One man sows and another reaps, and sometimes the harvest is a curiously unexpected one for the reaper. Coventry had sown harshness and distrust, and Brett reaped a harvest of kindness and favour in the quarter where he least anticipated it.
Ann, exasperated by his cool impertinence at their last meeting, had merely vouchsafed him the briefest of greetings when they had met at the rectory party, and had consistently avoided him for the remainder of the afternoon. But when, with his usual debonair assurance, he presented himself at Oldstone Cottage the following day, she received him with unwonted graciousness and appeared to have entirely forgotten that he had given her any just cause for offence.
Yesterday she had felt crushed by the magnitude of the blow which had fallen on her, and in her treatment of Forrester she had almost mechanically adopted the detached and chilly attitude prompted by her annoyance with him. But to-day reaction had set in, and, like many another of her sex, she sought to exorcise the pain which one man had inflicted by flirting recklessly with another. It is a method which has its risks, more especially if the second man happens to be dangerously in love, but a woman hurt as Ann had been hurt does not stop to count risks, but only seeks blindly for something—anything—that may serve to distract her thoughts and keep at bay memories of which the smart and sting is too intolerable to be borne.
Forrester was quick to perceive her altered attitude towards him and to take advantage of it, although, with a diplomacy foreign to his usual tactics and perhaps based on Lady Susan’s warning counsels, he kept himself well in hand. Vaguely recognising behind the alteration in Ann’s manner some impulse of which he could not fathom the source, he merely accepted the fact of the change and set himself to amuse and entertain her—to hold her interest without frightening her.
During the next few days he was with her almost constantly. One day he rowed her over to a distant promontory, when they picnicked together on the brow of the cliffs, afterwards exploring the woods which crowned them. Another time they motored into Ferribridge, where Ann, long denied the sight of a shop window, revelled in the opportunity to spend her pennies and shopped riotously. Yet another time, on the day preceding that fixed for the dinner-party on board theSphinx, they rode together on the downs—Ann mounted on Dick Turpin, Brett on a bad-tempered, unruly mare which Lady Susan had bred and which the grooms at White Windows were terrified to back.
Forrester’s horsemanship was superb. He had hands of steel and velvet, and fear was an unknown quantity to him. Ann watched the ensuing tussle between man and beast with unequivocal admiration. The mare, a big raking bay, with black points and a white blaze, sulkily obeyed her rider’s curbing hands upon the bridle whilst they rode through the lanes, but when they emerged upon the wide, swelling sweep of the downs, she evidently decided that the moment had come to assert her independence.
She commenced operations by going straight up in the air—so straight that for an instant Ann thought she must surely topple backwards, and wondered with a little breathless thrill of admiration how Brett contrived to keep his seat at all at such an angle. Possibly the mare wondered also, for, coming down once more on all four feet to find the hated incumbrance still astride her back, she reared again, immediately. Ann had a vision of two black hoofs pawing the air indignantly, then, swift as a flash of light, Brett had flung himself forward on the mare’s neck and brought his crop down on her head between the pointed ears. She came down to earth with a bang, plunged violently, then, giving an evil twist to her whole body, started bucking with all the wicked energy that was in her.
Brett had a magnificent seat, but twice she nearly had him out of the saddle, and it is certain that if he had not been blest with almost inexhaustible staying power, combined with a pliant strength of muscle, he would have come off second best in the contest of wills, for the mare seemed tireless, and looked as though she could go on bucking—and enjoying the process, too—till the crack of doom. Finding, however, that she could not rid herself of Forrester by the same methods which had proved easily successful with the stable lads at White Windows, she uttered a squeal of rage, laid back her ears, and bolted hell-for-leather across the downs.
This proved altogether too much for Dick Turpin’s composure. He was seized with a spirited desire to go and do likewise, and for a moment or two Ann had her hands full. Gradually, however, she steadied his first wild rush to a gallop, then to a canter, and finally, as he eased into a trot, she dared to direct her attention elsewhere and look round to discover what had become of Brett.
She caught her breath with a gasp of dismay. Far ahead she could see the bay mare streaking across the downs, with Brett still square in the saddle, headed straight for the edge of the cliffs. From the way she tore along Ann knew she must be practically out of hand, and, if Brett were unable to turn her, the next few minutes would see horse and rider leap into space, to fall headlong down on to the rocks two hundred feet below.
Instinctively she urged her cob in pursuit, though subconsciously aware of the utter futility of it—of her absolute helplessness to avert disaster. Sick with horror, she could see the mare rocketing wildly towards the brink of the cliff. Almost she thought she could hear the thunderous beat of the maddened hoofs racing the beat of her own heart as it thudded in her ears, feel the wind of that reckless rush towards destruction. Nearer ... nearer to the cliff’s edge.... Ann’s whole body stiffened convulsively in anticipation of the inevitable catastrophe.
