CHAPTER XX
LOVERS
Gavin's belief that Evelyn would now make a confidant of him rested largely upon a knowledge of human nature, which the great and successful school of endeavor had revealed to him. Nor was he in any way mistaken. The intimacy of a peril, mutually dared and overcome, brought the man and the woman together as years of social intercourse could not have done. That very night they walked in the Italian Gardens of Melbourne Hall and spoke as freely as brother and sister might have done.
"I like your guest," Gavin began—and he referred to a young solicitor by name Gilbert Ray, who had come down from London by the afternoon train—"I like your guest. The fact that he is losing his hair is a point in his favor. When you think how much the head of a prosperous lawyer must carry, it is a wonder that there is room for any of the commoner emotions at all. Not a month ago, Sir Francis Button told me that he could lock up half the great people in town, politicians included, by one turn of a little key in his safe. My fingers would be itching all day to open that safe if I were he. Just think of the blessings I should confer upon the halfpenny papers. A Cabinet Minister in the police court. They would leave the war out altogether next day. After all, the world takes nothing very seriously nowadays."
"Not even itself," said Evelyn, almost as one speaking with regret. "We are growing too cynical even to deceive ourselves, and that used to be the most pleasant of all amusements. But I agree with you about Mr. Ray. His face is an honest one. I wonder if it is any drawback to him in his business."
Gavin laughed, wondering perhaps at the flippancy of their talk and their mutual desire to avoid any reference to that which had befallen them earlier in the day. By common consent they would not speak of the accident; each believed that some self-applause must attend the recital of it, and, save for a few brief words when Evelyn had recovered that morning, their resolution of silence remained unshaken. Out here upon the open lawns with the deep crimson shades of the dining-room making a fairy scene behind them; out here where the night breeze was like a breath of a tired sleeper and the river below droned a lullaby, it was difficult enough to realize that death had been so recently their neighbor. Nor had they the desire to do so. This new intimacy of association was a gracious gift to them both; and Evelyn, not less than he, understood that it might yet influence the years to come.
"Honesty is always a drawback in certain professions," Gavin said, as they wandered away from the open windows to the darker shades beneath the yews; "an honest doctor would be in danger of starving, while an honest photographer would certainly go to the workhouse. Mr. Ray, at least, was honest in his desire to get rid of us. His remarks upon the beauty of the evening I found quite superfluous."
"My father is very anxious to talk to him," Evelyn said quickly. "I am sure you have remarked his abstracted manner since you came here. A stranger would notice such things at once. He is not well, and I fear is in great trouble, Mr. Ord. Perhaps he will tell Mr. Ray. I hope sincerely that he will do so."
"Then he has said nothing to you, Lady Evelyn?"
"He has said that which I find great difficulty in understanding. I wish it were otherwise. A woman is never able to estimate a man's danger correctly. There are so many things of which she takes no account."
"When she will not permit a man to help her. I am asking you to tell me the story, you see. It has been in my mind to do so for some hours past. Of course, I have known that there is a story. I should never regret coming to Melbourne Hall if I could be of the slightest use to you, Lady Evelyn. Will you not make me your friend?"
He drew her still farther apart, down to that very bridge he had crossed the night he came to the Hall; that night of weird hallucination and childish phantoms. Standing by the low balustrade (she half-sitting upon it and watching the eddies in the pool below), she spoke of Etta Romney and of a young girl whose dreams had sent her to London.
"I have always delighted to live in a world of my own making," she said frankly. "There are days together when I believe myself to be some one else and act and do that which I believe they would have acted and done. The theatre stood to me for a very heaven of self-deceptions. I read of it in books, dreamed of it in my sleep, tried to picture it as it must be. Oh, yes, I have spoken my own plays aloud beneath the trees of this Park so many days. I was Di Vernon, my Lady Beatrice, Viola, Desdemona, all the young girls you can name in the books. Sometimes I had the idea to run away and hide myself from everyone in that great picture land my visions showed to me. No one here could share my thoughts. My father adored me, but has never understood me. To him, I am the child of the woman he loved beyond anything on earth. He guards me as though some change would come upon me if he ceased his vigilance. Then irony appears and says it is my father who is changing. I have been aware of it ever since Count Odin visited us. These wild men have brought misfortune to our house and God knows where we are drifting. I thought at one time that if I married the Count that would be the end of everything. I can believe it no longer. My father is tempted to sacrifice me; but he would regret it all his life if he did so. Can you blame me if I think of London again—seriously and forever!"
Gavin answered her with difficulty. He knew so few of the facts of her story as yet that his common sense warned him to speak guardedly.
