CHAPTER XXIII
A QUESTION OF HONOUR
"Your Great-aunt Rachel is dead, Roger."
Lady Gertrude made this announcement the following morning atbreakfast. In her hand she held the letter which contained thenews--written in an old-fashioned, sloping style of penmanship on thin,heavily black-bordered note-paper. No one made any reply unless asympathetic murmur from Isobel could be construed as such.
"Cousin Emily writes that the funeral is to take place next Thursday,"pursued Lady Gertrude, referring to the letter she held. "We shallhave to attend it, of course."
"Must we?" asked Roger, with obvious lack of enthusiasm. "I haven'tseen her for at least five years."
"I know." The reply came so sharply that it was evident he had touchedupon a sore subject. "It is very much to be regretted that youhaven't. After all, she must have left at least a hundred thousand todivide."
"Even the prospect of a share of the spoil wouldn't have compensatedfor the infliction of visiting an old termagant like Great-auntRachel," averred Roger unrepentantly.
"I shall be interested to hear the will read, nevertheless," rejoinedLady Gertrude. "After all, you were her only great-nephew and, inspite of your inattentiveness, I don't suppose she has overlooked you.She may even have remembered Isobel to the extent of a piece ofjewellery."
Isobel's brown eyes gleamed--like the alert eyes of a robin whosuddenly perceives the crumbs some kindly hand has scattered on thelawn.
"I'm afraid we shall have to leave you alone for a night, Nan," pursuedLady Gertrude with a stiff air of apology.
Nan, engrossed in a long epistle from Penelope, failed to hear and madeno answer. The tremendous fact of great-aunt's death, and the possibledisposition of her property, had completely passed her by. It waslittle wonder that she was so much absorbed. Penelope's letter hadbeen written on board ship and posted from Liverpool, and it containedthe joyful tidings that she and her husband had returned to England andproposed going straight to the Edenhall flat. "You must come up andsee us as soon as your visit to Trenby comes to an end," wrotePenelope, and Nan devoutly wished it could end that very moment.
"I don't think you heard me, Nan." Lady Gertrude's incisive voice cutsharply across the pulsing excitement of the girl's thoughts.
"I--I--no. Did you speak to me?" she faltered. Her usual daintyassurance was fast disappearing beneath the nervous strain of livingwith Lady Gertrude.
The facts concerning great-aunt's death were recapitulated for herbenefit, together with the explanation that, since Lady Gertrude,Roger, and Isobel would be obliged to stay the night with "CousinEmily" in order to attend the funeral, Nan would be reluctantly left toher own devices.
"I can't very well take you with us--on such an occasion," meditatedLady Gertrude aloud. "To Cousin Emily you would be a completestranger, you see. Besides, she will no doubt have other relativesbesides ourselves to put up at the house. Would you care for me to asksomeone over to keep you company while we're away?"
"Oh, no, thank you," replied Nan hastily. "Please don't worry about meat all, Lady Gertrude. I don't in the least mind being leftalone--really."
A sudden ecstatic thought had come into her mind which could only beput into execution if she were left alone at Trenby, and the barepossibility of any other arrangement now being made filled her withalarm.
"Well, I regret the necessity of leaving you," said Lady Gertrude,meticulous as ever in matters of social observance. "But the servantswill look after you well, I hope. And in any case, we shall be homeagain on Thursday night. We shall be able to catch the last trainback."
During the day or two which intervened before the family exodus, Nancould hardly contain her impatience. Their absence would give her theopportunity she longed for--the opportunity to get away from Trenby!The idea had flashed into her mind the instant Lady Gertrude hadinformed her she would be left alone there, and now each hour that mustelapse before she could carry out her plan seemed an eternity.
Following upon the prolonged strain of the preceding three months, thatlast terrible scene with Roger had snapped her endurance. She couldnot look back upon it without shuddering. Since the day of itsoccurrence she had hardly spoken to him, except at meal times when, asif by mutual consent, they both conversed as though nothing hadhappened--for Lady Gertrude's benefit. Apart from this, Nan avoidedhim as much as possible, treating him with a cool, indifferent reservehe found difficult to break down. At least, he made no very determinedeffort to do so. Perhaps he was even a little ashamed of himself. Butit was not in his nature to own himself wrong.