Then, just when it seemed as though the end were come, the mare gave a shrill scream of terror and swerved violently in her stride, with a suddenness that sent her staggering to her knees. She slithered along the turf, then, scrambling to her feet, stood stock still, her head thrust forward, snorting with fright.
What followed was so surprising that Ann, about to urge her pony onward, pulled up in astonishment. In some miraculous way Brett had retained his seat in the saddle, and instead of dismounting, as she expected him to do, he lifted his arm and brought his crop hard down on the mare’s quarters, so that she leaped forward, and the next moment he was sending her along as fast as she could gallop, while his arm rose and fell like a flail, thrashing her unmercifully. They fled past Ann at racing speed, and she watched, dumb with amazement, while Brett steered a huge semicircular course on the downs, keeping the animal he rode at full stretch the whole time. When at last they came back and pulled up, the mare’s breath was sobbing in her throat, while Brett himself, hatless and deadly pale beneath his crop of ruddy hair, was almost reeling in the saddle.
Rather stiffly he dismounted and, slipping the reins loosely over his arm, walked towards Ann, the mare following him meekly, like a beaten child. He looked fagged out, but his blue eyes still gleamed with their old indomitable fire.
“Brett! How could you?” exclaimed Ann breathlessly, as they approached.
“How could I—what?”
“Gallop the mare like that, just after she’d run away? She might have bolted with you again.”
He threw back his head and laughed.
“Not likely! She’ll never try those tricks with me again. Will you, old lady?”—and he rubbed the black velvet muzzle at his side with a kindly hand. To Ann’s astonishment, the mare, dripping with the sweat of sheer exhaustion, her coat striped with the hiding Brett had given her, pushed her head forward, nuzzling his sleeve.
“She bolted the first time for her own amusement,” he continued. “The second gallop was for mine”—grimly. “Don’t you see, she’d have bolted again whenever the fit took her if I hadn’t punished her. The only cure was to make her gallop till she was dead beat. She knows which of us is master now. And she doesn’t bear me any grudge, either. Do you, old thing?” And he patted the mare’s streaming neck.
“I wonder she doesn’t,” said Ann. “Wasn’t it—rather brutal of you?”
“Not a bit. Merely necessary. And neither people nor animals bear a grudge when once they are mastered, fair and square.” His eyes, with a gay, dare-devil challenge in them, flashed up and met hers. “You’ll find that out some day,” he added.
“I hope not,” replied Ann stiffly. Then, remembering how near death he had been, she softened. “Anyway, I’m thankful you’re alive. I don’t know how you managed to pull the mare round as you did.”
“Ipull her round? My dear girl, if it had rested with me, we should both be lying in smithereens at the present moment, on the rocks below. She realised the drop just in the nick of time, and wheeled before we got to it.”
“What do you mean—she realised it? How could she?”
For a moment Brett’s eyes held a curious gravity.
“I can’t tell you,” he said at last, simply. “Only I know horses have a kind of instinct which very often warns them of danger. I’ve seen a similar thing happen once before, in the hunting field. A man was riding straight for a high bank that looked just like an ordinary on and off jump. You couldn’t see what lay beyond it, and on the further side there was a forty-foot drop into a quarry. His horse had its forefeet actually on the bank—and then it must have sensed the danger, for it swung right round, just as the mare did to-day.”
As he finished speaking, he gathered up the reins and remounted.
“We’d better be jogging homeward, I think,” he said. “The mare’s too hot to stand about. I don’t want her to catch cold.”
They rode slowly over the springy turf, the bay mare beaten but not cowed, responding docilely to every touch of Brett’s hands on the bridle. She had learned her lesson, recognised the man who rode her as her master.
Ann was very quiet, her thoughts preoccupied with the happenings of the afternoon. In some sort, they shed a fresh light on the character of the man beside her. It was impossible not to admire his cool composure in the face of danger, and his unexpected kindliness to the mare, once he had asserted his supremacy over her, and her responsiveness to his caress, had astonished Ann considerably. She had thought Brett purely brutal when she had watched him force the frightened, flagging horse anew into a gallop, but no man could be all brute to whom an animal would turn with such mute confidence as the mare had shown when the struggle between them was over.
Behind Brett’s careless courage, Ann recognised an insistent force and dominance that frightened her. If he could be so invincibly determined to subdue the will of a horse, how would it fare with any woman whom he had made up his mind to conquer? Would his persistency at last beat down her opposition? Or, if the woman’s will were strong enough to resist him, would the fight between them go on—endlessly? Somehow she could not imagine Forrester laying down his weapons to admit defeat.
