CHAPTER TWELVE
The morning of the fifth day after his arrival Joyselle went downstairs early, and out into the garden.
He looked, as he felt, very tired, for he had been with Tommy most of the time, day and night, and played until even his great strength was nearly exhausted.
For Tommy had clung to his presence in a very piteous way, crying weakly, since the fever had gone, every time the Master left the room, restless and unable to sleep unless played to, capricious and naughty about his food unless the Master sat by him while he ate.
Many children are disquietingly good during serious illness, and Tommy had been very patient while at his worst; but once on the road to recovery, the natural imp in him revived and flourished, making the road a hard one for his fellow-travellers.
There had been a phase when he smuggled his food under the bedclothes, pretending with diabolical cleverness to eat it; when the milk left by his side was poured out of the window the moment he had been left alone. But Joyselle, discovering these crimes, had taken to sitting by the boy when his meals were brought, and with him Tommy was almost painfully eager to be good.
The danger, Dr. Long declared, was now over, and within a week the invalid was to be moved to Margate.
In a few hours Joyselle was returning to town, and he was glad, for the strains, more than one, to which his stay had subjected him, were telling on his nerves.
The rose-garden, even in mid-September, was a pleasant place, and as he walked along its broad grass paths the violinist wished it were July, and that the fine standard roses might be in bloom. He loved flowers, and with the curiously rapid assimilation of superficial knowledge common to artistic natures, had picked up a considerable amount of rose-lore at the house of some friends in Devonshire.
There was one big yellow rose on a bush near the middle of the garden, and bending over it, he buried his nose in it.
"Victor!"
Brigit had joined him unheard, and stood looking at him, her hand held out. "Let me give you that rose."
But he shook his head. "No, let it die there. It is so beautiful among the leaves. You are up early."
"Yes. I saw you from the window, and brought you your letters." She handed him several as she spoke.
"Thanks."
"And—I want to thank you for staying. It is you, and only you, who have saved Tommy."
He nodded gravely. "I love Tommy. We must not let him overwork again, Brigit."
"No."
Joyselle turned over his letters without looking at them. "Did Théo speak to you the other day about—our—that is to say, his plan?"
Her face stiffened. "No."
This was the first time she had succeeded in seeing Victor alone during all the five days of his stay. Unobtrusively but effectively he had avoided her, shutting himself, when he was not in the sick-room, in his own room, under the pretext of fatigue or correspondence. And she had not submitted to this without repeated efforts to foil his intentions.
Again and again she had made little plans to catch him alone, but she had invariably failed, and as the days passed and she realised his strength of determination, a dull, slow fire of anger had begun to burn in her.
Théo, who had been down twice, had found her manner very unsatisfactory; she was strikingly different from what she had been in Falaise, and the young man was puzzled and hurt. While Tommy was still very ill he had borne with her change of mood with great patience, but the time was coming when he must demand an explanation. All this she felt and resented.
She looked, as she stood by the rose-bush, very tired, and older than her years, but she looked remarkably handsome; pallor and heavy eyelids did not disfigure her as they do most women.
Joyselle took out his silver box and made a cigarette.
"He was talking to me about it," he went on, disregarding the final quality of her negative. "And I find it very good. It is that Tommy should live much with—you—when you are married. Your mother does not know how to bring him up; he is delicate and high-strung, and Théo is very fond of him."
"I am not going to marry Théo!" she burst out, exasperated beyond endurance.
He looked up. "Are you mad?" he asked quietly.
"No. But—you seem to be trying to make me mad. I can't understand you, Victor."
"Can't you, Brigit? I should think it was very easy. You remember what we agreed at Falaise? That——"
"That I was to marry Théo and 'live happy ever after'? Oh, yes, I remember. But do you remember how miserable you were the day before—and the day of—the wedding? And why that was?"
He was silent for a moment.
"Yes," he answered humbly. "I know. I was—jealous."
"Well—and you expect me to be happy and content while you behave as you are doing now? You never speak to me; you never look at me; you fly from me as if I were an infectious disease. It is—unbearable," she ended passionately. "I can't bear it."
He smoked in silence for some seconds. "I am—sorry to have hurt you, Brigit."
"Sorry to have hurt me! I don't believe you love me. If you were jealous, so am I! I will not be treated like this."
His white face was like a mask. "I am sorry," he repeated, with a kind of dogged patience.
"Then if you are—be good to me. I love you, Victor."
He met her eyes and his did not falter in their steady gaze. "Please do not excite yourself," he said very gently, "and—I think I will go in now. It must be breakfast time."
Driven beyond her own control by his tone, she caught his arm and pleaded with him, her voice harsh and broken, and she could not stop, although she saw that she was, besides annoying him, injuring herself in his eyes.
"Please—Brigit——"
"Then tell me that you love me. You can't have stopped—it is only a week since the wedding—I—can't bear this——"
But her mistaken line of conduct brought its inevitable punishment. "This is—absurd," he said coldly, "and—undignified. I told you at Falaise that I was ashamed of myself for being jealous of my son. It was monstrous and hideous. I think I have been not quite in my right mind for some time. But I have a strong will and can force myself to anything——"
"And you are forcing yourself to kill your love for me——"
"No. I am trying to learn to love you as a—a daughter, and I am beginning to succeed. But if you insist in making scenes like this——" He broke off and gave his shoulders an expressive shrug. "It is—not womanly."
Then, breaking the yellow rose from the bush, he drew its stem through his button-hole and strolled leisurely away, whistling under his breath.