Strength seemed all at once to leave her. Physically and mentally exhausted, a feeling of unreality supervened. The strange room swam before her eyes. As in a dream she saw him start to his feet and come swiftly to her across a seemingly unending length of carpet that billowed and wavered curiously, his big frame oddly magnified until he appeared a very giant towering above her; as in a dream she felt him take her ice-cold hands in his. But the warm strong grasp, the grave eyes bent compellingly on her, dragged her back from the shuddering abyss into which she was sinking. Far away, as though coming from a great distance, she heard him speaking. And his voice, gentler than she had ever known it, gave her courage to whisper, so low that he had to bend his tall head to catch the fluttering words, the promise she had come to give.
CHAPTER VII
On an afternoon in early September eighteen months after her marriage Gillian was driving across the park toward the little village of Craven that, old world and quite unspoiled, clustered round a tiny Norman church two miles distant from the Towers. She leaned back in the victoria, her hands clasped in her lap, preoccupied and thoughtful. A scented heap of deep crimson roses and carnations lay at her feet; beside her, in contrast to her listless attitude, Mouston sat up tense and watchful, his sharp muzzle thrust forward, his black nose twitching eagerly at the distracting agitating smells borne on the warm air tempting him from monotonous inactivity to a soul satisfying scamper over the short cropped grass but, conscious of the dignity of his position, ignoring them with a gravity of demeanour that was almost comical. Once or twice when his wrinkling nostrils caught some particularly attractive odour his pads kneaded the cushions vigorously and a snarly gurgle rose in his throat. But no other sign of restlessness escaped him—it was patience bred of experience. For miles around he was a well-known figure, sitting grave and motionless on his accustomed side of the victoria as it rolled through the country lanes. To the villagers of Craven, all directly or indirectly dependent on the estate, he was welcome in that he was inseparable from the gentle tender-hearted girl whom they worshipped, but their welcome was a qualified one that never descended to the familiar; his strange appearance and disdainful aloofness made him an object of curiosity to be viewed with most safety from a respectful distance; time had not accustomed them to him and tales of his uncanny understanding filtering through, richly embroidered, to the village from the house, did not tend to lessen the awe with which he was regarded. They marvelled, without comprehension, at the partiality of his mistress; he was the “black French devil” to more households than that of Major, the gamekeeper, an “unorranary brute” to those of less gifted imagination.
To Mouston Gillian’s periodical visits to the village were a tedium endured for the sake of the coveted seat beside her.
The passing of a herd of deer, feeding intently and—save for one or two more timid hinds who started nervously—too used to the carriage to heed its approach, roused the poodle, as always, to a high pitch of excitement; they were old enemies and his annoyance gave vent to a sharp yelp as he sidled close to Gillian and endeavoured to attract her attention with an insistent paw. But for once she was heedless of the hints of her dumb companion, and, whining, he slunk back into his own corner, curling up on the seat with his forepaws brushing the mass of scented blossom. And ignorant of the pleading brown eyes fixed pathetically on her, Gillian followed the train of her own troubled thoughts. For eighteen months she had been Barry Craven’s wife, for eighteen months she had endeavoured to fulfill her share of the contract they had made—and to herself she admitted failure.
The strain was becoming unendurable.
