Rachel, folding her arms on her breast, stared with the dumb intensity of despair at the circle of light which flickered on the ceiling.
CHAPTER V
LOVE BY THE SEA
The road to Gray Arches runs for part of the way past smart summer cottages, but soon the spaces between the cottages grow longer, until the road, ambling on through that bright seaside country, suggests a string from which many beads are missing. In fact for quite five miles the road resembles a little empty, dust-coloured ribbon almost hidden in the lush marsh grass. But suddenly Gray Arches appears, the pendant of the ornament of which the railroad station is the clasp. However, the pendant is no match for the clasp; for the station fairly shines with paint whereas Gray Arches is as dull as a piece of old silver; the windows of the station gleam like imitation diamonds, whereas those of Gray Arches are the turbid green of clouded emeralds. None the less, the pendant is a handsome thing of princely value—a real mansion, though an ancient one in a sad state of neglect.
Under a sky littered with huge cumulus clouds fleecy as cotton, the house, in its wide lawn, seemed asleep. But something besides the sea out there, running up in little rippling waves to kiss the curve of the sandy beach, for all the world like children clambering a mother's knees,—something besides the sea was astir. With his pale and somewhat stealthy look Simon appeared in the glass door. Then he stepped out on the gravel path, and with his dignified and careful tread, he began pacing up and down. Up and down beneath the luxuriant, low-hanging boughs of the evergreen trees that still wore their mantle of dew, he walked. Despite his deliberate movements, a half-concealed eagerness showed itself in his eyes as he glanced from time to time at an upper window shaded by a striped awning. Presently he paused and stooping, picked up a shell. Holding it delicately between his thumb and forefinger, Simon studied it as he would have studied a jewel. But the next moment he tossed it aside. One watching him would scarcely have judged that a singular happiness pervaded his meditations on this particular morning, for his thoughts were written in cipher on his long pale face. He had some news for Rachel and was anticipating her pleasure in it.
Simon's jealousy of St. Ives was now at an end, or so he believed. He had never felt that Rachel really cared for Emil, and now he told himself with a sigh of thankfulness, that his hatred of the inventor no longer existed. During Rachel's illness, for which he looked upon himself as in a measure responsible, the agony of contrition he had experienced had obliterated the other torture. St. Ives he had never liked, nor did he like him now; but when he learned that the building in which Emil's workshops were located was to be extensively altered during the summer, and that these repairs would make it an inconvenient, if not an impossible place in which to carry on important work, he had acted at once.
In his present state of mind it had been a simple, even a gratifying thing for him to arrange to have Emil and all that pertained to the organ attachment, transferred temporarily to the gardener's cottage on this country estate. This action, defining his own position as nothing else could, had brought with it an immeasurable sense of relief. Morbidly constituted as he was, his own position in the matter was of paramount importance to Simon, and so engrossed was he in this supposed release from jealousy that Emil and Annie figured as scarcely more than the necessary factors for carrying out a course of conduct he had outlined. That his mood was overstrained; that it was one of those misleading, reactionary impulses to which sensitive peaceful natures are particularly prone, he never suspected. For the sake of maintaining his present lofty attitude, Simon was capable of blinding himself for a time to anything that might again threaten his repose.
By taking down a partition in the gardener's cottage, the organ had been installed, and Emil and Annie were living there now in great comfort. Filled with reproaches and recriminations, the visit which Annie had paid to her parents had been a mistake, but this the young girl did not acknowledge; nor did she confess that, despite her unhappiness with her husband, she was not able to live without him. When Mrs. St. Ives had recovered from the illness which had attacked her, Annie had rejoined Emil very simply; now in these new conditions she was even growing fresh and pretty. Simon, who had not been unmindful of the young wife when he decided to make the arrangement, could not help seeing that Annie was happier; and, for that matter, that Emil was happier, too. The inventor whistled shrilly over his work, and whenever he heard him, Simon was conscious of the expansive feeling that accompanies a generous action.
Presently there was the grating of a wheeled chair passing over gravel. The chair had been left by a former occupant of the house and Emily had found it, covered with dust, in one of the chambers. Rachel's face was as wan as the face of a martyr in a mediæval picture, though her cheeks caught a tinge from the pink "cloud" wrapped around her head. Her eyes under their slender brows, held the old vivid passionate look, and her mouth resembled a little bit of pale crumpled velvet in which gleamed, all at once, the fascinating white of her teeth.
Simon approached; then, with a glance at Emily, he kissed his wife's little, white, blue-veined hand which dropped so supplely from its wrist.