CHAPTER XX
BITTER-SWEET
"Full from the fount of love's delicious joys
Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings."—BYRON.
The low carriage jolted over the deep ruts left by the carts which had carried the bracken the previous autumn, as the stout pony threw himself into the collar with a will. On either side of the narrow lane were high, sandy banks, riddled with rabbit-holes and crowned with a tangle of brambles and briars. The leaves were just beginning to turn, and the hips and haws had already clothed themselves in their winter finery, and shone in flaming scarlet against the blue sky overhead. There was a pleasant coolness in the air, and the birds twittered merrily in tune with Nature's cheerful mood.
Francis was in excellent spirits, and Philippa, noticing the unwonted colour in his cheeks, told herself that she had never seen him look so well, and that surely the journey to the Magical Island might soon be undertaken.
They were paying the long-talked-of visit to Bessmoor, and Philippa, who had before now explored most of the roads near Bessacre, had chosen this unfrequented lane in preference to the usual road which led through the village; partly because of its beauty, and partly because she had no wish that they should meet Isabella Vernon, who so often walked upon the upper part of the moor.
She had seen her on the preceding day, and had given her a full account of the invalid, but she did not intend that he should be confronted by an old acquaintance if it could possibly be avoided. It was, of course, possible that he would not recognise her, but safer to run no risks.
Slowly they climbed the incline, the pony slipping and stumbling as the sand crumbled away from under his feet.
"It is a hard pull for the poor old thing," said Philippa penitently; "I ought not to have come this way."
"We'll give him a rest when we get to the top. It won't hurt him, but it makes me feel as if I ought to get out and walk."
"You ought to do no such thing," she retorted quickly. "The very idea is preposterous."
Francis laughed at her vehemence. "You need not think that you are going to pamper me like this for the rest of my life. We shall be taking long walks together, you and I, very soon. Oh, it is a joy to be alive on such a day as this. Look at that rabbit scuttling away up the lane. It reminds me——" He stopped and hesitated "I can't remember—but I seem to—— Oh, drive on, Phil. Yes,"—he spoke excitedly,—"it is coming back to me now—that tree and that gate."
They had reached the top of the hill where the lane ended at the edge of the moor. There was a crooked oak-tree standing on the right at the junction of two banks which divided some cultivated land from the heath, and under the tree was a gate, broken from its hinges and lying half upon the ground.
"Phil, darling, this is the place. I know now why you brought me here. It was so dear of you to think of it." He laid his hand on hers, and then lowered his voice as the groom who had been walking behind the carriage came forward to the pony's head. "Hang the man!" he said boyishly, "let him wait here while we go on a little further. I want to talk to you. Oh, I can see you now. We had been walking up the field. It was planted with turnips, and a rabbit ran out just here. Then—oh, sweetheart, I am glad to have remembered. It is one more memory of you. It was the happiest day of my life. You had on a scarlet cap. I wish you had put it on to-day—I always loved you in it."
A little chill of some inexplicable feeling ran through Philippa. It was not dismay, for he had often alluded to some detail of Phil's appearance which he recalled. She had never failed to satisfy him with some light answer—she could not make it out. However, it was gone in a moment, and she listened again to what he was saying.
"Don't think me silly, darling, but I had waited so long for you. Surely you like to remember it too—the day you gave yourself to me. I had given you my heart long before, and you have it still. Oh, I am glad to have seen this place again."
"It is most beautiful," she agreed. "Look at the line of the sea—how wonderfully blue it is. You can see the smoke of a steamer on the horizon—over there." She pointed with the whip in her hand. "When I was a child I used to watch the ships, and make up all sorts of stories as to where they were going and the wonderful adventures they would meet with—pirates and desert islands and shipwrecks and sea-serpents. I think I must have had a very vivid imagination. But my stories always ended up happily. After endless perils and hairbreadth escapes my vessels sailed home laden with treasure. Where is that ship going, and what sort of passengers does she carry? I wonder if they are all very unhappy at leaving England, or full of hope about the new land they are going to?"
"Perhaps they are bound for the Magical Island," Francis said, smiling. "Is it north, south, east or west, that fairyland? And is it really more beautiful than Bessmoor after all? Just think of it. If I hadn't been ill we might be there now, and by this time I should have discovered your secret. Tell me where it is, darling."
"No, no," she replied, laughing. "I won't tell you. You want to know too much. You must be patient. It is to be a surprise for you."
"I wish we were sailing there now, in that ship over there," he said. "But anyway I am sure of one thing, and that is that even on the Magical Island we couldn't be happier than we are now."
"No, I don't think we could," assented Philippa, in a tone of great contentment.