In the eyes of the world an ideal couple, in reality—she wondered if in the whole universe there were two more lonely souls than they. She knew now that the task she had set herself that stormy December night was beyond her power, that it had been the unattainable dream of an immature love-sick girl. She had fought to retain her high ideals, to believe that love—as great, as unselfish as hers—must beget love, but she had come to realise the utter futility of her dream and to wonder at the childish ignorance that had inspired it. The sustaining hope that she might indeed be a comfort to his loneliness had died hard, but surely. For he gave her no opportunity. Despite unfailing kindness and overwhelming generosity he maintained always a baffling reserve she found impossible to penetrate. Of his inner self she knew no more than she had ever done, she could get no nearer to him. But in all matters that dealt with their common life he was scrupulously frank and out-spoken; he had insisted on her acquiring a knowledge of his interests and a working idea of his affairs, from which she had shrunk sensitively, but he had persisted, arguing that in the event of his death—Peters not being immortal—it was necessary that she should be able to administer possessions that would be hers—and the thought of those possessions crushed her. It was only after a long struggle, in distress that horrified him, that she persuaded him to forego the big settlement he proposed making. If she had not loved him his liberality would have hurt her less, but because of her love his money was a scourge. She hated the wealth to which she felt she had no right, to herself she seemed an impostor, a cheat. She felt degraded. She would rather he had bought her, as women have from time immemorial been bought, that she might have paid the price, as they pay, and so retained the self-respect that now seemed for ever lost. It would have been a means of re-establishing herself in her own eyes, of easing the burden of his bounty that grew daily heavier and from which she could never escape. It was evident in all about her; in the greater state and ceremony observed at the Towers since their marriage, which, while it pleased the household, who rejoiced in the restoration of the old régime, oppressed her unspeakably; in the charities she dispensed—his charities that brought her no sense of sacrifice, no joy of self-denial; in the social duties that poured in upon her.
His wealth served only to strengthen the barrier between them, but for that she might have been to him what she longed to be. If the talent that now seemed so useless could have been used for him she would have found a measure of happiness even if love had never come to crown her service. In poverty she would have worked for him, slaved for him, with the strength and tirelessness that only love can give. But here the gladness of giving, of serving, was denied, here there was nothing she might do and the futility of her life choked her. She had conscientiously endeavoured to assume the responsibilities and duties of her new position, but there seemed little for her to do, for the big household ran smoothly on oiled wheels under the capable administration of Forbes and Mrs. Appleyard, with whom, both honest and devoted to the interests of the family they had served so long and faithfully, she knew it was unnecessary and unwise to interfere. In any unusual circumstance they would refer to her with tactful deference but for the rest she knew that, perforce, she must be content to remain a figure-head. Even her work—interrupted constantly by the social duties incumbent on her and performed from a sense of obligation—failed to comfort and distract. It was all so utterly useless and purposeless. The gift with which she had thought to do so much was wasted. She could do nothing with it. She was no longer Gillian Locke who had dreamed of independence, who had hoped by toil and endeavour to clear the stain from her father’s name. She was the rich Mrs. Craven—who must smile to hide a breaking heart, who must play the part expected of her, who must appear always care-free and happy. And the constant effort was almost more than she could achieve. In the ceaseless watch she set upon herself, in the rigid self-suppression she exercised, it seemed to her as if her true self had died, and her entity faded into an automaton that moved in mechanical obedience to the driving of her will. Only during the long night hours or in the safe seclusion of the studio could she relax, could she be natural for a little while. That Craven might never learn the misery of her life, that she might not fail him as she had failed herself, was her one prayer. She welcomed eagerly the advent of guests, of foreign guests—more exigent in their demands upon her society—particularly; with the house filled the time of host and hostess was fully occupied and the difficult days passed more easily, more quickly. The weeks they spent alone she dreaded; from the morning greeting in the breakfast room to the moment when he gave her the quiet “Good-night” that might have come from an undemonstrative brother, she was in terror lest an unguarded word, a chance expression, might tell him what she sought to keep from him. But so insensible did his own constant pre-occupation of mind make him appear of much that passed, that she feared his intuition less than that of Peters who she was convinced had a very shrewd idea of the state of affairs existing between them. It was manifested in diverse ways; not by any spoken word direct or indirect, but by additional fatherly tenderness of manner, by unfailing tactfulness, by quick intervention that had saved many awkward situations. It was practically impossible in view of his almost daily association with the house and its inmates that he could be unaware of certain facts. But the wise kindly eyes that she had feared most were closed for ever.
The Great Summons for which Miss Craven had been so calmly prepared had come more suddenly, more tragically even than she had anticipated. She had passed over as she would have wished, had she been given the choice, not in the awful loneliness of death but one of a company of heroic souls who had voluntarily and willingly stood aside that others might have the chance to live.
