laugh. Well, she must help him. She could say something funny too.
"There's a man downstairs," she told him, "who asked me to marry him."
"What?" said Barnaby. He started as if he had been shot.
"He said he loved me," she repeated. "He wished me to go away and release you and marry him."
"Who?"
"You were with the only woman you ever cared for. That was what he said. I had nobody to keep him away from me...."
"Oh, I was with the woman I cared for, was I?" he said. "And who the devil is it wants horsewhipping when I get at him?"
The deadly calm in his voice arrested her. What had she said to him, babbling in her unhappiness? Alarm steadied her; the dizziness was passing.
"I will not tell you," she said, forgetting how vainly she had looked for him to shield her.
His eyes were blue as steel. She had never seen him angry until to-night.
"I'll make you," he said.
They stared at each other a minute, her eyes as unflinching as his were hard. Across the silly little supper table with its glass and silver, its green, gold-tipped bottles, and its tumbled flowers, he leaned and gripped her hands.
"Did you tell him you are not my wife?" he said.
There was a whiff of scent in their neighbourhood; the great green fronds spreading behind him were rudely stirred. A passing couple must have brushed against that screen on their way to the stairs. A burst of merriment came from the upper end of the room. But these two were as much alone as if it had been a desert.
So that was why he was angry. He believed that she had broken faith....
"I told him nothing," she said.
Barnaby took a long breath. She felt his grip relax.
"You are a good girl," he said. "You wouldn't break your promise. I suppose I've no right to order you:—I'll find him out for myself. Tell me one thing, and we'll let it go—"
She waited. There had been something very bitter to her in his relief. All he asked of her was to keep the secret until he was tired of the joke....
"Susan," he said. "Did you want to tell him?"
What did that matter to him? Supposing she had—wanted? Supposing she would have given worlds to exchange her difficult post for one so different, so secure?—Her cheek burned.
"I would sooner have died," she said.
*****
Rackham stood under the gallery in a black mood, watching the Duchess send her messenger to hunt out the missing husband. He saw Julia, bereft of her cavalier, pausing uncertainly; and a satiric impulse moved him to join her.
"Come and have supper with me," he said.
"I am engaged to Barnaby," she said, a little defiantly.
"They've sent him up with his wife," he retorted, and his mocking tone seemed to please her. She submitted and pressed his arm.
"Poor Barnaby!" she said. "It's an awful muddle."
She was looking very lovely and pathetic. The man who had once been entangled a little way in her toils himself and, having failed to succumb, was naturally inclined to despise her, admired her pose. It was hardly to be wondered at if Barnaby, who had been mad about her once, should be incapable of resisting the allurement of these dark eyes, so deep and so reproachful. He could not help speculating how far she was in earnest, and how far a hurt vanity inspired her. Curiosity piqued him.
"I understand," he said gravely, as they passed out and began to climb to the supper-room. It amused him to feel that her confidential attitude, her claim on his sympathy, was a subtle intimation that he had been the unlucky cause of the fatal misunderstanding, and must therefore be kind to her. All at once he had a perverse inclination to cast himself in the scale again. Why not? It would be a bitter joke on Barnaby, and it suited his savage humour.
"I like your dress," he said. His change of tone surprised her. She glanced at him swiftly, half-turning as she mounted, her green garments rippling as she lifted her train on one smooth arm, displaying a whirl of skirts and one little green sequin slipper. "Ah," she said, "down below they've been reviling me for a mermaid, and complaining bitterly of my tail."
"And so," said Rackham, "the little slipper is betrayed, to dispel the illusion?"
"Perhaps," said Julia. She used, at one time, to smile up in his face like that.... A vindictive sense of his power possessed him, flattering him on this night of defeat. In his heart he was still fiercely worshipping the pale girl who had flouted him, clinging obstinately—Oh, she was a fool, and so was Barnaby;—and the irony of it was that he had only to lift his finger—!
"We'll find a place by ourselves," he said, confidentially, passing into the room. Inside it he took a step or two, glancing about him. There were vacant seats on the right, but the tables had a battered air. Farther down, perhaps—; yes, farther down, near the wall. He turned back to look for his partner, and the sight of her face amazed him. With a promptitude that surprised himself he pulled her back, and got her outside the room. Was it possible that he had been mistaken in her, or could a woman push affectation as far as that?