"I cannot say how glad I am that we should have come here for our first drive together since all the shadows rolled away. It seems right, somehow. Thank you, dear one, for bringing me. It is a perfect spot, isn't it? It seems a worthy setting for the perfect joy which came to me here. Phil, I wonder—when you promised to marry me—here—standing by that gate—did you love me as much as you do now?"
Again that curious chill ran through the girl, but this time it was much more definite, so strong that it gave her a feeling of physical sickness. It was only with an effort that she could wrench her mind free from the grip of it and answer calmly and with perfect truth, "I have never loved you so well as I do to-day."
His arm pressed hers with a movement full of affection, and he smiled into her eyes.
"We must be going back now. You will have been out long enough." So saying she turned the pony round and they retraced their road.
"Oh, how it all comes back to me!" Francis continued. "You were so full of life and spirits that day, I thought I should never get a chance to say the words which were burning on my lips—to tell you what I was longing you should know. I don't know which I love best, the Phil who was always overflowing with fun and laughter, or the sweet serious Phil of to-day."
He changed his tone instantly as he saw her face. "I was only speaking in jest, dear one," he whispered. "I, too, can say as you said just now, that I have never loved you so well as at this moment. But I have a happy memory of the old Phil as she was before I was such an anxiety to her that she almost forgot how to smile. But never mind, soon you will forget all the sadness, and I will teach you your old trick of laughter."
But Philippa did not speak. She was wrestling with the most insupportable sensation of mingled misery and revolt, and she seemed to hear words as clearly spoken as though the speaker were actually by her side—"He does not love you. It is not you he loves."
A surge of anger blotted out the sunshine and darkened the whole world, and through the darkness one lightning flash shot through the girl's sick heart. This was jealousy. Suddenly she felt she could not bear it—she could not sit there beside the man she loved and hear him talk of other days which she had never known and of his love for another woman. In a minute or two the storm passed, but it left her faint and numb, with the beautiful veil which had enveloped her dream of bliss torn to ribbons.
She fought desperately to recover her self-possession and succeeded to a certain extent, but her hands were so cold that she could hardly feel the reins, and in her ears there sounded the rushing of great waters.
Step by step the old pony trod down the steep, uneven track, and the necessity for careful driving seemed sufficient excuse for her preoccupation.
"We must come here again," said Francis thoughtfully. "It will help me to remember;" and then, as though his thoughts had gone back to the scene enacted long ago on the place they had just visited, he added half to himself, "Dear little girl, with her happy face and clouds of dark hair under a scarlet cap!"
Philippa suppressed a wild desire to scream aloud. The words were like a knife turning in her heart at the moment; but to her relief he did not speak again until they reached the house.
Keen and a footman were waiting for them at the door, and he was carried up-stairs to rest as usual after his drive. Philippa followed, and arranged his cushions and attended to his comfort in the way that had become habitual to her, but she left him as quickly as she could and sought the privacy of her own room. She wanted to be alone to battle with the unexpected enemy which had in some unaccountable way stormed the stronghold of her heart and threatened to lay it in ruins. The words Marion had spoken—words which had been utterly unheeded at the time—now battered for admission to the fortress and met with slight resistance. "His love is not for you—every bit of the love in his heart belongs to another woman." It was not true! It could not be true! Francis loved her—now—to-day. What right had the woman who had failed him to rob her, the living Philippa, of one corner of his heart? For she wanted it all. She, by right of her love for him, claimed his every thought, she could not spare one.
Phil had renounced her privilege, had thrown it aside as something of no value, had broken the tie which bound her to Francis the first moment that it galled. Could Philippa then be blamed if she had riveted the chain afresh and possessed herself of what Phil had discarded as worthless? Surely not. This was a point which Philippa had considered thoroughly at the time of making her first decision. In her first interview with Francis she had, as has been stated, blamed herself for listening to words of love intended for another; but once she had learned the rights of the whole affair she had altered her opinion, and had deliberately set aside all thoughts of Phil. So entirely had she identified herself with the woman whom Francis loved, that she had ceased to allow her a separate individuality at all. She, Philippa, was in effect that woman, as she was in reality the woman who loved him. His allusions to Phil had never troubled her up to the present, save, of course, that they required careful answering. Marion's plain speaking had glanced off the armour of her security without even denting it—why should she think of it now?
It was so dreadful to be jealous—she had always considered jealousy a vulgar failing—and her face flushed with shame and humiliation that she, who had always prided herself upon being above petty weakness, should harbour so despicable a sentiment, and that of a dead woman. And yet she could only acknowledge honestly that it was torture to her to hear Francis speak of Phil in terms of such affection. Now that this odious whisper had made itself heard, how could she submit to his embrace? Could she ever forget? What could she do? Her deep, passionate love craved for evidences of his in return. Was this horrible ghost always to stand between them?
