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"Withering Fires"
Mellifont Press, Dublin, Ireland, 1948
"Withering Fires"
W. Collins Sons, London, 1931
APRILIS CAMPION was a lady with a legend. Every one knew why at thirty she was unmarried, in spite of her looks and her accomplishments. It was just the sort of story that Society loved. Aprilis had been engaged to Adrian Strype who, six years ago, was drowned at Oxford—a tragedy which shattered his parents' lives. For a time Aprilis had sincerely dedicated herself to his memory. She went to live with the Strypes almost at once, although it was generally known that she had means of her own. At first she did not realise how artificial her life had become—Mrs. Strype was so jealous of her son's memory that she really kept Aprilis from meeting attractive men ; but it was in the studio of Martin Faunt, the portrait painter, that the whole future of the lady with the legend was changed. She saw on a canvas an early portrait of Stephen Borlace! Gilded society—artists and connoisseurs, alluring dilettantes; that is the background of Miss Bowen's powerful drama of a mad jealousy—that withering fire that consumes love and loyalties alike in its ardent ruthlessness.
"What more fearful passion is there than this? What more awful and devastating, more terrific, consuming alike the avenger and the avenged, the slayer and the slain in one withering fire? It is the daemon of jealousy that conducts humanity through the Gates of Hell."
De Beauvais.
HE desired so much to see her that his impatience for her arrival seemed to himself something ridiculous; during his absence from London a legend had grown round the name of this woman, not a legend for the public or the press, but a choice legend in his own choice little world; so many people of whose rare praise he knew the high value, had praised Aprilis Campion; he had been to three houses on purpose to meet her, but missed her each time; now she was coming to his studio, brought by his new acquaintance, Mrs Strype; and he would paint her portrait; he saw already her name in the catalogues.
"Aprilis Campion"—or perhaps merely the immortal "Portrait of a Lady," this time the signature "Martin Faunt," which had been already written under the portraits of several notable women.
The light of a windy, wet day in a late spring flowed bleakly through the glass roof of the studio; Faunt drew closely the blue and ochre blinds so that the large room was blotted with shadow; so many beautiful women had entered here against a background of carefully massed shadows, moving in a delicately obscured light, in themselves almost as artificial as the canvases signed "Martin Faunt" their likenesses would presently decorate.
Aprilis Campion would be one of these, Aprilis with her uncommon legend; Faunt had seen her photograph; he could have run his charcoal over the canvas in the preliminary outline of her gracious figure, so sure was he of his model; yet he did not want to be superficial where Aprilis Campion was concerned; it was extremely easy, Faunt knew, for a fashionable portrait painter to be superficial.
The electric bell, the light commotion in the hall, set him turning the bare canvas at which he had looked longingly, to the wall; he was ready to waive Aprilis Campion, who seemed to him now really a bodiless sort of creature, Aprilis and her legend—a decoration, that was what she would be, one of the many decorations of his sumptuous studio where a fine culture softened the evidences of considerable wealth.
But it was not the expected woman who entered. Faunt's disappointment damped his welcome of his friend.
"Hullo, you, Custance? I didn't know that you were back."
"I have only just come back," said the newcomer quietly; his words and manner were simple to childishness; he was a hunchback with a cheerful face and wore shabby, rather peculiar clothes, and his business was the purchase of beautiful things, for he was a buyer to one of the most quietly opulent of antique dealers.
He seated himself carefully.
"I'm back from Venice."
Faunt looked disgusted.
"Is there anything left in Venice?"
"Oh, well," said the hunchback with his air of ingenuous modesty, "I bought some trifles—you were waiting for someone?"
"You saw I was chapfallen when you entered?" grinned Faunt; he was a rough-looking man, unkempt and heavy, as if he made an effort to look entirely different from what was expected of his particular branch of art; but this appearance was unconsciousness, not pose. "Well, I'm waiting for Aprilis Campion, I want to meet her very much."
"Haven't you met her yet? You've been back in London now for six weeks and she's everywhere."
Custance looked appraisingly round the room; most of the furniture and tapestries, glass and pottery, he had handled on the way to private sale or auction.
"Tell me about her," asked Faunt. "She's late—she may be very late, there'll be time—"
"Painting her?" queried the hunchback.
"Yes. And I've asked Betterys Ushaw to meet her—"
"Why?" The word came sharply, and Custance paused in the filling of a wizened little pipe.
"He asked me. I chanced across him in Spain, and we came back together; he hasn't seen her either, she is a bit of a legend, you know. I thought she and Ushaw would be tremendously interested in each other."
"Umph." The hunchback finished filling his pipe. "I really came to sell you a box of marionettes. Perfect. Want them? Before they go to Middletons?"
"No," said Faunt rudely. "I want to hear about Aprilis Campion. You know a deal about her, don't you?"
"Whatever I know I am sure you have heard already," returned the hunchback; his face that was so withered, so disfigured by the bistre lines of ill health and yet so expressed cheerful good nature in the squat features, looked away from Faunt.
"I'd rather talk about my box of dolls. Aprilis Campion is very popular, very successful—just in the very most careful set of people, people who don't run after shams. She has a number of little talents, sings, plays, designs frocks, dances—"
"I know, of course. How old is she?"
"I suppose—thirty."
"And the Strypes have really adopted her?—"
"Everyone thinks so. But she has money of her own, her father was a most distinguished surgeon, I've heard —she isn't dependent on the Strypes."
"As if that interested me!" said Faunt impatiently. "She is dedicated to the dead son, isn't she?"
Custance admitted it, not without reluctance.
"It's old stuff now. She certainly was engaged to Adrian Strype—six years ago; he was drowned at Oxford, you know, and the parents just stopped their lives at that event. Aprilis Campion went to live with them almost at once, they certainly seem to think she is dedicated to that poor boy's memory."
"And she lives up to that?" asked Faunt. "Out of self interest—the Strypes being so hugely wealthy—or out of delicacy—or because she really is still in love with the memory of Adrian?"
"Ask her yourself," smiled Custance. "She doesn't look happy."
"Happy?" Faunt pounced on the word. "How could she? Tell me how she does look, Custance. You have a knack for such things."
"As if she were always asking herself questions, hard questions," said the hunchback slowly. "Mind you, I know nothing of the story beyond what everyone knows, but I can see that the Strypes are tremendously jealous of her—they really keep her from meeting attractive men."
I've heard that, too, that is why I've got Ushaw coming—he told me that he'd met Mrs. Strype somewhere and she'd been most unfriendly."
"Well," said Custance a little wistfully, "Ushaw is rather the kind of man to attract Aprilis Campion, and I suppose the Strypes know it—one must be a little sorry for them, Faunt; the boy was all they had and they are fighting hard to keep his memory alive and this girl of his faithful to him."
"Do you mean," asked Faunt, "that they are deliberately keeping Aprilis Campion from any kind of rival to that poor boy?" Custance rose.
"I hear your bell. Mrs. Strype is always late. I think Miss Campion is very happy, you know," he added curiously. "Her life is one long round of applause."
The hunchback had the habit of saying childish things, so Faunt made no comment on this crude connection of applause with happiness.
"Shall I paint her with the face of Adrian Strype looking over her shoulder?" he asked, and he jerked the curtain cords so that the skylight was bare in the strip of arid spring sky, so cold, so remote, so calm; after all, he did not want too much shadow over Aprilis Campion.
Almost on his words the lady entered, a little behind, yet overshadowing Mrs. Strype.
"It is a terrible day," said the elder woman, "so bitter, so grey "; she looked chilled, even in her rich grey furs; she was long past middle age, completely withered, and bore no sign of youth save the vigour and resolution of her carriage and manner, yet this same air of strength was overlaid by a painful nervousness.
She presented the two men to Aprilis, and Faunt looked at the girl greedily.
Her clothes impressed him first; the sweep and trail of hat and cloak and dress, the flow of veil and plume, all bronze and black, seemed to him too nicely calculated to suggest severe dedication to some remote affection; her attire was very costly.
Then he noticed her face, a small-featured blonde, an appealing face, with light fringe and looped curls of faint gold blending to the colour of cedar wood, yet an intelligent, rather noble face for all this obscuring grace of accentuated femininity, a face in which the hues were pure and fugitive, a wistful nose, a warm white complexion, full lips that were too mobile, and wide-placed hazel eyes that were too caressingly sweet in expression to be quite honest.
"Not happy," thought Faunt as he gave them tea, "not a fool, and not in love with the spirit of poor Adrian Strype."
He watched the elder woman, her nervous, irritable air of domination, her constant watchfulness, and yet her obvious kindness, almost cringing kindness, her obvious affection, almost adulatory affection; Custance might, with justice, say that Aprilis passed her life to a round of applause; Mrs. Strype at least, this anxious, highly-strung emotional woman, was always voicing an eager and ardent praise that, though delicately masked by tact and breed, must, Faunt thought, have cloyed any but the most grossly vain.
Custance, as if it was expected of him, led the talk to Aprilis and her achievements; her playing of Elizabethan instruments, her designing of gowns for a mediaeval play, her dancing at a recent great Ball; the hunchback touched all these things in with deft underlinings, of admiration which Mrs. Strype enjoyed with avidity.
Faunt was pleased when Aprilis showed restlessness.
"Where have you been, Mr. Custance?" she asked, "you always go to interesting places—"
Only Venice, this time," he smiled with his ready pleasantness, "and all I've brought back is a box of dolls—a marionette theatre."
"I should like to see it," said Aprilis. "I suppose it will be on view at Middletons?"
"Yes—they will want a lot of money for it. It's complete, Miss Campion."
But Mrs. Strype seemed to resent this changing of the focus of the conversation.
"Mr. Faunt is going to paint the portrait of Aprilis, Mr. Custance—and I am sure it is going to be a masterpiece—"
The conventional words were belied by the look in her fine drawn face, the fluttering, half repressed movements of her hands towards the fair woman who in power and beauty eclipsed her so utterly.
Aprilis rose; she looked very tall and was half engulfed by the warm shadows, but she was far too vital to appear the bodiless wraith of loveliness Faunt had imagined.
"Will you show me your pictures?" she asked, and her voice sounded restless.
Faunt wished that Ushaw would arrive; he imagined the meeting of these two people to be something of a clash; he wanted to see that clash; but Ushaw was so unreliable.
"Custance will take Mrs. Strype home," he said, "where she will give him a nice tea to make up for what he has not had here, and when I have you quite to myself, Miss Campion, I Will make you pose for me."
Aprilis looked at him quite sharply; this glance was keen and even hostile, and Faunt knew that it was the word "pose" that had vexed her; it seemed as if she said to him: "You know that I never do anything but pose."
