THE DIFFICULT PATH
"I will but say what mere friends say.
Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer."—R. Browning.
When Gaunt entered the dining-room, his wife was standing before the fire, its red glow making her white dress and white arms rosy. Hemming was busily employed in fixing a screen at the back of her chair.
"I asked Hemming to move my place," said she. "I hope you don't mind. I felt so far away, there at the end of the table. If I sit here we can talk much better."
"A good idea." Gaunt hoped his voice sounded natural as he spoke. He hardly knew what he said, such was the turmoil within him that he wondered whether his own appetite would fail as hers had done when last they ate together. Yet he was, as a matter of fact, ravenously hungry; and the taking of food steadied him down and made him feel more normal. He found himself obliged, however, to leave the burden of conversation to her. She talked on bravely, about Dr. Danby and his kindness to Pansy, until, the servants having left the room to fetch the next course, she turned half-frightened, half-challenging eyes to her husband.
"I'm afraid I'm 'prattling,' as you call it," she said deprecatingly. "Shall I leave off? I will, if I am teasing you."
"Forgive me. I'm not really unresponsive—only a bit bewildered," he answered. "You know that nothing you could conceivably say could fail to interest me. Don't remind me of my unconverted days."
She could not answer, for Hemming returned at the moment. She smiled and coloured.
Left to themselves before the peaches and grapes, when dinner was over, they fell silent. The memory of the former occasion tied the girl's tongue.
The man was facing his problem. Virginia sat there with him, in his house—his wife. She had come back prepared to accept this fate. Had he the strength to resist, the greatness not to take advantage of, her integrity and courage?
The first thing he must do was to ascertain, if possible, her feeling for Gerald Rosenberg, and also whether the young man was really earnest in his love for her.
If he could be satisfied on both these heads, he told himself that he must make atonement in the one possible way. His white lily should never go through the mire of a divorce court, nor must lack of money stand between her and the man of her choice.
Such thoughts as these are inimical to conversation. He sat for some long minutes peeling a peach, and then sensing the delight of watching her while she ate it.
Grover entered quietly. "I just looked in to say I hope you will come upstairs punctually at nine, ma'am," said she, with a keen glance at the two.
"Yes, Grover; I will be good to-night—though I warn you your tyranny is nearly over," said Virgie, her eyes full of mischief. How gay she was when the gaiety was not dashed out of her! As Grover retired, she rose from her chair and looked at him pleadingly. "I wonder if you would do something for me to-night—something I specially want you to do?" said she in tones of coaxing.
"But of course!" He was on his feet in a moment.
"I want you to play to me—on the piano. You played that—first—night. Do you remember?"
"You liked it?"
She nodded.
"I used to hear you afterwards—when I was upstairs. Grover used to open the door for me to listen," she confessed.
"Really?" He showed his intense pleasure in this tribute. "Come," he said, "I have got a new piano to show you."
They went together down the passage to the door of her own sitting-room, now, needless to say, unlocked. They passed in; and Gaunt thought himself overpaid for anything he had ever suffered when he heard her first "O-o-oh!" of surprise and pleasure.
The ivory room lay in warm light. The fire danced on the hearth; and upon the pale blue, rose-garlanded hearth-rug lay Cosmo and Damian, with bows to match their surroundings.
The graceful, wine-dark furniture gleamed in the mellow lamp-light. Every piece in the room was perfection in its way. There was a Chesterfield in just the right place, at right angles to the fire. Beside it, a small revolving table book-case alone struck a note of frank modernity, and needed but the books and work to complete it.
"You like it?" he asked, trying to mask his eager wistfulness.
"I should think so! You never told me a word! You had this all done! Oh, how curious!" she murmured in wonder, recalling with a shock the dream which she had dreamt—how she had sought in vain for the old furniture in the attic, and going into this room where she now stood had seen it full of formless whiteness.
"Why do you call it curious?" he asked.
