The shadow of the East

by E. M. Hull

The fire had died down again, and the room was almost dark, he could hardly see her where she stood. He waited, hoping she would speak, then abruptly: “Can you give me an answer, Gillian?”

He heard the quick intake of her breath, felt her trembling beside him.

“Oh, if you would give me time,” she murmured entreatingly. “I want to think. It means so much.”

“Take all the time you wish,” he said, and went quietly away. And his going brought a sudden desolation. She longed to call him back, to promise what he asked, to yield without further struggle. But uncertainty held her. Motionless she stood staring through the darkness at the dim outline of the door that had closed behind him, her breast heaving tumultuously, until tears blinded her and with a gasping sob she slipped to the floor. She had never dared to hope that he could love her, but the truth from his own lips was bitter. And for a time the realisation of that bitterness deadened all other feeling. Overwrought with the emotion of the last few hours, her nerves strained to breaking point, she was unable to check the tide of grief that shook her to the very depths of her being. With her face hidden in the soft rug, her outflung hands clenching convulsively, she wept in an abandonment of sorrow.

If he had never spoken, if he had never made this strange proposal but had maintained until the end the detached reserve that had seemed to set so wide a gulf between them, it would have been easier to bear. He would have passed out of her life, inscrutable as he had always been. But with his change of attitude, in the intimacy of the few hours they had spent alone, she had seen him with new eyes. The mysterious unapproachable guardian had gone for ever, and in his place was a very human man revealing characteristics she had never imagined to exist, showing an interest and a gentleness she had never suspected. He had exhibited a similarity of tastes and ideas that agreed extraordinarily with her own, he had talked as to a comrade. The companionship had been very sweet—very sorrowful. She could never think of him again as he had been, and the new conception of him gave a poignant stab to her grief. In the brief happiness of the afternoon she had had a fleeting vision of what might have been “if he had loved me,” she moaned, and it seemed to her that she had never known until now the real depth of her own love. What she had felt before was not comparable with the overwhelming passion that the touch of his hands had quickened. It swept her like a raging torrent, carrying her beyond the limit of her understanding, bringing with it strange yearnings that, half-understood, she shuddered from, ashamed.

Torn with emotion she wept until she had no tears left, until the hard racking sobs died away and her tired sorrow-shaken body lay still. For the moment, exhausted, her agony of mind was dulled and time was non-existent. She did not move or lift her head from the tear-wet rug. A great weariness seemed to deaden all faculty. The minutes passed unnoticed. Then some latent consciousness stirred in her brain and she looked up startled.

It was quite dark and she realised, shivering, that the room had grown very cold. The calm afternoon had given place to a stormy night and heavy gusts of wind were sweeping round the angle of the house, shrieking and whistling eerily; from the window came the soft swish swish of dry hard snow beating against the panes. She started to her feet. She had no idea of the hour but she knew it must be late. Perhaps the dinner gong had already sounded and, missed, somebody might come in search of her. She shrank from being found thus. Feeling her way to a lamp she turned the switch and the soft light flooding the room made her wince. A glance at her watch showed that she had still a few moments in which to gain her room unobserved.

She felt oddly lightheaded and her feet dragged wearily. The tortuous passage had never seemed so interminable, the succession of closed doors appeared unending. Reaching her own room she collapsed on to a sofa that was drawn up before the fire, her head aching, her limbs shivering uncontrollably, worn out with emotion. Exhausted in mind and body she seemed unable even to frame a thought logically or coherently—only an interrupted medley of unconnected ideas chased through her tired brain until her temples throbbed agonisingly. She knew that sometime she would have to rouse herself, that sometime a decision would have to be made, but not now. Now she could only lie still and make no effort. She was angry with herself, contemptuous of her weakness. She had disdained nerves, she was humiliated now by her present lack of control. But even self-scorn was a passing thought from which she turned wearily.

One fact only remained, clear and distinct from the confusion in her mind—he did not love her. He did not love her. It hurt so. She hid her face in the pillows, writhing with the shame the knowledge of her own love brought her. The deep booming of the dinner gong awoke her to the necessity of some kind of action. She rang the bell that hung within reach of her hand and, by the maid who answered her summons, sent her excuses to Miss Craven, pleading a headache for remaining upstairs.

A few minutes later Mary, grim-visaged and big-hearted, appeared with a tray, headache remedies and multifarious messages from the dining room. She bathed the girl's aching head, brushing the tumbled brown hair and piling it afresh into a soft loose knot. Grumbling gently at the long hours of work to which she attributed the unusual indisposition, she took full advantage of the rare opportunity of rendering personal attention and fussed to her heart's content, stripping off the stained overall and substituting a loose velvet wrapper; and then stood over her, a kindly martinet, until the light dinner she had brought was eaten. Afterwards she packed pillows, made up the fire, and administered a particularly nauseous specific emanating from a homeopathic medicine chest that was her greatest pride, and then took herself away, still mildly admonishing.