They were now approaching the big headland flanking Silverquay harbour, and, as the waters of the bay came into view, Ann’s eyes went instinctively to theSphinx, where she rode at anchor, specklessly clean and shining in the brilliant sunlight. She had often admired the yacht, with her long, graceful lines that promised speed, and on occasion, when she had steamed out of the bay, Ann missed her from her accustomed anchorage—feeling rather as though a bit of the landscape had vanished, leaving a gap. But now, for the first time, she was conscious of a disagreeable impression at the sight of the yacht gleaming there in the sun. It seemed as though it were there on guard, watching ... waiting ... motionless and silent, like a sleek cat watching at the mouth of a mousehole. Interminably patient. She glanced at Forrester, riding quietly at her side, and recalled his battle with the bay mare. He and the yacht—his yacht. Both so quiet, and both with such an infinite latent capacity for swift, directed action.
She shivered a little, and was aware of an inward sensation of relief when the horses at last pulled up at the gate of the Cottage and Billy Brewster flew out from the stables to take charge of the pony. The sight of the boy’s rubicund, commonplace face gave her a feeling of reassurance, seeming to restore the normal, everyday atmosphere which the uncomfortable train of thought evoked by theSphinxhad momentarily dissipated.
“Well, I suppose I shan’t see you to-morrow—until the evening?” Brett, standing by her side, the mare’s bridle over his arm, was regarding her with an oddly mocking expression in his eyes. She almost felt as though he had been reading her thoughts. “I shall be going backwards and forwards to the yacht, to see that everything is shipshape for my party to-morrow night.”
“Don’t forget to hang up a full moon in the sky, by way of decoration,” suggested Ann, trying to speak lightly.
“The matter shall receive attention,” he replied gravely. “Aunt Susan and I shall go aboard early, of course, but the dinghy will be waiting for you all at the jetty at half-past seven.” He shook hands, sprang into the saddle, and a minute later his horse’s hoofs clattered away into the distance.
Ann turned and walked slowly up the path into the house. She wondered whether—now—Eliot Coventry would be at the dinner on board the yacht. She had not seen him since the day of the rectory garden-party, and she could think no other than that he had deliberately kept out of her way.
Dinner was over on board theSphinx, and the whole party were gathered on deck for coffee. It had been a very perfect little dinner. Forrester was a confirmed diner-out in London, and no one knew better than he how to arrange a menu. Lady Susan played hostess charmingly, and under her benign influence the various unsympathetic elements included in the party had fused together more pleasantly than might have been anticipated.
Coventry had duly arrived, and although, as luck would have it, he found himself seated next to Mrs. Halyard, the fact that no one but the two people most intimately concerned were aware of any particular reason why they should not sit together enabled them to carry off the situation without visible effort. It had been a matter of more difficulty to merge Miss Caroline’s personality into the prevailing atmosphere, but every one helped. They were all used to the fact that if they wanted to enjoy the rector’s company they must be prepared to put up with his sister’s, since the canons of a country neighbourhood forbade inviting the one without the other, and on this particular evening Forrester had chaffed her into such good humour that she became quite skittish, and contributed some truly surprising outbursts of frivolity to the general conversation.
“Rejuvenation while you wait,” Robin had murmured to Cara, under cover of the buzz of talk.
Mrs. Hilyard had laughed that low, pretty laugh of hers which was always free from the least suspicion of “cattiness.” “I defy any one to maintain a grown-up attitude when Brett decides that they shan’t,” she made answer.
Thanks to the arrangement of their respective seats at the table, Ann had been able to avoid holding any conversation with Eliot without provoking comment. She had dreaded meeting him again, feeling that it would be difficult to re-establish the merely friendly relations which had existed between them until one tense, glowing moment had swept aside convention and pretence and let each see deep into the other’s heart.
But the meeting passed off more easily than she had dared to hope. They exchanged brief greetings on the quay, where Brett Forrester’s guests had collected together and were waiting to board the yacht’s dinghy, and during the short passage across the bay to where theSphinxlay anchored she and Cara and Miss Caroline had sat chatting together in the stern of the boat, leaving the three men to talk amongst themselves. And now, as the whole party emerged on to the deck for coffee, Ann found herself safely wedged in between Brett and the rector, with Coventry, much to her relief, established at the other end of the semicircle of chairs.
It was a glorious evening. The moon—“according to, orders,” as Brett had laughingly reminded her—hung like a great lambent globe in the sky, throwing a shimmering track of silver across the waters of the bay, and dappling the ripples of the sea beyond with shifting Jack-o’-Lantern gleams of light. The deck of theSphinxshone with an almost dazzling whiteness, accentuated by the black patches of sharp shadow flung across it.
Ann sat quietly enjoying the peaceful beauty of it all, oblivious to the hum of conversation around her. For the time being she lost that sense of fear and dread of the yacht which had so curiously obsessed her yesterday. Now it seemed but a component part of the beautiful scene—to shoreward, a ragged string of cottage lights climbing the hill-side, speaking of hearth and home and of rest after the day’s labour, and beyond, the still, calm moon and tranquil bay, and the yacht, with its whiteness and sharp-cut shadows, lying motionless like some legendary vessel carved in alabaster.