Vincent Custance, always dutiful, took Mrs. Strype away; and Mrs. Strype went with a complacency that amused Faunt, for he knew that not only was she flattered at his request (on the strength of a mere photograph) to paint the portrait of Aprilis, but that she regarded him as oldish, plain, and eminently unattractive; and he felt malicious when he thought of Ushaw; of Ushaw coming and finding Aprilis alone in the sumptuous, sombre studio.
His mind was so full of this that it was the first thing he spoke of when he returned to Miss Campion, who, left a moment alone, had moved (restlessly, Faunt knew) to the dais and was sitting there, pulling at the gilt tassels on the brocade over the model's throne.
"I've asked Ushaw here, Miss Campion."
Aprilis looked round, without interest.
"Oh, the traveller?"
"Well, he does travel—among other things; he is an extraordinary person."
Aprilis said:
"So many people are, nowadays."
Faunt resolved to punish her for that; he again Jerked the cords, and the shrouding canvases flew apart over the skylight; a space of windy heaven was revealed and a flood of cold illumination soaked up the soft shadows in the studio.
"Do you paint your sitters in this light?" smiled Aprilis.
"No. I like to see them in this light, though, before I begin to paint. Will you take off your hat and coat— all those scarves and veils?"
It was meant as if he had asked a man to lay aside his weapons; Aprilis knew this, but she still smiled.
Watching her critically as she took off her beautiful garments, Faunt made one of the remarks that he felt himself privileged to make to women.
"You don't need all those picturesque trappings, you know—any woman can create an effect with plumes and veils—it is overdone, too, by dressmaker people."
"Why," asked Aprilis, "do you think I want to create an effect?"
She had slipped out of her "trappings" now and stood straight before him in a long-sleeved, tight black , dress with harsh heavy gold at the hem, and her pale smooth hair knotted up with black pins.
Faunt grinned; his ugly face has a disarming look of sheer impudence.
"Now, that is a foolish question for a sensible human being," he said, "and you are a sensible human being, you know, however much you may dislike to think so."
Aprils looked startled and also interested.
"Get up on the throne, please," added Faunt.
And Aprilis obeyed.
She had no need to dread the light he had so ruthlessly admitted, the texture and contour if the face and neck (rigidly cut off at the throat by the hard line of the black gown) were firm and fresh as those of a fruit; the greenish hazel« of her eyes was clear and radiant as tarn water; the features were too short and wide for beauty of the orthodox type, and the mouth was decidedly too full; but Faunt, as a painter, liked these defects.
She was grandly made, too, her real loveliness was in her long rounded limbs, too curved and womanly to suit the fashion of the moment; Faunt instantly thought of her in the heavy robes of the Italian renaissance; she could have carried the weighty magnificence of a Doge's lady.
"Will you draw the blinds now?" she asked. "Such bleak clouds are coming up—I dislike a bitter, late spring."
He pulled the canvas together.
"April? Is this your month?"
"Yes. My birthday is to-morrow. I'm thirty. Now you know why I want the blinds drawn."
Faunt never paid compliments in either large or small coin.
"You look thirty," he said. "Don't ever try to look less."
She smiled, mechanically, he thought; her whole attitude was apathetic; melancholy showed through her trained grace; Faunt determined to rouse her from her listless acceptance of his presence and his rudeness.
"Shall I paint you with a miniature of Adrian Strype in your hand?" he asked brusquely.
Aprilis, elevated above him on the throne, turned so swiftly that the effect was as if she had been struck from above.
"How do you know about that?" she asked, and at last her look and tone were sincere.
"Doesn't everyone know?"
"Do they still? And talk about it?" She narrowed her eyes.
"You have a legend, Miss Campion—and a great success."
"A legend—of fidelity to poor Adrian!" she exclaimed bitterly.
"Mrs. Strype would like to see you wearing a miniature," insisted Faunt maliciously.
"I deserve your sneers," said Aprilis. "I suppose you try to dissect people before you paint them—but I don't think I want my portrait painted, Mr. Faunt."
"You don't really want anything, do you?" asked' Faunt. "You are tired of it all,,aren't you?"
"Tired of shams," said Aprilis. "I wish I could do something violent to break it all up."
But she spoke idly and slowly descended the three steps from the dais.
"Never mind the portrait to-day," replied Faunt. "Come and see some of my pictures."
He had heard the bell again and spoke cheerfully; for . he was certain that this was Ushaw, very late, but still Ushaw, and still in time.
But no; a wire from Ushaw, saying he could not come; Faunt was really vexed, he felt as if he had been cheated of the spectacle of something important, dramatic, surprising.
"Ushaw can't come," he said vexedly. "Ushaw is so thoroughly unreliable."
But Aprilis had taken no heed; she was looking at a canvas that she had turned round from the wall.
"This is very splendid," she remarked; Faunt crossed the long shining floor; he half hoped it was his magnificent sketch of Betterys Ushaw she had found; when he saw the portrait at which she was looking with curious intentness he was disappointed.
"Oh, that! That is Stephen Borlace."
The painting, which was unfinished, showed a blonde young man, very virile, very martial, rather too swaggering and picturesque in a military undress, but so charming in his look of candid pleasure in a gay world, so fragrant in his ingenuous and stalwart youth that the handsome face was a delight to the eye.
"Why isn't it finished?" asked Aprilis.
Faunt grimaced. "I hadn't time before he went to France. When he came back he was crocked."
"Changed?—Terribly?"
"Yes. You'd hardly know him."
Aprilis turned the canvas to the wall.
"What is he doing now?"
"Stephen Borlace? Looking for something to do. He is by way of being an architect."
Faunt looked at Aprilis; he could see in her face the expression Custance must have meant when he said that it seemed as if she was asking herself "hard questions."
"What are you bothering about?" he asked sarcastically—" it is always you fortunate people who worry so."
"I don't worry," smiled Aprilis.
"But you think you're not happy, of course."
"I don't know."
Faunt looked at her squarely a moment, then said, in ,s his brusque, almost rude way:
"Cut it all—clear out of it—before it's too late." Aprilis was impressed.
"What do you know about me?" she asked, with a lightness that masked a keen curiosity.
"Oh, what everyone else does, of course. I'm not quite in your crowd, but I've heard the tale."
"Well?"
"Well, I think that you ought to be warned." "Go on," said Aprilis. "Warned of what, of whom?"
"Of Mrs. Strype."
"Oh!" Aprilis was startled.
"The woman's consumed with a passion for that dead son of hers—she's holding you for him, she resents every thought you have that isn't for him—it's jealousy, the most terrible jealousy."
"I know—but, of course, it's natural."
"No, I don't think it is, she's trying to keep alive what's dead—that boy—"
"I'm supposed to have loved him," said Aprilis queerly.
"I wonder if you did? You don't now, of course, it's just part of your make up, your story—"
"I don't know," broke in Aprilis, "if you're right or not—"
"Of course I'm right. Get away from that woman. I'm not her friend, and so I can talk. I'd like to paint her—she's awful eyes—just burnt up by an obsession, withered, blasted, body and soul, by mania, and her husband is entirely under her influence."
"You exaggerate," said Aprilis. "She's fond of me and very kind, quite timid, too, and nervous."
Faunt gave his harsh laugh.
"But you try to get out of her grip—she'd be capable of—a great deal—"
As he spoke this last sinister sentence, the door opened and Mrs. Strype came in with her agitated smile and nervous manner; but Aprilis noticed what Faunt meant; she had, if you looked at her suddenly, you saw she had, extraordinary eyes.
APRILIS looked out at the brutal weather; a north-east wind raced across the London Square; the grass was bistre coloured, the bare sooty trees seemed traced in ink, the very houses, massive stone and dingy stucco, bitten by the cold, the pavements, just showing in the bitter twilight, were bare and dry as bleached bone; the torn sepia-hued clouds fled violently across the blighted heavens as if driven to some disastrous goal against their own volition.
In the artificial warmth of her bedroom Aprilis shuddered; the month in which she had been born and after which a romantic mother had named her was barren and arid as any winter; the buds were hardly visible on any trees; yesterday she had been out into the country and seen no flowers, only a dun, lifeless landscape beneath a sky like the breast of a grey bird.
To-morrow she would be thirty, and the dismal season and this fact seemed connected in her mind.
Her mood had been brought to a climax by the meeting with Martin Faunt; that rough, harsh man who with his privileged rudeness, his genius and his deep knowledge of humanity had not troubled to disguise that he saw behind her pretty mask.
His appraising, humorous look had made Aprilis, already dissatisfied and discontented, ashamed.
Ashamed of her little, facile talents that were so exploited and so praised; ashamed of her grace and beauty that were so heralded, framed and applauded; ashamed of this legend of tragedy and fidelity in which she moved as in a rare aureole that kept her apart from the crowd; ashamed of the whole pose which she had gradually, almost unconsciously assumed, and of the wealth that made this pose possible.
And as she moved from the window, she thought to herself, as Faunt had said.
"I must do something violent to break it all up—to get away."
Shortly before Mrs. Strype had returned to fetch her from the studio, and she remembered what the portrait painter had said, whimsically:
"If I paint you I shall call the picture 'Hard Questions.'—"
Aprilis had now decided that she would not allow Faunt to depict her soul on canvas; she did not want this acute, experienced man reading the questions in her face, questions that she could not herself answer.
Faunt, she was aware, had that devastating gift of penetration into character; that portrait now, that she could not forget, the portrait of the youth in uniform whom he had called Stephen Borlace, how cruelly he had caught the self-confidence, the ambition, the pride, the touch of vain glory, under the charming, well-bred exterior!
It was painful to Aprilis to recall that portrait; she felt immeasurably sorry for Stephen Borlace.
He must be suffering, that man, the man who had once looked like the portrait; a man not broken, not at ease.
And Aprilis felt more deeply ashamed of her success, her pose, her wealth.
She moved softly up and down the floor, for Mrs. Strype's room was next to hers, and Aprilis had long pretended to be resting when she wished to be alone, for if Mrs. Strype heard the lightest movement she would come in and often talk about Adrian.
There was a miniature of Adrian Strype by the side of the bed; that was why Aprilis had been so startled when Faunt had spoken of a miniature in her picture; it was as if he had known her intimate life, as if he had heard Mrs. Strype say wistfully:
"Aprilis, I should like it if you could be painted with the miniature."
Aprilis paced the thick carpet in her velvet shoes. She could not clear her thoughts from these two paintings, one of the boy. six years dead, and one of a man she had never seen; she thought that her whole life was like that, full of shadows and symbols, never of the real thing; but Aprilis, groping in the temples of the half gods, did not know what was the real thing.
