II
"And now," he said gayly, "let's dine and, if you don't mind, I willbuttle. I hate servants in a place like this." He went to the head ofthe table and drew back a chair.
Joan sat down, thanking him with a smile. It was hard to believe that,with the words of that girl still ringing in her ears and the debris ofher hopes lying in a heap about her feet, she was going through theprocess of being nice to this man who had his claims. It was unreal,fantastic. It wasn't really happening. She must be lying face down onsome quiet corner of Mother Earth and watering its bosom with tears ofblood. Martin--Martin! It was all her fault.
Tomorrow she would be back again in the old house, with the old peopleand the old dogs and the old trees and follow her old routine--old,old. That was the price she must pay for being a kid when she shouldhave been a woman.
Palgrave stood at the sideboard and carved a cold chicken decoratedwith slips of parsley. "Have you ever gone into a room in which you'venever been before and recognized everything in it or done some thingfor the first time that you suddenly realize isn't new to you?"
"Yes, often," replied Joan. "Why?"
"You've never sat in that chair until this minute and this chicken wasprobably killed this morning. But I've seen you sitting in just thatattitude at that table and cut the wing of this very bird and watchedthat identical smile round your lips when I put the plate in front ofyou." He put it in front of her and the scent of her hair made himcatch his breath. "Oh, my God!" he said to himself. "This girl--thisbeautiful, cool, bewitching thing--the dew of youth upon her, as chasteas unsunned snow--Oh, my God...."
But Joan had caught the scent of honeysuckle, and back into her braincame that cottage splashed with sun, the lithe figure of HarryOldershaw with his face tanned the color of mahogany and the clearvoice of "Mrs. Gray."
Gilbert filled her glass with champagne cup, carved for himself and satat the foot of the table. "The man from whom I bought this place," hesaid, saying anything to make conversation and keep himself rig idlylight and, as he hoped, like Oldershaw, "owns a huge ready-made clothesstore on Broadway--appalling things with comic belts and weird pockets."
"Oh!" said Joan. Always, for ever, the scent of honeysuckle would bringthat picture back. Martin--Martin.
"He makes any amount of money by dressing that portion of young Americawhich sells motors and vacuum cleaners and gramaphone records and hangsabout stage doors smoking cheap cigarettes."
"Yes?" Joan listened but heard nothing except that high clear voicecoming through the screen door.
"He built this cottage as an antidote and spent his week-ends hereentirely alone with the trees and crickets, trying to write poetry. Hewas very pleased with it and believed that this atmosphere was going tomake him immortal."
"I see,"--but all she saw was a porch covered with honeysuckle, ahammock with an open book face downwards in it and the long shadow ofHarry Oldershaw flung across the white steps.
Gilbert went on--pathetically unable to catch the unaffected youngstuff of the nice boy and his kind. He had never been young.
"He had had no time during his hard struggle to read the masters, andwhen, without malice, I quoted a chunk of Grey's 'Elegy' to him, thepoor devil's jaw fell, he withdrew his blank refusal to sell the placeto me, pocketed my cheque, packed his grip, and slouched off then andthere, looking as if a charge of dynamite had blown his chest away. Hisgarments, I notice, are as comic as ever, and I suppose he is nowliving in a turretted house with stucco walls and stone lions at NewRochelle, wedded to Commerce and a buxom girl who talks too much andrag-times through her days."
Joan joined in his laugh. She was there to make up for her unkindness.She would do her best under the circumstances. She hoped he would telllots of long stories to cover her wordlessness.
Gilbert emptied his glass and filled it again. He was half conscious ofdramatizing the episode as it unrolled itself and thrilled to thinkthat this might be the last time that he would eat and drink in theonly life that he knew. Death, upon which he had looked hitherto withhorror, didn't scare him if he went into it hand in hand with Joan.With Alice trying, in her persistently gentle way, to cure him, lifewas unthinkable. Life with Joan--there was that to achieve. Let the lawunravel the knots while he and she wandered in France and Italy, shetriumphantly young, and he a youth again, his dream come true.... Wouldshe have come with him to-night if she hadn't grown weary of playingflapper? She knew what she meant to him. He had told her often enough.Too often, perhaps. He had taken the surprise of it away, discountedthe romance..
He got up and gave her some salad and stood by her for a moment. He waslike a moth hovering about a lamp.
She smiled up at him again--homesick for the old bedroom and the oldtrees, eager to sit in her grand father's room and read the paper tohim. He was old and out of life and so was she. Oh, Martin, Martin. Whycouldn't he have waited a little while longer?
The shock of touching her fingers as she took the salad plate sent theblood to Gilbert's brain. But he reined himself in. He was afraid tocome to the point yet. Life was too good like this. The abyss yawned attheir feet. He would turn his back to it and see only the outstretchedlandscape of hope.
