Chapter Twenty Five.
A Crowded Hour.
An interminable period seemed to elapse before Peignton heard the news for which he was waiting.
He had received one or two post-card bulletins from Grizel, and knew that the shock of the accident had left no lasting effect on Cassandra, but it was not until the morning of the tenth day that he heard of her arrival at the Court. His informant was a workman on the place, who mentioned having seen her ladyship driving, as a proof of that more interesting event, the Squire’s return.
The natural enquiry, “How did she look?” could, of course, not be asked under the circumstances, but Peignton knew that it would be impossible to exist for another twenty-four hours without settling that question for himself. If he had been asked what plans were in his mind he would have replied that he had none, yet deeply, subconsciously, during every one of those long ten days a plan had been shaping. When he left the house after lunch that afternoon, he knew exactly where he was going, and although he might delude himself that he was following a sudden impulse, it would have been in just that direction that he would have directed his steps on any one of the previous days.
Half an hour’s brisk walking brought him to the northern gate leading into the Squire’s grounds. It was the farthest entrance from the house, but Peignton had no intention of visiting the house. The gate was but a short distance from the secluded summer-house in which Cassandra had given him tea on the afternoon on which they had run away from the incursion of afternoon callers, and it was to the summer-house that he was bound.
Cassandra would be there. He knew it as certainly as though he had had her written word of promise, and he knew also that she would be awaiting his arrival. Such knowledge is not to be accounted for in ordinary terms, nor is it given to all, but those who have once heard the voice recognise and obey.
Peignton quickened his footsteps as he passed the lodge, then turned down a small grassy path, followed its windings for a few hundred yards, and saw before him the timbered roof, with its drapings of ivy. The window was in front, level with the door, so that he could not see into the interior; but if Cassandra were there she would hear his footsteps and know that he was approaching. The last yards stretched long as a mile, the laboured beating of his heart seemed to mount to his throat, he set his teeth, and went forward.
The next moment he saw her, even as his mind had pictured, seated on a low cane chair, her hands clasping its arms, her face bent forward to greet him. She wore a white dress over which a knitted silk coat of a bright rose-red hung loosely apart; her hat lay on the table by her side, and the dark wings of her hair fell low over her brow. Seen through the arch of greenery which covered the doorway, the colours of her dress attained an added vividness, and the beauty of face and figure were thrown into fullest relief. She looked like a princess imprisoned by the evil genii of the forest; like an enchanted princess watching for the prince who should set her free.
For one moment Peignton paused silently, his eyes meeting hers, then he crossed the threshold and stood by her side. Neither had spoken, neither had affected any sign of astonishment, and now as he stood waiting, Cassandra lifted her face to his and said simply:
“I knew you would come. I was waiting for you.”
“I knew you would be here,” replied Peignton as simply. He sat down on the seat next hers and looked into her face with a long, lingering glance. The last time he had seen that face it had been marked with bruises made by his own hands; the bruises had disappeared, nevertheless this was not Cassandra’s face as he had known it; there was something new in its expression, something wonderful, something that thrilled to his heart. Instinctively he held out his hand, and in an instant hers lay inside it, warm and close. The great lady had disappeared; it was a girl who was sitting beside him, a girl with soft Irish eyes and a soft Irish voice which spoke impulsively, asking tremulous question:
“Dane! Is it my fault?”
“Your fault that I... care? Only in so far as you are yourself... Once I had met you, the rest was bound to follow; but I never dreamt... I never dared to dream that you—”
“But I did,” she said quickly. “I did! I cared first; before you thought of me... That is why I asked if it was my fault.”
“I have always loved you, but I didn’t understand... Cassandra, there are some things a man can’t say, but that night—I had no intention of getting engaged to Teresa. We... the car... there was an accident... she was afraid. I had intended to propose to her months before, when I knew you only as a name. I had given her every reason to suppose that I should... There is not a word to be said against Teresa, but that night I had come straight from you... I don’t want you to think—”
“Ah!” Cassandra turned her hand to clasp his more firmly. “Need we talk of her now? I know. I understand! We make mistakes; haven’t I made my own? but they are past, they can’t be helped, and now—we are together! I have waited so long. I don’t want to talk of her, or of anyone else, but just ourselves...”