Quite suddenly she almost hated the room; not a room, but almost a prison.
It was a room out of the common, but avoided all banalities of freakishness, chinoiseries or transient whims of fashion; Aprilis had furnished it entirely to her own taste; Mrs. Strype had insisted on nothing but the miniature.
The walls were pale green, watered silk, the small four-poster bed was draped and hung with Jacobean needlework on a faded white ground; on the low black dressing table was a strip of Elizabethan embroidery, two rock crystal candlesticks, some pots in jade and amber, and above, a mirror framed in ivory.
The dominating miniature was the only picture in the room; it was mounted in pure smooth gold, and beneath was a gold shelf that always held a goblet of fresh flowers; to-day they were white violets.
Aprilis struggled not to dislike the room, not to think that Faunt, looking at it, would sneer, would cock his shrewd eyes at the virginals in one corner, the case of vellum bound books, the ancient prie Dieu with the gold-run cushion of parchment-coloured satin, struggled not to feel herself that it was all a sham.
She sat down by the big wood fire that cast an orange glow through the violet twilight in the room; she could think of nothing by which she could free herself from this vague miasma of artificiality, of cloying praise, of mechanical applause.
How free herself from the jealous dominion, the enclosing affection of the Strypes, particularly the passionate, emotional supervision of the bereft mother?
How get down from the niche in which her fastidious little world had placed her, and live out her life among ordinary human beings?
Aprilis did not know.
She could only suppose that Love which had beguiled her into this coil might deliver her from it; but how to find Love?
If she could find someone who would care enough for her to beat through all these barriers that she saw hedging her round, then she might step out into freedom—if she in her turn could love the rescuer there might be happiness.
Ah, if! if!
Aprilis had never met anyone she could love, or who, it seemed could love her; perhaps she had been too apart from the common ways of men, too encircled in her precious dilettante little world, too dedicated to her legend.
She thought again of the portrait of Stephen Borlace; it would be a splendid gesture with which to rend her chains to love a man like that, a man who was unfortunate, who had nothing, to beggar herself for him, casting aside all she possessed, that would be real, an atonement for her long vague inaction, her half unconscious pretences.
But what a chimera this!
Stephen Borlace was probably married to some disillusioned woman who found him tedious enough, and she, Aprilis, could not hope to love any man just as her mind directed; her heart was too obstinate, too fastidious.
The door opened; Mrs. Strype hesitated on the threshold; for a second the two women looked at each other, almost like enemies.
"You were so quiet," murmured the elder.
So even silence was not to save her; as Aprilis smiled a welcome to the other fireside seat, she felt that her last stronghold was being invaded, and, involuntarily, there flashed into her mind the sentence, "I must lock the door."
"Do you like Mr. Faunt?" inquired Mrs. Strype in her nervous way. "Yesterday I thought you seemed depressed when I fetched you away."
Aprilis, trying to find some theme that should lead the conversation away from intimate matters, snatched at the faint recollection of a name.
"Mr. Faunt is not very civil, is he? I don't think he was troubling about me at all. He seemed very vexed that Mr. Ushaw didn't come."
Mrs. Strype was alert at once.
"" Betterys Ushaw? He had asked him?"
"Yes—the traveller; isn't it a queer name?"
"I think that was very strange in Mr. Faunt," remarked Mrs. Strype; her withered face was faintly flushed.
"Why?"
"Well, he knows I don't like Mr. Ushaw." Aprilis winced under the tyranny of this; she. moved restlessly.
"I might, perhaps," she said with unnaturally melting gentleness.
"Adrian met him," replied the mother with her timid violence. "Adrian disliked him very much."
"The judgment of a schoolboy!" thought Aprilis. Aloud she answered:
"He is a remarkable man, of course, rather too flamboyant, perhaps, but I should have liked to have met him—"
"Did Mr. Faunt ask him there to meet you?"
"Yes, I think so."
"I don't want Faunt to paint your portrait if he is going to ask these sort of people to meet you in this underhand way—"
Aprilis cut short this denunciation; she knew well enough the reputation of Betterys Ushaw in the matter of love affairs, and understood perfectly the attitude of Mrs. Strype.
"I don't think that I really want Mr. Faunt to paint my portrait either," she said with an air of assumed laziness.
"It seems a pity,"—Mrs. Strype was hesitant, full of nervous looks and glances—" but I expect he does know a number of queer people—the kind of people one has always avoided. And he seems to have no hesitation in thrusting them on one. Of course, I know very little of him, entirely through Vincent Custance, and he always speaks so good-naturedly of everyone."
"He seems very pleased with some marionettes he has brought from Venice," said Aprilis irrelevantly. "I think I will go and see them to-morrow at Middletons."
Mrs. Strype shivered over the fire.
"I don't like puppets," she answered. "They are such caricatures of oneself."
"Well," smiled Aprilis, "I thought of buying these as a birthday gift to myself."
Mrs. Strype stared at her covertly; the tall woman sitting so near seemed very alien to the anxious, bereaved mother; the woman with the ashy gold hair and the full lovely figure, with the wide face and impassive expression, seemed to look at her with hostility, with challenge and defiance from behind the mask of delicate sweetness.
For a long time now Mrs. Strype had fought against a dread of losing Aprilis, of losing her for Adrian, for her lost son whom she often seemed to feel behind her, whispering:
"Mother, keep Aprilis for me."
Aprilis knew her thought and refused to comfort and console as she had so often comforted and consoled before . . .'thirty to-morrow ... the thing must end some time ... by now she did not even know if she had ever loved Adrian . . . but he was keeping her from loving any one else, like a cold shadow between her and the sun.
Mrs. Strype was frightened by this silence, by this look in the still, smiling face of Aprilis that was partially obscured by shadow, partially flecked by the firelight.
"How cold it is," murmured Mrs. Strype, drawing closer yet to the glowing logs, "even here one feels the wind—and outside it is terrible—Aprilis, I hope the sun will shine for your birthday," she added with flurried rapidity. "I have my little gift for you."
Aprilis moved restlessly; the "little gifts" of the Strypes had always been of imposing munificence.
"This year the cinnamon diamonds, both my husband and I wish you to have them."
"No," said Aprilis quickly, "not your family diamonds, Mrs. Strype." She had always resisted the use of the word "mother," but rarely used the formal title, and it fell with a hard sound into this fireside talk. "You have done too much already. I really will not take your jewels."
The older woman's voice instantly took on a note of pleading.
"I have no one else to leave them to, Aprilis. As Adrian's wife they would have come to you—"
"A bribe," thought Aprilis, "a bribe to me not to forget Adrian."
"I don't want to wear diamonds again," continued the anxious voice. "And they are uncommon, dear, the kind of thing you like."
"Please, I can't take them," said Aprilis.
And she began to walk up and down the room; and her thought still was:
"A bribe! Thirty to-morrow! When is she going to set me free? When am I going to set myself free?"
Mrs. Strype, rebuffed, withered into herself again, sat silent, huddled, a black shape against the bright blaze.
Aprilis listened to the wind without and thought of three men, the brilliant lauded boy, a lost dream of youth, a transient splendour of the dawn, the young soldier she had never known and who now no longer existed in the likeness of the picture she had seen, and that other whom Martin Faunt had been so anxious for her to meet; the man of whom she had often heard but never thought until to-day when one so keen and sure as Faunt had deliberately arranged a meeting between Betterys Ushaw and herself.
He had gone to Africa; the painter had told her that; Aprilis thought of a ship, outward bound; it was hardly likely that she would ever meet this man now, or not for a long time; and Stephen Borlace, whose pictured face had so impressed her, it did not appear very probable that she could ever materialise from him any personality that would affect her life and actions.
As always she groped in shadows, with names, with pictures, with memories.
Mrs. Strype rose abruptly; she looked at the miniature, she could not help doing that; she paused by the bed, a wistful, insistent figure.
Aprilis pitied her; and turned away.
"Come downstairs when you are dressed," faltered Mrs. Strype, and left the hushed room.
When she was alone, Aprilis also went to the little shrine with the glitter of gold and the over-sweetness of the white violets beneath the dark face of the boy; a clever, delightful, but rather spoilt and vain boy; Aprilis could remember him after six years, could look back and see him now, too adored, too praised, living as she was living now, to the continuous sound of flattery and applause; an only son, pampered, caressed—poor Adrian!
She had been much dazzled by his ardent wooing, for she had always belonged to a world that put an almost painful value on brains, breed and brilliance, and Adrian possessed all three, and she had grown up to the sound of the commendations of the wonderful boy; the engagement had lasted six weeks when Adrian, in his last term at Oxford, had been dragged down by weeds when bathing and brought dead to the shore.
This tragedy had been supposed to break her heart; for six years she had lived up to this supposition; the Strypes had snatched at her from the first—a thing to consecrate, dedicate to the memory of Adrian!
And on her, on her beauty and her talents, on her social success and her adornment had been lavished all the tenderness that should have belonged to Adrian; she was placed on the altar from which he had been so terribly snatched away; before her shrine his incense was burnt.
The Strypes had not said that she was never to marry; but to Mrs. Strype at least a lifelong fidelity to the memory of Adrian would not have seemed monstrous.
And Aprilis had allowed this atmosphere to envelop her; allowed herself to be forced gently into this pose of exclusive choice abstraction from common things, this gesture of perpetual grief, of cloistered emotion.
And a man like Faunt had seen through her; probably every one outside her little circle saw through her; she had noticed Custance look at he"r with a kind of pity that was not, she knew, pity for this supposed sorrow of six—nearly seven years ago.
Adrian was only a memory, a reluctantly fading memory; if she had not had the miniature constantly before her eyes she thought she would have only vaguely remembered those dark petulant lineaments.
Yet there was no one to deliver her from this fidelity to a wraith, no one to break through the magic circle of delusion that guarded her from the warm impact of reality.
APRILIS, on her birthday, went to Middletons, the famous art gallery and auction rooms with traditions that went back to Angestein and Beaumont, which still contrived to be unknown to the multitude, and dear to the choice few; here Aprilis met several members of that little cosmopolitan world in which she moved, Bowlas, the violinist, Lefaine, the insatiable collector, Myra Helle, the poetess, and Barbara Heman, who was, like Aprilis herself, merely fair and wealthy and gifted and seemed cut off from womanhood by her choice beauty and her choice art.