“What’s your opinion, Ann?”
The question startled her, severing the dreaming thread of her thoughts. She roused herself with a smile.
“My opinion about what? I’m afraid I didn’t hear what was being said.”
“About pains and penalties,” explained Cara,
“They sound unpleasant.”
“They are—very,” agreed Lady Susan with her jolly laugh. “The question under discussion is whether we all eventually have to pay up for our misdeeds—even in this world.”
“I think we do—in some form or another,” said Tempest quietly. “Only perhaps we don’t always recognise the penalty,asa penalty, when it comes.”
“Then it seems rather a waste, doesn’t it?” suggested Brett idly.
The rector’s quiet eyes rested on the speaker.
“I don’t think so. If we recognised it as a punishment, we should probably resent it so much that it wouldn’t do us any good—just as spanking doesn’t really do a child any good but only rouses its naughty temper. Whereas when it comes unrecognised, even though it may be the outcome of our own mistaken actions, it educates and changes us—does, in fact, just what punishment is really designed to do, acts as a remedial force. I think God often works like that.”
“Only, sometimes, the sinner isn’t the only one who pays,” threw in Coventry shortly.
“He’s the only one who doesn’t pay, generally speaking,” answered Brett, with a grin. “He flourishes like a green bay tree instead. I never dream of paying for my sins,” he added cheerfully.
Tempest smiled—that tolerant, good-humoured smile of his which always took the sting out of anything he might say.
“You’re not at the end of life yet, Mr. Forrester,” he observed quietly.
Brett laughed.
“Are you threatening me with an ‘account rendered’ of all my evil deeds—to he paid for in a sort of lump sum?”
“Even that might be preferable to having your punishment spread out all over your life,” said Cara, with a faint note of weariness in her voice which passed unnoticed by all except Coventry, who threw her a quick, searching glance.
“Like thinly spread butter?” suggested Brett blithely.
“Cara didn’t say anything about it being thinly spread,” retorted Ann, laughing. “I should think yours might be rather thick.”
Amid the general laughter and chaff which followed the original topic of conversation was lost sight of, and presently some one suggested a game of auction. Miss Caroline’s blue bead eyes gleamed at the very sound of the word. She loved a game of bridge, but for parochial reasons adhered firmly to stakes of not more than a penny a hundred. Tempest had vainly argued with her that she might equally as well play for a more usual amount, such as sixpence or a shilling, and this without outraging the susceptibilities of the parish—that if she played for money at all the principle involved was precisely the same, but she either could not or would not comprehend. Bridge at a penny a hundred was apparently an innocent occupation—at anything higher, an awful example.
“Then we’ll play for a penny a hundred,” declared Lady Susan good-humouredly, when Miss Caroline had explained her scruples. “Who’ll play? You will, Mr. Tempest? And you, Robin? That’ll make one table. What about you others?”
“I don’t play bridge,” said Brett mendaciously, addingsotto voceto Lady Susan: “A least, I can’t afford to play for a penny a hundred, beloved aunt.” Then aloud: “Besides, Ann wants to see all over the boat, so I’m going to trot her round.”
Ann laughed in spite of herself, never having expressed any such desire as was thus coolly attributed to her. But she submitted good-naturedly enough to being carried off by Brett on a tour of inspection, whilst Lady Susan and the rector, accompanied by Robin and Miss Caroline, went below to play bridge, leaving Mrs. Hilyard and Coventry alone together on deck.
A silence fell between them. Throughout the whole time which had elapsed since they had both come to live at Silverquay they had never before been actually alone. By tacit consent they had mutually avoided such a happening, and now, without any possibility of escape, it seemed to Cara that they were suddenly enfolded in a solitude which shut out the rest of the world entirely.
She twisted her fingers nervously together, vibrantly conscious of Coventry’s tall, silent figure beside her, and her breath struggled a little in her throat at the memory of all that had once linked their lives together, of which there remained now only an abiding bitterness and contempt.
The silence seemed to close round her like a pall, suffocating her. She felt she could not endure it a minute longer.
“I hardly expected to see you here to-night,” she said at last, the usual sweetness of her voice roughened by reason of the effort it cost her to speak at all.
“No. Dinner-parties aren’t quite in my line,” returned Eliot dryly. “But, having been fool enough to say I’d come, I keep my word.”
He glanced towards her as he spoke, and she flushed faintly beneath his scrutiny. The latter part of the speech pricked her like an arrow sped from the past, though it was difficult to estimate from the man’s impassive face whether or no he had actually intended to imply a deeper significance than the surface meaning which the words conveyed. Cara felt that she must know—at any cost she must know.
