  Denzil had got out to get some papers which he had been to hurried to secure at Paddington tipping the guard on the way, so that an old gentleman who showed signs of desiring to enter was warded off to another compartment. Thus when the train re-started, they were again left alone. Amaryllis had partially recovered and was looking nearly her usual self, but for the violet shadows beneath her eyes. She glanced at the papers which he handed to her, and Denzil retired behind the Times. He wanted to think; he must not let himself slip out of hand. He must resolutely stamp out all the emotion that she was causing him; he despised weakness of any sort. He thought of Verisschenzko's words about laws being powerless to control a man's actions, when a natural force is prompting him, unless he uses self-analysis, and so by gaining knowledge permits the spirit to conquer. He recollected that he had transgressed often without a backward thought in past days with other women, but now his honour was engaged even apart from his firm belief in StÉpan's favourite saying, that a man must never sully the wrong thing. Then the argument they had often had about indulgences came to him, and the truth of the only possibility of their enjoyment being while they remained servants, not masters. He had had his indulgences in the two hours to Westbury, and had very nearly let it conquer him, more than once, and now he must not only curb all friendly words and delightful dalliance with forbidden topics, but he must feel no more passion. He made himself read the war news and try to visualize the grim reality behind the official phrasing of the communiquÉs. And gradually he became calm, and was almost startled when Amaryllis, who had been watching him furtively and had begun to wonder if he was really so interested in his paper, said timidly: "Will you pull the window up a little? It seems to be growing cold." She noticed that his lips were set firmly and that an abstracted expression had grown in his eyes. Then Denzil spoke, now quite naturally and about the war, and deliberately kept the conversation to this subject, until Amaryllis lay back again in her corner and closed her eyes. "I am going to have a little sleep," she said. She too had begun to realise that in more personal investigation of mutual tastes there lay some danger. She had become conscious of the fact that she was very interested in Denzil—and there he was, not really the least like John! They were silent for some time, and were nearing Frome when he spoke. He had been deliberating as to what he ought to do? Get out and leave her, to catch his connection to Bath, or sacrifice that and see her safely to her destination and perhaps hire a motor from Bridgeborough? This latter was his strong desire and also seemed the only chivalrous thing to do when she still looked so pale, but— "Here we are almost at Frome," he said. Her eyes rounded with concern. It would be horrid to be alone. She had left her maid in London for a few days' holiday. "You change here for Bath," she faltered a little uncertainly. He decided in a second. He could not be inhuman! Duty and desire were one! "Yes—but I am coming on with you. I shall not leave you until I see you safely into your own motor. I can hire one perhaps then, to take me on the rest of the way." She was relieved—or she thought it was merely relief, which made a sudden lifting in her heart! "How kind of you. I do feel as if I did not like the thought of being by myself, it is so stupid of me—But you can't hire a motor from Bridgeborough which would get you to Bath before dark! They are wretched things there. You must come with me to Ardayre; it is on the Bath road, you know—and we can have a late lunch, and and then I'll send you on in the Rolls Royce. You will be there in an hour—in time for tea." This was a tremendous fresh temptation. He tried to look at it as though it did not in reality matter to him more than the appearance suggested. Had there been no emotion in his interest in Amaryllis, he would not have hesitated, he knew. Then it was only for him to conquer emotion and behave as he would do under ordinary circumstances—it would be a good test of his will. "All right—that's splendid, and I shall be able to see Ardayre!" It was when they were in Amaryllis's own little coupÉ very close to each other that strong temptation assailed Denzil. He suddenly felt his pulses throbbing wildly and it was with the greatest difficulty he prevented himself from clasping her in his arms. He tried to look out of the window and take an interest in the park, which was entered very soon after leaving the station. He told himself Ardayre was something which deserved his attention and he looked for the first view of the house, but all his will could only keep his arms from transgressing, it could not control the riot of his thoughts. Amaryllis was conscious in some measure that he was far from calm, and her own heart began to beat unaccountably. She talked rather fast about the place and its history, and both were relieved when the front door came in sight. There was a welcoming smell of burning logs in the hall to greet them, and the old butler could not restrain an expression of startled