(vi)
Valeria had been engaged for nearly a month when she wrote a letter.
“Dear Captain Cuscaden,
“I thought I would like to tell you myself that I am engaged to be married. It is to Owen Quentillian, whom I have known all my life, almost, and we hope to be married in January.
“I hope you will have very good luck in Canada, and that you will sometimes let us know how you get on. We are expecting you on Saturday, to come and say good-bye.
“Yours sincerely,
“Valeria Morchard.”
Val spent a long while over the composition of her brief letter, re-read it a great number of times, and finally tore it up very carefully into small pieces.
“What’s the use?” she said.
Captain Cuscaden, however, did not seem to have been dependent upon Valeria for news of Valeria’s engagement. He congratulated her formally on the Saturday afternoon when he came to pay his farewell visit to St. Gwenllian.
Olga Duffle was there, too, and Miss Admaston.
“No more tennis this year. It’s going to rain again,” said Flora.
“Here it comes,” Mr. Clover pointed out.
“It may clear up later—let’s have tea.”
After tea the rain was still falling heavily.
“How are all you young folks going to amuse yourselves?” genially enquired the Canon. “Lucilla, can you not organize some of our old jeux d’esprit, with pencil and paper?”
There was an inarticulate protest from the Captain, to which no one paid any attention except Valeria, who heard it, and Olga, who replied to it: “I’ll help you, Dzorze, if you’re very good.”
Mr. Clover was zealous in finding paper and pencils.
“I can’t resist this,” said the Canon boyishly. “I must give some of my old favourites a turn before going to more serious affairs. Now what is it to be?”
No one appeared to be very ready with suggestions. Captain Cuscaden was gloomily gazing out of the window. Olga and Adrian were talking in undertones, and Miss Admaston was telling Quentillian how very much she dreaded and disliked any games that required the use of brains.
“Are we all ready?” said Mr. Clover joyously.
“I suppose we’re as ready as we ever shall be,” said Captain Cuscaden.
Thus encouraged, they began.
Canon Morchard, Lucilla, and Owen Quentillian outmatched the rest of the players with ease. Each seemed to think with promptitude of great men whose names started with A, battles that began with M, or quotations—English—of which the initial letter was W.
They challenged one another’s references, and verified one another’s dates. They capped quotations, and they provided original bouts rimés.
The entertainment gradually resolved itself into one animated trio, with a faithful but halting chorus, in the persons of Mr. Clover and Flora, and a rapid and low-toned aside between Adrian and Miss Duffle.
Captain Cuscaden played a listless game of noughts and crosses with Miss Admaston, and Valeria leant back in her chair and ceased to pretend that she was occupied.
She looked at the sapphire and diamond ring on her finger, and thought about Owen’s cleverness. She remembered that Lucilla had said he would be a difficult person to live with. She remembered her own secret desires for a life of work, and her assurance to herself that such ambitions were out of place. She reminded herself that her father had been, in his own parlance, glad beyond words to welcome Owen Quentillian as a son. And she looked at Owen himself, and saw him intent, over his little slips of paper, and a sudden rush of tenderness came over her. His absorption in the game seemed to make him younger, and in more need of her. She could remember Owen as a flaxen-haired, solemn, rather priggish little boy, and she suddenly felt that perhaps he had not changed a very great deal since those days, after all.
Val felt happier, in a subdued and wistful way. She woke to the realization that the games were ended.
The Canon had arisen.
“Look up that derivation, Clover, dear man, and let me have it. I shall be curious.... Fare ye well, young people, I recommend Lucilla here as a veritable dictionary of dates, if you wish to continue your amusement.”
Nothing could have been more evident, the moment the Canon had left the room, than that no one wished to pursue amusement on the lines indicated.
Even Mr. Clover joined in the general movement that thankfully relinquished paper and pencil, and sent everyone to the piano, flung open by Olga Duffle.
“Do play something,” Adrian pleaded.
“Oh, not me. Make your sister play. She plays so much better than I do.”
It was indubitably true that Flora played a great deal better than did Olga, yet nobody seemed to want Flora to play the piano, and Olga, even as she protested, slipped on to the music stool and ran her small fingers over the keys.
“I say, how well you do everything!” Adrian murmured ecstatically above her.
She looked up at him and smiled, showing all her little pointed teeth.
They clustered round her.
“Do you know ‘Oh, Kiss Me and I’ll Never Tell,’ that comes in that revue—I forget it’s name—the new one? It’s lovely.”
To the perceptions of Valeria Morchard, trained in the eclectic school of the Canon’s taste, the musical inspiration in question was not only undeserving of being called lovely, but was vulgar to the point of blatancy, ringing through the St. Gwenllian drawing-room in Olga’s little, high, soprano voice.
