Autumn had given place to winter, and a bitter northeast wind was tearing through the pines, shrieking, as it fled, like the cry of a lost soul. The eerie sound of it served in some indefinable way to emphasise the cosy warmth and security of the room where Sara and her uncle were sitting, their chairs drawn close up to the log fire which burned on the wide, old-fashioned hearth.
Sara was engrossed in a book, her head bent low above its pages, unconscious of the keen blue eyes that had been regarding her reflectively for some minutes.
With the passage of the last two months, Patrick's face seemed to have grown more waxen, worn a little finer, and now, as he sat quietly watching the slender figure on the opposite side of the hearth, it wore a curious, inscrutable expression, as though he were mentally balancing the pros and cons of some knotty point.
At last he apparently came to a decision, for he laid aside the newspaper he had been reading a few moments before, muttering half audibly:
“Must take your fences as you come to 'em.”
Sara looked up abstractedly.
“Did you say anything?” she asked doubtfully.
Patrick gave his shoulders a grim shake.
“I'm going to,” he replied. “It's something that must be said, and, as I've never been in favour of postponing a thing just because its disagreeable, we may as well get it over.”
He had focused Sara's attention unmistakably now.
“What is it?” she asked quickly. “You haven't had bad news?”
An odd smile crossed his face.
“On the contrary.” He hesitated a moment, then continued: “I had a longish talk with Dr. McPherson yesterday, and the upshot of it is that I may be required to hand in my checks any day now. I wanted you to know,” he added simply.
It was characteristic of the understanding between these two that Patrick made no effort to “break the news,” or soften it in any way. He had always been prepared to face facts himself, and he had trained Sara in the same stern creed.
So that now, when he quietly stated in plain language the thing which she had been inwardly dreading for some weeks—for, though silent on the matter, she had not failed to observe his appearance of increasing frailty—she took it like a thorough-bred. Her eyes dilated a little, but her voice was quite steady as she said:
“You mean——”
“I mean that before very long I shall put off this vile body.” He glanced down whimsically at his useless legs, cloaked beneath the inevitable rug. “After all,” he continued, “life—and death—are both fearfully interesting if one only goes to meet them instead of running away from them. Then they become bogies.”
“And what shall I do . . . without you?” she said very low.
“Aye.” He nodded. “It's worse for those who are left behind. I've been one of them, and I know. I remember—” He broke off short, his blue eyes dreaming. Presently he gave his shoulders the characteristic little shake which presaged the dismissal of some recalcitrant secret thought, and went on in quick, practical tones.
“I don't want to go out leaving a lot of loose ends behind me—a tangle for you to unravel. So, since the fiat has gone forth—McPherson's a sound man and knows his job—let's face it together, little old pal. It will mean your leaving Barrow, you know,” he added tentatively.
Sara nodded, her face rather white.
“Yes, I know. I shan't care—then.”
“Oh yes, you will”—with shrewd wisdom. “It will be an extra drop in the bucket, you'll find, when the time comes. Unfortunately, however, there's no getting round the entail, and when I go, my cousin, Major Durward, will reign in my stead.”
“Why does the Court go to a Durward?” asked Sara listlessly. “Aren't there any Lovells to inherit?”
“He is a Lovell. His father and mine were brothers, but his godfather, old Timothy Durward left him his property on condition that he adopted the name. Geoffrey Durward has a son called Timothy—after the old man.”
“The Durwards have never been here since I came to live with you,” observed Sara thoughtfully. “Don't you care for him—your cousin, I mean?”
“Geoffrey? Yes, he's a charming fellow, and he's been a rattling good soldier—got his D.S.O. in the South African campaign. But he and his wife—she was a Miss Eden—were stationed in India so many years, I rather lost touch with them. They came home when the Durward property fell in to them—about seven or eight years ago. She, I think”—reminiscently—“was one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen.”
The shadow in Sara's eyes lifted for a moment.
“Is that the reason you've always remained a bachelor?” she asked, twinkling.
“God bless my soul, no! I never wanted to marry Elisabeth Eden—though there were plenty of men who did.” He regarded Sara with an odd smile. “Some day, you'll know—why I never wanted to marry Elisabeth.”
“Tell me now.”
He shook his head.
“No. You'll know soon enough—soon enough.”
He was silent, fallen a-dreaming once again; and again he seemed to pull himself up short, forcing himself back to the consideration of the practical needs of the moment.
“As I was saying, Sara, sooner or later you'll have to turn out of the old Court. It's entailed, and the income with it. But I've a clear four hundred a year, altogether apart from the Barrow moneys, and that, at my death, will be yours.”
“I don't want to hear about it!” burst out Sara passionately. “It's hateful even talking of such things.”
Patrick smiled, amused and a little touched by youth's lack of worldly wisdom.
“Don't be a fool, my dear. I shan't die a day sooner for having made my will—and I shall die a deal more comfortably, knowing that you are provided for. I promised your mother that, as far as lay in my power, I would shield you from wrecking your life as she wrecked hers. And money—a secure little income of her own—is a very good sort of shield for a women. Four hundred's not enough to satisfy a mercenary individual, but it's enough to enable a woman to marry for love—and not for a home!” He spoke with a kind of repressed bitterness, as though memory had stirred into fresh flame the embers of some burnt-out passion of regret, and Sara looked at him with suddenly aroused interest.
But apparently Patrick did not sense the question that troubled on her lips, or, if he did, had no mind to answer it, for he went on in lighter tones:
“There, that's enough about business for the present. I only wanted you to know that, whatever happens, you will be all right as far as bread-and-cheese are concerned.”
“I believe you think that's all I should care about!” exclaimed Sara stormily.
Patrick smiled. He had not been a citizen of the world for over sixty years without acquiring the grim knowledge that neither intense happiness nor deep grief suffice to deaden for very long the pinpricks of material discomfort. But the worldly-wise old man possessed a broad tolerance for the frailties of human nature, and his smile held nothing of contempt, but only a whimsical humour touched with kindly understanding.
“I know you better than that, my dear,” he answered quietly. “But I often think of what I once heard an old working-woman, down in the village, say. She had just lost her husband, and the rector's wife was handing out the usual platitudes, and holding forth on the example of Christian fortitude exhibited by a very wealthy lady in the neighbourhood, who had also been recently widowed. 'That's all very well, ma'am,' said my old woman drily, 'but fat sorrow's a deal easier to bear than lean sorrow.' And though it may sound unromantic, it's the raw truth—only very few people are sincere enough to acknowledge it.”