“Is that meant as a—protest?” she asked, assuming an air of playful indifference which she was very far from feeling. “Am I intended to take it as a rebuke?”
Perhaps the light detachment of her manner jangled some long-silent chord, roused an echo from the past, for his face darkened.
“You can take it so, if you wish,” he said curtly.
She was silent. In that brief question and answer she had covertly appealed for mercy and had received judgment—the same judgment which had been pronounced against her years ago. She had never thought it possible that Eliot would learn to care for her again. She knew the man too well to believe that he would have any love left to give the woman who had despoiled him of all a man values—broken his faith, destroyed the ideals that had once been his. Moreover, she had seen clear down into his soul that day at Berrier Cove, when Ann had come within an ace of death, and she knew that on the ruins of the old love a new love was building.
But, deep within her, she had hoped that Eliot’s savage bitterness towards her might have softened with the passage of time—that perhaps he had learned to tincture his contempt for her with a little understanding and compassion, allowing something in excuse for youth and for the long, grinding years of poverty which had ground the courage out of her and driven her into making that one ghastly mistake for which life had exacted such a heavy penalty. She knew now that she had hoped in vain. He was as merciless as he had been that day, ten years ago, when he had turned away and left her alone in an old Italian garden, with the happy sunlight and the scent of flowers mocking the half-realised despair at her heart.
“Then you haven’t ever—forgiven me?” she said at last, haltingly.
He stared at her.
“Isn’t that rather a curious question to ask? You killed everything in life that mattered—damned my chances of happiness once and for always.... No, I don’t think I’ve forgiven you. I’ve endeavoured to forget you.” He paused, then added with a brief, ironic laugh: “It was a queer joke for fate to play—bringing us both to the same neighbourhood.”
“I didn’t know,” said Cara hastily. “You know that, don’t you? I had no idea you lived here when I bought the Priory. Even when I heard—afterwards—that a Mr. Coventry owned Heronsmere, I never dreamed it could be you. You see, I was told he was very wealthy—”
“And the Coventry you knew was—poor!”
It was like the thrust of a rapier, and Cara winced under the concentrated scorn of the bitter speech.
“You are very merciless,” she said, her voice shaken and uneven.
“Then leave it at that,” he rejoined indifferently. “I’ve no particular grounds for being anything else. The past is dead—and it won’t stand resurrection.”
“Does the past ever die?” she demanded, a note of despair in her voice. “I think not.”
He looked at her curiously—at the beautiful face, a trifle worn and shadowed, with its sad eyes and that strangely patient curve of mouth.
“What do you mean?” he asked sharply.
“One pays, Eliot.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, yes, one pays. But, in this particular instance, I thought it was I who paid and you who took delivery of the goods.”
She sprang up.
“Then you were wrong!” she exclaimed in low, passionate tones that, in spite of himself, moved him strangely. “If you paid, I paid, too—every day of my life. Oh, I had my punishment”—with a little laugh that held more anguish than any tears. “Full measure, pressed down, running over.”
He bent his sombre gaze on her.
“I don’t think I understand,” he said slowly.
“Don’t you?” With a swift movement she thrust back the loose tulle sleeve which veiled her arm, uncovering the ugly, rust-coloured scar which marred its whiteness.
“That—that—?” He stammered off into a shocked silence, his eyes fastened on the scar, so unmistakably that of a burn.
“That is the symbol of my married life,” she said with a curious enforced calm. She let her sleeve fall back into its place. “Did you never hear? Dene drank—it was no secret. He was quite mad at times.”
“And he—ill-treated you?”
“When it amused him. He had a passion for cruelty. I never knew it till I married him. I found out afterwards he had been the same even as a child. He loved torturing things.” She paused, then added with a simplicity that was infinitely pitiful: “So you see, I had my punishment.”
“I was abroad. I never knew,” said Eliot, as though in extenuation of something of which he inwardly accused himself. “I never knew,” he repeated resentfully. “By God!”—with a sudden suppressed violence which was the more intense by reason of its enforced restraint—“if I’d known, I’d have freed the woman I once loved from degradation such as that!”
Used so unconsciously, without intent, the word “once” wounded her more cruelly than any of his deliberately harsh and bitter utterances had had power to do. It set her definitely outside his life, relegated her to a past that was dead and done with—made her realise more completely than anything else could have done that, as far as Eliot was concerned, she no longer counted in his scheme of existence.
“The woman I once loved”—Cara clenched her hands, and bit back the cry of pain which fought for utterance. For an instant she felt sick with pain—as though some one had turned a knife in a raw wound. Then, with an effort, she regained her self-control.
“Thank you,” she said gently. “But no one could have helped me—least of all you, even had you been in England.”
They fell silent for a while. Eliot stood staring out across the moon-flecked waters, and in the silver radiance which made the night almost as light as day Cara could see the harsh lines which the years had graved upon his, face, the grim closing of the lips, and the weariness that lay in his eyes. Half timidly she laid her hand on his arm.