She was not at all surprised that Owen should look at her through his pince-nez with eyebrows expressively elevated, nor that Mr. Clover, presumably in a futile endeavour to spare the Canon’s ears, should unobtrusively go and shut the door.
Val looked at Lucilla.
There was something not at all unlike amusement on Miss Morchard’s face, but Val did not think that it was caused by the humour of “Oh, Kiss Me and I’ll Never Tell.” Rather it might have been born of a gentle irony, embracing alike the puzzled distaste of Flora, the obvious terror of the curate lest he should be supposed to be enjoying the entertainment, the absorption with which Captain Cuscaden, Adrian, and even Miss Admaston stood and listened, the supercilious detachment of Owen Quentillian, the complacent unconsciousness of the small, pert singer at the piano. No doubt Lucilla could have detected, had she cared to do so, the unspecified emotions that Val suspected of being written upon her own unsmiling face.
She felt suddenly impatient.
“We’re all intolerable. Lucilla is superior, and Flossie takes this rubbish au grand serieux, like a crime, and Owen is thinking how deplorable it is that idiotic words should be set to inferior music, and put before the British public for its education.... I can hear exactly what he’ll say about it afterwards.”
It struck her that the anticipation scarcely boded well for a life that was in future to be spent in Quentillian’s company.
“My dusky gal is black as coal
“But she’s just the whitest, brightest soul.”
carolled Olga.
“I love the darky girls, don’t you?”
“Rather.”
“Why does the English youth of today seek artistic inspiration from the uncivilized population of Central Africa, I wonder?” said Owen Quentillian. He addressed himself to Lucilla, but his very distinct utterance was perfectly audible to everybody else.
Captain Cuscaden laughed, and Olga looked round with perfect good humour. It was Adrian who glared at Quentillian, and Mr. Clover who observed reproachfully:
“I’m sure those old plantation songs are charming, as Miss Olga renders them.”
“You shouldn’t be so superior, Owen,” said Lucilla tranquilly.
It was what Val had been thinking, but she had found herself quite unable to say it, from the very intensity of her feeling.
Lucilla placed an old album on the music stand, and they all began to sing together “Comin’ through the Rye.”
The music affected Valeria almost intolerably.
All the Morchards had good voices, and both Flora and Lucilla sang well. Their true, deep voices gradually dominated Olga’s high pipe, and the four men sank to a mere murmur of accompaniment. Miss Admaston had never done more than crane over everybody’s shoulder in turn in an endeavour to see the page at close quarters, and murmur the last words of a verse in an undertone when everyone else was singing the first line of the refrain. She was now altogether silent.
“Sing the Russian songs, Flora,” said Quentillian.
Valeria pressed her hands closer together, and leant against the wall.
It was growing dark.
The air of the Russian song that Flora chose was wild and sweet.
“You are my darling, you are my soul
Light of my life, my sun, my goal ...
You are my being, my delight
Star of my darkest night.”
Direct, primitive worship of one man for one woman: Flora’s voice held all the passion that was not in her, save at her music.
The ache at Val’s heart seemed to her physical in its intensity.
She knew what she wanted, now, and she knew that Owen Quentillian would not give it her.
To her own horror, a rush of tears blinded her.
“But all is well for thou art with me
“The world is full of only thee.”
sang Flora.
“What is the matter?” said the low, troubled voice of Cuscaden beside her.
Val started violently.
“Val, you must tell me. What is it...?”
They looked at each other.
It suddenly became the thing that mattered most in the world that Val Morchard and George Cuscaden should speak alone to one another.
Regardless of the rain pouring outside, Valeria gently opened the French window behind her.
“Come outside. I must speak to you,” she said urgently.
She had no idea what she was going to say.
Outside, in the rapidly gathering darkness, the rain fell in torrents and splashed up from the ground against the stone step of the low veranda that ran round the house.
Cuscaden stepped out of the warm room and closed the window again behind him. It was as though he had shut them out of the world of music and companionship, into some colder, more virile atmosphere.
“But all is well for thou art with me
“The world is full of only thee.”
Flora’s song reached them as faintly as possible, and neither heeded it.
They faced one another, and Val found that she was shivering from head to foot.
“Why do I never get a chance of speaking to you nowadays?” said Captain Cuscaden violently.
“You could have,” said Valeria, and her voice broke.
His arms went round her.
“Val, Val, I love you so.”
It was as though Quentillian had never existed.
“And you’re going to Canada,” she wailed.
“You’re coming with me.”
“I must,” Val said, and surrendered herself to his kisses.
“My daughter, how wet you are!” exclaimed the Canon.
His daughter, hastening to her own room, paused under the light of a lamp, and inadvertently thereby gave the Canon an opportunity of verifying his statement.