In the weeks that followed, Patrick seemed to recover a large measure of his accustomed vigour. He was extraordinarily alert and cheerful—soalivethat Sara began to hope Dr. McPherson had been mistaken in his opinion, and that there might yet remain many more good years of the happy comradeship that existed between herself and her guardian.
Such buoyancy appeared incompatible with the imminence of death, and one day, driven by the very human instinct to hear her optimism endorsed, she scoffed a little, tentatively, at the doctor's verdict.
Patrick shook his head.
“No, my dear, he's right,” he said decisively. “But I'm not going to whine about it. Taken all round, I've found life a very good sort of thing—although”—reflectively—“I've missed the best it has to offer a man. And probably I'll find death a very good sort of thing, too, when it comes.”
And so Patrick Lovell went forward, his spirit erect, to meet death with the same cheerful, half-humorous courage he had opposed to the emergencies of life.
It was a few days after this, on Christmas Eve, that Sara, coming into his special den with a gay little joke on her lips and a great bunch of mistletoe in her arms, was arrested by the sudden, chill quiet of the little room.
The familiar wheeled chair was drawn up to the window, and she could see the back of Patrick's head with its thick crop of grizzled hair, but he did not turn or speak at the sound of her entrance.
“Uncle, didn't you hear me? Are you asleep? . . .Uncle!” Her voice shrilled on to a sharp staccato note, then cracked and broke suddenly.
There came no movement from the chair. The silence remained unbroken save for the ticking of a clock and the loud beating of her own heart. The two seemed to merge into one gigantic pulse . . . deafening . . . overwhelming . . . like the surge of some immense, implacable sea.
She swayed a little, clutching at the door for support. Then the throbbing ceased, and she was only conscious of a solitude so intense that it seemed to press about her like a tangible thing.
Swiftly, on feet of terror, she crossed the room and stood looking down at the motionless figure of her uncle. His face was turned towards the sun, and wore an expression of complete happiness and content, as though he had just found something for which he had been searching. He had looked like that a thousand times, when, seeking for her, he had come upon her, at last, hidden in some shady nook in the garden or swinging in her hammock. She could almost hear the familiar “Oh, there you are, little pal!” with which he would joyously acclaim her discovery.
She lifted the hand that was resting quietly on his knee. It lay in hers, flaccid and inert, its dreadful passivity stinging her into realization of the truth. Patrick was dead. And, judging from his expression, he had found death “a very good sort of thing,” just as he had expected.
For a little while Sara remained standing quietly beside the still figure in the chair. They would never be alone together any more—not quite like this, Patrick sitting in his accustomed place, wearing his beloved old tweeds, with an immaculate tie and with his single eyeglass—about which she had so often chaffed him—dangling across his chest on its black ribbon.
Her mouth quivered. “Stand up to it!” . . . The voice—Patrick's voice—seemed to sound in her ear . . . “Stand up to it, little old pal!”
She bit back the sob that climbed to her throat, and stood silently facing the enemy, as it were.
This was the end, then, of one chapter of her existence—the chapter of sheltered, happy life at Barrow, and in these quiet moments, alone for the last time with Patrick Lovell, Sara tried to gather strength and courage from her memories of his cheery optimism to face gamely whatever might befall her in the big world into which she must so soon adventure.
It was over. The master of Barrow had been carried shoulder-high to the great vault where countless Lovells slept their last sleep, the blinds had been drawn up, letting in the wintry sunlight once again, and the mourners had gone their ways. Only the new owner of the Court still lingered, and even he would be leaving very soon now.
Sara, her slim, boyish build, with its long line of slender hip, accentuated by the clinging black of her gown, moved listlessly across the hall to where Major Durward was standing smoking by the big open fire, waiting for the car which was to take him to the station.
He made as though to throw his cigarette away at her approach, but she gestured a hasty negative.
“No, don't,” she said. “I like it. It seems to make things a little more natural. Uncle Pat”—with a wan smile—“was always smoking.”
Her sombre eyes were shadowed and sad, and there was a pinched, drawn look about her nostrils. Major Durward regarded her with a concerned expression on his kindly face.
“You will miss him badly,” he said.
“Yes, I shall miss him,”—simply. She returned his glance frankly. “You are very like him, you know,” she added suddenly.
It was true. The big, soldierly man beside her, with his jolly blue eyes, grey hair, and short-clipped military moustache, bore a striking resemblance to the Patrick Lovell of ten years ago, before ill-health had laid its finger upon him, and during the difficult days that succeeded her uncle's death Sara had unconsciously found a strange kind of comfort in the likeness. She had dreaded inexpressibly the advent of the future owner of Barrow, but, when he had arrived, his resemblance to his dead cousin, and a certain similarity of gesture and of voice, common enough in families, had at once established a sense of kinship, which had deepened with her recognition of Durward's genuine kind-heartedness and solicitude for her comfort.
He had immediately assumed control of affairs, taking all the inevitable detail of arrangement off her shoulders, yet deferring to her as though she were still just as much mistress of the Court as she had been before her uncle's death. In every way he had tried to ease and smooth matters for her, and she felt proportionately grateful to him.
“Then, if you think I'm like him,” said Durward gently, “will you let me try to take his place a little? I mean,” he explained hastily, fearing she might misunderstand him, “that you will miss his guardianship and care of you, as well as the good pal you found in him. Will you let me try to fill in the gaps, if—if you should want advice, or service—anything over which a male man can be a bit useful? Oh——” breaking off with a short, embarrassed laugh—“it is so difficult to explain what I do mean!”
“I think I know,” said Sara, smiling faintly. “You mean that now that Uncle Pat has gone, you don't want me to feel quite adrift in the world.”
The big man, hampered by his masculine shyness of a difficult situation, smiled back at her, relieved.
“Yes, that's it, that's it!” he agreed eagerly. “I want you to regard me as a—a sort of sheet-anchor upon which you can pull in a storm.”
“Thank you,” said Sara. “I will. But I hope there won't be storms of such magnitude that I shall need to pull very hard.”