She broke into a kind of gasping exclamation that was not intelligible at first, and he stared at her in limitless amazement.
"Oh, poor Barnaby, oh, poor Barnaby!" she repeated. There was a ring of triumph in her incoherent voice. She had gone mad, he fancied.
"Hush!" he said. "They'll hear you."
He was glad he had shut that door, and thankful there was not a soul on the stairs.
"I was right!" she said, "I was right.... I knew it! You were there when she came here first as his widow, and I told his mother to her face it was a wicked plot!"
"Julia," said Rackham, "you don't know what you are saying."
She controlled herself a little. He held her wrist.
"Didn't you see them in there?" she asked. "Didn't you hear him?"
"If you mean Barnaby," he said, "I was looking out for our places. I didn't notice whereabouts they were till you clutched at me. They didn't see us at all."
"I heard him," she said, in the same wild key of triumph. "I heard his own words.—He said she was not his wife."
"Hush!" said Rackham vehemently, and then, more slowly—"Julia, are you sure of that?"
She tried to imitate him, to whisper, but she was too excited.
"Sure!" she said, laughing hysterically. "I know his voice so well. There was a green plant between us——"
"Wait," said Rackham. "There's somebody coming. We'll go down. Damn! there are people everywhere—! Get a shawl, and we'll go out into the street."
Julia resisted him.
"Why are you dragging me away?" she rebelled. "You can't keep me quiet. Think how I've been treated! I could scream it to all the world!"
A woman could not have silenced her, but her emotional nature yielded finally to the rough coaxing of a man. He almost swung her downstairs into the draughty passage and, raiding the ladies' cloakroom, snatched up the first wrap that lay to his hand.
A chill wind blew up the steps, but there was still a persistent crew of gazers loitering in the street below. Rackham led her past, and they strolled a little way into the darkness, lighted at intervals by a twinkling lamp. There was no danger there of her making scenes.
"Now," he said. "Now, Julia—!"
"They shall all hear the truth!" she cried. She hung on his arm, gesticulating.
"You wouldn't betray him?" said Rackham, sounding her.
"Him?" she said. "Poor Barnaby! He and I are the victims. Don't you understand yet? When she thought he was dead his mother—just to crush me, just to humble me in the dust!—hired this creature. Don't you remember how she sprung her on us? Who had heard of a marriage? Oh, it was a judgment on her when he came home!"
"She'd hardly look at the case in that light," he said. But Julia was impervious to irony.
"He should have considered me first," she said. "Why do men always sacrifice the one they love best? It's a kind of cruel unselfishness. I was his dearest, a part of himself, and so—and so I'm to bear this trial—! But he might have trustedme!"
She was either laughing or sobbing, he was not sure which; the cloak that muffled her hid her face; but her voice raged on, half furious, half triumphant.
"Of course, she's blackmailing him," she said. "That wretch has got him in the hollow of her hand! If he disowned her it would all come out, and it would disgrace his mother. He was always quixotic. And so he is temporizing till he can bribe her to disappear. But Lady Henrietta has no claim on my forbearance!"
She had to pause for breath, and he managed to get in his word.
"I am going to advise you," he said, "to keep quiet over this."
They had come to the end of the street, and were walking back. A dazzle of lights in the distance marked the Corn Exchange. A motor whirred past, its lamps sending a brief glare that was like a searchlight. Already a few were leaving.
"Why?" she said, staring at him.
"You'll be a fool if you talk," he said. "If Barnaby is holding his tongue for his mother's sake, is it likely he'll give way? And you have no proofs. Whatever you say, he'll deny it. He mightn't forgive you, either. Be sensible.... Wait a bit, and I'll make inquiries."
It struck her then as odd that he had accepted her words himself, without argument, with no incredulous opposition, such as she was beginning to realize must fall to her lot if she published her tale abroad.
"Did you know from the first?" she cried.
"No," said Rackham, "I didn't know. But I guessed."
They had nearly reached the steps, and he slackened, regarding her narrowly; but already she was subdued. It was characteristic of her that she had never seen his admiration for the impostor. Vast as her imagination was, it was blinded by centring on herself.
"And you'll help me? You are on my side?" she said.
He knew then that he had prevailed.
"As long as you are wise," he said. They went up the steps together.
"I had better find my party," she said hurriedly. "I want to go home. Poor Barnaby!—I can't bear to meet him. I am too agitated."