Val, beneath his astonished gaze, became acutely aware that her rain-wet hair was disordered, her face flaming, and showing all the marks of recent and violent weeping.
“What is all this?” the Canon enquired rather sternly.
Valeria felt utterly incapable of replying.
“Answer me, Valeria.”
“Captain Cuscaden is looking for you,” said Valeria almost inaudibly.
“Captain Cuscaden?”
“Yes.”
They gazed speechlessly at one another.
A weight had descended upon the Canon’s brow and the lines round his mouth were set sternly.
“Valeria, has he insulted you?”
The intimate conviction overwhelmed her that the Canon’s opinion of her recent interview with Captain Cuscaden would certainly demand an emphatically affirmative reply to the enquiry. She felt a purely hysterical desire to burst out laughing at the thought.
“How is Captain Cuscaden concerned with you? If it is as I think, Valeria, you did well to refer him to me.”
“But it isn’t. He—I—we are both to blame, Father. I’m going to break off my engagement to Owen. I love George.”
The words were said, and although Valeria broke into a flood of tears, it was with a sense of relief. Telling Owen that she did not intend to marry him after all, was, she honestly felt, nothing to telling the Canon so.
She sank down on the stairs and hid her face in her hands, afraid to face her father’s realization of the implication that her words contained.
It did not tarry.
“Do you want me to understand that you are under a solemn engagement to marry Owen Quentillian, and that you have at the same time been allowing—encouraging—the clandestine attentions of this—this fellow? You, my daughter, behaving like a wanton? I won’t believe it—I can’t believe it—” the Canon’s voice rose violently. “Valeria, for God’s sake tell me I’m mistaken—don’t crouch there like a guilty creature—tell me I’m wrong, tell me you’re the pure, honest maiden I’ve tried to make you and not—not—a creature without honour, without decency——”
The rising note of anguish broke on a strangled sob.
Below, a door was shut sharply.
“Get up,” said the Canon with violence.
Valeria rose, and he pulled her to her feet and gazed searchingly into her face.
“And this is my child!” said the Canon, and in his turn dropped his face into his hands, groaning.
“I couldn’t help it,” she spoke between her sobs, like a child. “Owen knew I wasn’t in love with him ... only I never realized, I didn’t know George cared, too—it was always him....”
“Stop!” thundered the Canon. “Are you without shame, Valeria? Is that fellow waiting for me downstairs, or has he crawled away as I should expect, from one who has so repaid my hospitality?”
The words gave Valeria a needed impetus.
“He is ready to meet you, Father—he went to find you. And I love him—I suppose I’ve been very dishonourable, but I—I believe Owen will understand.”
She broke into tears again, and left him.
Overwhelmed with the sense of her own dishonour, regarding the Canon’s wrath as might have a child, in the light of the greatest calamity that life could present, she turned with absolute relief to the thought of Owen’s dispassionate judgments, his studiously impersonal attitude towards life. Owen would understand.
There came a knock at the door.
“Val, may I come in?”
“What is it?” said Valeria unwillingly.
Lucilla entered the room, unperturbed, but fully accepting the disordered aspect of its occupant.
“I’m afraid, Val, that the drawing-room door was open, and it was impossible to help hearing Father. I thought you’d rather know, in case you wanted to speak to Owen.”
“Owen knows?” almost shrieked Valeria.
“I suppose he does. He must have drawn his own conclusions.”
“I couldn’t help it,” said Val again. “I never meant anything like that to happen—it’s George Cuscaden, Lucilla. It was always him, indeed it was, only I didn’t know it, and it all seemed to happen in a minute—it was stronger than either of us.”
“I daresay you did quite right. Why don’t you wash, Val?”
“Oh, Lucilla, how like you!”
Valeria laughed shakily, but she followed her sister’s advice.
Lucilla methodically produced Val’s brush and comb, and dry clothing.
“Maud Admaston and Miss Duffle have gone, and Adrian went with them. Mr. Clover has gone, too, so it was only Owen and Flossie and I that heard.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything. Shall I fasten you up, Val?”
“Lucilla—what am I to do?”
“Tell Owen you can’t marry him, and tell George you will marry him.”
“I wish it was as simple as that! You always take things so literally.”
“Well,” said Lucilla unmoved, “I don’t see any other way of taking this. You can’t be engaged to two people at once. You know—Owen will understand.”
“That’s what I feel,” said Val to her own surprise. “But Father—Father will never, never understand.”
“Probably not. But after all, it’s you, and Owen, and George, isn’t it, that are concerned? I shouldn’t let there be scenes and upsets about it, Val, if I were you—really I shouldn’t. Why don’t you just see Owen tonight, and tell him about it, and then you and he and George could all talk it over quietly tomorrow morning?”
Val was conscious of profound astonishment and also of extreme relief.