Her eyes met his; their message was the same as that of the lips, the beautiful vivid face was close to his own, he saw it with a clearness of detail which had never before been possible. The dark eyelashes grew thickly on the lower lids; underneath the lids the skin had a faint bluish shade. Was that the explanation of the tired look which, even in moments of animation, gave a touch of pathos to her air? The quality of pathos was there at that moment, and with it a fragility which gripped at Dane’s heart. He forgot everything but the dearness of her, the nearness of her, the wonder of her love. With an impetuous movement he held out his arms and she met him half-way, swaying into them with a soft murmur of joy.
That which Dane had foreseen had come to pass: he had confessed his love to his friend’s wife, and she lay wrapped in his arms, yet there was no feeling of guilt in his heart at that moment, and he knew that Cassandra herself felt equally guiltless. The overpowering forces of nature had hurled them together, and they clung helplessly, like two children, dismayed by the dark.
“Dane! Dane!” sighed Cassandra tremblingly, “I wanted you, I wanted you! It has been so long lying there alone, all these days, hearing nothing, knowing nothing, having no one to speak to...”
“Mrs Beverley—?”
“I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure. It was all so misty and confused at the time that I did not know how much the others had heard... Your voice sounded to me like a trumpet call, bringing me back to life, but it might have been only a whisper. I couldn’t tell if she knew, and until I did, I couldn’t speak.”
“And she never—?”
“No! Grizel wouldn’t. She was just her natural self. Did she know then? You talk as if... Did they both know?”
Peignton bowed his head.
“Yes. Both. There was no disguise. There was only one thing in the world for me at that moment, and that was you. Heaven knows what I said, but it was enough. Fate has been against us all the way. If it had not been for that accident, no one need have known.—I could have kept it to myself.”
“Oh, Dane, would that have been better? Do you think that would have helped me?” Cassandra asked pitifully. “There is only one thing that makes life endurable at this moment, and that is that I do know. It’s wicked; it’s selfish; but it’s true! I was starving with loneliness. All those dreadful days at the sea when she was there, and I saw you together, I was longing to die. It seemed as if I could not endure to go on with life, but when death really came near, I was frightened. It’s terrible to feel your breath go. I think for a few moments I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing after you seized hold of me, until I was lying—like this—with my head on your shoulder, and you were saying—saying...”
Peignton’s breath came in a groan.
“Did I say it? I mean, am I more responsible than for the breath I drew? What I said to you then, Cassandra, said itself. If I had been in my sane senses, I would have killed myself rather than have said them then—before her!”
Cassandra lifted her fringed eyelids in a questioning gaze.
“For my own sake I am glad; but it was hard for her. Poor Teresa! Was she—did she... What has happened between you, Dane?”
“Nothing has happened. We had it out, of course. The next day. Before we came home I wanted to set her free, but she refused.”
“Refused! But how could she? When she knew! Why did she refuse?”
Dane flushed in miserable discomfort.
“If you had been free, she would have broken the engagement herself, but she believes that it would make things harder for—for us both, if she stood aside. She thinks we might be tempted to—to—”
“What are we going to do, Dane?” Cassandra asked simply. “Isn’t it strange how one comes up against problems in life, and how different they are in reality from what one has imagined? I’ve heard of married women falling in love with other men, and meeting them, as we have met now. It seemed so despicable and mean. I felt nothing but contempt, but we are not contemptible; we have done no wrong. We needed each other, and all the barriers in the world couldn’t keep us apart. We are sitting—like this!—but I don’t feel that I am doing wrong. It helps me. If I could meet you here—not often—just now and then for half an hour, a quarter of an hour, and could put my head on your shoulder, and feel your arms holding me tight—I could go on... I could be better—”
Peignton shook his head, and a dreary travesty of a smile passed over his face. He was marvelling for the hundredth time at the extraordinary difference between a woman’s sense of honour, and that of a man. He could have set his teeth and stolen his friend’s wife, carrying her off boldly in the face of the world, prepared to pay the price, but it would have been impossible for him to continue a series of clandestine meetings, however innocent, and still hold out the hand of friendship. Cassandra was not the type of woman to desert her home and child. She had made a vow, and she would keep it, yet she could declare that she would be the stronger for such meetings. Poor darling! she meant it in all sincerity. He would never allow her the misery of discovering her mistake.
