Kitabı oku: «The Squaw Man», sayfa 5

Suddenly he leaned forward and buried his face on his arms.

"Mother, I love Diana. I have my faults, but that is the best of me. I love her desperately. Oh, I know you're going to say that at times I haven't proved by my actions that I cared for her, but it's because I knew from the beginning that I never could reach her. Does she love me? No, I can't deceive myself. She was devilled into marrying me for the damned title. I know that now. The best I can hope for is that she should not utterly despise me, and I want a chance to win her love – my God, how I want it! Everything that Jim does pleases her. She admires him; I can see it clearly." He paused as the whirlwind of words swept from him; he rose, and towered over his mother. "That admiration belongs to me. You've spoiled me, mother. I've always had what I wanted, and now I'm the victim of it. I'm the selfish monster that takes everything while St. James stands modestly in the background. Oh, don't you see you have made him her hero, not me?"

He began to move restlessly about the rose paths, Lady Elizabeth following. Indulgently she linked her arm through his. Although a fear was beginning to persuade her of the truth of his wild words, still, she argued, he greatly exaggerated. That he cared so deeply for Diana promised well for the future, and, with her aid, Diana would soon be convinced of Henry's worthiness.

"My dear boy," she said, "is that all you have to worry over?"

"No, mother, no – I wish to God it were."

She caught hold of him almost savagely, "Ah – " she gasped. Then the apprehensions that had torn her for days had been justified. She feared to question further. An overwhelming dread held her in its torturing grip. Henry started as though to leave her; his face was averted, she turned him towards her.

"Money again?" she asked.

"You know what the demands on me are. I couldn't disgrace my family by going into bankruptcy, and I had to have money. Well – I was foolish enough to borrow – "

Lady Elizabeth knew instinctively the words that would follow. Her hands clinched his arm so tight that he shrank under the pressure.

"Borrow, mind," he continued, "some of the Fund's money."

"The Relief Fund? Oh, Henry – "

The despair and horror of her tone caused him to put his arms protectingly about her. Even in his own blind fury at fate he could see her shrink from her stately strength into a feeble old woman. He tried to reassure her.

"Oh. it's really all right, mater. I'll be able to replace it.

"How?"

She clung to his arm. He could hear the quadrille's last quarters beginning; it would be impossible to continue this conversation much longer.

"You wouldn't understand, mother. You see, it's a stock transaction, but it's all right – bound to be. Hobbes, of Simpson & Hobbes, you know, gave me the tip. It was absolutely inside information."

Lady Elizabeth loosened her hold, and with a hopeless gesture moved away. Henry read her lack of faith in the enterprise.

"Oh, I took the trouble to verify it." He did not admit, however, that he had sought Petrie's advice only after the plunge, when the waiting had grown too fearful. "I'm expecting a telegram to-night – that's the reason I'm nervous. But I'll have enough to put back the sum I've borrowed, and a nice little fortune besides. Don't you worry." But even as he spoke the comforting words he seemed to lose the confidence which he was vainly trying to assume. The telegram should have arrived in the afternoon. He knew that Petrie, if his investigation had been at all hopeful, would have sent a reassuring word. Then, that the strength of his mother, upon which he had so often leaned, should crumble away as he confessed to her, that he should be forced to carry her anxieties instead of receiving her support, terrified him with its significance.

It was all quite palpable to Lady Elizabeth. His drawn face with eyes like burned-out flames showed how the fever of unrest and fear consumed him.

"Henry, you are trying to reassure yourself, not me," she said.

"No, no, mother, it isn't that." But it was useless, he could no longer play a part. "Yes, you're right," he acknowledged as he threw himself down on the great stone bench. "My God, the consequences! – the consequences!"

And Lady Elizabeth stood dumb and helpless. For the first time he held out his hands to her, and she was unable to grasp them in support. She could offer no respite to the torture of suspense he endured.

As they stood in silence, Diana came from the pergola, "Dear people, are you moon-struck? Our guests are missing you."

With an effort Lady Elizabeth turned, "Is the dance over?" she said.

Henry's words followed close: "Have we been gone very long?"

"Oh no – but you see they have stopped bridge, and the men want to talk to you about the Fund. They are all so proud of our extraordinary result. They want a statement published so that they can gloat over the envy of the other regiments.

"Published – a statement!" but Diana, who was bending over some roses, hardly noticed the strained speech, and Lady Elizabeth motioned him to restrain his agitation.

"First, I believe," Diana continued as she seated herself, "there is a committee or somebody to go over the accounts and what do they call it – ?"

"Audit them," Henry found himself mechanically saying.

"Yes, that's it. They want to know when it will be convenient to-morrow for you, Henry."