Durward smoked furiously for a moment. Then he burst forth—
“You can't imagine what a brute I feel for turning you out of the Court. I wish it need not be. But the Lovells have always lived at the old place, and my wife—”
“Naturally.” She interrupted him gently. “Naturally, she wishes to live here. I owe you no grudge for that,” smiling. “When—how soon do you think of coming? I will make my arrangements accordingly.”
“We should like to come as soon as possible, really,” he admitted reluctantly. “I have the chance of leasing Durward Park, if the tenant can have what practically amounts to immediate possession. And of course, in the circumstances, I should be glad to get the Durward property off my hands.”
“Of course you would.” Sara nodded understandingly. “If you could let me have a few days in which to find some rooms—”
“No, no,” he broke in eagerly. “I want you still to regard Barrow as your headquarters—to stay on here with us until you have fixed some permanent arrangement that suits you.”
She was touched by the kindly suggestion; nevertheless, she shook her head with decision.
“It is more than kind of you to think of such a thing,” she said gratefully. “But it is quite out of the question. Why, I am not even a cousin several times removed! I have no claim at all. Mrs. Durward—”
“Will be delighted. She asked me to be sure and tell you so. Please, Miss Tennant, don't refuse me. Don't”—persuasively—“oblige us to feel more brutal interlopers than we need.”
Still she hesitated.
“If I were sure—” she began doubtfully.
“You may be—absolutely sure. There!”—with a sigh of relief—“that's settled. But, as I can see you're the kind of person whose conscientious scruples will begin to worry you the moment I'm gone”—he smiled—“my wife will write to you. Promise not to run away in the meantime?”
“I promise,” said Sara. She held out her hand. “And—thank you.” Her eyes, suddenly misty, supplemented the baldness of the words.
He took the outstretched hand in a close, friendly grip.
“Good. That's the car, I think,” as the even purring of a motor sounded from outside. “I must be off. But it's onlyau revoir, remember.”
She walked with him to the door, and stood watching until the car was lost in sight round a bend of the drive. Then, as she turned back into the hall, the emptiness of the house seemed to close down about her all at once, like a pall.
Amid the manifold duties and emergencies of the last few days she had hardly had time to realize the immensity of her loss. Practical matters had forcibly obtruded themselves upon her consideration—the necessity of providing accommodation for the various relatives who had attended the funeral, the frequent consultations that Major Durward, to all intents and purposes a stranger to the ways of Barrow, had been obliged to hold with her, the reading of the will—all these had combined to keep her in a state of mental and physical alertness which had mercifully precluded retrospective thought.
But now the necessity fordoinganything was past; there were no longer any claims upon her time, nothing to distract her, and she had leisure to visualize the full significance of Patrick's death and all that it entailed.
Rather languidly she mounted the stairs to her own room, and drawing up a low chair to the fire, sat staring absently into its glowing heart.
Virtually, she was alone in the world. Even Major Durward, who had been so infinitely kind, was not bound to her by any ties other than those forged of his own friendly feelings. True, he had been Patrick's cousin. But Patrick, although he had made up Sara's whole world, had been entirely unrelated to her.
Her heart throbbed with a sudden rush of intense gratitude towards the man who had so amply fulfilled his trust as guardian, and she glanced up wistfully at the big photograph of him which stood upon the chimney-piece.
Propped against the photo-frame was a square white envelope on which was written:To be given to my ward, Sara Tennant, after my death. The family solicitor had handed it to her the previous day, after the reading of the will, but the demands upon her time and attention had been so many, owing to the number of relatives who temporarily filled the house, that she had laid it on one side for perusal when she should be alone once more.
The sight of the familiar handwriting brought a swift mist of tears to her eyes, and she hesitated a little before opening the sealed envelope.
It was strange to realize that here was some message for her from Patrick himself, but that no matter what the envelope might contain, she would be able to give back no answer, make no reply. The knowledge seemed to set him very far away from her, and for a few moments she sobbed quietly, feeling utterly solitary and alone.
Presently she brushed the tears from her eyes and slit open the flap of the envelope. Inside was a half-sheet of notepaper wrapped about a small old-fashioned key, and on the outer fold was written: “The key of the Chippendale bureau.” That was all.
For an instant Sara was puzzled. Then she remembered that amongst Patrick's personal bequests to her had been that of the small mahogany bureau which stood near the window of his bedroom. It had not occurred to her at the time that its contents might have any interest for her; in fact, she had supposed it to be empty. But now she realized that there was evidently something within it which Patrick must have valued, seeing he had guarded the key so carefully and directed its delivery to her through the reliable hands of his solicitor.
Rather glad of anything that might help to occupy her thoughts, she decided to investigate the bureau at once, and accordingly made her way to Patrick's bedroom.
On the threshold she paused, her heart contracting painfully as the spick and span aspect of the room, its ordered absence of any trace of occupation, reminded her that its one-time owner would never again have any further need of it.
Everything in the house seemed to present her grief to her anew, from some fresh angle, forcing comparison of what had been with what was—the wheeled chair, standing vacant in one of the lobbies, the tobacco jar perched upon the chimney-piece, the pot of heliotrope—Patrick's favourite blossom—scenting the library with its fragrance.
And now his room—empty, swept, and garnished like any one of the score or so of spare bedrooms in the house!
With an effort, Sara forced herself to enter it. Crossing to the window, she pulled a chair up to the Chippendale bureau and unlocked it. Then she drew out the sliding desk supports and laid back the flap of polished mahogany that served as a writing-table. She was conscious of a fleeting sense of admiration for the fine-grained wood and for the smooth “feel” of the old brass handles, worn by long usage, then her whole attention was riveted by the three things which were all the contents of the desk—a packet of letters, stained and yellowing with age and tied together with a broad, black ribbon, a jeweller's velvet case stamped with faded gilt lettering, and an envelope addressed to herself in Patrick's handwriting.
Very gently, with that tender reverence we accord to the sad little possessions of our dead, Sara gathered them up and carried them to her own sitting-room. She felt she could not stay to examine them in that strangely empty, lifeless room that had been Patrick's; the terrible, chill silence of it seemed to beat against the very heart of her.
Laying aside the jeweller's case and the package of letters, she opened the envelope which bore her name and drew out a folded sheet of paper, covered with Patrick's small, characteristic writing. Impulsively she brushed it with her lips, then, leaning back in her chair, began to read, her expression growing curiously intent as she absorbed the contents of the letter. Once she smiled, and more than once a sudden rush of unbidden tears blurred the closely written lines in front of her.