curiosity when he saw Denzil, the likeness to his master was so great. "This is Captain Ardayre, Filson," Amaryllis said, "Sir John's cousin," and then she gave the order about the motor to take Denzil on to Bath. They went through the Henry VII inner hall, and on to the green drawing-room, with its air of home and comfort, in spite of its great size and stateliness. There were no portraits here, but some fine specimens of the Dutch school, and the big tawny dogs rose to welcome their mistress and were introduced to their "new relation." She was utterly fascinating, Denzil thought, playing with them there on the great bear skin rug. "We shall lunch at once," she told him, "and then rush through the pictures afterwards before you start for Bath." They both tried to talk of ordinary things for the few moments before that meal was announced, and then some kind of devilment seemed to come into Amaryllis—nothing could have been more seductive or alluring than her manner, while keeping to strict convention. The bright pink colour glowed in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. She could not have accounted for her mood herself. It was one of excitement and interest. Denzil had the hardest fight he had ever been through, and he grew almost gruff in consequence. He was really suffering. He admired the way she acted as hostess, and the way the home was done. He hardly felt anything else, though apart from her he would have been interested in his first view of Ardayre, but she absorbed all other emotions, he only knew that he desired to make passionate love to her, or to get away as quickly as he could. "Are you going to remain here all the winter?" he asked her presently, as they rose from the table, "or shall you go to London? You will be awfully lonely, won't you, if you stay here?" "I love the country and I am growing to love and understand the place. John wants me to so much, it means more to him than anything else in the world. I shall remain until after Christmas anyway. But come now, I want just to take you into the church, because there are two such fine tombs there of both our ancestors, yours and mine. We can go out of the windows and come back for coffee in the cedar parlour." Denzil acquiesced; he wished to see the church. They reached it in a minute or two and Amaryllis opened the door with her own key and led him on up the aisle to the recumbent knights—and then she whispered their history to him, standing where a ray of sunlight turned her brown hair into gold. "I wonder what their lives were," Denzil said, "and if they lived and loved and fought their desires—as we do now—the younger one's face looks as though he had not always conquered his. StÉpan would say his indulgences had become his masters, not his servants, I expect." "Verisschenzko is wonderful—he makes one want to be strong," and Amaryllis sighed. "I wonder how many of us even begin to fight our desires—" "One has to be strong always if one wants to attain—but sometimes it is only honour which holds one—and weaklings are so pitiful." "What is honour?" Her eyes searched his face wistfully. "Is it being true to some canon of the laws of chivalry, or is it being true to some higher thing in one's own soul?" Denzil leaned against the tomb and he thought deeply: then he looked straight into her eyes: "Honour lies in not betraying a trust reposed in one, either in the spirit or in the letter." "Then, when, we say of a man 'he acted honourably,' we mean that he did not betray a trust placed in him, even if it was only perhaps by circumstance and not by a person." "It is simply that'—keeping faith. If a man stole a sum of money from a friend, the dishonour would not be in the act of stealing, which is another offence—but in abusing his friend's trust in him by committing that act." "Dishonour is a betrayal then—" "Of course." "Why would this knight"—and she placed her hand on the marble face, "have said that he must kill another who had stolen his wife, say, to avenge his 'honour'?" "That is the conventional part of it—what StÉpan calls the grafting on of a meaning to suit some idea of civilisation. It was a nice way of having personal revenges too and teaching people that they could not steal anything with impunity. If we analysed that kind of honour we would find it was principally vanity. The dishonour really lay with the wife, if she deceived her husband—and with the other man if he was the husband's friend—if he was not, his abduction of the woman was not 'dishonourable' because he was not trusted, it was merely an act of theft." "What then must we do when we are very strongly tempted?" Her voice was so low he could hardly hear it. "It is sometimes wisest to run away," and he turned from her and moved towards the door. She followed wondering. She knew not why she had promoted this discussion. She felt that she had been very unbalanced all the day. They went back to the house almost silently and through the green drawing-room window again and up the broad stairs with Sir William Hamilton's huge decorative painting of an Ardayre group of his time, filling one vast wall at the turn. And so they reached the cedar parlour, and found coffee waiting and cigarettes. There was a