Quite vaguely he said, "Oh yes – for me."

In his work for the Yeomanry and his characteristic British loyalty to his men, Diana found one great virtue to be proud of in Henry. She realized this as she heard the men discussing his efforts. For several days a growing feeling of pity for his misspent life had taken hold of her as she saw what he really could do when he willed.

"You are a great man with the Tenth, Henry," she said. "To hear them talk, one would think you carried the regiment in your pocket. And the dear mother there – to see her listen to your praises! Oh, well, it's very beautiful – you both had better go and glory in some more. The taste for adulation will grow insatiable after this – won't it?" As she spoke she lifted her long, slender hands and fastened them across her brows. Henry came to her. She was very beautiful; an unusual pallor gave her face a delicate spirituality. In the dim light her soft white draperies, the fluttering scarf ends, and the wreath of green leaves made her seem half a sprite.

"Won't you return with us, Di?"

"No – I have a headache. I'll stay here in the air for a few moments."

As she spoke, Jim came towards them.

"The next is our dance, Diana. Will you come?"

Henry answered for her with unmistakable sarcasm.

"Perhaps Jim will stay with you, Di, as you have a headache."

And Jim innocently replied, "With pleasure; I've really been doing duty quite assiduously in the way of dancing."

He crossed to Diana's side. Lady Elizabeth, who had been trying to divert an awkward moment, drew her arm through Henry's. Henry looked at his mother's face, which grew tender as her eyes rested on him.

"I'm afraid my wife does not share your pleasure in my praises, mater."

"Oh yes," Diana answered, "but you must not expect a wife to have the illusions of a mother." It was lightly said, to cover up an apparent effort on Henry's part to cause an embarrassing moment.

Lady Elizabeth took up the cue. She glanced from Jim to Diana, but they were beginning to talk; she almost drew Henry forcibly away as she said with forced gayety, "No – no one can love you as your mother does, dear."

She little knew the prophetic truth of her words or to what length her mother-love would lead her before another day had passed at the Towers.

CHAPTER IX

These moments of respite from the dancing were peaceful, Diana thought, as Jim drew a chair forward and seated himself beside her. She was strangely unsettled to-night. Her head ached slightly, it was true, but she was conscious that ever since Lady Elizabeth's remark concerning Jim and Sadie Jones, a curious irritation had possessed her. She didn't stop to reason it out, but plunged at once into the heart of the matter.

"I congratulate you, Jim."

"On what?"

"Your brilliant prospects."

"We've never met – shouldn't know them if I saw them."

So Diana knew too of the scheme to secure a fortune for the house of Kerhill. Jim was curious to learn her point of view. There was a new touch of bitterness in Diana's voice that puzzled him.

"Don't let them beat you down in the price, Jim. If you sell your sweet young life, let it be at a good round figure, for our sakes." The scornful mirth of her last words was unmistakable.

"I shall always be a joke to you, Diana."

"Well, if our whole social fabric isn't a joke," Di interrupted, "pray, what is it?"

"I don't belong to the social fabric. I'm an outsider."

Again she feverishly interrupted.

"Oh, you can't escape. You are up on the block. Look your best, and try to bring a fancy price. We have always sold our women, and now we have taken to selling our men."

For a moment he wondered if she, too, approved of the fortune hunt.

"Are you in the Chichester Jones conspiracy, too?" he asked.

"Certainly," the answer came, but with it a look that plainly contradicted the words. She was in wild spirits, he could see; he let her run on. "You are a monster of selfish obstinacy, Jim. Your inability to grasp your own best interests and ours – is a proof of a feeble intellect – and a wicked heart."

Gayly he entered into her mood. "Well, Diana," he said, "I'm an amiable brute. If you insist upon it, perhaps – "

"Good," she cut in quickly as she jumped up on the seat and clung to an overhanging bough. "Let me be the auctioneer; I'll get you a good price." Blithely assuming the voice and manner of a professional auctioneer, she began: "Step up, ladies – step up, ladies. Please examine this first-class specimen of the British aristocracy. He is kind and gentle, sound in mind and limb; will travel well in double harness – has blue ribbons and medals, and a pedigree longer than your purses. He's for sale; how much am I bid – "

Jim, who laughingly followed her words, interrupted in mock seriousness:

"One moment before you knock me down. Have you considered the existence of the American Peril? These Yankees are driving the English girls out of the home market. I believe in protection for the home product by an ad valorem tax on the raw material and exclusion for the finished product – in the shape of widows. I'm a patriot. God bless our English commerce – homes, I mean."