“When you receive this, little pal Sara”—ran the letter—“I shall have done with this world. Except that it means leaving you, my dear, I shall be glad to go, for I'm a very tired man. So, when it comes, you must try not to grudge me my 'long leave.' But there are several things you ought to know, and which I want you to know, yet I have never been able to bring myself to speak of them to you. To tell you about them meant digging into the past—and very often there is a hot coal lingering in the heart of a dead fire that is apt to burn the fingers of whoever rakes out the ashes. Frankly, then, I funked it. But now the time has come when I can't put it off any longer.
“Little old pal, have you ever wondered why I loved you so much—why you stood so close to my heart? I used to tease you and say it was because we were no relation to each other, didn't I? If you had been really my niece, proper respect (on your part, of course, for your aged uncle!) and the barrier of a generation would have set us the usual miles apart. But there was never anything of that with us, was there? I bullied you, I know, when you needed it, but we were always comrades. And to me, you were something more than a comrade, something almost sacred and always adorable—the child of the woman I loved.
“For we should have been married, Sara, your mother and I, had I not been a poor man. We were engaged, but at that time, I was only a younger son, with a younger son's meager portion, and the prospect of my falling heir to Barrow seemed of all things the most improbable. And Pauline Malincourt, your mother, had been taught to abhor the idea of living on small means—trained to regard her beauty and breeding as marketable assets, to go to the highest bidder. For, although her parents came of fine old stock—there's no better blood in England than the Malincourt strain, my dear—they were deadly hard-up. So hard-up, that when they died—as the result of a carriage accident which occurred a week after Pauline's marriage—they left nothing behind them but debts which your father liquidated.
“Of your father, Caleb Tennant, the millionaire, I will not write, seeing that, after all, you are his child. It is enough to say that he was a hard man, and that he and your mother led a very unhappy life together, so unhappy that at last she left him, choosing rather to live in utter poverty than remain with him. He never forgave her for leaving him, and when he died, he willed every penny he possessed to some scoundrelly cousin of his—who is presumably enjoying the inheritance which should have been yours.
“That is your family history, my dear, and it is right that you should know it—and know what you have to fight against. To be a Malincourt is at once to have a curse and a blessing hung round your neck. The Malincourts were originally of French extraction—descendants of thehaute noblesseof old France—cursed with the devil's own pride and passionate self-will, and blessed with looks and brains and charm above the average. They never bend; they break sooner. And I think you've got the lot, Sara—the full inheritance.
“Your mother was a true Malincourt. She could not bend, and when things went awry, she broke.
“You must never think hardly of her, for she had been brought up in that atmosphere of almost desperate pride which is too frequently the curse of the poverty-stricken aristocrat. She made a ghastly mistake, and paid for it afterwards every day of her life. And she was urged into it by her father, who declined to recognize me in any way, and by her mother, who made her life at home a simple hell—as a clever society woman can make of any young girl's life if she chooses.
“Just before she died, she sent for me and gave you into my care, begging me to shield you from spoiling your life as she had spoiled hers.
“I've done what I could. You are at least independent. No one can drive you with the spur of poverty into selling yourself, as she was driven. But there are a hundred other rocks in life against which you may wreck your happiness, and remember, in the long run, you sink or swim by your own force of character.
“And when love comes to you,as it will come,—for no woman with your eyes and your mouth ever yet lived a loveless life!—never forget that it is the biggest thing in the world, the one altogether good and perfect gift. Don't let any twopenny-halfpenny considerations of worldly advantage influence you, nor the tittle-tattle of other folks, and even if it seems that something insurmountable lies between you and the fulfillment of love, go over it, or round it, or through it! If it's a real love, your faith must be big enough to remove the mountains in the way—or to go over them.
“The package of letters you will find in the bureau were those your mother wrote to me during the few short weeks we belonged to each other. I'm a sentimental old fool, and I've never been able to bring myself to burn them. Will you do this for me?
“In the little velvet case you will find her miniature, which I give to you. It is very like her—and like you, too, for you resemble her wonderfully in appearance. Often, to look at you has made my heart ache; sometimes it almost seemed as if the years had rolled back and Pauline herself stood before me.
“And now that the order for release is on its way to me, it is rather wonderful to reflect that in a few weeks—a few days, perhaps—I shall be seeing her again. . . .
“Good-bye, little pal of mine. We've had some good times together, haven't we?
“Your devoted, PATRICK.”
Sara sat very still, the letter clasped in her hand. She had always secretly believed that some long-dead romance lay behind Patrick's bachelorhood, but she had never suspected that her own mother had been the woman he had loved.
The knowledge illumined all the past with a fresh light, investing it with a tender, reminiscent sentiment. It was easy now to understand the almost idyllic atmosphere Patrick had infused into their life together. Sara recognized it as the outcome of a love and fidelity as beautiful and devoted as it is rare. Patrick's love for her mother had partaken of the enduring qualities of the great passions of history. Paolo and Francesca, Abelard and Heloise—even they could have known no deeper, no more lasting love than that of Patrick Lovell for Pauline.
The love-letters of the dead woman lay on Sara's lap, still tied together with the black ribbon which Patrick's fingers must have knotted round them. There were only six of them—half-a-dozen memories of a love that had come hopelessly to grief—tangible memories which her lover had never had the heart to destroy.
Sara handled them caressingly, these few, pathetic records of a bygone passion, and at length, with hands that shook a little, she removed the ribbon that bound them together. Where it had lain, preserving the strip of paper beneath it from contact with the dust, bands of white traversed the faint discoloration which time had worked upon the outermost envelopes—mutely witnessing to the long years that had passed away since the letters had been penned in the first rapturous glow of hot young love.
Slowly, with a rather wistful sense of regret that it must needs be done, Sara dropped them one by one, unread, into the fire, and watched them flare up with a sudden spurt of flame, then curl and shrivel into dead, grey ash—those last links with the romance of his youth which Patrick had treasured so long and faithfully.
She wondered what manner of woman her mother could have been to inspire so great a love that even her own unfaith had failed to sour it. Her childish recollection, blurred by the passage of years, was of a white-faced, rather haggard-looking woman with deep-set, haunted eyes and a bitter mouth, but whose rare smile, when it came, was so enchanting that it wiped out, for the moment, all remembrance of the harsh lines which hardened her face when in repose.