A few months after the marriage on which she had set her heart the family curse had seized her as suddenly and as imperatively as it had ever done her nephew. An exhibition of statuary in America had served as an adequate excuse and she had started at comparatively short notice, accompanied by the faithful Mary, after a stormy interview with her doctor, whose gloomy warnings she refuted with the undeniable truism that one land was as good as another to die in. Within a few hours of the American coast the tragedy, short and overwhelming, had occurred. From the parent ice a thousand miles away in the north the stupendous white destruction had moved majestically down its appointed course to loom out of the pitch-black night with appalling consequence. A sudden crash, slight enough to be unnoticed by hundreds, a convulsive shudder of the great ship like the death struggle of a Titan, had been followed by unquellable panic, confusion of darkness, inadequate boats and jamming bulkheads. Miss Craven and Mary were among the first on deck and for the short space of time that remained they worked side by side among the terror-stricken women and children, their own life-belts early transferred to dazed mothers who clutched wild-eyed at wailing babes. Together they had stood back from the overcrowded boats, smiling and unafraid; together they had gone down into the mystery of the deep, two gallant women, no longer mistress and maid but sisters in sacrifice and in the knowledge of that greater love for which they cheerfully laid down their lives.
And while Gillian mourned her bitterly she was yet glad that Miss Craven was spared the sadness of witnessing the complete failure of her cherished dream.
In the little Norman church toward which Gillian was driving there had been added yet another memorial to a Craven who had died tragically and far from home; a record of disastrous calamity that, beginning four hundred years before with the Elizabethan gallant, had relentlessly pursued an ill-starred family. The church lay on the outskirts of the village and close to the south entrance of the park.
Gillian stopped the carriage for a few moments to speak to the anxious-looking woman who had hurried out from the creeper-covered lodge to open the gates. Behind one of the casements of the cottage a child was fighting for life, a cripple, with an exquisite face, whom Gillian had painted. To the sorrowful mother the eager tender words, the soft impulsive hand that clasped her own work-roughened palm, the wide dark eyes, misty with sympathy were worth infinitely more than the material aid, so carefully packed by Mrs. Appleyard, that the footman carried up the narrow nagged path to the cottage door.
And as the impatient horses drew the carriage swiftly on again Gillian leaned back in her seat with a quivering sigh. The woman at the lodge, despite her burden of sorrow, despite her humbleness, was yet richer than she and, with intolerable pain, she envied her the crowning joy of womanhood that would never be her own. The child she longed for would never by the touch baby hands bring consolation to her starved and lonely heart. Her thoughts turned to her husband in a sudden passion of hopeless love and longing. To bear him a child—to hold in her arms a tiny replica of the beloved figure that was so dear to her, to watch and rejoice in the dawning resemblance that the ardour of her love would make inevitable.... Hastily she brushed away the gathering tears as the carriage stopped abruptly with a jingle of harness at the lichgate.
Coaxing the reluctant Mouston from the seat where he still sulked she tied him to the gate, took the armful of flowers from the grave-faced footman, and dismissing the carriage walked slowly up the lime-bordered avenue. The orderliness and beauty of the churchyard struck her as it always did—a veritable garden of sleep, with level close-shorn turf set thick with standard rose trees, that even the clustering headstones could not make chill and sombre.
From the radiant sunshine without she passed into the cool dimness of the little building. With its tiny proportions, ornate and numerous Craven memorials and—for its size—curiously large chancel, it seemed less the parish church it had become than the private chapel for which it had been built. Then the house had been close by, but during the troublous years of Mary Tudor was pulled down and rebuilt on the present site.
Through the quiet silence Gillian made her way up the short central aisle until she reached the chancel steps. For a few minutes she knelt, her face crushed against the flowers she held, in silent passionate prayer that knew neither form nor words—a soundless supplication that was an inchoate appeal to a God of infinite understanding. Then rising slowly she pushed back the iron gate and went into the chancel. Directly to the left the new monument gleamed cleanly white against the old dark wall. Simple and bold, as she would herself have designed it, the sculptor’s memorial was the work of the greatest genius of the day who had willingly come from France at Craven’s invitation to perpetuate the memory of a sister artist who had also been a lifelong friend.