“I wish I could give you back your happiness,” she said unevenly.
He turned and looked at her, and now there was neither pity nor compassion in his gaze—only that hardness of granite with which she was all too familiar.
“Unfortunately, that’s out of your power,” he said coldly. “You only had power to wreck it.”
He glanced down distastefully at the hand on his sleeve, and she withdrew it hastily. But, with a sudden strength of purpose, born of her infinite longing to repair the harm she had done, she persisted, daring his anger.
“There’s Ann,” she said simply.
She was surprised it hurt so little to put it into words—the fact that he loved another woman. But, since the day she had first realised that he cared for Ann, she had been schooling herself to a certain stoical resignation. She recognised that she had forfeited her own claim to love when she had married Dene Hilyard because he had more of this world’s goods than the man to whom she had given her heart, and she felt no actual jealousy of Ann—only a wistful envy of the girl for whom the love of Eliot Coventry might yet create the heaven on earth which she herself had thrown away.
“There’s Ann,” she said.
For an instant Eliot’s face seemed convulsed, twisted into a grim mask of agony.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “There’s Ann. And because of you, I can’t believe in her.”
It was like an accusation flung straight in her face. She shrank back as though he had struck her. So he cared for Ann—like that.... And because of what she had done, because of her sin of ten years ago, he would not trust her—would not trust any woman.
“You make my ‘account rendered’ a very heavy one,” she said unsteadily. Then, on a note of increasing urgency: “Don’t judge Ann—by me, Eliot. She’s different ... the kind of woman God meant women to be. If you care for her, you won’t make her pay—for what I did.”
His expression altered slightly. A new look came into his eyes—of uncertainty, as though he were regarding things from some fresh angle. But he made no answer, and before Cara could speak again Robin’s cheerful voice broke in upon them.
“We’ve just finished our rubber,” he called, as he came towards them. “Will you folks come and take a hand?”
Then, as neither of them made any immediate response, he paused uncertainly and glanced in, an embarrassed way from one to the other, vaguely conscious that his appearance on the scene had been inopportune. Womanlike, Cara was the first to recover her self-possession.
“Yes, of course we’ll come,” she said quickly. “But I haven’t played cards for so long that I’m sure whoever is unlucky enough to draw me for a partner will be thankful Miss Caroline has limited the stakes to a penny a hundred.”
The ease with which she spoke sufficed to reassure Robin completely.
“You’ll play, Coventry?” he said, as they all three turned and walked towards the companion-way.
“I’ll cut in—and take my chance,” answered Eliot.
Cara glanced at him swiftly. His mouth wore a grave little smile, as though the words bore for him a second and deeper meaning than the obvious one of their reply to Robin’s question.
The process of making a tour of theSphinxhad been a lengthy one. The yacht was beautifully appointed, and there had been much to examine and admire. Brett, who loved every inch of her, from the marvellous little gold figure of a sphinx, which he had had specially designed and carved as a mascot, down to the polished knobs and buttons in the engine-room, had expatiated with considerable length and fervour upon her various beauties and advantages, and by the time he and Ann emerged on to the deck once more it was to find it deserted by the rest of the party.
Brett moved a couple of deck-chairs into a sheltered corner.
“You must be tired,” he said remorsefully. “I’ve kept you standing about an unconscionable time while I yarned on about my old tub. If you’ll sit down here, I’ll go and fetch you a wrap.”
Ann subsided into one of the chairs not unthankfully.
“But I don’t want a wrap,” she protested.
“You will, presently. You must remember it’s September, even though it is a warm evening.”
He departed on his errand, returning shortly with a wrap for her shoulders, together with a light rug which he proceeded to tuck carefully round her. She was reminded of the first occasion on which they had met, when the charming way in which he had waited upon Lady Susan had moved her to the reflection that he might be rather an adept in the art of spoiling any woman. But she had not forgotten that he would want to master her first—as he had mastered the bay mare, afterwards coaxing her into friendship.
They conversed desultorily for a time. Then, tossing away the cigarette he was smoking, Brett shot an abrupt question at her.
“Well, so you like the yacht?” he demanded.
She nodded.
“I think it’s just perfect,” she answered cordially.
“I’m glad. Because”—he leaned forward and looked at her intently with a curious sparkling light in his eyes—“I hope you’ll spend a good deal of time on board her.”
“I?” Ann endeavoured to speak as casually as possible, warned by that sudden danger-signal.
“Yes. Wouldn’t you enjoy cruising about the world a bit?”
“Are you thinking of inviting us all to go for a trip in theSphinx? I’m afraid,” shaking her head, “we’re most of us much too busy people to go racing off half across the world at a moment’s notice.”