Aprilis moved wearily among these thrice familiar people; she was conscious of the cold, hostile, budless spring beyond these warm, luxurious rooms, threatening this ease and comfort with sting of wind and beat of sleet, even as she was conscious of the crude forces of life outside her own charmed circle of comfort and idleness, conscious of the intense domination of Mrs. Strype, isolating her, cutting her off from reality, wedding her to a dream that daily faded.
Vincent Custance was there and she asked him about the marionettes.
"Lefaine doesn't like them," he told her with a disappointed smile. "Calls them 'haberdashery.'—"
Aprilis smiled also, but wanly; she was thinking that "haberdashery" was about the word Faunt had used in his mind about her when he had told her to take off her picturesque draperies and stand on the dais in her straight gown under the bitter top light.
"Let me see them," she said. "Does any one want to buy them yet?"
"So few have seen them. Of course they'll sell—one man wanted them this morning, but he can't afford them, poor fellow."
Aprilis did not know that people who "couldn't afford" things ever came to Middletons, and said so.
"Well," said Custance in his careful, simple way, "he is a man you may have heard of, he has really nothing to do, and he comes here to look at things—"
He was taking the marionettes out of the big, old polished box as he spoke, handling them with a certain whimsical care that was touching to Aprilis.
"The man is a Mr. Stephen Borlace," he added. "I think that you would like him. At least be sorry for him."
The mention of this name was a little coincidence that pleased Aprilis; she liked what she was pleased to think indications of some over-mastering providence, vague and faint as they might be; she liked to think that it was curious that she should hear the name of Stephen Borlace again.
"I saw Mr. Faunt's portrait of him," she said. "It interested me—he must have been rather splendid once."
Custance was arranging the puppets in their theatre.
"Oh, Borlace, yes. He is rather splendid now, really —but the war spoilt him—"
"His health? His means?"
Custance answered unexpectedly:
"No, his character—he doesn't believe in himself any more, he was toppled off his pedestal, as it were, he's to pieces mentally—"
"I wonder if any one could cure that," suggested Aprilis thoughtfully.
Custance gave the slow pathetic smile that softened so pleasantly his harsh, ill features.
"Only a woman who loved him, of course," he answered. "And women think too much of themselves now, don't they, to love a man like Borlace who has nothing to offer."
And the thoughts of Aprilis went more strongly in the direction they had taken yesterday; that if she could love Borlace or a man like Borlace and be loved by him she would break away rather nobly from the dominion of the Strypes, particularly the encompassing affection of Mrs. Strype, and strip herself at the same time of her "haberdashery"; there would be something real at least in that, to sacrifice yourself to restore a man to his pride in himself; satiated by ease and praise she yearned towards renunciation of everything on the altar of Love.
Ah, Love! She might invoke him, but she had no hope that he would come; of course, love for any one would make it all easy; it was this pampered inertia that kept her useless, imprisoned.
She tried to concentrate on the big dolls with the queer, musty, frilled dresses of colours that had been gorgeous and were now stained and faded, the mask-like, grinning faces, the rusty wires, the wigs of wool and tow.
"They are beautiful," said the hunchback reverently. "Arlequino, Punchiello—and look, Panteleone—"
Lefaine had approached and turned the puppets over with a dubious finger.
"No, they aren't," he remarked. "Only poor, simple outdoor things are beautiful—"
"Then why do you come here?" asked Aprilis lazily, "where everything is artificial?"
"Force of habit," replied the collector drily; he had evil moods and to-day was depressed and acid. "It is only toys and millinery, all of it—"
Aprilis bent over the box of puppets from which exhaled a vague perfume, like dust and petunia flowers.
"Don't say that," she said gently, "for that is how I feel—I'm tired of the heat and the luxury, all these dead, useless things in here, but I daren't go out into the north wind and the sleet outside."
She dragged out one of the marionettes, a big Scaramouche with a white face and red frills, and laid it across her knee; she was seated on a little red velvet chair, so low, that her pale velvets and grey furs trailed over the dark floor.
Beyond her, hung a long ancient mirror of greenish glass, and there Aprilis looked at her reflection (dimmed as if beheld in a pool of shadowed water) with distaste, with profound dissatisfaction at the fair emptiness, the bodiless grace, the planned and trained finish of her appearance; every little note of charm was accentuated; the very fair lashes, like a blonde dust over her clear eyes, the small brown mole on her chin, the full line of her throat, cunningly emphasised by a lace of seed pearls round the base . . . Aprilis turned away from her own image, and again the expression of hostility that Faunt had noticed, looked out from behind that serenity of her beauty.
It was thus that Stephen Borlace saw her for the first time; he came in out of the cold, the drabness, the cruelty of the snowy spring into the warm soft air, the mellow spaces, the measured shadows of the antique gallery that was filled with rich, uncommon objects, and saw, beyond a little group of standing people, Aprilis seated near the smoky mirror, with the red clown over her knee.
And all that she was weary of in herself pleased Stephen Borlace, for he did not belong to her world that was cloyed with such women.
He was indeed rather at a loss, for he knew no one here save Custance, and he but slightly; the hunchback knew this and came forward with his rather childish air of kindness.
"I've come to see the marionettes again," said Borlace stiffly.
And Custance smiled:
"I'm flattered, Major Borlace, for no one likes my poor puppets much."
Aprilis had moved at the sound of the name "Borlace."
"I do," she said; and rose and held up the red clown.
Custance was sensitive enough to feel her interest, almost to divine the reason of it; he made the introduction for which they both so obviously waited.
"Aprilis Campion" meant nothing to Borlace; he had only drifted by chance into the recondite world in which she and her legend were so well known, appreciated and extolled.
He looked at her therefore from an entirely different angle to that of Faunt, who had met her after hearing her story, and that of Custance who was typical of all the people of her own set who had helped place her in her present niche.
"You liked the marionettes?" she asked, holding up the scarlet Scaramouche that drooped limply from her hand with a shuddering movement of his stuffed limbs. "You liked them, Major Borlace?"
"Yes," he said stiffly still, "they seemed to me more real than—a good many things."
"Than some people, perhaps?" Aprilis said vaguely; she wanted very much to speak of the portrait in Faunt's studio, to tell him that she had seen it; but she felt that it would be cruel to do so; he had changed a great deal certainly, but not so terribly as she had imagined. She would have known him, of course, instantly anywhere, as the original of the picture that had so attracted her unsettled mood.
There was the fine frame, the conqueror's shape and carriage, the warm fair colouring, so blonde and yet not faint nor pale, the blunt English features, the air of authority that went so naturally with his type, the light, proud masculine eyes—all the same, even to the detail of a line or shade, yet all so altered, so blurred, so shadowed; Aprilis could see at once why Faunt, with his acute trained perceptions, had not been able to finish that portrait.
Borlace was looking at the marionettes and handling them, one after the other, rather awkwardly; he had turned at once from Aprilis, but she knew that he was intensely conscious of her presence; she studied him remorselessly while he turned over the gaudy, grotesque dolls.
He was a big man, conveying the idea of both physical and mental power; he was clearly intentioned to be arrogant and superb, and it was easy to see that he had been both and gay and gallant too.
Now he was none of these things, only the faint glamour of his past splendour remained; yet he was young and neither marred nor disfigured; it was his spirit that had been quenched; as Custance had said, he was deposed, cast aside, not wanted, no longer a personage, but merely one of a crowd, a rather despised crowd.
Aprilis saw that the man was beaten, his pride laid low, his arrogance shattered; quite why this was she did not know, but common causes would account for much of it; even something as ordinary as lack of money.
She noticed his slight shabbiness and remembered that Custance had said that he could not afford to buy the box of puppets.
Aprilis wondered if this man was past cure; she did not think so. Custance had said, with that acute penetration that belongs to the spectator who stands outside all emotion himself, that a woman who loved him
Again the magic name of Love; Aprilis played with the thought.
If this stripped man had a tithe of what she possessed surely his pride would return to him, this occurred to Aprilis, with a sensation of shame; almost with loathing she thought of the miniature and shrine by her bed and the jealous domination of Mrs. Strype.
Custance had arranged his puppets; they sat on a long black bureau dangling long legs in fantastic boots, with droll heads drooping on the bosoms of tawdry frocks.
"I'd buy them if I had the money," announced Borlace decisively. "Perhaps they'll still be here," he added grimly, "by the time I'm rich enough to buy them."
"Why do you want them, Major Borlace?" asked Aprilis, so that he was, in a way, forced to look at her; which he did, turning on her his still, haggard glance that seemed to her that of a captive hawk which had given up hope of liberty.
"Are you interested?" he counter questioned.
"Yes."
Lefaine had taken away his ill temper, Barbara Heman had gone with Bowlas; there remained only Custance, like the showman in an empty booth, and Myra Helle at the far end of the room, but in the shadows thrumming on an Italian theorbo she had found.
Borlace ignored her strong "yes"; he looked at her steadily though, out of those fine, yet lifeless eyes.
"It is grim weather for April," he said. "Don't you feel it even here? Such piercing cold."
"My month," replied Aprilis intimately. "That is my name, Aprilis. And curiously enough to-day is my birthday."
She spoke as if she solicited his pity and interest; the ingenuousness of the words was belied by the complexity of her manner.
In a way she forced him to look at her, but he did so reluctantly.
"April? A treacherous month," he answered.
She smiled faintly; Custance knew that vague gaiety as one of her most palpably artificial traits, but Borlace was taking her at her face value.
"I thought that I would buy myself these puppets as a present," she said; her intention was to prevent him from revealing his poverty, by putting the marionettes out of his reach; and somehow, some time, she intended to give them to him.
"Ah, you are one of those wealthy people who can do just what they like," said Borlace; his light eyes, so absolutely without lustre or animation rather frightened Aprilis as he looked at her clearly and straightly, "like a man I met here last time I came, who was buying everything for which he felt a passing whim."
"Oh, Ushaw," interposed Custance. "Yes, he has more money than is good for him."
"I liked him," said Borlace, without any trace of feeling in look or voice. "I am sorry that he has gone to Africa."
"So am I," remarked Aprilis. "I was to have met him yesterday at Martin Faunt's studio, but he did not come."
In her, heart she cherished this second coincidence, this mention of Betterys Ushaw, this delicate connection of him with Borlace.
"He hasn't sailed," said Custance. "His father is very ill and he came back to London this morning."
At this news a transient expression of meaning came into the blank eyes of Stephen Borlace; Aprilis could not interpret this look, but she thought it said:
"Are you interested in this man's return?"
And though she had only met Borlace for a few moments, this did not seem grotesque to her, for she knew that she and he would see much of each other, either for good or evil; at least this was no chance or accidental meeting.