She paced up and down the room, striving with all her might to straighten out this abominable coil. Of all the pains to which poor human nature is liable, and not a few are self-inflicted, none is sharper than jealousy. It has been well described as the child of love and the parent of hate.
But for all that at the moment Philippa was suffering acutely, she was by no means prepared to permit this vile thing to conquer. She would fight it and root it out. It had come upon her so suddenly. What was the cause? Was it merely a freak of that incomprehensible phenomenon the human mind that had twisted the chain of her affection into so mischievous a knot, or merely a figment of the brain springing from inner consciousness to torment her with devilish ingenuity? or did the fault lie with her in some simpler, more tangible way? Was it possible that her love was not the great and boundless force that she had imagined, but weak, in that it could not dispel and overcome any thought that dimmed its purity—such a poor selfish thing that she allowed an idea to influence her to its despite?
She had been so utterly happy—had she been thinking only of herself? But no, Francis had been happy too. Had Marion been right when she had accused her of defrauding not only herself, but him, of the best part of what love should mean—confidence and trust—and was this her punishment? And little by little, as she thought and puzzled over it all, the scales fell from her eyes and she knew the truth. She knew that she had "drugged her brain against realities, and lived in dreams,"—dreams which had been, as most dreams are, strange compounds of self-deception and hallucination, distorted, imaginary and futile.
And yet, while her hope and joy vanished like a vapour before the searching heat of truth, one thing remained firm—her love for Francis. Whatever mistakes she had made, whatever fancies she had taken for fact, this was actual, pure and irrefutable. It seemed to her suddenly that this was the only saving clause in the long list of errors, and she saw the difference it would have made if Francis had known the truth. No possible cloud could have come between them then, and all the rosy dreams in which she had indulged might have proved waking joys.
And even now she could not see how she could have acted differently—certainly not at the outset—it was impossible then to undeceive Francis; but later, supposing that when she first became aware of her love for him—supposing she had told him the truth then, making clear her affection at the same time, could he not have borne it? Had that been in reality her one hour of choice to which regret now turned with longing? At the time she had been so engrossed in her own rapture that she had passed it unheeding. And now, was it possible to tell him? And if she did so, how could she explain, how vindicate her own actions? She had taken his protestations, his tenderness under a false pretence. How could she tell him now, when his memory was groping back slowly and painfully, and he had already so much to bear in the fuller knowledge of his limitations—when he had no one but her?
She could not do it. The only thing she could do was to go on, to carry on what she had undertaken; and after all, if he did not love her he was absolutely dependent on her. She must school herself to listen to this talk of old days. It could be only for a time, for in the future there would be so many new interests for him that he would cease to think of the past. She would so fill his life that if she were only patient, surely she might hope for the day when she could say that he was hers in every thought. She would practise self-control and self-abnegation, and perhaps after a time this dull heartache and sense of loss would pass away.
Fortified by these excellent resolutions, she took up a book which she and Francis were reading together and went to his sitting-room. As she entered she saw him standing in front of a tall mahogany bookcase, the bottom drawer of which was open and filled with papers. He held one in his hand, but as he glanced up and saw her he replaced it and closed the drawer without speaking. His face was very white, and she asked him anxiously if he was tired.
"A little," he answered, "but not too tired for some reading."
He lay down, and Philippa drew a chair to her accustomed place and began to read. She read steadily for a while, but presently she noticed that Francis was paying no attention to the story, although he had hitherto been interested in it, so she suggested some music. He assented readily enough, and she went to the piano and played several of his favourite pieces, but she could see he was not listening. She took up a song with the intention of singing, but laid it down again, feeling thankful that he had not asked for it, for the effort would have been beyond her to-night. To-morrow she would be calmer and stronger.
But the music soothed her and she sat on, playing from memory, passing from one thing to another almost without heeding what she was doing. Many times before she had played to Francis like this in the earlier days when he had been too weak for sustained conversation, but never had his silence lasted so long as to-night. It rather alarmed her at last, and she rose and went to his side.
"Is anything the matter?" she asked. "Are you sure you are not feeling ill?"
"What should be the matter?" he replied. "No, thank you, darling, I am not feeling ill, but——" he passed his hand over his forehead with a gesture of perplexity—"I seem to be thinking of so many things to-night, that is all."
"Do not tire yourself with thinking," she said earnestly. "Put thought aside until you are more fit for it—or let me do the thinking for you. What is it that you want to know?"
"Oh, so many things," he answered, with an attempt at lightness. Then rising he added: "Perhaps I am a little tired. Will you ring the bell for Keen? I think I will go to bed. I am sorry, dearest, but I don't feel like talking to-night. The fresh air has gone to my head, I think; but I shall be all right after a night's rest."
He kissed her as usual and she left him, feeling reassured about him. The expedition of the morning was enough to account for a little extra fatigue.