“I wasn’t thinking of inviting you all,” he returned coolly. “Even if the yacht could accommodate you. I was limiting the proposed yachting party to you—and me.”
Ann moved restlessly.
“Don’t be absurd, Brett.”
He laughed—that gay, triumphant laughter of his which always made her a little afraid. It sounded so sure, so carelessly confident.
“Then don’t fence with me any longer,” he retorted. “What’s the use of pretending, anyway?”
“Pretending? I’m afraid I don’t understand.” She threw a quick, dismayed glance down the length of the deck, devoutly wishing that some one would come along and interrupt them. But there was nobody in sight except one of the crew—and he was keeping his eyes very studiously turned away from the corner where they were seated.
“You don’t understand?” Brett’s voice roughened a little. “Haven’t I made it clear what I want? I wantyou—”
“No, no!” Ann jumped up from her chair precipitately. “Don’t say it, Brett! Please don’t. I—I don’t want to hear.”
There was a note of urgent pleading in her hurried speech, but if he heard it he paid no attention. He was on his feet as quickly as she was. Perhaps if she had looked at him she would have realised that she was drawing upon, herself the very thing she was trying to avoid. But she had averted her face, afraid of the blue flame of his eyes, and his quick movement, silent and certain as the leap of a panther, filled her with a sudden irrational terror. She started to run. Then, her feet entangled in the rug which had slipped to the floor when she sprang up from her seat, she stumbled and pitched helplessly forward.
But she did not reach the ground. Brett’s arms closed round her like a vice of steel, and the next moment she felt his lips on hers—on her eyes, her throat, the gleaming curve of moon-white shoulder, straining against them in fierce, possessive kisses that seemed to drain her of all strength to resist.
At last:
“Now do you understand?” he demanded hoarsely. “I love you!... God in heaven! I wonder if you know how much I love you!”
“No, no!” She struggled to free herself from his arms, but he held her in a relentless grip that no power of hers could fight against.
“Let me go!” she gasped, finding herself helpless against him.
His eyes burned down on her.
“I’ll let you go when you promise to be my wife—not before. Say you love me, Ann!”
“But I don’t—I don’t love you at all. Let me go, Brett!” She made another futile effort to release herself, but his grasp never slackened.
“Youshalllove me!” he declared violently.
With the imperative need of the moment Ann found her courage returning. She realised now that it was to be a battle between them, and she was filled with a cold fury against this man who tried to enforce his will on hers. Suddenly she ceased to struggle, and, bending her head back so that she could see his face, confronted him with a cool, proud defiance.
“I shall hate you if you don’t release me at once,” she said quietly.
Her face, so close below his own, was milk-white in the moonlight, and her hair glimmered with strange, lurking lights. Wavering gold of hair and eyes and scarlet line of lips—they roused the devil in him. His mouth crushed down on hers once more.
“You may hate me—but, all the same, you’ll marry me! I swear it!” he said with grim assurance.
“I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.”
It was very quietly uttered, but the absolute conviction of her answer seemed to arrest him. He loosened his clasp of her body, but with the—same movement his fingers slid to her wrist, prisoning it.
“Who would you marry?” he demanded.
She stood perfectly still, unresisting to the grip of his hand on her wrist. There was a mute suggestion of scorn in this very surrender to physical coercion, a poise that asserted an utter freedom of spirit—a freedom of which he could not rob her.
“You don’t expect an answer to that question, do you?” she returned.
“Is it young Brabazon—Tony Brabazon?” he pursued, ignoring her reply and speaking with an odd kind of eagerness.
Ann was silent. The instinct of her sex was working in her—the instinct to conceal her real hurt, to throw dust in the eyes of the man who was seeking to tear her secret from her. So she remained silent, and the sudden gleam in Brett’s eyes showed that he believed he was answered.
“Then you have thought of marrying—Tony Brabazon?” he said searchingly.
“Perhaps I have,” she admitted, reflecting with a brief flash of humour that, in this particular instance, the simple truth was quite the most misleading thing imaginable.
Brett regarded her with a peculiar expression in which resentment and a certain need of indulgence were strangely mingled.
“And you’ve thought better of it?” he continued, rather as though he were stating a fact of which he had some intrinsic knowledge. Ann felt a trifle puzzled. He and Tony were only card-room acquaintances, and it seemed unlikely that the latter would have confided in him. Yet Brett certainly spoke as though his cognisance of how matters stood betwixt herself and Tony were based on something more substantial than mere guesswork.
“That, also, is possible,” she answered non-committally.
“And just as well,” commented Brett. “He’s a harum-scarum rake of a boy. All the same, as I told you once before, the past doesn’t matter to me. It’s the future that counts.”
He paused, as though he expected her to volunteer some reply. But she merely eyed him with a look of steady indifference.
“You understand, Ann?” he said, with a species of urgency in his tones.