And Stephen Borlace said unexpectedly, yet as the result of a train of thought that she could perfectly understand:
"Men like Ushaw get everything."
Aprilis knew that the end of this sentence should have been: "—even women like you."
He walked away, turning his back on her and the puppets as both out of his reach and wandered away down the long sombre rich gallery gazing with idle intensity at the pictures and tapestries, the gold and silver treasures that hung the walls and scattered the tables.
"He envies Betterys Ushaw," said Custance quietly, with a smile at Aprilis. "Does he not think that / might envy him? He's straight, isn't he?"
"You know you have no need to envy any one," replied Aprilis with instant tenderness, "with your brain and heart. Vincent, you are the luckiest man I know."
Custance still smiled, aware that she would not have spoken like this if he had been as other men; the kindness of women was the keenest reminder of his deformity.
"I thought that Ushaw might have done something for Borlace," he whispered. "You know he has houses all over Europe, and Borlace is pretty good when he is heartened up-—" Then Custance said quite irrelevantly what Faunt had said, "lam sure you will like Betterys Ushaw, he is really quite irresistible." And Aprilis:
"As if one did not detest irresistible men! I like Major Borlace very much."
"I'm glad. That will do a lot for him."
They both glanced to the end of the gallery where the tall figure was standing erect, talking to Myra Helle, who still strummed on the theorbo a thin melody that came pipingly down the gallery like a weary call to the puppets to rise and dance.
"Does he do nothing?" asked Aprilis.
"Poor fellow. He's a soldier, really. You can see that, all of him was in that—his work is good, but he puts no heart into it—he has just enough to keep him decent—"
"I know," interrupted Aprilis. "A man of action, of violence—and cooped up in the conventions of poverty —and peace."
Borlace was coming towards them again.
"I'll buy the puppets," added Aprilis.
She did not know if Stephen Borlace had heard her say this or not, but as he approached he smiled in a way that made him for an instant the gay cavalier of Faunt's sketch; facing him she asked if he and "Vincent" would come back with her—to tea and Mrs. Strype?
Custance could not leave the galleries, but Borlace said he would come.
As they descended the narrow, gilded stairs, he asked:
"Who is Mrs. Strype?"
"I live with her," answered Aprilis with a candour that was not ingenuous. "Six years ago I was engaged to marry her son, he was drowned, and she adopted me. She still tries to think her son is alive and that I am going to marry him. Do you understand all that?"
Never before had Aprilis referred so bluntly to her story, and seldom had she met any one to whom her legend was not familiar; she had done this with the intention of rousing this man from his introspection.
And she succeeded; they had reached the large, closed auction rooms and he turned to her vehemently:
"Good Lord, how ghastly!"
"For Mrs. Strype, yes."
"No—I meant—for you."
"Oh, you mustn't pity me. I let her do it, I played up to it," she answered slightly. "It made a splendid pose for a lazy, vain woman, tragedy, fidelity, sacrifice —and comfort and praise! Such applause, you don't know—"
Borlace paused to look at her and she stood still by the rows of empty chairs, to let him look.
"It's been curtains ringing up and down with me all the time," she added. "Don't you feel that about me? The very name! Aprilis Campion! I'm all what Lefaine called 'haberdashery.' Don't you feel that?" she insisted.
"No," he answered gravely.
Aprilis laughed with genuine excitement.
"Well, come and see Mrs. Strype. She is not to blame, remember."
"But don't you want to get free?"
"Don't you?" answered Aprilis, then quickly, "Yes, yes, a thousand times! But who is going to set me free —are you a knight errant?"
She saw his light, haggard eyes widen, something of the old arrogance flash into his ravaged face, then she brushed the whole episode into fantasy by a laugh, a shrug, a gesture towards the heavy doors that shut out the raw afternoon.
A few moments' walk through streets too bleak and winds too keen to admit of conversation, brought them to the Admiral's large imposing house.
Mrs. Strype was alone in the handsome drawing room; she welcomed Borlace with civility, but with jealous antagonistic eyes; the man was splendid even in his eclipse and Aprilis was not in the habit of bringing home what Mrs. Strype termed "odd men."
Aprilis noted this look and her own glance answered it steadily.
Mr. Faunt sent a telephone message," said Mrs. Strype. "Mr. Ushaw was there and he wanted to bring him here this afternoon—I said you were out—"
Aprilis glanced at Borlace and saw in his face the same jealous hostility as in Mrs. Strype's anxious eyes.
But whereas Mrs. Strype only followed her habit in this passionate resentment of any outside interest belonging to Aprilis, it was infinitely curious that this stranger should be jealous of another stranger she, Aprilis, had never seen.
But though the woman's jealousy exasperated Aprilis more than usual, she found an exhilaration in this new strange jealousy of the man.
With a few words she delicately struck at both the obvious and the complex emotion.
"I should have liked to have seen Mr. Ushaw."
"I expect you'll have an opportunity soon," said Stephen Borlace.
Mrs. Strype was silent, "mothering" her thin tea cups; both the answer and the silence were full of challenge; Aprilis had often longed for violence to end her round of delicate, dedicated days; she felt it now about her, in the impact of this meeting between Borlace and Mrs. Strype, in the threat of the coming of Betterys Ushaw.
JEALOUSY.
This word seemed to Aprilis to be suddenly written round the room.
Mrs. Strype's jealousy of her—for Adrian—the jealousy of Stephen Borlace—of what?
Jealous, he also, of this dead boy, whose memory was so well guarded by these elderly people in the portentous stone house, jealous of Aprilis, snug and lazy, shut away comfortably behind the gilt wires of her luxurious cage —jealous of the famous man whose name had struck into the conversation with an effect of such brilliancy, the man who had everything that he would have liked to have had.
Jealousy.
Aprilis looked slyly from one to the other, from the haggard, nervous man, to the anxious withered woman.
She tried to feel tender and sympathetic towards him, but her spirit was too inert, a vague melancholy seemed to cloud and confuse her mind.
She could only feel a faint curiosity.
What was it like to be jealous?
Horrible, no doubt; yet in her security against this passion, her pity for Mrs. Strype was almost hostile, for Borlace almost cold.
After an awkward conversation Borlace took an awkward leave.
Aprilis believed that he was inwardly blaming her for ever allowing him to come, that he already regretted the impulse that had made him follow her to this heavy house.
Yet, as she said "good-bye," she remembered that she had thought of him as a means of salvation for herself.
"Come again," she said, and reflected that she could always hear of him through Vincent Custance.
When he was gone, Mrs. Strype said at once:
"I don't like that man; why ever did you bring him, Aprilis?" »,
She knew that this was not tactful, but she had not the power to control herself.
"I can't see how any one could dislike him," replied Aprilis lazily. "He seems to me most inoffensive."
And she snuggled closer into the silk cushions of the deep armchair.
"Very self-assertive and dry, I thought," said Mrs. Strype. "What right has he to be sour?" she added sombrely.
And Aprilis knew that what she really wanted to say was:
"What right has he to be sour when he is alive and Adrian is dead?"
"Every right," murmured Aprilis. "He is hard up and out of everything—"
"Why?"
"You can guess! He went into the army and liked it—he couldn't stay and now he's just one of a crowd, men living on their wives' money, or looking for wives with money—not very nice if a man's stiff necked, is it? That assertiveness covers an immense humiliation."
This was a long speech for Aprilis, and Mrs. Strype resented the interest it showed in Stephen Borlace.
"Isn't there anything the man can do?" she demanded.
"He is an architect—but can't find commissions—"
"You seem to know a good deal about him."
"Only what Vincent Custance told me."
"Oh, he knows him—"
"Slightly, and so does Martin Faunt. I saw a portrait of him in the studio; that was rather curious, wasn't it?"
"I don't think so. Faunt paints, as I said, odd, queer people. I didn't notice his picture of Mr. Borlace. What was it like?"
"Just a soldier, rather splendid," said Aprilis vaguely.
"What made Mr. Faunt show you this picture?" asked Mrs. Strype.
Till now Aprilis had answered these keen questions with carefully balanced good temper; she was used to this sort of examination and she was indifferent as to the subject of it, but now her fine, rather pale eyes turned towards Mrs. Strype with a look that was quietly antagonistic.
"Mr. Faunt didn't show it to me," she said deliberately. "I was turning the canvasses round when I came upon this one. And it interested me. And I don't think there is anything else I can tell you about Stephen Borlace."
"I hope I wasn't annoying you," replied Mrs. Strype stiffly, "but one likes to know—"
"Of course you like to know," said Aprilis coldly.
"—about the people you bring to the house," finished Mrs. Strype.
Aprilis smiled.
"Yes, I've told you," she said carefully.
The sense of nervous tension became intolerable; Aprilis rose abruptly.
"We see so few fresh faces," she added, "that they become events—"
"Our own little circle has been sufficient," remarked Mrs. Strype.
Aprilis still smiled.
"Our own little circle" comprised all the staunch friends, relations and admirers of the Strypes and "poor Adrian "; they did not really belong to Aprilis, nor she to them; they only tolerated and flattered her because she had been loved by Adrian, was a credit to Adrian, and was so romantically faithful to his memory.
She had herself no close relations; this had been the excuse for her "adoption" by the Strypes; since she had lived with them her former guardian had died; she was, as it were, hedged in and ringed round by the Strypes and their allies.
She said, irrelevantly, but with quiet challenge:
"I should like to meet Betterys Ushaw."
"I've told you," replied the older woman nervously, "that I don't like him—a very florid, undesirable sort of person. I told you," her voice became slightly shrill, "that Adrian didn't like him."
Aprilis replied quietly:
"Mrs. Strype, am I always to do just as Adrian would have liked?"
It was said; many times had she wanted to say it, been tempted bitterly to say it, by some wonder of self control, not said it, and now it was said.
And nothing could ever efface it from the memory of either of these women.
Mrs. Strype refused to accept the blow; she pretended that she had staved it off.
"I don't know what you mean, Aprilis," her voice quivered.
"I mean," said Aprilis slowly, looking into the fire and speaking as if from her heart, "that I don't see quite how I am to do it—I'm growing up, you see, Mrs, Strype, and Adrian remains the same—"
"I stand for Adrian," said the mother fiercely.
"Yes, that is it, you stand for him'—it means that I've got to see everything with your eyes—"
"Aprilis, don't you want to?"
"How can I, when we are different people?" asked Aprilis sadly.
"But we're the same in that," replied Mrs. Strype eagerly, putting up her losing fight, "in our love for Adrian."
"No, we're not."