A rugged pedestal of green bronze—with an inset panel representing the tragedy—rose upward in the shape of billowing curling waves supporting a marble Christ standing erect with outstretched pitying hand, majestic and yet wholly human.
Gillian gazed upward with quivering lips at the Saviour’s inclined tender face, and opening her arms let the scented mass of crimson blossom fall slowly to the slab at her feet that bore Miss Craven’s name and Mary’s cut side by side.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that
a man lay down his life for his friends.”
She read the words aloud, and with a stifled sob slipped down among the roses and carnations that Caro Craven had loved, and leaned her aching head against the cool hard bronze. “Dearest,” she whispered, in an agony of tears, “I wonder can you hear? I wonder are you allowed, where you are, to know what happens here on earth? Oh, Aunt Caro, cherie, do you know that I have failed—failed to bring him the peace and consolation I thought my love was strong enough to give, I have tried so hard to understand, to help … I have prayed so earnestly that he might turn to me, that I might be to him what you would have me be … but I have not been able … I have failed him … failed you … myself. Oh, dearest, do you know?”
Prone among the roses, at the feet of the pitying Christ, she cried aloud in her desperate loneliness to the dead woman who had given her the tenderest love she had ever known. The shadows lengthened widely before she rose and drew the scattered flowers into a fragrant heap. She stood for a while studying intently the relief of the wreck; it suggested a train of thought, and with a sudden impulse she traversed the chancel and sought among the memorials of dead Cravens for the tablets commemorating those who had disappeared or died tragically. By chance at first and later by design these had all been placed within the confines of the chancel that formed so large a part of the tiny church. Before the florid Italian monument that recorded all that was known of the short life of the Elizabethan adventurer she paused long, looking with quickening heart-beat at the graceful kneeling figure whose face and form were those of the man she loved.
Barry Craven … he set his eyes unto the west.... Amongst the calamitous record there were four more of the name—their bodies scattered widely in distant unknown graves, victims of the spirit of adventure and unrest. She moved slowly from one to the other, reading again the tragical inscriptions she knew by heart, cut as deeply in her memory as on the marble slabs before her.
Barry Craven—Lost in the Amazon Forest.
Barry Craven—In the silence of the frozen seas.
Barry Craven—Perished in a sandstorm in the Sahara.
Barry Craven—In Japan.
Barry Craven—Barry Craven.
The name leaped at her from all sides until, with a shudder, she buried her face in her hands to shut out the staring capitals that flamed in black and gold before her eyes. The dread that was with her always seemed suddenly closer than it had ever been, menacing, inevitable. Would the fear that haunted her day and night become at some not far distant time an actual fact? Would the curse that had already led to ten years’ perpetual wandering lay hold of him again—would he, too, in quest of the peace he had never found, disappear as they had done? Was it for this that he had insisted on her acquiring a knowledge of his affairs? With the quick intuition of love she had come to understand the deep unrest that beset him periodically, an unrest she recognised as wholly apart and separate from the other shadow that lay across his life. With unfailing patience she had learned to discriminate. Covertly she had watched him, striving to fathom the varying moods that swayed him, endeavouring to anticipate the alternating frames of mind that made any definite comprehension of his character so difficult. The charm of manner and apparent serenity that led others to think of him as one endowed beyond further desire with all that life could give did not deceive her. He played a part, as she did, a part that was contrary to his nature, contrary to his whole inclination. She guessed at the strain on him, a strain it seemed impossible for him to endure, which some day she felt must inevitably break. His habitual self-control was extraordinary—once only during their married life had he lost it when some event, jarring on his overstrung nerves, had evoked a blaze of anger that seemed totally out of proportion to the circumstance, that would have given her proof, had she needed one, of his state of mind.
His outburst had been a perfectly natural reaction, but while she admitted the fact she felt a nervous dread of its recurrence.