“It sounds quite simple,” she replied shortly. “I think I understand plain English—though what you say doesn’t interest me. Do you mind releasing my wrist, now?”
“You won’t run away if I do?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Where could I run to—on the yacht? Besides, I’ve no wish for every one to know about this ridiculous scene,” she added scornfully, with a downward glance at her prisoned wrist.
His eyes glinted as he released his hold, but he allowed the contemptuous speech to pass without remark. She lifted her arm, frictioning her wrist where his grip had scored a red mark round it. A tumult of anger against him seethed inside her. Her lips felt soiled and she put up her hand and rubbed them distastefully. He interpreted the action with lightning swiftness.
“No,” he said, a note of grim triumph in his voice. “You can’t undo it.”
“I wish,” she said with quiet intensity, “I wish I’d never set foot on board your yacht.”
“It wouldn’t have made a bit of difference,” he assured her unconcernedly. “If it hadn’t happened here, it would have happened somewhere else. Just as it doesn’t matter in the least your refusing me—by the way, I suppose I’m to understand youhaverefused me?”—mockingly.
“Certainly I’ve refused you.”
“Very good. But even that won’t make an atom of difference. You’re going to marry me, you know, in the long run.”
“I’m not—” she began, then checked herself wearily. “Oh, don’t let’s go over it all again!” She was very pale, and there were dark shadows of fatigue beneath her eyes.
“We won’t,” he replied amicably. “We’ll go down and see how those reckless penny-a-hundred gamblers are getting on, instead.”
With one of the amazingly sudden transitions of which Ann had already discovered he was capable, he dismissed the whole matter as though it were of no importance, and, gathering up her wraps, preceded her in the direction of the companion-way. Here they were met by the bridge players. Their game finished, they were all coming up on deck, laughing and talking as they came. Ann drew back, nervously unprepared for the sudden encounter, but Brett covered her momentary confusion by genial inquiries as to who had won.
“I’ve won two and fivepence,” announced Miss Caroline in satisfied tones. She appeared supremely contented with the evening’s harvest.
“These tiresome people are talking of going, Brett,” complained Lady Susan. “Do stop them.”
“Of course I’ll stop them,” he replied promptly. “They’ve all got to drink my health and good luck to theSphinxbefore they go. It’s her birthday, to-day, by the way,” he went on, addressing everybody collectively, “and I insist upon the occasion being properly honoured.”
He continued pouring out a stream of light-hearted nonsense, focussing every one’s attention on himself, and thus giving Ann time to recover her poise. When, finally, she joined in the general conversation, she was quite composed once more, although she still looked somewhat pale and tired.
The scene with Brett had exhausted her more than she knew. The man’s sheer vitality and force were overwhelming, and his efforts to impose his will on hers, to force from her some response to the flaming ardour of his passion, had left her feeling mentally and spiritually sore and bruised, just as, physically, she had ached all over after the buffeting she had received from the waves at Berrier Cove. She longed inexpressibly for the peace and quiet of her own room, and she felt thankful when at length the moment for departure actually arrived.
Lady Susan glanced keenly at her once or twice as they were rowed across the bay to the now deserted quay, but she refrained from making any comment on the girl’s appearance of fatigue. It was only as they were walking up the tarred planking of the jetty together, somewhat behind the rest of the party, that she asked with a queer mixtures of tenderness and humour:
“May I guess, Ann?”
“There’s—nothing—to guess,” said Ann bluntly.
Lady Susan came to a standstill and stood looking down at her with eyes that laughed.
“So you’ve turned him down?” she queried.
Ann nodded silently.
“Well”—incisively—“it will do him a whole heap of good. He’s much too inclined to think the entire world is his for the taking.”
Involuntarily Ann laughed outright at the palpable truth of the statement, and with that spontaneous laughter was borne away much of the hurt pride and resentment which had been galling her. It was, after all, absurd to take an irresponsible being like Brett Forrester too seriously.
“I don’t altogether envy Brett’s wife,” pursued Lady Susan judicially. “Still, she’d never find life monotonous, whatever else. He’d probably beat her and drag her round by the hair when he was in a rage. But he’d know how to play the lover, my dear—don’t make any mistake about that!”
“I may be old-fashioned,” said Ann demurely. “But I don’t think I feel particularly attracted by the prospect of being beaten and dragged around by the hair.”
Lady Susan’s dark eyes twinkled.
“All the same, I don’t fancy Brett will allow a little prejudice like that to stand in his way. If I know my nephew—and I think I do—he won’t meekly accept hiscongéand run away and play like a good little boy.”
“Oh, I think he quite understands,” replied Ann a trifle breathlessly.
Lady Susan shook her head.
“My dear,” she said, “Brett is delightful, and I’m ridiculously fond of him. But I’m bound to admit that he hasn’t any principles whatever. And he never understands anything he doesn’t want to.”