“Do you think one could? But Father——”
“You needn’t go downstairs again. I quite understand that you don’t want to see Father again tonight. Shall I tell Owen to come up here?”
“Here? How could he, in my bedroom?”
“Goodness me, child, you may just as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, surely. But if you think it’s so dreadful, I suppose you can come out on the landing and speak to him.”
Impossible to disconcert Lucilla!
Val assented to the surprising propositions so matter-of-factly delivered.
“Yes, tell Owen to come up. I’d better get it over. But Lucilla—George——”
“Do you want me to see him, or give him a message?”
“I want to know what Father says to him,” Val said faintly.
“Very well. I’ll ask Father if George has gone.”
“And, oh, Lucilla! I know you can’t prevent it, really, but if only you could make Father not come up to me tonight! I can’t bear any more—indeed I can’t.”
“Well,” said Lucilla, “you’d better lock the door then.” She took the key from the lock, put it on the inside of the door and tried it in a practical manner. “That’s all right. You can lock it on the inside as soon as Owen has gone.”
She went downstairs, but turned and came up again the next moment.
“I’ll have dinner sent up to you, shall I?”
“I don’t want any.”
“I should think you’d better have something, Val. I’ll send up soup and chicken. The pudding is only ginger, and you know how badly she makes ginger pudding.”
Lucilla departed in earnest, upon this prosaic pronouncement.
She was succeeded by Owen Quentillian, and Val went out upon the landing to meet him.
“Will you forgive me, Owen? I can’t marry you.”
“What has happened?”
“I thought you knew,” she said piteously.
“I suppose I do. Is it Cuscaden?”
“Yes.”
“Then why,” Owen demanded in reasonable accents, “couldn’t he have proposed to you himself without waiting for you to be engaged to me?”
“He thought he couldn’t ask me to go to Canada—and he’s badly off—and then, when you came, he—he thought it was you I cared about.”
“I see,” said Quentillian dryly.
“I don’t think I knew, exactly, that I still cared for him, and I was sure he hadn’t meant anything, and it—it was really all over—only then—Flora’s music, somehow—and he asked me what it was—and I cried. Owen, won’t you forgive me? Surely it’s better than if I’d tried to go on with it?”
“Of course it is.”
They looked at one another rather helplessly.
“Val, if I can do anything to help you, of course I will. What are you going to do?”
“I can’t think,” said Valeria faintly.
“When does Cuscaden sail?”
“Next week.”
“That’s bad luck,” said Owen impartially. “Look here, my dear, you must be tired out. Won’t you go and sleep now, and in the morning we could see what’s to be done?”
“Oh, how good you are!”
He frowned slightly.
“Surely the day of heroics is over. I haven’t the slightest desire to exchange pistol-shots with Captain Cuscaden, I assure you. We are three reasonable human beings, and we find ourselves in a difficulty from which only clear thinking and absolute plain speaking can extricate us. You may believe me when I tell you that I am perfectly prepared to discuss the case upon its own merits.”
Valeria could believe him without difficulty. Even in the midst of her distress, she could not altogether stifle a slight suspicion that Owen was appreciating the opportunity afforded him of being thoroughly modern and rational.
“Have you seen Father?”
“Not yet.”
Quentillian’s tone betrayed no great eagerness for the prospective interview.
“He is very, very angry with me, and I know he has every right to be. But indeed, Owen, I was coming straight to you, only I met him first, and it somehow came out. George was going to tell him.”
“Your father has never liked Captain Cuscaden,” said Quentillian meditatively. “I am afraid he will make things very difficult.”
“I deserve it.”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Quentillian, with severity. “This is that foolish idea of atonement and repentance—and all the other cheap salves to the humiliation of having made a mistake. Don’t you see that it’s all waste of time and energy, Val? You ought to be thinking of what you’re going to do next, and how you can do it with least wear and tear for us all. Life isn’t a series of sins and punishments or virtues and rewards, as it is in one’s nursery story-books. There are actions and their consequences—that’s all.”
She looked up at him, bewildered, and yet slightly relieved at perceiving that he still possessed the power of sententiousness.
“Only say you forgive me, Owen.”
“If you wish it, my dear, of course. Please don’t cry any more.”
Valeria, however, crying more than ever, drew the sapphire and diamond ring from her finger and mutely held it out to him.
Owen gazed at it for a moment through his pince-nez.
Then he put it gently back into her hand again, and closed her fingers round it with his own.
“Please, Val.”
Still holding her hand, he bent forward and very softly kissed her wet cheek.
“If we’re not engaged any more, we’ve got to go back to what we were before—brother and sister, Val. Good-night—don’t cry any more.”
The smile with which he left her was in his eyes as well as on his lips, and held nothing so much as very gentle amusement, and an affectionate concern.