Jim's burst of nonsense was finished by a "Hear, hear" from Diana. Then their laughter rang out merrily. Diana clung to the swaying branch; Jim, below her, like Henry, noticed the ethereal quality of her beauty that night. She put out her hands to him.

"Please," she said, and he helped her down. Their light-heartedness seemed to desert them. Mechanically he kept her hand in his, held spellbound by her gracious charm. Diana withdrew her hand as she said, "Jim, you're a boy and you'll never grow up." Then, because she wished him to reassure her of his distaste for the proposed marriage, she said, "Sadie Jones is the chance of a lifetime and you'll miss it."

Jim only half heard her words. He was conscious of a strange dread of remaining longer alone with her.

"How do you know I will?" he said.

All her tender faith and belief in him was in her answer: "Oh, Jim, I know you."

Did she though? Did he know himself? What was this wild new feeling of fear, of sweet, elusive pain? His words gave no sign of the tumult of his thoughts.

"Do you? Well, you couldn't do me a greater service than to make me know myself. Fire at will."

Diana, too, was conscious of a strange undercurrent to their lighter talk. She was aware of Jim's searching glances, but, like him, she gave no sign of the vague uneasiness that would not be stilled.

"Shall I, really?" she questioned.

Jim nodded.

"Remember, you've brought it on yourself." She seated herself close to the sundial, and half leaned against it. Jim was facing her. "Well, to begin with, you will never wholly succeed in life."

"Dear me, I meant surgery, not butchery, Di."

She paid no heed to the interruption. "You are not spiritual enough to create your own world, and you are too idealistic to be happy in this frankly material world. You have temperament and sentiment; they are fatal in a practical age." She paused; there was no denial from Jim. As she waited for him to speak, her eyes rested on the decorations glittering on his coat. "Your breast is covered with medals for personal courage, but you could never be a great general."

He almost stopped her with a reminder of the days on the Northwestern Hills, but a certain truth in all that she said kept him silent. His memory went back to the hours in which he had fought – even at the sacrifice of himself – to save his men. He heard her say:

"You could never sink your point of view to the demands of necessary horrors. Confronted with the alternative of suffering, or causing suffering, you would suffer." She rose, and, as though peering into the future, said, "You are marked for the sacrifice."

Her face shone as though illumined by a clairvoyant power of spiritual insight. She seemed to have forgotten the present and stared straight ahead, trying to see into the heavy mists that enveloped the coming years. Jim made an effort to relax the nervous tension of the moment.

"What a rosy, alluring picture! A failure at everything I touch, eh? Have I one redeeming virtue?"

But although the voice that spoke was light with raillery he was possessed by an uncontrollable agitation. She stood with a haunted look of such intensity on her face that he became conscious only of an infinite desire to protect her. As he came close to her she was thrilled by the vibrating sympathy that drew them together, and raised her eyes to his. The strong, tender face of Jim, to which she had so often turned in her days of unspoken despair, gave her the comprehension and sympathy that were denied her by another. She thought of the expression of Sadie Jones's eyes as she sang:

 
"Tout passé, tout lasse."
 

Diana knew that she had been sending her song out into the night as a message to Jim in the garden. She thought of the unacknowledged sense of comfort that Lady Elizabeth experienced when Jim came to visit them. Without him, what would the days be? She shuddered at the desolation it might mean to be without this reliant, forceful friend. As it all flashed through her mind, she said:

"You have one triumphant quality, Jim. Whether it will add to your sum of suffering or compensate for all the rest, who knows? You have one inevitable success."

She paused, but the rustling of the tree-tops prevented either of them from hearing Henry as he came from the pergola. Diana moved a step nearer to Jim – Henry did not make known his presence. Quite simply and sincerely she said:

"You will always have the love of women, Jim."

Something snapped in Jim's brain. He stood hypnotized by a stronger force than his own will; he could not speak. Henry's voice sounded like the cracked clang of a jarring bell in a golden silence.

"That's a dangerous gift, Jim. Professional heart-breakers ought not to be allowed in other people's preserves."

Henry spoke quietly, but he was consumed by a mad, unreasoning fury. Diana simply said, "Oh, I was just trying to tease Jim about Sadie Jones."

Jim started towards the house, intending to leave Di with Henry. "Teasing – a ruthless grilling, I call it. I've been vivisected, Henry; it's not a pleasant experience, believe me."

But Henry, who was looking from Diana to Jim, with unmistakable meaning, said, "You stopped at an interesting – perhaps a critical – moment, Diana. I suppose I ought to beg your pardon. Where lovers are involved, the husband is an intrusion, almost an impertinence."