"I should be the last to blame you," he said slowly; "but surely there is an alternative? We take a desperate step when other and wiser roads are closed to us. Let me try to understand it better. Count Odin, you say, has some hold upon your father——"
"I did not say so, surely——"
"Then I imagine as much. He has some hold upon your father, obtained by that which happened in Bukharest many years ago. Do you know precisely what his claim is?"
"His father's liberty. The old Chevalier Georges Odin is a prisoner in one of the mines on the borders of the Black Sea. The Count declares that this is my father's work. I cannot tell you if it be true or false. If it is true, I will see that we leave no stone unturned to set Georges Odin free. I wish I could be so sure that his liberty will bring no peril upon my father."
"The men were enemies, then?"
"I have understood as much. They were rivals for my dead mother's hand."
"And your father profited by his enemy's political misfortune?"
"I must believe it, since he is afraid to give this man his liberty."
"A natural fear—in Roumania; not, I think, in England. Will you let me ask how your marriage with the young Count would help your father in his difficulty?"
"I do not know, unless it is assumed that as Georges Odin's daughter-in-law, I should pay the debt my father owes."
"And save him from a purely imaginary danger?"
"Would you think it purely imaginary when you remember the guests we entertain in our Park?"
"The gypsies—could the police say nothing to them? Remember we are living in England, where all the fine sentiments preached in Southern Europe are so many heroics to be laughed at. If a Roumanian were to challenge me to avenge the honor of my ancestors by cutting his throat in the Carpathians, I should put his letter among my curiosities. Vendettas and secret societies and such absurdities have no place among us outside the theatre. That's why I say that this matter should be dealt with in an English way. If your father has done any man a wrong, he, as an English gentleman, will do his best to put it right. All the rest is merely tall talk. It should not even be taken into account, and would not be, I think, unless there are circumstances of which I know nothing. That is why I speak with reservation. I know so little of your father, and he is one of the most difficult men to know that I have met."
Evelyn shook her head.
"Every man is difficult to know and every woman," he said philosophically; "those who seem most superficial are often the people we understand least. Here am I talking to you as I have never talked to anyone in all my life, and yet you know nothing about me whatever."
"I differ from that entirely."
"Indeed, it is true. If it were not, you would not have asked me why I let them say that I am going to marry Count Odin."
"You let them say it because it is too foolish to contradict."
"Nothing of the kind. I let them say it because my mother would have married his father had her wishes been consulted. Oh, I know that so well. Every day my inheritance speaks to me. I am afraid of him, and yet am drawn toward him. I detest him and yet go to him. Do you wonder that London seems my only way of escape—the theatre where Etta Romney can come to life again and Evelyn be forgotten?"
She spoke with some excitement as she always did when the silent voice within told her again of those triumphs awaiting her upon the stage in London whenever she had the mind to seek them. Gavin thought that he understood her; but her confession troubled him none the less. Almost formal as their conversation had been, there was that in the timbre of their voices, in their steps, their gestures, their looks, which declared the pleasure of their intimacy and would have betrayed the mutual secret to any who might have overheard them. Love, indeed, laughed aside at the prim phrases and the mock sophistries—and none realized this more surely than Gavin.
"I hope it would be as a last resource," said Gavin presently, still thinking of her threat to return to the theatre. "You must not forget that your friends may have something to say in the matter."
"My friends! Who are my friends?" she exclaimed hotly. "The chattering doctor, who is always looking for an excuse to feel my pulse. The vicar, who is so dreadfully afraid of his wife hearing the nonsense he talks to me. Young John Hall, who can speak of nothing else but Yorkshire cricket scores. I have no friends—unless it be the dogs."
Gavin drew a little nearer to her, and confronting her suddenly, he said:
"Then here is a new breed of hound and one that will be faithful."
She turned away her head, forgetting that the darkness hid her crimson cheeks from him.
"I must not listen to you—I, who am to be Count Odin's wife," she said.
"You will never be Count Odin's wife," he rejoined. "I forbid it, you have given me the right. Listen to me, Evelyn. The night I came to Melbourne Hall, I heard a voice calling to me as I crossed this very bridge. It was your voice. I looked over and I saw a face down there in the river and it was your face. That night I did not know why Destiny had sent me to this house. But I know it now, and it makes me say to you, 'I love you—I love you, Evelyn, and my love will save you.' When you tell me that you must not hear me, it is not yourself speaking but another. I love you, and, before God, I will not rest day or night until I have saved your father and you from this shadow which has come upon your lives. It is yours to give me the right to do so—here and now, the right your heart bids you give me and you will not deny."
He took her hands in both of his and drew her toward him. She resisted him a brief moment; then suddenly, as though disguise were idle, she lifted her lips to his and kissed him.
"From myself," she said; "save me from myself."