"Yes, my dear, yes—"
"No, you're his mother and I was only a girl he loved, such a short time, too. I sometimes wonder if he'd have gone on loving me—"
"Don't say that—don't say that—"
Aprilis continued quietly, without remorse or temper.
"—or if I should have gone on loving him—he was so young—too young."
Mrs. Strype moved restlessly her pallid hands.
"You've never spoken like this before, Aprilis, never, never."
"You can't think how I've wanted to—so often, for years now."
"Why didn't you?"
"I was too lazy."
"Mrs. Strype, who had never taken her haggard glance from the tall woman while she spoke, now lowered her tired lids as if exhausted.
"I don't even know if I did love him," said Aprilis, "nor even if I quite know what love means."
"Why do you tell me this?"
"You'll have to know, won't you, Mrs. Strype?" replied Aprilis sadly. "If I didn't tell you, you'd guess —by a hundred little signs—if you haven't guessed already. I can't," she added with deep weariness, "go on pretending for ever."
Mrs. Strype turned away her head sharply as if she refused to hear.
"Do you want to marry," she said, "any one else?" —finishing as if Adrian was still alive.
Aprilis did not answer.
"I don't see how you possibly could," added Mrs. Strype intensely. "It would be abominable."
At this word Aprilis turned sharply.
"Don't," said Aprilis quickly, "or we might quarrel —wouldn't that be dreadful if you and I quarrelled— over Adrian?"
"Of course we won't quarrel," returned Mrs. Strype with sinister calm. "When I said that it would be abominable if you forget Adrian, I did not mean to suggest that I thought you would do it."
She paused just a second and added keenly:
"Forgive me, Aprilis dear, if I seemed to suggest that."
The young woman saw the trap set—set blatantly in her sight, set with lures of kindness and graciousness, wreathed with garlands of sham love and sham liking. She hesitated, knowing quite well that she was at a turning point of her life—if she chose.
Mrs Strype had offered a graceful retreat, shown the way out, glanced from the hint of a quarrel.
Aprilis had only to pretend as Mrs. Strype was pretending and the danger would be over.
They would, as people said, "go on as they had gone on before," everything would be the same.
Pretence, that was it; Mrs. Strype would pretend that she didn't know that Aprilis was being bribed to stay, and Aprilis would pretend that she had really loved Adrian and enjoyed this attenuated fidelity to his? memory.
And, on the other hand, if she didn't pretend?
There would be an end of all the flattery, the comfort, the luxury that had come from her connection with the Strypes.
And, last of all, Aprilis considered the feelings of these two people, and especially of this woman, who had been so kind to her; but she considered them coldly, almost resentfully.
While she was flunking oat these things she stood gazing into the fire, and Mrs. Strype sat still, looking down at her hands.
Mrs. Strype thought that she had won and was vaguely considering what she could say so that the conversation might be not only changed but obliterated as if it had never been.
But Aprilis spoke first.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Strype, but I did mean just that, just what you .said was abominable. I daresay it does seem abominable, but that is what is in my heart."
"What is in your heart?"
"I wish we didn't need to talk about it," sighed Aprilis. "Words go on for ever—it all gets so fine drawn. I've got into a tangle, I suppose."
"I don't understand those sorts of expressions, I'm out of date, of course."
"People only say that when they are bitter and want to be unpleasant, Mrs. Strype—you're no more out of date than I am, we're each talking from our own point of view."
"There ought not," replied Mrs. Strype, "to be any points of view about a thing like this. There's right and there's wrong. I don't admit anything between."
"And it would be right to you, Mrs. Strype, for me to love Adrian, what I can remember of Adrian, always? And just dedicate myself to that—with nothing else at all in life?"
Even in the warm firelight the hard face of Adrian's mother looked bleak and shrivelled.
"A woman ought to love once only," she insisted. "Anything else is unfaithfulness, it can't be justified."
"I've told you," said Aprilis more and more hostile, "that I'm not sure that I did love Adrian."
The mother responded swiftly to this thrust.
Then you deceived him—and you've deceived us— for six years."
"HI deceived him it was because I didn't know my cm mind."
"And as for us?"
"You took me so for granted," said Aprilis faintly. "I drifted—you were kind, too, and I was flattered. I suppose my head was turned a little, Mrs. Strype, and I Bud being made much of in your set—which had never been my set. For I had rather a lonely kind of childhood sad I was greatly attracted by all you had to offer."
Silence; the two women carefully avoided looking at each other.
"And that is as near to the truth as I can get," finished Aprilis with a droop of her head.
"It means you do want to get married? Not to this man Borlace?"
"It only means I want to be free, I want to leave off pretending."
"What made you think of this? Decide on this— attitude?"
Aprilis moved, shivered; this eternal questioning! this endless cross-examination!—it was worth any price to get away from such a supervision, such a prying glance, such a searching tongue.
From habit she answered with listless accuracy.
"It was Martin Faunt. The way that he saw through me. Haberdashery! That is what he thought me. It was Stephen Borlace—seeing him and knowing the real things he's been up against. It was being thirty and knowing I'm still just a doll."
She spoke with an indifferent melancholy more convincing than any passion; Mrs. Strype saw that the girl was lost, lost for Adrian—lost for ever.
"Real things?" she whispered sharp. "It wasn't real, then, when you told Adrian you loved him? It wasn't real when you heard that he was dead?" Aprilis shivered again.
"It was six years ago," she replied. "One begins to forget."
"Not if you've cared," said Mrs. Strype triumphantly. "Do you suppose that six years or sixty would make any difference to me?"
"I know, and I'm sorry for you," replied Aprilis heavily. "I always have been—but you pushed me too far—"
"How, too far?"
The girl turned to look at her questioner.
"Didn't you think, for instance, Mrs. Strype, that I might want to get married some day?"
The defeated woman answered with superb self-assurance :
"I should not have thought it very marvellous if you had decided to remain single for the sake of Adrian. In any case, I hoped that you would remain single until the death of my husband and myself. We are old people, you know—at least, I am as if I was old, I am in such poor health."
Aprilis was moved by the obvious pathos of this.
Yes, Mrs. Strype had not, very likely, long to live, broken, ailing as she was, and her husband was old and frail.
And without herself, Aprilis, the heavy stone house would be empty of joy, and all of the pride and beauty of it quenched.
With her desertion Adrian would be truly dead.
The link with him would be broken, the memory of him defaced, the legend of him destroyed; Mrs. Strype would no longer be able to say: "Aprilis Campion, who was to have married my dear son."
Yes, Aprilis could see all that—how long and how dearly had she seen it! How often had it stayed her hand.
Bat from her point of view these considerations were but chains; she was impatient to put them off.
To get away from this grabbing affection, this insatiate jealousy.
Neither pity, nor laziness, nor vanity could hold her back; while she was still young she must escape.
"I shall have to go," she whispered. "I don't suppose you'll want to keep me now, Mrs. Strype."
Yet even now she could have been turned back if the other woman had shown anything of the acid anguish that was consuming her, if she had pleaded or wept, or in any way broken down.
But Mrs. Strype kept her bitter dignity; her mind had gone back to the angle from which she had first viewed Aprilis, when she had considered her as a "misalliance" for her son.
"I doubt if you will ever be happy," she said coldly. "I can hardly wish that you will be." Aprilis left the room.
She went down the dusky, shallow stairs to the wide dark hall, both dimly lit by concealed lamps; she meant to go out, to go away, at once; but when she reached the front door she smiled at her own precipitate foolishness; she went up to her room and telephoned to Vincent Custance for the address of Stephen Borlace.
"THIS is dreadful," thought Aprilis in terror. "This has gone on too long—if I'm not careful something horrible will happen."
She felt that she ought to be ravaged with emotion, that any moment she might be so ravaged, collapse and go crying to Mrs. Strype for pardon.
But she shut her eyes to this danger, as it were, and so passed it by; perhaps, she wondered, everyone's life was full of these missed passions, perhaps everyone looked back and thought—" there I should have been smitten by grief, or remorse, or love—but I escaped."
"Or perhaps I'm hard," thought Aprilis. "I know I should feel so sorry for her that there would be room for nothing else—but I don't, I only feel I must get away."
Get away from what?
Only from affection, kindness, petting, luxury—why did she so suddenly want to be clear of all this?
So suddenly and so desperately, that she had run down to the door with an impulse to go away at once, into the cold street—to fly off (this was the truth) in a panic.
"I have been hating it longer than I knew—it's suddenly come to a climax, I've been bearing it, instead of enjoying it for a long time."
Yet why break off violently, provoke Mrs. Strype to anger, end everything so suddenly?
Aprilis, of course, could not tell, she found that all attempts to analyse herself only led to a further entanglement of confused threads.
It was at least clear that she must leave the Strypes.
That would be, from many points of view, an ugly wrench; she would have to go into all her business affairs that she had always been too lazy to bother about, and which Admiral Strype had managed for her, and she would have to return the too costly presents which she had foolishly accepted, and she would have to find somewhere to go.
She wasn't the kind of woman for adventuring, for standing alone, for doing anything bold or original, or she would not have been so long under the domination of the Strypes, and she wanted a retreat that was perfectly dignified and safe and easy. Surely among all her friends there were a lot of women who would take her in?
But were there?
Aprilis, on reflection, found all the people she could think of were friends of Mrs. Strype, not of her own, and would naturally side with the elder woman in case of a quarrel or division.
Aprilis bit her lip.
She could see herself put in the position of the one in the wrong, turned away, outcast from this company of people superior to herself which had adopted her; they would all say that she had been callous, ungrateful, ill behaved, and they would not bother about her any more.
Such friends as she had had of her own she hadn't troubled about for so long, that she hardly knew where they were; when she had been the heroine of the Adrian Strype tragedy and so flamboyantly adopted by his parents, her earlier and humbler friends had drifted away, with amazement, with amusement, perhaps with envy.
There was not one of them whom she could recall now.
For Aprilis, as for many such women, the only solution to nagging perplexities was marriage.
She wished she could marry, suddenly, some one rather grand and splendid, who would take her triumphantly from the Strypes.
When she had, just now, telephoned to Custance he had been out; she had done this on an impulse, but it was an impulse that remained.
She wanted, without quite knowing why, to get hold of Stephen Borlace, and she went out on to the landing to telephone again.
Mrs. Strype had resisted a private telephone for Aprilis; there was only this one, on the landing, for the whole of this floor, and everything that Aprilis said on the telephone could, of course, be heard by whoever was about and easily by Mrs Strype if she was in her room next door.
Aprilis reflected on this as she took up the receiver; everything was so carefully planned so that she had no privacy, so that she might be always watched, questioned.
