Chapter Eight.
It was the Tuesday following that miserable and never to be forgotten Friday. Jill had been out in the morning to take back two of the sachets which she had finished, but had brought them back to make some alterations that the oily individual had pointed out to her in a playfully amorous fashion; a circumstance that had put her into as bad a temper as her grief stricken soul would allow. She sat on the red stool before her easel working, not at the sachets—she was too disgusted to touch them—but at her last canvas, with a lay figure posed in lieu of the model she could no longer employ. When the sound of someone mounting the stairs caused her heart to quicken its beating, and the tell-tale colour to come and go in her cheeks. It was St. John, she knew at once; very few men ascended those stairs, and only one with that quick decision born of familiarity. He knocked before entering, a ceremony that he had dispensed with altogether on class days when he had been a student; he did not, however, wait for permission to enter, but opened the door for himself. Jill’s mouth hardened obstinately as she glanced casually over her shoulder, and then, feigning not to see the bunch of flowers that he brought and laid humbly on the table as a peace-offering, went unmoved on with her work. She did not rise, did not even offer a word of greeting. St. John spoke first, awkwardly, deprecatingly, uncertain, what to make of her mood.
“Good morning,” he said hesitatingly, “I—I was passing and thought I would call.”
“Passing here?” interposed Jill incredulously, “what a circuitous route you must have taken to accomplish that.”
“Not at all,” he answered, “you aren’t so very out of the way. Besides I wanted to come.”
“So I supposed,” she retorted disagreeably. “But you might have saved yourself the trouble; you were quite safe paying by cheque, you know.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Mean! Why haven’t you called for your receipt? I own to having been remiss in not sending it, but I had my reasons; and after all it was only three days since, and a cheque is always pretty safe.”
“You know that I haven’t called for that,” he said angrily. “If I thought you really believed me capable of such an act I would—”
“Well, what?” she asked derisively.
“I don’t know,” he answered lamely, “clear perhaps. I had forgotten even that a receipt was customary, and certainly never looked for one from you.”
“Nothing so business like, I suppose?” snapped Jill. “I should have sent one though if I had not intended returning the cheque instead. I have no right to that money; I turned you away at a moment’s notice, you did not leave of your own accord.”
“That’s true enough,” he ruefully agreed. “Nevertheless the money is due to you; I received the tuition.”
“It is not due,” replied Jill firmly. “You are making me a present of it, Mr St. John, and I will not accept such a gift. There is your cheque, take it back if you please.”
He took it from her, tore it savagely into pieces, and threw them on the floor.
“So be it,” he answered wrathfully. “You must indeed be succeeding as you deserve, to reject what you have lawfully earned.”
Jill went white as she generally did when in a rage, and favoured him with a glance that he was not likely to forget in a hurry.
“I have not earned it,” she responded, “neither am I succeeding; two facts which you are thoroughly well acquainted with. Does that look like success?” And she drew from the cardboard box the sachets she had brought home again from the shop that morning, and threw them on the table in front of him. “That’s the kind of work that I have come to do, and I daresay I shall sink lower yet;—Xmas cards no doubt. Oh! yes, I have sunk pretty low. The man who gave me that order superintends the work, and corrects errors of detail. He does not like female figures in atmospheric drapery like those. He said the public wouldn’t buy them that way; a nude figure on a nightdress bag—he didn’t use the word nude, by the way, but plain vulgar English—was too suggestive, and requested me to take them home and paint in a garment—‘Just a small one’—as though he were alluding to a vest. Ugh! it makes me sick—it makes me blush. He wears his hair oiled, too,” she continued retrospectively, forgetting for the minute her resentment against St. John in disgust at her latest patron, “and—further degradation—makes love to me which for the sake of the miserable commission I dare not resent.”
What followed was unpardonable on St. John’s part but for the life of him he could not resist retaliating for the thrusts that she had given him.
“Perhaps the last is a hallucination,” he suggested ungenerously; “You have a tendency to imagine that sort of thing you know.”
She eyed him for a moment in stony displeasure, then pointed imperiously to the door.
“You may consider that remark worthy of a gentleman, Mr St. John,” she said, “I don’t. You will oblige me by leaving the studio at once; I—I shall be rude to you if you don’t.”
Her voice broke, and she turned to her work again abruptly, painting with feverish haste as thought she had not a moment to lose. In two strides St. John was behind her, and stooping he put his arms about her with a swift movement for which she was entirely unprepared, and which imprisoned her so firmly that she could not escape.
“Rude to me if you like,” he cried; “but not unkind, Jill—never any more.”
Jill had dropped her utensils, and the palette lay paint side downwards on the floor. She put her small hands on St. John’s wrists and tried to free herself from his embrace, but the attempt was ineffectual, his arms Only tightened round her, and his face bent lower until it was on a level with her own. She looked into his eyes and read in them a laughing mastery that defied her efforts to escape, and, even while it angered her, set her pulses leaping in a wild excitement that was half fear, half gladness. She breathed quickly, and pulled at his wrists again.
“Let me go,” she whispered. “How dare you touch me?”