Like many men, he had a curiously implicit faith in the principle of"letting things blow over." On occasion this may prove the wisestcourse to adopt, but very rarely in regard to a quarrel between a manand woman. Things don't "blow over" with a woman. They lie hidden inher heart, gradually permeating her thoughts until her whole attitudetowards the man in question has hardened and the old footing betweenthem become irrecoverable.
Nan felt that she had made her effort--and failed. Roger had missedthe whole meaning of her attempt to bring about a mutual feeling ofgood comradeship, brushed it aside as of no importance. And instead,he had substituted his own imperious demands, rousing her, once thestress of the actual interview itself was past, to fierce and bitterrevolt. No matter what happened in the future, she must get awaynow--snatch a brief respite from the daily strain of her life at theHall.
But with an oddly persistent determination she put away from her allthought of breaking off her engagement. To most women similarlysituated this would have been the obvious and simplest solution of theproblem. But it seemed to Nan that her compact with Roger demanded afiner, more closely-knit interpretation of the word honour than wouldhave been necessary in the case of an engagement entered into underdifferent circumstances. The personal emergency which had driven herinto giving Roger her promise weighed heavily upon her, and she feltthat nothing less than his own consent would entitle her to break herpledge to him. When she gave it she had thought she was buying safetyfor herself and happiness for Penelope--cutting the tangled threads inwhich she found herself so inextricably involved--and now, as Lord St.John had reminded her, she could not honourably refuse to pay theprice. She could not plead that she had mistaken her feelings towardshim. She had pledged her word to him, open-eyed, and she was not free,as other women might be, to retract the promise she had given.
Added to this, Roger's sheer, dominant virility had imbued her with afatalistic sense of her total inability to escape him. She had had aglimpse of the primitive man in him--of the man with the club. Evenwere she to violate her conscience sufficiently to end the engagementbetween them, she knew perfectly well that he would refuse to accept oracknowledge any such termination. Wherever she hid herself he wouldfind out her hiding-place and come in search of her, and insist uponthe fulfilment of her promise. And supposing that, in desperation, shemarried someone else, what was it he had said? "I swear to you if anyman takes you from me I'll kill him first and you after!"
So, there was no escape for her. Roger would dog her footsteps roundthe world and back again sooner than let her go free of him. In avaguely aloof and apathetic manner she felt as though it was herdestiny to marry him. And no one can escape from destiny. Life hadshown her many beautiful things--even that rarest thing of all, abeautiful and unselfish love. But it had shown them only to snatchthem away again once she had learned to value them.
If only she had never met Peter, never known the secret wonder andglory, the swift, sudden strength, the exquisite mingling of passionand selflessness which go to the making of the highest in love, shemight have been content to become Roger's wife and bear his children.
His big strength and virile, primitive possessiveness would appeal tomany women, and Nan reflected that had she cared for him it would havebeen easy enough to tame him--with his tempestuous love, his savagetemper, and his shamefaced "little boy" repentances! A woman who lovedhim
in return might have led him by a thread of gossamer! It was thevery fact that Nan did not love him, and that he knew it, which drovethe brute in him uppermost in his dealings with her. He wanted to_make_ her care, to bend her to his will, to force from her someresponse to his own over-mastering passion.
Wearily she faced the situation for the hundredth time and knew that inthe long run she must abide by it. She had learned not to cry for themoon any longer. She wanted nothing now either in this world or thenext except the love that was denied her.
Her thoughts went back to the day when she and Peter had first met anddriven together through the twilit countryside to Abbencombe. Sheremembered the sudden sadness which had fallen upon him and how she hadtried to cheer him by repeating the verses of a little song. It allseemed very long ago:
"But sometimes God on His great white Throne Looks down from the Heaven above, And lays in the hands that are empty The tremulous Star of Love."
The words seemed to speak themselves in her brain just as she herselfhad spoken them that day, with the car slipping swiftly through thewinter dusk. She could feel again the throb of the engine--see Peter'swhimsical grey-blue eyes darken suddenly to a stern and tragic gravity.
For him and for her there could be no star. To the end of life theytwo must go empty-handed.