Jim turned and retraced his steps. Diana did not move. Their eyes were fastened on Henry's face, now flaming with passion. All Diana's womanhood was battling within her; her face grew tense, her eyes like black pansies. She seemed unconscious of Jim's presence; all her being was concentrated in the challenge of her eyes as she let them strike back her answer.

"You are making a grave mistake, Henry. One that you will regret as long as you live."

She could say no more; she wished to escape. Why didn't Jim speak? She could hardly see him. An overwhelming desire to leave both men before the sinking trembling of her body should overpower the strength of her will, enabled her to reach the house.

The men were alone; both had watched Diana gain the doorway. Neither seemed capable of helping her. Jim was the first to move; he came towards Henry with a quick, resolute step. Suddenly he became conscious of a new knowledge that checked his speech. He could only stare at Henry, while the wild beating of his heart tormented him. Much had been revealed to him regarding his feeling for Diana, during the past hour. Henry was watching him furtively.

"And now, sir," he began, "I will listen to you. You have had time to think up a plausible explanation."

For Diana and his aunt's sake he must be calm, so Jim only answered, "I would not insult you or Diana by offering one."

The quiet scorn of Jim's apparent indifference maddened Henry.

"Oh, indeed!" He drew a chair forward. "Sit down and confront the truth," he said, as he sat on the bench opposite. He was trembling violently. Jim still maintained his composure. Henry's clinched hand struck the table as he sneeringly exclaimed: "You owe everything you are to me."

With the bitter knowledge of how much he had sacrificed for the family, quick came Jim's reply:

"You mean everything I am not."

But Henry did not notice the truth of Jim's words. Ever since his boyhood, when he had first abused his power as master of the Towers, he had been irritated by the opposing point of view of his cousin – had rebelled at Jim's success in making a place for himself in the world without his help.

"You have lived in my house," he said, "enjoyed my bounty, and now – damn you – "

"Don't say it – don't!"

Jim's words hit at Henry across the table like points of forked lightning. All the pent-up feeling of years seemed concentrated in the utterance. He was leaning far across the table, his face twitching with disgust at Henry's suspicions. Like Diana he sickened at the thought that Henry could believe him capable of playing so degrading a part in Diana's life.

"Don't," he continued, "or I'll forget myself – forget the respect we owe her – " Even as he spoke he knew that Diana was the supreme concern of his life. That he loved her, he now realized; all the misery that might ensue was engulfed in the supreme surrender he made to his love, the love that unconsciously for the past months had become part of his life. But with this knowledge came clearly the injustice that Diana and he were being subjected to, by a mind that could not conceive of the purity of her friendship. "You – why, you – " he began again, then with difficulty controlled himself.

It was impossible to continue this conversation further; any moment they might be interrupted. He could not determine the course of his future at the moment, but he could save her the discovery of his secret – he could save her further humiliation from Henry.

"Henry, you must have been drinking. Go to Diana at once, before she realizes what you said, before it is too late. Go and make your peace with her for this outrage against her." While he spoke he was trying to escape from the knowledge the night had brought. He watched Henry, who in a dogged tone said:

"It's too late now. It has always been too late – with me – and Di."

"Nonsense," Jim said.

Henry mumbled on as though he were only half aware of the words he was speaking.

"Unless you'd intercede for me? She'd listen to you."

Jim rose. To obtain peace and dismiss from Henry's mind all suspicion that might harm Diana was his one desire. But almost before he was on his feet, Henry sprang up and held Jim with both hands while he spluttered in frantic abandon:

"No, no – I couldn't trust you – I couldn't trust you."

With a quick movement Jim flung Henry off. It was useless to expect sanity from this trembling, fanatical creature. Without a word or look he left him, and Henry stood watching Jim's receding figure down the alley of trees.

"And now I've driven out of her life the only interest in it, and she will hate me for that, too."

There was only one thing for him to do – he must get to his own quarters and send some message of excuse to his mother. He turned into a side path. He could hear the dance music and the gayety of the groups scattered near the pergola. Diana was there. He could see her, pale but with perfect poise, assisting Lady Elizabeth. Even Jim was at Lady Elizabeth's side. He envied them their control; in his condition it would be folly for him to venture near them. As he turned towards the house he met Bates carrying a telegram.

"I've been looking for your lordship," he said. "The message came about half an hour ago."

He remembered Petrie ind the expected word as he tore open the wire. It read:

"Impossible to give any definite news. Still probing matter. Will be down to-morrow afternoon."

God! – and he had this to add to his night's vigil! Bates left him. He threw out his arms as he stumbled into a chair. He knew and admitted that he alone was responsible for it all. But he did not know that he had fanned to life the love that Diana and Jim now acknowledged to themselves for the first time. That night their fight for happiness began.