growing tension between them and each guessed that the other was not calm. Amaryllis began showing him the view from the windows across the park, and then the old fireplace and panelling of the room. "We sit here generally when we are alone," she said. "I like it the best of all the rooms in the house." "It is a fitting frame for you." They lit cigarettes. Denzil had many things he longed to say to her of the place, and the thoughts it called up in him—but he checked himself. The thing was to get through with it all quickly and to be gone. They went into the picture gallery then, and began from the end, and when they came to the Elizabethan Denzil they paused for a little while. The painted likeness was extraordinary to the living splendid namesake who gazed up at the old panel with such interested eyes. And Amaryllis was thinking: "If only John had that something in him which these two have in their eyes, how happy we could be." And Denzil was thinking: "I hope the child will reproduce the type." He felt it would be some kind of satisfaction to himself if she should have a son which should be his own image. "It is so strange," she remarked, "that you should be exactly like this Denzil, and yet resemble John who does not remind me of him at all, except in the general family look which every one of them share. This one might have been painted from you." He looked down at her suddenly and he was unable to control the passionate emotion in his eyes. He was thinking that yes, certainly, the child must be like him—and then what message would it convey to her? Amaryllis was disturbed, she longed to ask him what it was which she felt, and why there seemed some illusive remembrance always haunting her. She grew confused, and they passed on to another frame which contained the Lady Amaryllis who had had the sonnets written to her nut brown locks. She was a dainty creature in her stiff farthingale, but bore no likeness to the present mistress of Ardayre. Denzil examined her for some seconds, and then he said reflectively: "She is a Sweetheart—but she is not you!" There was some tone of tenderness in his voice when he said the word "Sweetheart" and Amaryllis started and drew in her breath. It recalled something which had given her joy, a low murmur whispered in the night. "Sweetheart!"—a word which John, alas! had never used before nor since, except in that one letter in answer to her cry of exaltation—her glad Magnificat. What was this echo sounding in her ears? How like Denzil's voice was to John's—only a little deeper. Why, why should he have used that word "Sweetheart"? No coherent thought had yet come to her, it was as though she had looked for an instant upon some scene which awakened a chord of memory, and then that the curtain had dropped before she could define it. She grew agitated, and Denzil turning, saw that her face was pale, and her grey eyes vague and troubled. "I am quite sure that it is tiring you, showing me all the house like this, we won't look at another picture—and really I must be getting on." She did not contradict him. "I am afraid that you ought to go perhaps, if you want to arrive by daylight." And as they returned to the green drawing-room she said some nice things about wanting to meet his mother, and she tried to be natural and at ease, but her hand was cold as ice when he held it in saying good-bye before the fire, when Filson had announced the motor. And if his eyes had shown passionate emotion in the picture gallery, hers now filled with question and distress. "Good-bye, Denzil—" "Good-bye, Amaryllis—" He could not bring himself to say the usual conventionalities, and went towards the door with nothing more. Her brain was clearing, terror and passion and uncertainty had come in like a flood. "Denzil—?" He turned to her side fearfully. Why had she called him now? "Denzil—?" her face had paled still further, and there was an anguish of pleading in it. "Oh, please, what does it all mean?" and she fell forward into his arms. He held her breathlessly. Had she fainted? No—she still stood on her feet, but her little face there lying on his breast was as a lily in whiteness and tears escaped from her closed eyes. "For God's sake, Denzil, have you not something to tell me? You cannot leave me so!" He shivered with the misery of things. "I have nothing to tell you, child." His voice was hoarse. "You are overwrought and overstrung. I have nothing to say to you but just good-bye." She held his coat and looked up at him wildly. "—Denzil—It was you—not—John!" He unclasped her clinging arms: "I must go." "You shall not until you answer me—I have a right to know." "I tell you I have nothing to say to you," he was stern with the suffering of restraint. She clung to him again. "Why did you say that word 'Sweetheart' then? It was your own word. Oh! Denzil, you cannot be so frightfully cruel as to leave me in uncertainty—tell me the truth or I shall die!" But he drew himself away from her and was silent; he could not make lying protestations of not understanding her, so there only remained one course for him to follow—he must go, and the brutality of such action made him fierce with pain. She burst into passionate sobs and would have fallen to the