“No,” he said firmly. “Never that, Cassandra. It has to be all or nothing. There’s no midway course possible for you and me. I love you; there’s nothing in the wide world that counts with me, beside you. If you could trust yourself to me, I would swear to serve you until my death, and it would be joy, the truest joy I could know. It is for you to order, Cassandra, and I shall obey...”
He felt her shrink in his arms; her voice trembled, but she forced herself to speak.
“What do you mean? Say it plainly, Dane, please, quite plainly. Let me understand!”
“If you will come with me, Cassandra, we’ll go abroad. I’ll take a villa in some quiet spot, out of the tourist beat. We could stay there, together, until... He would divorce you; he is not the kind of man to shirk that. The case would be undefended, so you would not have to appear... In less than a year we could be legally married.”
“But—but—my boy!” cried Cassandra, trembling. She passed her right hand against Peignton’s shoulder, the hand with the emerald ring, and raised herself from his embrace. There was a look in her eyes which he had not seen before, the mother-look on guard for her young. It was not of the stolid, freckled-faced schoolboy that Cassandra was thinking at that moment, but of the small, soft-breathing thing which had been the reward of her anguish, which she had greeted with such a passion of joy.
“Dane! have you forgotten my boy?”
“No. I have forgotten nothing. Is the boy more to you than I am, Cassandra?”
“No. No,” she turned to him with eager penitence. “Not so much; not so much; but he is mine; I am responsible. And he is growing so big—in a few years he would understand. ... Even now the other boys—I have done very little for him in his life. I have been allowed to do so little, and he isn’t affectionate. It isn’t me personally that he would miss... a new gun, or a pony would more than make up now! But he would care!... The time would come when he would be ashamed.—I couldn’t bear my own little son to be ashamed of me, Dane!”
There was no answer to be made to that protest. Dane stared at the ground, miserably conscious of the hopelessness of the situation. He was determined to keep to his resolution that it should be all or nothing between Cassandra and himself, yet the prospect of parting was intolerable.
“Are you thinking entirely of the boy?” he asked slowly, after a pause. “Your husband? Doesn’t he enter into your calculations?”
Cassandra’s face hardened.
“No,” she said coldly. “I am not thinking of Bernard. If there were only Bernard to consider, it would be different. Bernard has not kept his promise to love and cherish me all his life. I am a live woman, and he treats me like a machine. A man like that has no right to a wife. If I left him, it would open his eyes to his own selfishness, and do him good. He would marry again, and his second wife would reap the benefit. You need me more than Bernard needs me, and I need you... But there’s the boy—”
“And,” said Peignton heavily, “Teresa!”
Cassandra glanced at him swiftly, and into her eyes came fear.
“Dane... will you, can you,—marry her new?”
“I have told her that it’s impossible, but she insisted on keeping on the engagement. I stood out, but she said that possibly your name might be dragged in if the engagement were broken off just now, after our visit to you.—I could not stand the risk of that, so—it was left!”
“And you are engaged to her still?”
“Nominally. Yes. She is very considerate. She makes it as easy for me as she can... That’s a hateful thing to say! I hate myself for saying it. If it’s hard for us, it’s harder for her. She’s the one left out. She might have made things unbearable. Can you imagine what it would have been if she had blurted out the whole tale,—told it to her own people, to have it handed round the neighbourhood, with a hundred exaggerations within twenty-four hours? A girl might so easily have lost her head under the circumstances, but she—I don’t think she reproached me once! She seemed all the way through to think of me more than herself.—I never saw her more sweet!”