They ate very little, and Joan ignored her glass. Gilbert frequentlyfilled his own, but he might just as well have been drinking water. Hewas already drunk with love.
Finally, after a long silence, Joan pushed her chair back and got up.
Instantly he was in front of her, with his back to the door. "Joan," hesaid, and held out his hands in supplication.
"Don't you think we ought to drive home now?" she asked.
"Home?"
"Yes. It must be getting late."
"Not yet," he said, steadying his voice. "Time is ours. Don't hurry."
He went down suddenly on to his knees and kissed her feet.
At any other time, in any other mood, the action would have stirred hersense of the ridiculous. She would have laughed and whipped him withsarcasm. He had done exuberant things before and left her unmovedexcept to mirth. But this time she raised him up without a word, and heanswered her touch with curious unresistance, like a man hypnotized andstood speechless, but with eyes that were filled with eloquence.
"Be good to-night, Gilbert," she said. "I've ... I've been awfully hurtto-day and I feel tired and worn--not up to fencing with you."
The word "fencing" didn't strike home at first, nor did he gather atonce from her simple appeal that she had not come in the mood that hehad persuaded himself was hers.
"This is the first time that you've given me even an hour since youdrew me to the Hosacks," he said. "Be generous. Don't do things byhalves."
She could say nothing to that. She was there only because of a desireto make up ever so little for having teased him. He had beenconsistently generous to her. She had hoped, from his manner, that hewas simply going to be nice and kind and not indulge in romantics. Shewas wrong, evidently. It was no new thing, though. She was wellaccustomed to his being dramatic and almost foreign. He had said manyamazing things but always remained the civilized man, and neverattempted to make a scene. She liked him for that, and she had triedhim pretty high, she knew. She did wish that he would be good thatnight, but there was nothing to say in reply to his appeal. And so shewent over to one of the pews and sat down among the cushions.
"I'll give you another hour, then," she said.
But the word had begun to rankle. "Fencing!--Fencing! ..."
He repeated it several times.
She watched him wander oddly about the room, thinking aloud rather thanspeaking to her. How different he had become. For the first time itdawned upon her that the whole look of the man had undergone a change.He held himself with less affectation. His petulance had gone. He waslike a Gilbert Palgrave who had been ill and had come out of it withnone of his old arrogance.
He took up a cigarette and began wandering again, muttering herunfortunate word. She was sorry to have hurt his feelings. It was thevery last thing tha
t she had wanted to do. "Aren't there any matches?"she asked. "Ring for some."
She was impatient of indecision.
He drew up and looked at her. "Ring? Why? No one will come."
"Are we the only people in the house, then?"
"Yes," he said. "That's part of my plan."
"Plan?" She was on her feet. "What do you mean? Have you thought allthis out and made a scheme of it?"
"Yes; all out," he said. "The moment has come, Joan."
No longer did the scent of honeysuckle take Joan back to the sun-bathedcottage and the voice behind the door. No longer did she feel that allthis wasn't really happening, that it was fantastic. Stark realityforced itself upon her and brought her into the present as though someone had turned up all the lights in a dark room. She was alone with theman whom she had driven to the limit of his patience. No one knew thatshe was there. It was a trick into which she had fallen out of a newwish to be kind. A sense of self-preservation scattered the direeffects of everything that had happened during the afternoon. She mustget out, quickly. She made for the door.
But Gilbert was there first. He locked it, drew out the key, put it inhis pocket and before she could turn towards the door leading to theother rooms, he was there. He repeated the process with peculiardeftness and when he saw her dart a look at the windows, he shook hishead.
"You can't jump through those screens," he said.
"It isn't fair," she cried.
"Have you been fair?"
"I shall shout for help."
"The nearest cottage is too far away for any one to hear you."
"What are you going to do?"
He went back to her. He was far too quiet and dignified and unlikehimself. She could have managed the old vain Gilbert. A scoffing laugh,and he would have withered. But this new Gilbert, who looked at herwith such a curious, exalted expression--what was she to do with him?
"Joan," he said, "listen. This is the end or the beginning. I haven'tlocked the doors and sent the servants away to get you into a vulgartrap. I might have done it a few weeks ago, but not as I am now. Thisis my night, my beautiful Joan. You have given it to me. After all thisfencing, as you call it, you are here with me alone, as far away fromthe old foolishness as if you were out at sea. What I have to say is somuch a private thing, and what I may have to do so much a matter to betreated with the profoundest solemnity that we must run no risk ofdisturbance. Do you begin to understand, little Joan?"
"No," she said.
"I will explain it to you, then. You are very young and have been verythoughtless. You haven't stopped to think that you have been playingwith a soul as well as a heart. I have brought you here to-night toface things up simply and quietly and finally, and leave it to you tomake a choice."
"A choice?"
"Yes, between life with me or death in my arms."