With eager hands the girl picked up the little velvet case that held the miniature, and snapped open the lid. The painting within, rimmed in old paste, was of a girl in her early twenties. The face was oval, with a small, pointed chin and a vivid red mouth, curling up at the corners. There was little colour in the cheeks, and the black hair and extraordinarily dark eyes served to enhance the creamy pallor of the skin. It was not altogether an English face; the cheek-bones were too high, and there was a definiteness of colouring, a decisive sharpness of outline in the piquant features, not often found in a purely English type.
Seen thus, the face looked strangely familiar to Sara, and yet no memory of hers could recall her mother as she must have been at the time this portrait was painted.
The miniature still in her hand, she moved hesitatingly to a mirror, so placed that the light from the window fell full upon her as she faced it. In a moment the odd sense of familiarity was explained. There, looking back at her from the mirror, was the same sharply angled face, the same warm ivory pallor of complexion, accentuated by raven hair and black, sombre eyes. What was it Patrick had written? “No woman with your eyes and your mouth ever yet lived a loveless life.”
With a curious deliberation, Sara examined the features in question. The eyes were long, and the lids, opaquely white and fringed with jet-black lashes, slanted downwards a little at the outer corners, bestowing a curiously intense expression, such as one sometimes sees in the eyes of an actor, and the mouth was the same vividly scarlet mouth of the face in the miniature, at once passionate and sensitive.
The French strain in the Malincourt family had reproduced itself indubitably, both in the appearance of Pauline and of Pauline's daughter. Would the mother's tragedy, fruit of her singular charm and of a pride which had accorded love but a secondary place in her scheme of life, also be re-enacted in the case of the daughter? It seemed almost as though Patrick must have had pre-vision of some like fiery ordeal though which his “little old pal” might have to pass, so urgent had been the warning he had uttered.
Sara shivered, as if she, too, felt a prescience of coming disaster. It was as though a shadow had fallen across her path, a shadow of which the substance lay hidden, shrouded in the mists which veil the future.
The entrance to Barrow Court was somewhat forbidding. A flight of shallow granite steps, flanked by balustrades of the same austere substance, terminating in huge, rough-hewn pillars, led up to an enormous door of ancient oak, studded with nails—destined, it would seem, to resist the onslaught of an armed multitude. The sternness of its aspect, when the great door was closed, seemed to add an increased warmth to the suggestion of welcome it conveyed when, as now, it was swung hospitably open, emitting a ruddy glow of firelight from the hall beyond.
Sara was standing at the top of the granite steps, waiting to greet the Durwards, whose approach was already heralded by the humming of a motor far down the avenue.
A faint regret disquieted her. This was the last—the very last—time she would stand at the head of those stairs in the capacity of a hostess welcoming her guests; and even now her position there was merely an honorary one! In a few minutes, when Mrs. Durward should step across the threshold, it was she who would be transformed into the hostess, while Sara would have to take her place as a simple guest in the house which for twelve years had been her home.
Thrusting the thought determinedly aside, she watched the big limousine swing smoothly round the curve of the drive and pull up in front of the house, and there was no trace of reluctance in the smile of greeting which she summoned up for Major Durward's benefit as he alighted and came towards her with outstretched hand.
“But where are the others?” asked Sara, seeing that the chauffeur immediately headed the car for the garage.
“They're coming along on foot,” explained Durward. “Elisabeth declared they should see nothing of the place cooped up in the car, so they got out at the lodge and are walking across the park.”
Sara preceded him into the hall, and they stood chatting together by the tea-table until the sound of voices announced the arrival of the rest of the party.
“Here they are!” exclaimed Durward, hurrying forward to meet them, while Sara followed a trifle hesitatingly, conscious of a sudden accession of shyness.
Notwithstanding the charming letter she had received from Mrs. Durward, begging her to remain at Barrow Court exactly as long as it suited her, now that the moment had come which would actually install the new mistress of the Court, she began to feel as though her continued presence there might be regarded rather in the light of an intrusion.
Mrs. Durward's letter might very well have been dictated only by a certain superficial politeness, or, even, solely at the instance of her husband, and it was conceivable that the writer would be none too pleased that her invitation had been so literally interpreted.
In the course of a few seconds of time Sara contrived to work herself up into a condition bordering upon panic. And then a very low contralto voice, indescribably sweet, and with an audacious ripple of laughter running through it, swept all her scruples into the rubbish heap. There was no doubting the sincerity of the speaker.
“It was so nice of you not to run away, Miss Tennant.” As she spoke, Mrs. Durward shook hands cordially. “Poor Geoffrey couldn't help being the heir, you know, and if you'd refused to stay, he'd have felt just like the villain in a cinema film. You've saved us from becoming the crawling, self-reproachful wretches.” Then she turned and beckoned to her son. “This is Tim,” she said simply, but the quality of her voice was very much as though she had announced: “This is the sun, and moon, and stars.”
As mother and son stood side by side, Sara's first impression was that she had never seen two more beautiful people. They were both tall, and a kind of radiance seemed to envelope them—a glory imparted by the sheer force of perfect symmetry and health—and, in the case of the former of the two, there was an added charm in a certain little air of stateliness and distinction which characterized her movements.
Patrick's reminiscent comment on Elisabeth Durward recalled itself to Sara's mind: “I think she was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen,” and she recognized that almost any one might have truthfully subscribed to the same opinion.
Mrs. Durward must have been at least forty years of age—arguing from the presence of the six foot of young manhood whom she called son—but her appearance was still that of a woman who had not long passed her thirtieth milestone. The supple lines of her figure held the merest suggestion of maturity in their gracious curves, and the rich chestnut hair, swathed round her small, fine head, gleamed with the sheen which only youth or immense vitality bestows. Her skin was of that almost dazzling purity which is so often found in conjunction with reddish hair, and the defect of over-light brows and lashes, which not infrequently mars the type, was conspicuously absent. Her eyes were arresting. They were of a deep, hyacinth blue, very luminous and soft, and quite beautiful. But they held a curiously veiled expression—a something guarded and inscrutable—as though they hid some secret inner knowledge sentinelled from the world at large.