"Because I dreamt about it," she answered, laughing shamefacedly. "I dreamt that I had come back, and was looking for you—that I was up in the attics and could not find this furniture—and that when I came downstairs, this room was empty and all white and ghostly——"
"Did you succeed in finding me—in your dream?"
"Yes." She laughed again. "But it was all stupid—you know dreams are. Oh, what a darling piano! And that fine old book-cupboard with glass doors! A secretaire—isn't that the proper name for it?"
"Do you like it? I am glad. I have hung no pictures. Daren't trust my own taste there. Also, I felt that I must leave you to choose your own books—or perhaps you would put china in that cupboard? I find there is a quantity of old blue stored away up above in the garret. It might amuse you to select and arrange it."
"Oh, it will!" said Virgie in delight. "How pretty it all looks! I had no idea it could be so changed by just being treated right. Don't you want to do all the rest of the house?"
"I want you to do it," he answered.
"But I couldn't have thought of anything half as perfect as this!" was her admiring response.
He smiled, but let the compliment pass.
"I want you to put your feet up now," he said, "for I know you must be tired to death. Let me show you how the end of your couch lets down. There! Are the pillows right?"
She ensconced herself in luxury. "This is just like a dream," she said; "and if you will play to me, it will be still more so. I'll graciously allow you to drink your coffee first," she added, as Hemming came in.
He stood before the hearth as he drank his coffee, looking down upon her and wondering how long he was going to bear things. He must find a way out before his resolution quite failed.
With that disconcerting suddenness of his, he put down his cup and made a dash for the piano. As he sat at the keyboard he could see the top of her shining head just above the delicate-hued cushions which supported it. He saw Cosmo jump upon her lap, and he watched the waving to and fro of her hand as she gently stroked the cat. When he stopped playing she begged him to go on. Then after a while the little hand ceased to move. The head was very still. At last he paused, let his hands fall, waited. No sound. He rose and limped across the soft carpet with noiseless feet. She was fast asleep.
Just for a moment he allowed himself to stand there looking upon her. His strong, somewhat harsh features wore a look which transfigured them. Then he turned away with his mouth hard set. He had no right there, he bitterly reminded himself.
The little buhl clock chimed nine in silver tones. He went softly to the door to prevent Grover from coming in and awakening her abruptly. As he opened it, Hemming was approaching with a telegram upon a tray. He took it, and as he read his eyes lit with a gleam of satisfaction.
Is Virginia with you? She left Worthing this morning.
Making a sign to Hemming not to disturb Mrs. Gaunt, he went over to the writing-table and wrote:
Virginia came home to-day, as previously arranged. Seems very well.
As Hemming took the message and departed, Grover came along the passage. Gaunt admitted her, with a shy smile.
"I have played her to sleep," he said. "It seems a shame to disturb her."
Grover went and stooped over Virginia, then raised her eyes to the husband's face.
"Spite of that tiresome chill, she looks a deal stronger, doesn't she, sir?" she asked in hushed accents.
He nodded, beckoning her to come to him at some distance, that their lowered tones might not disturb the sleeper. "Grover, is it true, for a fact, that Mrs. Mynors kept back a letter from Mrs. Gaunt to me?"
"I can't swear to it, sir, not what they'd take in a court of justice, I suppose; but I'll tell you what happened about it." She related the circumstances, and then asked whether he had, in fact, received the letter. When she heard that he had not, she looked triumphant, but she looked troubled too.
"I can't seem to make out the rights of it, sir, but there was something afoot. For some reason which I can't understand, they didn't want her to come back here. I can't make head nor tail of it myself."
"Was this Mr. Rosenberg's plot, do you think?"
"Well, sir, that is what is so puzzling. Mrs. Mynors is, I suppose, a respectable lady. She isn't what you call fast; and her daughter is a married woman. What could she mean?"
"Tell me frankly, Grover. Do you think they had an idea of making mischief, serious enough to cause a breach between Mrs. Gaunt and me?"