She feared anything that might precipitate the upheaval that loomed always before her like a threatening cloud. For sooner or later the unrest that filled him would have to be satisfied. The curse of Craven would claim him again and he would leave her. And she would have to watch him go and wait in agony for his return as other women of the race had watched and agonised. And if he went would he ever return? or would she too know the anguish of suspense, the long drawn horror of uncertainty, the fading hope that year by year would become slighter until at last it would vanish altogether and the bitter waters of despair close over her head? A moan, like the cry of a wounded animal, broke from her. In vivid self-torturing imagination she saw among the sinister record around her another tablet—that would mean finality. He was the last of the Cravens. Did it mean nothing to him—had the sorrow of that past that was unknown to her but which had become woven into her own life so inextricably, so terribly, killed in him even the pride of race? Had he, deep down in the heart that was hidden from her, no thought of parenthood, no desire to perpetuate the family name, the family traditions? It would seem that he had not—and yet she wondered. The woman he had loved—of whose existence she had convinced herself—if she had lived, or proved faithful, would he still have desired no son? She shrank from the stabbing thought with a very bitter sob.
A sudden horror of her environment came over her. Around her were suggestions from which she shuddered, evidences that raised the haunting dread with which she lived to a culmination of fear. It had never seemed so near, so strong. It was stronger than her will to put it from her and in it, with inherent superstition, she saw a premonition. The little peaceful church became all at once a place of terror, a grisly charnel house of vanished hopes and lives. The spirits of countless Cravens seemed all about her, hostile, malign, triumphing in her weakness, rejoicing in her fear—spectral figures of the dead crowding, hurrying, threatening. She seemed to see them, a dense and awful concourse, closing round her, to hear them whispering, muttering, jibing—at her, a thing apart, an alien soul whose presence they resented. The clamorous voices rang in her ears; vague shapes, illusive and shadowy, appeared to float before her eyes. She shrank from what seemed the contact of actual bodily forms. Unnerved and overwrought she yielded to the horror of her own imagination. With a stifled cry she turned and fled, her arms outstretched to fend from her the invisible host that seemed so real, not daring even to look again at the pitying Christ whose calm serenity formed such a striking contrast to her storm-tossed heart.
Blindly she sped down the chancel steps, along the short central aisle, out into the timbered porch, where she blundered sharply into somebody who was on the point of entering. Who, it did not at the moment seem to matter—enough that it was a human creature, real and tangible, to whom she clung trembling and incoherent. A strong arm held her, and against its strength she leaned for a few moments in the weakness of reaction from the nervous strain through which she had passed. Then as she slowly regained control of herself she realised the awkwardness of her position, and her cheeks burned hotly. She drew back, her fingers uncurling from the tweed coat they clutched so tightly, and, trying to slip clear of the arm that still lay about her shoulders, looked up shyly with murmured thanks.
Then: “David,” she cried. “Oh, David–” and burst into tears. Guiding her to the bench that rested against the side of the porch Peters drew her down beside him. “Just David,” he said, with rather a sad little smile, “I was passing and Mouston told me you were here.” He spoke slowly, giving her time to recover herself, thanking fate that she had collapsed into his arms rather than into those of some chattering village busybody. He had caught a glimpse of her face as she came through the church door and knew that her agitation was caused by something more than sorrow for Miss Craven, great as that sorrow was. He had seen fear in the hunted eyes that looked unrecognisingly into his—a fear that he somehow resented with a feeling of helpless anger.