But he only laughed in answer and held her closer to him, and for the first time Jill felt his warm kisses on her lips.
“It’s not a bit of good,” he said; “you can’t get away. I feel as though I could hold you to my heart for ever. You expelled me for a fault that I was not guilty of; I am now going to justify your accusation. Jill, Jill, you foolish child, what are you thinking? Don’t shrink away like that, dear. I love you, my darling, my little independent, high-spirited girl. I love every tone of your voice, every fresh mood, wound and vex me though they may at the time. Jill will you marry me?”
“No,” Jill answered with curt abruptness. He shook his head at her reprovingly, but looked not the least whit disconcerted.
“Oh! yes, you will,” he returned with confidence; “you must if I have to carry you all the way to the Church in my arms like this. I can’t let you go again; these last four days have been unbearable. Answer me truly, haven’t you found them so too, dear?—just a little sad and lonely, eh Jill?”
“Stand back,” she cried still struggling futilely to shake him off. “You are mad to talk to me the way you are doing, and I should be worse than mad to listen.”
“Oh! no, you wouldn’t,” he replied with gay audacity. “You can’t help listening, sweetheart, any more than you can prevent my kissing you. Come, Jill, end this farce and be candid. Is it pique, dear, or what? Why won’t you own that you care for me? I know you do.”
“Yes. Oh, my God, yes!” she answered, and she broke into violent sobs. “I wish from my heart that I could answer truthfully that I do not.”
He was startled at her outburst, and drew back in consternation letting his hands fall to his sides. She was free enough now, but she hardly seemed to realise the fact and made no attempt to rise.
“Jill,” he exclaimed, “what is it? What has happened, dear? Won’t you tell me?”
But Jill only buried her face in her hands and sobbed on. She would have given anything to have preserved her composure throughout this interview; but once having broken down there was no stemming the torrent; the flood must have its way, and a regular deluge it proved. St. John watched her uneasily for a while, then unable to stand it longer he went up to her again, and putting his arm around her neck, tried to draw her hands away. In a moment she was on her feet facing him, grief changed to indignation, scorn and anger in her eyes, while the tear drops glistened still upon her flushed cheeks, and trembled wet and sparkling on her lashes.
“Don’t come near me,” she panted; “your touch is hateful to me—keep away, do you hear?”
“Don’t worry yourself, my dear girl,” he retorted a trifle impatiently it must be confessed. “I have no wish to approach any nearer; indeed I’d rather remain where I am. If you would only tell me what it is all about, instead of flying off at a tangent we might arrive at a better understanding. Have I done anything to forfeit your regard?”
“Yes,” she answered petulantly, “you know you have.”
“Should I ask for information which I had already?” he questioned coolly. “Information moreover which is presumably hardly creditable to myself. What is the something, please?”
Jill looked at him coldly, but he bore her scrutiny well. He was grave, but he certainly did not appear apprehensive, nor was he in the least embarrassed or perturbed.
“What is the something?” he repeated. “I think I have a right to know.”
But Jill seemed to find a difficulty in answering, or a disinclination to do so; for she drew herself up and remained silent, an angry spot of colour in either cheek. St. John tapped the floor impatiently with his boot.
“Come, come,” he cried, “this is childish to accuse a fellow of some possibly imaginary wrong, and not give him the chance of refuting it. What heinous offence do you fancy me guilty of? Robbing a bank? I haven’t I assure you.”
He was turning her doubts of him to ridicule which only angered her the more. There was a gleam of amusement in his eyes and his moustache twitched ever so slightly.
“What! sceptical of that even?” he continued ironically. “So it’s my honesty that’s called into question, eh?”
“Yes,” Jill flashed back with a fierceness born of wounded pride, “your honesty, Mr St. John. Is it honest of you to come and make love to me? No, you know it is not, it is dishonourable, despicable—”
“Stop a bit,” he interrupted with a quietness and control which surprised himself; “don’t let us lose ourselves in a labyrinth of adjectives, and so get away from the main subject altogether. Why is it dishonourable for me to make love to you? For, though you will insist to the contrary, I am absolutely ignorant of any prohibitive reason.”
“That is impossible,” Jill replied, and he flushed at her want of faith in his veracity. “But as you are determined to keep your counsel until you discover how much I know I had better speak out I suppose. You are not free to propose matrimony to me.”
St. John’s eyebrows went up with a jerk.
“Indeed!” he said. “Your statement is news to me, so also is the very low idea you have formed of my character. In what way am I not free? Do you mean that there is someone else?”
Jill nodded; she could find no words.
“And the lady’s name?” he questioned in peremptory tones.
“Miss Bolton,” she answered with a visible effort. “I have recently learnt from unquestionable authority that you have been engaged to your cousin for some months.”
St. John started, pulled thoughtfully at his moustache for a moment, and then looking up sharply,—
“The name of your informant?” he asked.
“Never mind that,” Jill answered, “my informant was in a position to know. I have tried to but cannot doubt the assertion.”
“And yet you seem to find it easy enough to doubt mine,” he said.
She made no reply; and striding up to her he caught her by the shoulders and transfixed her with a gaze at once stern and reproachful.