"Oh, for pity's sake, they couldn't be so wicked as that! And you but just married! But since you have put it so plain, I will just own to you that I feel sure in my own mind about one thing, which is that Baines, that's Mr. Rosenberg's chauffeur, was given orders not to bring back the car to fetch them that night. He never said so to me, not in so many words, but it was the look in his eye, sir, if you understand me."
"Do you think that her mother supposed that Mrs. Gaunt was not happy with me?"
"Why, sir, if you'll pardon the remark, that sounds like nonsense, for you have had no chance to be together so far. I can tell you I was thankful when I was once safe in the train with her this morning. I felt, even if she has to go back to bed the minute she gets home, home is the proper place for her, any way of it. And though she was leaving her little sister and all, she seemed to cheer up when we were off; and I know she felt a relief when we had got through London and were fair on our way. We had to steal out of the house as careful as anything, for Miss Pansy was not started for the parade front, it being so early. Fortunately, Mr. Tony was off for the day with his friend."
"Tony? Was the boy there?"
"Oh, yes, sir, for the whole time, and the last week we were in London as well."
Gaunt was surprised. No room or board for Tony had been charged in any of the minutely kept accounts which he had received. He made no comment, however, and the maid crossed the room and gazed once more upon the sleeping girl.
"Don't you think she looks bonny, sir?" she asked timidly; and was reassured when Gaunt's eyes met her own in friendly approval.
"She's more lovely than ever, Grover," he replied, to her immense gratification.
"You might carry her upstairs, sir," she suggested; "you can do it easy, can't you?"
His face changed. "No," he said decidedly, "it would startle her. You had better rouse her, please, if you want her to go with you now."
He walked away to the window, and stood in the empty space for which he had designed the statue of Love. Grover sent a keen, vexed glance after him. "Silly thing," was her disrespectful inward comment. "Why is he so plaguey shy of his own wife?"
"She'll have to get used to you, sir," she ventured after a pause, her heart in her mouth.
"It must be by degree," he answered, speaking with his back towards her.
With a shrug of her shoulders, having ventured all and more than all she dare, she bent over Virginia and aroused her. The grey cat bounded to the floor, hunching his back and stretching his legs in the heat of the glowing logs.
"Oh!" cried Virgie, springing to her feet, "I went to sleep while Mr. Gaunt was playing!"
"The greatest tribute you could pay me, since I played a lullaby," remarked her husband, strolling up.
*****
Next morning, though it was still cold, autumnal weather, the sun was shining. Gaunt could hardly believe his eyes when Virgie ran into the dining-room at the summons of the breakfast gong, looking as fresh and gay as the morning. The contrast between what was in his heart, and his cool, undemonstrative greeting, struck him as so grotesque that he almost laughed.
When they were seated, and she had poured out his coffee, they found it very difficult to know what to say. Virginia felt herself held back by what he had said the previous day. He had spoken as though he thought her stay at Omberleigh would be only temporary. She was eager to settle down, to know what she might do and plan, to begin some kind of a life together. In face of his attitude, she felt unable to make any advance, to offer any request or suggestion.
At last it occurred to her to ask what he had to do that day. He began to tell her that he was due in a certain part of the estate to——Then he pulled himself up, and said, with a covert eagerness:
"Unless you want me?"
She rested her elbows on the table and looked shyly at him. "Of course I should like to have your society for a while," she answered. "I want to go round the place again. I was so stupid that first day—I felt so ill I hardly knew what I was doing. But now I can walk finely! If you have time——"
"But of course I have. Caunter is all right without me. I am at your service. Do you remember one day when you were on the terrace, and Mrs. Ferris was here, you said, or she said, that you would like to remodel the garden? Well, you know this is the time of year to do that. If you set to work now it will be all ready for next spring."
She looked at him earnestly. "Please forgive me for asking," she said hesitatingly, "but yesterday I thought you said—you spoke as if you did not mean to keep me here. Did you mean that, or was it my fancy?"