ground. He raised her in his arms and laid her on the sofa near, and then fear seized him. What if this excitement and emotion should make her really ill—? He knelt down beside her and stroked her hair. But she only sobbed the more. "How hideously cruel are men. Why can't you tell me what I ask you? You dare not even pretend that you do not understand!" He knew that his silence was an admission, he was torn with distress. "Darling," he cried at last in torment, "for God's sake, let me go." "Denzil—" and then her tears stopped suddenly, and the great drops glistened on her white cheeks. Weeping had not disfigured her—she looked but as a suffering child. "Denzil—if you knew everything, you could not possibly leave me—you don't know what has happened—But you must, you will have to since—soon—" He bowed his head and placed her two hands over his face with a despairing movement. "Hush—I implore you—say nothing. I do know, but I love you—I must go." At that she gave a glad cry and drew him close to her. "You shall not now! I do not care for conventions any more, or for laws, or for anything! I am a savage—you are mine! John must know that you are mine! The family is all that matters to him, I am only an instrument, a medium for its continuance—but Denzil, you and I are young and loving and living. It is you I desire, and now I know that I belong to you. You are the man and I am the woman—and the child will be our child!" Her spirit had arisen at last and broken all chains. She was transfigured, transformed, translated. No one knowing the gentle Amaryllis could have recognised her in this fierce, primitive creature claiming her mate! Furious, answering passion surged through Denzil; it was the supreme moment when all artificial restrictions of civilisation were swept away. Nature had come to her own. All her forces were working for these two of her children brought near by a turn of fate. He strained her in his arms wildly—he kissed her lips, and ears, and eyes. "Mine, mine," he cried, and then "Sweetheart!" And for some seconds which seemed an eternity of bliss they forgot all but the joy of love. But presently reality fell upon Denzil and he almost groaned. "I must leave you, precious dear one—even so—I gave my word of honour to John that I would never take advantage of the situation. Fate has done this thing by bringing us together; it has overwhelmed us. I do not feel that we are greatly to blame, but that does not release me from my promise. It is all a frightful price that we must pay for pride in the Family. Darling, help me to have courage to go." "I will not—It is shameful cruelty," and she clung to him, "that we must be parted now I am yours really—not John's at all. Everything in my heart and being cries out to you—you are the reality of my dream lover, your image has been growing in my vision for months. I love you, Denzil, and it is your right to stay with me now and take care of me, and it is my right to tell you of my thoughts about the—child—Ah! if you knew what it means to me, the joy, the wonder, the delight! I cannot keep it all to myself any longer. I am starving! I am frozen! I want to tell it all to my Beloved!" He held her to him again—and she poured forth the tenderest holy things, and he listened enraptured and forgot time and place. "Denzil," she whispered at last, from the shelter of his arms. "I have felt so strange—exalted, ever since—and now I shall have this ever present thought of you and love women in my existence—But how is it going to be in the years which are coming? How can I go on pretending to John?—I cannot—I shall blurt out the truth—For me there is only you—not just the you of these last days since we saw each other with our eyes—but the you that I had dreamed about and fashioned as my lover—my delight—Can I whisper to John all my joy and tenderness as I watch the growing up of my little one? No! the thing is monstrous, grotesque—I will not face the pain of it all. John gave you to me—he must have done so—it was some compact between you both for the family, and if I did not love you I should hate you now, and want to kill myself. But I love you, I love you, I love you!" and she fiercely clasped her arms once more about his neck. "You must take the consequences of your action. I did not ask to have this complication in my life. John forced it upon me for his own aims, but I have to be reckoned with, and I want my lover, I claim my mate." Her cheeks were flaming and her eyes flashed. "And your lover wants you," and Denzil wildly returned her fond caress, "but the choice is not left to me, darling, even if you were my wife, not John's. You have forgotten the war—I must go out and fight." All the warmth and passion died out of her, and she lay back on the pillows of the sofa for a moment and closed her eyes. She had indeed forgotten that ghastly colossus in her absorption in their own two selves. Yes—he must go out and fight—and John would go too—and they might both be killed like all those gallant partners of the season and her cousin, and those who had fallen at Mons and the battle of the Marne. No—she must not be so paltry as to think of personal things, even love. |
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