The affection he had for her was such as he would have given the daughter that might have been his had providence been kinder. And with the insight that affection gave he had seen, with acute uneasiness, a steadily increasing change in her during the last eighteen months. The marriage from which he, as well as Miss Craven, had hoped so much seemed after all to have brought no joy to either husband or wife. With his intimate knowledge and close association he saw deeper than the casual visitor to whom the family life at the Towers appeared an ideal of domestic happiness and concord. There was nothing he could actually take hold of, Craven was at all times considerate and thoughtful, Gillian a model of wifely attention. But there was an atmosphere that, super-sensitive, he discerned, a vague underlying feeling of tension that he tried to persuade himself was mere imagination but which at the bottom of his heart he knew existed. There had been times when he had seen them both, as it were, off their guard, had read in the face of each the same bitter pain, the same look of unsatisfied longing. Possessing in so high a degree everything that life could give they appeared to have yet missed the happiness that should by all reasoning have been theirs. Whose was the fault? Caring for them both it was a question that he turned from in aversion, he had no wish to judge between them, no desire to probe their hidden affairs. Thrown constantly into their society while guessing much he shut his eyes to more. But anxiety remained, fostered by the memory of the tragedy of Barry’s father and mother. Was he fated to see just such another tragedy played out before him with no power to avert the ruin of two more lives? The pity of it! He could do nothing and his helplessness galled him.
To-day as he sat in the little porch with Gillian’s hand clasped in his he felt more than ever the extreme delicacy of his position. Intuitively he guessed that he was nearer than he had ever been to penetrating the cloud that shadowed her life and Barry’s but with equal intuition he knew he must convey no hint of his understanding. He gauged her shy sensitive mind too accurately and his own loyalty debarred him from forcing such a confidence. Instead he spoke as though the visit to Miss Craven’s memorial must naturally be the cause of her agitation.
“Why come, my dear, if it distresses you?” he said, in quiet remonstrance; “she would not misunderstand. She had the sanest, the healthiest conception of death. She died nobly—willingly. It would sadden her immeasurably if she knew how you grieved.” Her fingers worked convulsively in his. “I know—I know,” she whispered, “but, oh, David, I miss her so—so inexpressibly.”
“We all do,” he answered; “one cannot lose a friend like Caro Craven lightly. But while we mourn the dead we have the living to consider—and you have Barry,” he added, with almost cruel deliberation. She faced him with steady eyes from which she had brushed all trace of tears.
“Barry understands,” she said with quick loyalty; “he mourns her too—but he doesn’t need her as I do.” It was an undeniable truth that reduced Peters to silence and for a while Gillian also was silent. Then she turned to him again with a little tremulous smile, the colour flooding her delicate face.
“I’m glad it was only you, David, just now. Please forget it. I don’t know what’s the matter with me to-day, I let my nerves get the upper hand—I’m tired—the sun was hot–”
“So of course you sent the carriage away and proposed walking two miles home by way of a rest cure!” he interrupted, jumping up with alacrity, and taking advantage of the turn in the conversation. “Luckily I’ve got the car. Plenty of room for you and the pampered one.” And waving aside her protests he tucked her into the little two-seater, bundling Mouston unceremoniously in after her.
The village school was near the church, and while Peters steered the car carefully through groups of children who were loitering in the road she sat silent beside him, wondering, in miserable self-condemnation, how much she had betrayed during those few moments of hysterical outburst. Resolutely she determined that she would be strong, strong enough to put away the dread that haunted her, strong enough to meet trouble only when it came.
Clear of the children and running smoothly through the park Peters condescended to break the silence.
“How went Scotland?” he asked, slowing down behind a frightened fawn who was straying on the carriage road and cantering ahead of the car in panicky haste. “Your letters were not satisfactory.”
“I wasn’t taught to write letters. I never had any to write,” she said with a smile that made the sensitive man beside her wince. “I did my best, David, dear. And there wasn’t much to tell. There were only men—Barry said he couldn’t stand women with the guns again after the bother they were last year. They were nice men, shy silent creatures, big game hunters mostly, and two doctors who have been doing research work in Central Africa. When any of them could be induced to talk of their experiences it was a revelation to me of what men will endure and yet consider enjoyment. You would have liked them, David. Why didn’t you come? It would have done you more good than that horrid little yacht. And we were alone the last two weeks—we missed you,” she added reproachfully.
Peters had had his own reasons for absenting himself from the Scotch lodge, reasons that, connected as they were with Craven and his wife, he could not enlarge upon. He turned the question with a laugh.