He cleared his throat. "Oh, that was your fancy. Certainly it was. I was only thinking that—of course everything is uncertain—human life, for instance. I'm a good deal older than you. If anything should—should happen to me, for example—this place would be yours. I have bequeathed it to you. So it is worth your while to make it what you like."
"If anything happened to you?" Obviously she was surprised, and also distressed. "Osbert, what is likely to happen to you?"
"Oh, nothing, of course," he replied hastily. "Only sometimes the unexpected may arrive, may it not?"
"Don't talk like that," she cried impetuously. "It would be too dreadful, if anything stopped us just at the beginning—just as we are making a start. Oh, do you remember——" She broke off short.
"I remember every single smallest thing you ever did or said," he threw out suddenly.
"Then you remember when you and I had lunch together at the Savoy. I bored you horribly by trying to make conversation, when you didn't want to talk; and you told me that you knew all about me, as if you had known me all my life. I didn't think it was true," she laughed, playing with a fork and not daring to look at him. "Do you think it was?"
"It was as false, as detestable, as mistaken, and as insulting as all the other things I said that day," was his energetic answer.
She looked up then, and smiled at him. She was beginning to adjust her ideas.
"Then you are not thinking of sending me away?" she begged to know.
"Put that completely out of your head."
"If that is so, it will be the greatest fun to set to work upon the garden." She paused, recollected herself. "Will that interest you too? I beg your pardon for asking, but I do know so ridiculously little about you; and, you see, your garden doesn't look as if you liked gardens, if you will forgive me for saying it."
"I've been so lonely," he answered meekly. "There was nobody who cared whether the garden was nice or not. If you care, why I shall take the most tremendous interest in it."
She was evidently quite satisfied. "Let me see," she reflected. "How soon can we begin? I must go and say how-do-you-do to Mrs. Wells, and she will tell me what I am to order for dinner; and then I must send a line to Joey, and ask her to come over to tea to-morrow."
"You have a car of your own now," he broke in. "Don't be beholden to her any more than you wish."
"She was very kind," said Virgie, "and I know she would like to come if you don't mind. I'm sorry for her too."
"Why are you sorry for her?"
She looked up at him, with a half smile, and an appeal for response. "Her husband is such a—such a dreadful person, isn't he?"
Gaunt, for the first time in their mutual acquaintance, gave the sympathy, the understanding for which she begged. He smiled, in the same way that she smiled, as if they were thoroughly in accord upon the point of Mr. Ferris. "Poor old Joey!" he replied. "Your society must be a godsend to her. They were kind to me while you were away. I went there several times. Joey let me read your letters to her."
This last was very tentatively said, with an apprehensive glance.
Virgie laughed, however. "Such silly letters," she remarked. Then, laying aside her table-napkin and rising: "Then in an hour's time, shall we go out in the garden?"
He eagerly assented. "I'll go down to the lodge and get Emerson to come along," he told her. "Then we can plan something."
They spent the entire morning in the garden, and at lunch time there was certainly no lack of conversation. In the absorbing topic of rock-gardening, the idea of redecorating the house fell temporarily into the background.
They motored into Buxton that afternoon, and spent some time viewing the plants in a celebrated nursery garden. Gaunt had learned to drive the car during her absence, and was himself at the wheel, which fact lessened for him the hardship of the situation. He was occupied with his driving, and not drawn irresistibly by the magnet of her charm. That evening, however, after dinner, when they were together in her beautiful warm white room, the tug of war began. He had to smother down the impulse to fight for his life, to make some kind of blundering bid for the love which he knew in his heart had been given to Rosenberg before he ever saw her.
Virginia could not but suppose that his coldness, his complete aloofness, his apparent declining of all beginnings of intimacy, arose from sheer shyness. She believed that some things are better and more easily expressed without words. Thus, that evening, when he was at the piano, playing out his heartache in soft, sad chords in passionate, rapid movements, she came and stood behind him—close behind him.