But Mrs. Strype was not here now; she was downstairs where Aprilis had left her, silent in the big drawing-room.
This time Custance answered and Aprilis did not know what to say to him; what was the use of the address of Stephen Borlace to her? She had no longer any home to which to ask him—nor any excuse to ask him to meet her anywhere; she faltered, then rushed out the crux of her trouble.
"I rang you up to ask you something foolish. Never mind what it was—but I'll tell you something else. I'm in a fix—I've got to leave here—"
She paused to listen to his incredulity, his amazed despair.
"It's my fault," she continued. "I don't know what to do."
"Of course you'll stay—"
"I can't. I can't."
"Do you want me to suggest things?"
"Please—anything."
"Come round to Faunt's studio to-morrow, there'll be a lot of people there, but we can find a chance to talk —I'd promised I'd bring you, but, of course," the anxious voice finished, "this isn't serious?"
"Serious. Serious. I'll come to-morrow. Perhaps by then I'll have thought of something by myself. Don't go," she added, loth to lose the sound of the kind, friendly voice. "Will Stephen Borlace be there tomorrow?"
"I don't know. Do you want him to be?"
"Yes. I liked him."
"I can get him, of course—but hadn't you better leave him alone?"
"Why?" Aprilis spoke without coquetry, but with weariness.
"Well—poor wretch! Still, I'll get him along tomorrow."
"Don't trouble," said Aprilis. "Good-bye."
When she had hung up the receiver she felt lonely, cut off from the one person who would be kind and staunch when she left the Strypes. There wasn't much that poor Custance could do for her, but he would always be faithful and he would never find fault; and he would always be ready to listen patiently to her plans and complaints.
Returning to her room, Aprilis put up the lights and tried to recollect herself. There were people coming to dinner to-night, some of the usual, kind, cultured, gracious people; afterwards they would expect her to play on her Tudor virginals and recite one of Adrian's poems.
That was now clearly impossible; never would she do that again; no, she would not go down to-night and pretend in front of Mrs. Strype's hot eyes—and the cold gaze of the Admiral, who, as yet, knew nothing.
She would have to see him in the morning to ask him about her affairs—and to-morrow was her birthday, of which they had always made a stately feast.
This reflection reminded her of the gifts she must return; she went nervously to drawers and wardrobes and took out sables, chinchilla, lengths of lace, jewels, and began folding them into piles.
There was her maid—"devoted" to Mrs. Strype. Of course, she would not come with her, nor would she, Aprilis, want her, but there was another unpleasant moment ahead when she would have to tell the good Carlton that she was leaving and ask her to take these things to Mrs. Strype's room.
Aprilis paused in her task; at any moment the woman would come in for her orders and there would be queer looks at finding her with all "these things" scattered about.
"Oh, I must get away from all of it," thought Aprilis impatiently. "Quickly—quickly."
She turned and her glance chanced to fall on the miniature of Adrian by the bed; without reflecting on what she was doing she went to this and took it down, holding it in her hand so that the dark petulant face was hidden.
The door opened and Mrs. Strype looked into the room; Aprilis tried to hide what she was doing and put her hand behind her back.
"I can't come down to-night," faltered Aprilis at random. "Say, please, that I'm not well."
Mrs. Strype held out her hand.
"Give me that miniature, please. I shall say that you are leaving my house."
Aprilis held out the miniature; she felt childishly smitten and even frightened.
"I didn't mean to do anything hateful," she began to defend herself. "I was just taking it down out of sheer nervousness—"
"I see." Mrs. Strype's fingers closed passionately over the picture of Adrian.
"I didn't want to hurt you," continued Aprilis desperately.
"No?"
She remained inside the open door, so still, so hostile, that Aprilis felt her rush of fear and compassion pass.
"After all," she retorted sullenly, "I didn't know that you were coming in—"
"It was to fetch this miniature that I came," replied Mrs. Strype.
"I couldn't guess that."
"Couldn't you? Did you think I'd let it stay with you a moment longer?"
Her arid glance that seemed yet to burn with a kind of dry fire took in the piles of clothes on the chairs and bed.
"What were you doing with these?"
"I was going to return them," answered Aprilis, replying straightly from long-seated habit.
"Our presents," said Mrs. Strype. "Rather vulgar of you to think of them at once. But I suppose you've always been rather vulgar, really."
"You're saying that for the sake of being unkind," answered Aprilis.
"Not at all. It seems to me that it was an extremely vulgar thing for you to pretend that you cared for my son, just that you might get all you could out of us."
"That's not true," said Aprilis, and put like that she did not recognise the situation 01 herself.
"Isn't it?" asked Mrs. Strype with maddening calm and bitter persistency. "I thought you said that you had never cared for Adrian."
"No," replied Aprilis desperately, "I never said that—I said I didn't know, that I was beginning to forget.".
"It's the same thing."
Aprilis put her hand to her head; she made a last effort to justify herself, to take the nightmare edge off this quarrel.
"You've been wonderfully good to me, Mrs. Strype— I can't think how I've been able to hart you, you must think me horrible—"
Mrs. Strype stopped her.
"Please, we won't have any more pretence—I think you said you were tired of pretence, didn't you? Well, I never liked you—everything I did was done for Adrian."
"I suppose that was what was the matter," sighed Aprilis. "We never liked each other—but if you hadn't pressed me so hard I believe I should never have known that it was all pretence—I should have gone on thinking we were fond of each other and that I was in love with Adrian."
Mrs. Strype smiled.
"I don't think so. I think you knew the truth of the situation all along. You are a clever young woman. It suited you to stay here."
"I'm not a wretched toady," said Aprilis painfully. "If that was true—I shouldn't have let you know I was tired of it all—"
"Oh, as to that—people in love lose their heads."
"I'm not in love, Mrs. Strype."
"Aren't you? I heard you ask some one, Mr. Custance, I suppose, on the telephone just now, to arrange a meeting with you and Stephen Borlace to-morrow."
Aprilis shuddered with vexation.
"You're wrong. That comes of this spying! This awful spying—"
"Spying, Miss Campion?"
"Yes," said Aprilis violently. "That was why I couldn't go on—always being spied upon, and watched and controlled "
"That will do," interrupted Mrs. Strype quickly, "no need to let the maids hear your voice. You'll go to- morrow morning, of course? You can easily find an hotel till you get married—"
"I'm not going to get married," replied Aprilis. "Of course I'll go in the morning. I shan't bother you again, Mrs. Strype,"
"I hope not. I don't pretend that I shall ever forgive the terrible deception you have put on us both—the way you've wronged my son's memory."
She said this with a note of such quiet, anguished conviction that for a moment Aprilis felt herself as something monstrous; she began to wonder if she had not played a terrible part and was too coarse to see this.
Mrs. Strype continued in her monotonous voice which now, to Aprilis, held a peculiar quality of evil.
"I have now to get ready for dinner. I shan't want to see you in the morning. My husband will give you an account of your affairs that he has been handling for you. Good-night."
She had gone and the door had quietly clicked into place.
"That's hatred," thought Aprilis amazed. "She really hates me."
Yet Aprilis dreaded leaving this house, even filled with hatred as it was, for that fearful plunge into loneliness which must be taken to-morrow. An hotel!—cut off from what she had considered her home, from all she had considered her friends, in some subtle way disgraced and degraded!
She thanked her good fortune that she had money— money of her own.
Yet here again was an embarrassment; she did not know how much; Admiral Strype and her father's lawyer had always managed her affairs between them, and all she had done was to occasionally sign a paper or a letter.
When Adrian died she had possessed about five hundred a year, and then there had been a legacy from an uncle and several lucky investments she had heard the Strypes talk about; and then, also, the fact that all her money had been allowed to accumulate; except for money, everything had been provided for her by the Strypes.
This had seemed natural enough to Aprilis at the time, but now it seemed an indiscretion, a meanness on her part, even though the Strypes were such wealthy people.
She wondered if they would consider it "vulgar" if she was to try to refund to them something of what they had spent on her?
Of course, Mrs. Strype could say what she liked, she would leave everything behind her, save those few, very few things she had brought with her from her old home.
She heard Mrs. Strype go down to dinner and she wondered if that bitter woman would really tell the guests of her disgrace; how humiliating it was! She could hear Mrs. Strype say: "I've found out Aprilis Campion—she's worthless. She goes to-morrow and I hope never to see her again."
And at this signal everything and every person would melt away from Aprilis, leaving her stripped of all her glamorous veils—a vulgar little adventuress.
How grimly unfair it was, and how hideously cruel Mrs. Strype was being!
After the first chill of dismay had passed, Aprilis felt an active, evil passion rousing in her heart against Mrs. Strype, her husband, and all her friends; she was conscious almost of a wish to do them harm, to be revenged on them, at least to prove that she could do and be some thing apart from them. If only she could make an imposing and splendid marriage!
With, for instance, a man like this Betterys Ushaw they all admired and talked about.
Her dinner was brought up to her room; as if, Aprilis thought, hysterically, she had been a naughty child; and there was a message from the Admiral; he would see her in his study in the morning, at half-past nine.
So he had been told; Aprilis felt at once relieved and frightened.
She crept again to the telephone and got Custance at his Club.
"Can you get me rooms in an hotel? Where does one go? I shan't have even a maid. I'm such a pampered idiot I don't know anything."
The kind voice suggested, in considerable agitation, a luxurious hotel in Kensington.
"Won't it seem queer? I shan't have much luggage." Panic, the panic of the lazy and the sensitive, touched the voice of Aprilis.
"Of course not—but this is all very ghastly, I can't believe it yet—if I came round would it be any good?"
"No—no—no,besides I want to get away—what do I say at the hotel?"
He laughed pityingly and rather miserably.
"I'll manage that for you—go round there to-morrow as early as you like, and I'll see you in the afternoon at Faunt's—I've asked Borlace. And Betterys Ushaw will be there."
Aprilis felt a thrill, like a premonition of distant victory.
THE interview of Aprilis with Admiral Strype at this bleak hour of the cold spring morning, in the heavy dun study, was painful enough.
Aprilis had always been chilled and sometimes repelled by the dry, austere little man who was Adrian's father.
She felt that he was intelligent and in some obscure way rather grand, and he had always treated her with extravagant kindness, yet, strangely, she had never known either liking or compassion for him.
He was much too old to be the father of Adrian; Aprilis had always vaguely felt a certain distaste towards these elderly, withered parents of anything so vivid and blooming as Adrian; it seemed as if there was something unnatural, almost unpleasant in this fury of affection these two felt for the only child of their late marriage.