A vision of Teresa had come into his mind as with flushing cheeks she had said, “There might be children!” Many times over had he recalled that moment, and always with the same tenderness and pain. Cassandra recognised the note in his voice, and felt a very human pang of jealousy.
“What did she say about Me?”
“You and I count as one. We must do. There’s no considering us apart. She fears that if I were free, it would be one barrier removed, and we should be the more tempted.—By holding me to my word, she is doing all that is in her power to prevent—”
Cassandra’s short upper lip curved with a touch of scorn. It touched her pride that insignificant Teresa Mallison should presume to lay down rules for her guidance. It had pleased her to admit the girl to a certain amount of intimacy, but always it had been she who had condescended, Teresa who gratefully received. Cassandra was not a snob, but she was an Earl’s daughter, and the consciousness of her birth was very present at that moment.
“It seems,” she said coldly, “that we are in Teresa’s hands! She has given you her orders, and you have obeyed.”
Then Peignton looked at her, and she quailed before the passion in his eyes.
“Give me your orders,” he said thickly, “and she goes, everything goes! I’ll throw over the whole thing to-night, work, honour, friends—everything there is, if you will give me yourself—if you’ll come to me to-night, and let me take you away—Oh, my Beautiful, if you only would...”
“Dane! Dane!” cried Cassandra sharply, “I want to!” She covered her face with her hands, and he wrapped her close to his heart. “Am I wicked? Am I wicked? I’ve always called a woman wicked who felt like this, but it seems now as if it would be so right, so natural: so much more natural than saying good-bye! But I can’t—I can’t do it. I’m bound with chains. It’s the boy’s home...”
They clung together in silence. On this point at least there was nothing more to be said, and each realised as much. The chains might tear Cassandra’s heart, but they would not give way, for they were forged out of the strongest sentiment of the human heart. The mother in her would not stain her boy’s home. In the midst of his misery, Peignton loved her the more for her loyalty.
Presently she spoke again in a low, exhausted voice:
“Dane—what shall you do?”
“I? I don’t know. Leave Chumley as soon as possible. Go somewhere else. It doesn’t matter where. Nothing matters. But I must clear out of this.”
“Is it necessary? If we meet very seldom? Never, if you think it better, in private! Would it really be easier if you never saw me? I don’t feel as if I can live if I lose you altogether. Even to see you driving past in the street—”
Peignton shook his head.
“It’s impossible. The thing could not be worked. The Squire would ask me here. I could not always refuse. I couldn’t stand it, Cassandra; it would be too much for flesh and blood. It must be all or nothing.”
“You won’t go at once? I must see you again; I must! I must! There is so much to say. I’m going to do what is right, Dane. I’m strong enough for that, but I must have something for myself! You will meet me again, just once, to—to say good-bye—”
Her voice broke, and the tears poured down her cheeks. Dane kissed them away, murmuring passionate words, promising everything she asked. If they were to part for a lifetime, fate need not grudge them a short hour. He promised, and Cassandra lay silent with closed eyes, her hands clinging to his, her cheek touching his own. In both minds was the thought of the barren years to come when they would remember this hour as a treasure snatched from fate. This was the golden time, the fleeting glory,—let them realise, let them make the most!
Neither spoke; it seemed a waste of time to speak. Dane lifted the beautiful hands and gazed at them with adoring eyes; Cassandra lifted his in her turn, and found their sun-baked strength every whit as beautiful. They looked into each other’s eyes, deeply, endlessly, as lovers look who are about to part, and the world and all that is in it has ceased to exist.
Footsteps came along the winding path but they did not hear; light, tripping footsteps drawing nearer and nearer. They reached the summer-house, and halted before the opened door.
“Cassandra!” said a quiet voice. “It’s me. It’s Grizel!”