Sara, meeting their still, enigmatic gaze, was subtly conscious of an odd sense of repulsion, almost amounting to dread, and then Elisabeth, making some trivial observation as she moved nearer to the fire, smiled across at her, and, in the extraordinary charm of her smile, the momentary sensation of fear was forgotten.
Nevertheless, it was with a feeling of relief that Sara encountered the gay, frank glance of the son.
Tim Durward, though dowered to the full with his mother's beauty, had yet been effectually preserved from the misfortune of being an effeminate repetition of her. In him, Elisabeth's glowing auburn colouring had sobered to a steady brown—evidenced in the crisp, curly hair and sun-tanned skin; and the misty hyacinth-blue of her eyes had hardened in the eyes of her son into the clear, bright azure of the sea, whist the beautiful contours of her face, repeated in his, had strengthened into a fine young virility.
“I can't cure mother of introducing me as if I were the Lord Mayor,” he murmured plaintively to Sara as they sat down to tea. “I suppose it's the penalty of being an only son.”
“Nothing of the sort,” asserted Elisabeth composedly. “Naturally I'm pleased with you—you're so absurdly like me. I always look upon you in the light of a perpetual compliment, because you've elected to grow up like me instead of like Geoffrey”—nodding towards her husband. “After all, you had us both to choose from.”
Tim shouted with delight.
“Listen to her, Miss Tennant! And for years I've been mistaking mere vulgar female vanity for maternal solicitude.”
“Anyway, you're a very poor compliment,” threw in Major Durward, with an expressive glance at his wife's beautiful face. It was obvious that he worshipped her, and she smiled across at him, blushing adorably, just like a girl of sixteen.
Tim turned to Sara with a grimace.
“It's a great trial, Miss Tennant, to be blessed with two parents—”
“It's quite usual,” interpolated Geoffrey mildly.
“Two parents,” continued Tim, firmly ignoring him, “who are hopelessly, besottedly in love with each other. Instead of being—as I ought to be—the apple of their eye—of both their eyes—I'm merely the shadowy third.”
Sara surveyed his goodly proportions consideringly.
“No one would have suspected it,” she assured him; and Tim grinned appreciatively.
“If you stay with us long,” he replied, “as I hope”—impressively—“you will, you'll soon perceive how utterly I am neglected. Perhaps”—his face brightening—“you may be moved to take pity on my solitude—quite frequently.”
“Tim, stop being an idiot,” interposed his mother placidly, holding out her cup, “and ask Miss Tennant to give me another lump of sugar.”
The advent of the Durwards, breaking in upon her enforced solitude, helped very considerably to arouse Sara from the natural depression into which she had fallen after Patrick's death. With their absurdly large share of good looks, their charmingly obvious attachment to each other, and their enthusiastic, unconventional hospitality towards such an utter stranger as herself, devoid of any real claim upon them, she found the trio unexpectedly interesting and delightful. They had hailed her as a friend, and her frank, warm-hearted nature responded instantly, speedily according each of them a special niche in her regard. She felt as though Providence had suddenly endowed her with a whole family—“all complete and ready for use,” as Tim cheerfully observed—and the reaction from the oppressive consciousness of being entirely alone in the world acted like a tonic.
The first brief sentiment of aversion which she had experienced towards Elisabeth melted like snow in sunshine under the daily charm of her companionship; and though the hyacinth eyes held always in their depths that strange suggestion of mystery, Sara grew to believe it must be merely some curious effect incidental to the colour and shape of the eyes themselves, rather than an indication of the soul that looked out of them.
There was something perennially captivating about Elisabeth. An atmosphere of romance enveloped her, engendering continuous interest and surmise, and Sara found it wholly impossible to view her from an ordinary prosaic standpoint. Occasionally she would recall the fact that Mrs. Durward was in reality a woman of over forty, mother of a grown-up son who, according to all the usages of custom, should be settling down into the drab and placid backwater of middle age, but she realized that the description went ludicrously wide of the mark.
There was nothing in the least drab about Elisabeth, nor would there ever be. She was full of colour and brilliance, reminding one of a great glowing-hearted rose in its prime.
Part of her charm, undoubtedly, lay in her attitude towards husband and son. She was still as romantically in love with Major Durward as any girl in her teens, and she adored Tim quite openly.
Inevitably, perhaps, there was a touch of the spoilt woman about her, since both men combined to indulge her in every whim. Nevertheless, there was nothing either small or petty in her willfulness. It was rather the superb, stately arrogance of a queen, and she was kindness itself to Sara.
But the largest share of credit in restoring the latter to a more normal and less highly strung condition was due to Tim, who gravitated towards her with the facility common to natural man when he finds himself for any length of time under the same roof with an attractive young person of the opposite sex. He had an engaging habit of appearing at the door of Sara's sitting-room with an ingratiating: “I say, may I come in for a yarn?” And, upon receiving permission, he would establish himself on the hearth-rug at her feet and proceed to prattle to her about his own affairs, much as a brother might have done to a favourite sister, and with an equal assurance that his confidences would be met with sympathetic interest.
“What are you going to do with yourself, Tim?” asked Sara one day, as he sprawled in blissful indolence on the great bearskin in front of her fire, pulling happily at a beloved old pipe.
“Do with myself?” he repeated. “What do you mean? I'm doing very comfortably just at present”—glancing round him appreciatively.
“I mean—what are you going to be? Aren't you going to enter any profession?”
Tim sat up suddenly, removing his pipe from his mouth.
“No,” he said shortly.
“But why not? You can't slack about here for ever, doing nothing. I should have thought you would have gone into the Army, like your father.”
His blue eyes hardened.
“That's what I wanted to do,” he said gruffly. “But the mother wouldn't hear of it.”
Sara could sense the pain in his suddenly roughened tones.
“But why? You'd make a splendid soldier, Tim”—eyeing his long length affectionately.
“I should have loved it,” he said wistfully. “I wanted it more than anything. But mother worried so frightfully whenever I suggested the idea that I had to give it up. I'm to learn to be a landowner and squire and all that sort of tosh instead.”
“But that could come later.”
Tim shrugged his shoulders.
“Of course it could. But mother refused point-blank to let me go to Sandhurst. So now, unless a war crops up—and it doesn't look as though there's much chance of that!—I'm out of the running. But if it ever does, Sara”—he laid his hand eagerly on her knee—“I swear I'll be one of the first to volunteer. I was a fool to give in to the mother over the matter, only she was simply making herself ill about it, and, of course, I couldn't stand that.”