This was hard, but he bore it. Manfully he went on playing for a while; but the influence of her presence standing there, the emanation of her personality, checked his fingers. He stumbled, missed a note, dropped his hands, sat silent.
"It is cold, so far from the fire," said her coaxing voice. "I've been making you play till your fingers are frozen;" with which she took them in her velvet, soft clasp.
This was too much. He drew his hand from her clinging touch with a sensation as though he tore it from a trap, lacerating it in the attempt. He sprang from his seat. "Jove! I have just thought of something I must tell Hemming," he muttered hurriedly; and, pushing past her, left the room by way of the door into his own den.
Virginia stood amazed, confused, and somewhat uncomfortable.
This, her first advance, must certainly be her only one. She went and sat on the hearth-rug, gazing into the fire, and puzzling. Suddenly a clear light shone upon the darkness of her musing. But, of course!...
Gaunt had not married her for love, but in pursuance of some half-crazed scheme of vengeance. He had thought it his duty to reform a heartless, selfish coquette. Now that he had found her to be very unlike his preconceived idea of her, what did he, what could he, want with her?...
Why had she not sooner perceived this obvious truth? Colour flooded her, she blushed hotly in the solitude. His plans had proved abortive, and he found himself saddled with a young woman with whose company he would, no doubt, gladly dispense. He was apparently ready to continue their present semi-detached existence, so long as she made no attempt to force the barriers of his confidence or intimacy. She remembered, on reflection, that he had made no appeal to her, that he had confessed nothing. He had not even begged for forgiveness. He had merely owned himself mistaken in his estimate of her. Since the outburst which had, as it seemed, been shaken out of him at the unexpected sight of her, he had stood on guard all the time. She had really been very slow and stupid, or she would have seen, long ago, how embarrassing her presence must be, unless she grasped the terms of their mutual relation.
Her lips curved into an involuntary smile as she recalled her well-meant attempt at a kindness he did not want. She bit her lip as she gazed into the fire. "We-e-ell!" she said aloud, with a little grimace, "I've been slow at picking up my cue, but I think I've got it now."
Almost as she spoke Gaunt re-entered, and Grim the collie slunk in at his heels.
"I'm most awfully sorry for bolting like that, but it was important," he said, in tones of would-be friendly frankness. With that he turned to shut the dog out.
"Oh, let her come in, poor old girl! What has she done to be shut out?" cried Virgie, sitting on her heels upon the floor.
"I—I don't think your cats like her," he replied, hesitating.
"Well, I never! They will have to like her. If they are to live in the same house, they must be friends," was the quick retort. "Grim, Grim, poor old girl, come here then!"
Grim, more perceptive than her master, was quick to perceive the invitation in the sweet voice, and came bounding into the circle of firelight. Damian sat up and spat, his back an arch, his tail a column. Virgie flung her arms round Grim's handsome neck and hugged her.
"Don't you take a bit of notice of that cheeky kitten, my dear. If he doesn't like you, he can lump you. This was your house, long before he was born or thought of," she said, petting the collie till her tail thumped the ground with ecstasy; her tongue hung out and she slobbered with utter content.
"Osbert," said Virgie calmly, "there's a sheepskin mat out in the hall that would just do for her beside the fire here in the corner. If that is her place, the cats will very soon recognise it. Will you go and fetch it in for me, please?"
"But"—he paused—"this is your room, isn't it? and Grim's a big dog. Her place is in my den."
"Oh, she'll very soon find out where the warmest corner is, won't you, girl?" laughed Virgie. "Even if you won't come into my room, I'll warrant she will! Unless"—with a daring glance—"you mean us to have separate establishments, even to the dogs and cats?"
He began to speak, halted, then said quietly enough: "I want you to have things as you like. I think you know that, really."
"Then this poor old thing shall come in just whenever she wants to," said Virgie, holding the golden muzzle in her hand, and kissing the white star upon the dog's forehead.
Gaunt, watching, made a note of the exact spot.