“Speak,” he exclaimed. “I will know who is the lying, interfering mischief-maker who has spread such abominable reports about me.”
Jill swayed slightly in his grip, and her glance met his in wide-eyed questioning as though she would read his very soul.
“Ah!” she cried, “if it were false! if it were only false!”
“The name?” he repeated impatiently, and almost shook her in his excitement. She hesitated still for a minute, then the answer came unwillingly, more as though his glance compelled the truth than that she gave it voluntarily.
“It was your father,” she half-whispered, and her eyes sought the floor and stayed there as though she dreaded reading what she might see in his face.
He stared at her for a moment, then he pushed her from him with a laugh.
“Unquestionable authority certainly,” he said moodily, and laughed again. Jill remained motionless watching him, uncertain whether he intended denying the allegation or not, and he stood opposite in a towering rage glowering back at her with his brows drawn together in the old bad-tempered scowl.
“I suppose,” he went on after a pause, “that he communicated this intelligence to you between the time of your writing to me and my first appearance at the art school after your illness?”
“Yes,” she replied, “on the Thursday.”
“That accounts for your inexplicable bad temper that Friday,” he resumed unpleasantly.
“Information from such a source must certainly have been convincing, far more convincing than my contradiction. But did it not strike you to doubt the authenticity of the signature?”
“It was a word of mouth communication,” Jill answered coldly, “Mr St. John honoured me with a visit.”
“He came here?” repeated her hearer aghast. “My father? Impossible!”
“It does sound rather improbable I admit,” agreed Jill. “It was going to a great deal of trouble over a small matter, wasn’t it?—when a penny postage stamp would have done as well. But he seemed more concerned about it than either you or I. Was it likely, do you think, that I should question his statement? Had there been no truth in it why should he have bothered?”
“The only reason I can think of,” answered St. John, “was that he merely anticipated his desire. But for you I can find no excuse, not even one so flimsy as that. Why should you place perfect reliance on the word of a man you did not know, and, putting the worse possible construction on my actions, refuse to give me even the chance of justifying myself?”
“I don’t know,” retorted Jill ungraciously. “Looked at from your point of view I suppose it appears monstrous, but from my point it seems natural enough. I had no reason to doubt your father’s word, and, as you, yourself, informed me that morning you had never spoken a word of love to me in your life. There was no necessity for you to mention your engagement; men not infrequently prefer to conceal the fact from girls of inferior social standing—”
“Stop,” he cried, angrily. “This is too much. I could have forgiven the rest, but you go too far.”
“I didn’t know that I had entreated your forgiveness,” she said with a smile which mocked his indignation. “‘I love every tone of your voice,’” she mimicked, “‘every fresh mood, wound and vex me though they may at the time.’ You have a strange way of showing your affection, Mr Saint John, an admirable way of disguising it, I should say.”
St. John looked furious, and his tormentor continued relentlessly.
“Or is it that now it is wounding and vexing you? To-morrow, I suppose, you will be enamoured of all that I have said and done to-day?”
Then, her mood changing abruptly as the love in her heart reproached her for doubting and vexing him as she had, she went up to the table and buried her face shyly in the flowers he had brought.
“Go away now, my dear Saint,” she whispered, “and come to-morrow instead; for I like you enamoured best.”
But St. John was angry still, and not so ready to be propitiated. His hat lay on the table where he had placed it near the flowers, and Jill’s hand rested beside it—her fingers touching the brim, it may have been by accident though it looked more like design.
“I think I had better go,” he agreed, reaching out for it; “your opinion of me is not easy to forget, and—”
He had taken hold of his hat; but Jill’s small fingers had closed upon the brim on the other side, and kept their hold determinedly.
St. John desisted at once; it was incompatible with his dignity to struggle over his headgear.
“At your pleasure, Miss Erskine,” he said.
“It’s very strange,” mused Jill in a tone of innocent speculation; “do you know that until to-day I had always considered you handsome? What a difference it makes to a face whether it is smiling or glum.”
“One can’t keep up a perpetual grin,” he retorted, but his countenance relaxed a little despite his effort to appear unmoved, and seeing her advantage she followed it up, turning a scene which had been growing painfully strained into a comedy by her deft handling of the situation.
“No; not unless it is natural to one, which is even a greater affliction. I once heard of a man who had his nose broken for laughing at a quarrelsome individual in the street. As a matter of fact he wasn’t laughing; it was only that Nature had endowed him with a perpetual and unavoidable grin. But you are not at all likely to get your nose broken from a similar cause.”
“I should hope not,” he returned with disagreeable emphasis.
“Is mine on my face still?” enquired Jill putting up her hand to feel. “Why! it actually is. Funny, but I thought you had snapped it off. It is there, isn’t it?”
She went quite close to him and held up her face for inspection with a look in her eyes that St. John would have been more than human, or at any rate not genuinely in love, had he resisted. He made no attempt to; he just took the small face between his two hands and kissed it. And then they sat down together on the twill covered box to spoon a little, and afterwards talk matters over from a practical, common sense view, as Jill declared; though it would have been more sensible had they left the spooning and talked matters over first.