Sara wondered why Mrs. Durward should have interfered to prevent her son from following what was obviously his natural bent. It would have seemed almost inevitable that, as a soldier's son, he should enter one or other of the Services, and instead, here he was, stranded in a little country backwater, simply eating his heart out. Mentally she determined to broach the subject to Elisabeth as soon as an opportunity presented itself; but for the moment she skillfully drew the conversation away from what was evidently a sore subject, and suggested that Tim should accompany her into Fallowdene, where she had an errand at the post office. He assented eagerly, with a shake of his broad shoulders as though to rid himself of the disagreeable burden of his thoughts.
From the window of his wife's sitting-room Major Durward watched the two as they started on their way to the village, evidently on the best of terms with one another, a placid smile spreading beneficently over his face as they vanished round the corner of the shrubbery.
“Anything in it, do you think?” he asked, seeing that Elisabeth's gaze had pursued the same course.
“It's impossible to say,” she answered quietly. “Tim imagines himself to be falling in love, I don't doubt; but at twenty-two a boy imagines himself in love with half the girls he meets.”
“I didn't,” declared Geoffrey promptly. “I fell in love with you at the mature age of nineteen—and I never fell out again.”
Elisabeth flashed him a charming smile.
“Perhaps Tim may follow in your footsteps, then,” she suggested serenely.
“Well, would you be pleased?” persisted her husband, jerking his head explanatorily in the direction in which Sara and Tim had disappeared.
“I shall always be pleased with the woman who makes Tim happy,” she answered simply.
Durward was silent a moment; then he returned to the attack.
“She's a very pretty young woman, don't you think?”
“Sara? No, I shouldn't call her exactly pretty. Her face is too thin, and strong, and eager. But she is a very uncommon type—like a black and white etching, and immensely attractive.”
It was several days before Sara was able to introduce the topic of Tim's profession, but she contrived it one afternoon when she and Elisabeth were sitting together awaiting the return of the two men for tea.
“It will be profession enough for Tim to look after the property,” Elisabeth made answer. “He can act as agent for his father to some extent, and relieve him of a great deal of necessary business that has to be transacted.”
She spoke with a certain finality which made it difficult to pursue the subject, but Sara, remembering Tim's suddenly hard young eyes, persisted.
“It's a pity he cannot go into the Army—he's so keen on it,” she suggested tentatively.
A curious change came over Elisabeth's face. It seemed to Sara as though a veil had descended, from behind which the inscrutable eyes were watching her warily. But the response was given lightly enough.
“Oh, one of the family in the Service is enough. I should see so little of my Tim if he became a soldier—only an occasional 'leave.'”
“He would make a very good soldier,” said Sara. “To my mind, it's the finest profession in the world for any man.”
“Do you think so?” Elisabeth spoke coldly. “There are many risks attached to it.”
Sara experienced a revulsion of feeling; she had not expected Elisabeth to be of the fearful type of woman. Women of splendid physique and abounding vitality are rarely obsessed by craven apprehensions.
“I don't think the risks would count with Tim,” she said warmly. “He has any amount of pluck.” And then she stared at Elisabeth in amazement. A sudden haggardness had overspread the elder woman's face, the faint shell-pink that usually flushed her cheeks draining away and leaving them milk-white.
“Yes,” she replied in stifled tones. “I don't suppose Tim's a coward. But”—more lightly—“I think I am. I—don't think I care for the Army as a profession. Tim is my only child,” she added self-excusingly. “I can't let him run risks—of any kind.”
As she spoke, an odd foreboding seized hold of Sara. It was as though the secret dread ofsomething—she could not tell what—which held the mother had communicated itself to her.
She shivered. Then, the impression fading as quickly as it had come, she spoke defiantly, as if trying to reassure herself.
“There aren't many risks in these piping times of peace. Soldiers don't die in battle nowadays; they retire on a pension.”
“Die in battle! Did you think I was afraid of that?” There was a sudden fierce contempt in Elisabeth's voice.
Sara looked at her with astonishment.
“Weren't you?” she said hesitatingly.
Elisabeth seemed about to make some passionate rejoinder. Then, all at once, she checked herself, and again Sara was conscious of that curiously secretive expression in her eyes, as though she were on guard.
“There are many things worse than death,” she said evasively, and deliberately turned the conversation into other channels.
During the days that followed, Sara became aware of a faintly perceptible difference in her relations with Elisabeth. The latter was still just as charming as ever, but she seemed, in some inexplicable way, to have set a limit to their intimacy—defined a boundary line which she never intended to be overstepped.
It was as though she felt that she had allowed Sara to approach too nearly some inner sanctum which she had hitherto guarded securely from all intrusion, and now hastened to erect a barricade against a repetition of the offence.
More than once, lately, Sara had broached the subject of her impending departure from Barrow, only to have the suggestion incontinently brushed aside by Major Durward, who declared that he declined to discuss any such disagreeable topic. But now, sensitively conscious that she had troubled Elisabeth's peace in some way, she decided to make definite arrangements regarding her immediate future.
She was agreeably surprised, when she propounded her idea, to find Mrs. Durward seemed quite as unwilling to part with her as were both her husband and son. Apparently the alteration in her manner, with its curiously augmented reticence, was no indication of any personal antipathy, and Sara felt proportionately relieved, although somewhat mystified.
“We shall all miss you,” averred Elisabeth, and there was absolute sincerity in her tones. “I don't see why you need be in such a hurry to run away from us.” And Geoffrey and Tim chorused approval.
Sara beamed upon them all with humid eyes.
“It's dear of you to want me to stay with you,” she declared. “But, don't you see, Imustlive my own life—have a roof-tree of my own? I can't just sit down comfortably in the shade of yours.”
“Pushful young woman!” chaffed Geoffrey. “Well, I can see your mind is made up. So what are your plans? Let's hear them.”
“I thought of taking rooms for a while with some really nice people—gentlefolk who wanted to take a paying guest—”
“Poor but honest, in fact,” supplemented Geoffrey.
Sara nodded.
“Yes. You see”—smiling—“you people have spoiled me for living alone, and as I'm really rather a solitary individual, I must find a little niche for myself somewhere.” She unfolded a letter she was holding. “I thought I should like to go near the sea—to some quite tiny country place at the back of beyond. And I think I've found just the thing. I saw an advertisement for a paying guest—of the female persuasion—so I replied to it, and I've just had an answer to my letter. It's from a doctor man—a Dr. Selwyn, at Monkshaven—who has an invalid wife and one daughter, and he writes such an original kind of epistle that I'm sure I should like him.”
Geoffrey held out his hand for the letter, running his eyes down its contents, while his wife, receiving an assenting nod from Sara in response to her “May I?” looked over his shoulder.
Only Tim appeared to take no interest in the matter, but remained standing rather aloof, staring out of the window, his back to the trio grouped around the hearth.
“'Household . . . myself, wife, one daughter,'” muttered Geoffrey. “Um-um—'quarter of a mile from the sea'—um——'As you will have guessed from the fact of my advertising'”—here he began to read aloud—“'we are not too lavishly blessed with this world's goods. Our house is roomy and comfortable, though abominably furnished. But I can guarantee the climate, and there are plenty of nicer people than ourselves in the neighbourhood. It wouldn't be fitting for me to blow our own particular household trumpet—nor, to tell the truth, is it always calculated to give forth melodious sounds; but if the other considerations I have mentioned commend themselves to you, I suggest that you come down and make trial of us.'”
“Don't you think he sounds just delightful?” queried Sara.
Manlike, Geoffrey shook his head disapprovingly.
“No, I don't,” he said decisively. “That's the most unbusinesslike letter I've ever read.”
“Ilike it very much,” announced Elisabeth with equal decision. “The man writes just as he thinks—perfectly frankly and naturally. I should go and give them a trial as he suggests. Sara, if I were you.”
“That's what I feel inclined to do,” replied Sara. “I thought it a delicious letter.”
Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders resignedly.
“Then, of course, if you two women have made up your minds that the man's a natural saint, I may as well hold my peace. What's the fellow's address?—I'll look him up in the Medical Directory. Richard Selwyn, Sunnyside, Monkshaven—that right?”
He departed to the library in search of Dr. Selywn's credentials, presently returning with a somewhat rueful grin on his face.
“He seems all right—rather a clever man, judging by his degrees and the appointments he has held,” he acknowledged grudgingly.
“I'm sure he's all right, asserted Sara firmly.
“Although I don't understand why such a good man at his job should be practicing in a little one-horse place like Monkshaven,” retorted Geoffrey maliciously.
“Probably he went there on account of his wife's health,” suggested Elisabeth. “He says she is an invalid.”
“Oh, well”—Geoffrey yielded unwillingly—“I suppose you'll go, Sara. But if the experiment isn't a success you must come back to us at once. Is that a bargain?”
Sara hesitated.
“Promise,” commanded Geoffrey. “Or”—firmly—“I'm hanged if we let you go at all.”
“Very well,” agreed Sara meekly. “I'll promise.”
“I hope the experiment will be an utter failure,” observed Tim, later on, when he and Sara were alone together. He spoke with an oddly curt—almost inimical—inflection in his voice.
“Now that's unkind of you, Tim,” she protested smilingly. “I thought you were a good enough pal not to want to chortle over me—as I know Geoffrey will—should the thing turn out a frost!”
“Well, I'm not, then,” he returned roughly.
The churlish tones were so unlike Tim that Sara looked up at him in some amazement. He was staring down at her with a strange,awakenedexpression in his eyes; his face was very white and his mouth working.
With a sudden apprehension of what was impending, she sprang up, stretching out her hand as though to ward it off.
“No—no, Tim. It isn't—don't say it's that——”
He caught her hand and held it between both his.
“But itisthat,” he said, speaking very fast, the serenity of his face all broken up by the surge of emotion that had gripped him. “It is that. I love you. I didn't know it till you spoke of going away. Sara—”
“Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!” She broke in hastily. “Don't say any more, Tim—please don't!”
In the silence that followed the two young faces peered at each other—the one desperate with love, the other full of infinite regret and pleading.
At last—
“It's no use, then?” said Tim dully. “You don't care?”
“I'm afraid I don't—not like that. I thought we were friends—just friends, Tim,” she urged.
Tim lifted his head, and she saw that somehow, in the last few minutes, he had grown suddenly older. His gay, smiling mouth had set itself sternly; the beautiful boyish face had become a man's.
“I thought so, too,” he said gently. “But I know now that what I feel for you isn't friendship. It's”—with a short, grim laugh—“something much more than that. Tell me, Sara—will there ever be any chance for me?”
She hesitated. She was so genuinely fond of him that she hated to give him pain. Looking at him, standing before her in his splendid young manhood, she wondered irritably why shedidn'tlove him. He was pre-eminently loveable.
He caught eagerly at her hesitation.
“Don't answer me now!” he said swiftly. “I'll wait—give me a chance. I can't take no . . . I won't take it!” he went on masterfully. “I love you!” Impetuously he slipped his strong young arms about her and kissed her on the mouth.
The previous moment she had been all softness and regret, but now, at the sudden passion in his voice, something within her recoiled violently, repudiating the claim his love had made upon her.
Sara was the last woman in the world to be taken by storm. She was too individual, her sense of personal independence too strongly developed, for her ever to be swept off her feet by a passion to which her own heart offered no response. Instead, it roused her to a definite consciousness of opposition, and she drew herself away from Tim's eager arms with a decision there was no mistaking.
“I'm sorry, Tim,” she said quietly. “But it's no good pretending I'm in love with you. I'm not.”
He looked at her with moody, dissatisfied eyes.
“I've spoken too soon,” he said. “I should have waited. Only I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes.” He spoke uncertainly. “I've had a feeling that if I let you go, you'll meet some man down there, at Monkshaven, who'll want to marry you . . . And I shall lose you! . . . Oh, Sara! I don't ask you to say you love me—yet. Say that you'll marry me . . . I'd teach you the rest—you'd learn to love me.”
But that fierce, unpremeditated kiss—the first lover's kiss that she had known—had endowed her with a sudden clarity of vision.
“No,” she answered steadily. “I don't know much about love, Tim, but I'm very sure it's no use trying to manufacture it to order, and—listen, Tim, dear,” the pain in his face making her suddenly all tenderness again—“if I married you, and afterwards youcouldn'tteach me as you think you could, we should only be wretched together.”