Aprilis felt and looked tired; she had packed what she must take with her and her luggage was already in the dark, black and white marble hall; she had put on her plainest gown and hat and had noticed with some dismay that a great deal of her beauty went with what Faunt had called her "haberdashery"; for the first time she realised that if she was not careful she might pass as just an ordinary pretty young woman.
"This isn't a very pleasant occasion for either of us," remarked the Admiral. "I hoped that I might have given you another pleasant birthday, but this has happened."
The words were kind, but not the manner; the old man looked at her with, she thought, disgust, and his sunk, white-ringed eyes were hostile and hard.
"I am terribly sorry," murmured Aprilis.
"I dare say."
"I don't quite know how it happened. I suppose it is no use trying to talk about it."
"None at all. I have been telephoning instructions to my lawyers and to yours. I don't choose to discuss your affairs with you personally unless you insist."
"Oh, no," cried Aprilis, "I would much rather not. I'm rather in a terrible position, you see." She made a reluctant effort to soften the dry old man. "You have been so generous—"
"Entirely for the poor boy's sake," he said with a smile that put her beyond his notice, "If you will favour me with your address?"
.She gave the name of the luxurious hotel in Kensington.
"I will give that to Mr. Delaunay and he will call on you to-morrow morning and explain your affairs to you. That will be convenient?"
"Yes," said Aprilis wretchedly.
The Admiral rose.
"Good-bye, then. I don't suppose we shall see each other again, Miss Campion."
Aprilis hesitated; this leave taking seemed too deadly, too cruel; surely she did not deserve to be treated with mis inhuman coldness, surely everything wasn't so wrong that it couldn't be a little put.right.
"Please don't think of me bitterly," she began with trembling lips.
"I don't believe I shall think of you at all," he smiled.
Aprilis flushed.
"Perhaps Mrs. Strype hasn't told you—"
He stopped her with a peremptory lift of his delicate bony hand.
"Please don't mention her. That I cannot, will not
"I've done nothing to deserve such a horrible punishment—"
"You've hurt my wife," said the old man with bitter calm, "as she has only been hurt once before when my poor boy was drowned—"
Aprilis revolted against what seemed to her the senseless exaggeration of mania.
"You've no right to put that on me, Admiral Strype," she protested sadly. "It is none of it as awful as you think—it was only natural that I should forget a little—"
"Natural to you, perhaps," he replied with intense scorn.
"Yes, natural to me," admitter! Aprilis. "I'm young and I've had nothing but negation—"
"I hope," replied the old man with his cold smile, "you'll find what you want. I daresay you will be very successful, Miss Campion."
"You think that I am a miserable little schemer."
He did not answer, but the bitterness of his crooked smile was accentuated and he slightly inclined his head.
Aprilis was baffled, silenced.
Never had she foreseen such an intense, implacable resentment of her revolt; she had thought that there would be trouble, distress, anger, but not this instant icy cutting away, this deadly refusal to even listen to her side of the question, this complete casting of her aside as if she were contamination.
"It isn't natural," she thought to herself, "it's obsession, mania. I ought to be glad to get away before it involves me too."
Yet she felt completely unhappy, and somehow, even against her own common sense, completely in the wrong.
She opened the door.
Heavily and uselessly she repeated:
"I'm sorry."
And behind her she heard the grim old voice saying in thin, quiet fury: "Yes—people detest to be found out." Aprilis closed the door.
She might have beaten herself into an hysteria of justification and remorse and never have moved either of these inflexible people.
At the bottom they had never liked her, never forgiven her for "entangling Adrian "; at the bottom they had done what they considered a very grand, generous thing in making of this poor ordinary girl a beautiful shrine to the memory of Adrian—they had thought of her as humble, grateful for these excessive favours, and had learnt to tolerate and even like her for the sake of the perpetual adornment she was to the memory of Adrian.
But now that she had revealed herself this kindness had vanished and the old contempt had sprung up, transformed into hatred.
As Aprilis crossed the pavement to get into her taxi she instinctively glanced back at the dark and mournful front of the heavy stone house.
The pallid, sharp face of Mrs. Strype looked down from one of the upper windows, ivory coloured between the dead white of the curtains.
"I can understand curses,' thought Aprilis. "That woman would curse me if she could."
The light, gay, cheerful hotel effaced something of the sinister impressions of the morning; it all seemed more normal, her own behaviour more natural, and that of the Strypes more stupid and grotesque.
A handsome suite had been reserved for her; Custance had sent in flowers, and instead of loneliness and disgrace there was an air of holiday and adventure.
Aprilis began to think of getting clothes, of a new maid—she had brought so little with her. There was so much she wanted'
She had her cheque book; in her account was about two hundred pounds; she would want more than that, and, for want of a better distraction, she jotted down in her note-book all she must ha 3 at once.
But suddenly she tired of this and lay back in one of the long chairs, wondering about the future, feeling utterly tired and strange.
That afternoon she would meet this famous «Betterys Ushaw.
He would gild her discomfiture marvellously—if she could marry him. And why not?
He was free and she had as much chance as any other woman.
Never yet had she tried to capture a man's fancy, but women did, every day, and she had been often admired, and even perhaps loved.
She went into the hotel lounge, took down a Who's Who, and deliberately read through the list of Betterys Ushaw's distinctions and achievements.
It was very impressive.
When she went to Faunt's studio that afternoon she could not help anxiously asking the first man she knew: "Is Mr. Ushaw here?"
The man happened to be Stephen Borlace; he replied: "Yes."
Aprilis had been so absorbed in the sudden turn of her own affairs and by the thought of her meeting with Ushaw that she had not given much further consideration to Stephen Borlace! she had, indeed, hardly noticed that it was he to whom she spoke.
"We meet again very soon," he remarked dryly, for he had noticed her abstraction.
Soon?
Quickly she regarded him now; yes, it was "soon"; only yesterday she had sat with him in that heavy room she was never to see again with the woman she was never to speak to again.
"I suppose you've forgotten me already," he added, seeing her hesitancy.
Aprilis, partly from a desire to stand well in the eyes of Borlace, and partly from a deep longing for sympathy and comfort, decided on frankness.
"No, I haven't forgotten you. But so much has happened since we met—only yesterday, that it has left me rather amazed."
"Something horrible?" He was anxious at once.
"Yes, rather horrible, but I'm glad too—I've left Mrs. Strype."
"A quarrel?"
"I suppose so—but I didn't mean to quarrel and I didn't feel as if I was quarrelling—but they were very dreadful."
"What did you do?"
"I told Mrs. Strype that I was forgetting Adrian and mat I couldn't any longer pretend that I wasn't—I don't know what made me do it—"
"I think you were right," he said warmly.
"But they turned it into something monstrous as if I'd been found out cheating."
"What does that matter? You're glad, aren't you?"
"I suppose so," sighed Aprilis, "but it's been a ghastly wrench for a lazy idiot like I am and I've lost all my friends and interests all at once—"
Aprilis smiled; she recalled Mrs. Strype's quiet certainly that she would marry this man; how grotesque that seemed now!
She had no longer need of him as an excuse for escape; she looked at him in a kindly fashion; now that she had her independence the generous gesture of sacrificing herself to him no longer attracted her fancy which was set em more material ends now.
Their little conversation that had been so whispered, hurried and intimate came to an end; both Faunt and Custance saw Aprilis and came forward to bring her into the inner group of guests in the middle of the big studio; Faunt had heard from Custance of the dramatic break with the Strypes and this further interested him in Aprilis.
He was not, and none of the people there were friends of the Strypes, nor followers of the Adrian legend, and Aprilis was made to feel pleasantly that she was among well-wishers.
She was not so sure of herself without her pearls and furs, her very expensive clothes and background, the superb dignity of the Strype aegis, the melancholy grace of her romantic fidelity, and she laughed and talked a little nervously.
But in her heart she was confident enough; she could foresee new successes, new triumphs in these fresh fields, a whole galaxy of friends and champions who would have nothing to do with the Strypes or the death of Adrian, but who would like and admire her for herself.
Custance managed to draw her aside at last and gave her tea beneath a heavy gold canopy next a leather screen where they were left at peace for a while.
Aprilis had not met Betterys Ushaw and did not like to mention his name lest he should be standing quite close to her; there were a great many people there and Aprilis was rather disappointed to see that there was no one as attractive as she had imagined Ushaw to be; Borlace, gloomy and haggard as he was, was by far the most imposing creature in the crowded room.
Aprilis began to think that Borlace had been wrong and that Ushaw was not among the company; if he was, surely it was curious that Faunt, who was so anxious for them to meet, had not brought him up to her!
The kind, anxious voice of Custance broke in on her reflections.
"I didn't like to bother you this morning—but I'm awfully anxious to know—"
Aprilis cut him short; she did not want to go over the weary ground again, but rather to forget about the Strypes and all their works. Briefly she told Custance about the sudden and irrevocable rupture.
"It seems strange," said the hunchback wistfully. "I've always thought of you as—"
"I know. Dedicate," interrupted Aprilis quietly. "Don't think of me as a cheap sham—as the Strypes
"As if I could!"
"I was pretending, but I didn't quite know it—well, I'm free now, and what am I going to do?"
"Get married, of course."
"I daresay, in the end. But in the meanwhile—I can't live in a hotel—"
Custance shook his head; he felt quite inadequate to deal with an Aprilis divided from the Strypes—an Aprilis shorn of her legend.
"You're well off?" he asked anxiously, adding in his childish phrasing, "I mean you've got plenty of money?"
Aprilis reassured him with charming confidence.
"Oh, yes, I shall be all right—I don't know quite yet, but there'll be plenty."
"You don't know?" asked Custance tentatively.
"Mr. Delaunay is coming to-morrow to tell me all about it—Admiral Strype wouldn't and I was glad. The money side of it is hateful."
"Still, I'm awfully glad you're all right in that way —think if you'd been left badly off—"
"I have," said Aprilis.
"I hope," added Custance a little doubtfully, "you won't miss anything—the Strypes are very wealthy indeed."
Aprilis did not answer at once; it had occurred to her that however "well off" she might be she would not be able to continue to live on the lavish scale of the Strypes; but she knew very little of the value of money or the cost of anything beyond fripperies.
"Of course I've been spoilt," she said at last, "that is what is so horrid—I wish I could return some of the money they spent on me. I shall try to—"
"What about your own people?" suggested Custance. "Isn't there any one there you could turn to?"
Again Aprilis was silent; this was rather a vexing subject; her family was part of the legend; people had been vaguely told and vaguely believed that she was the daughter of a very distinguished surgeon; but this was not so; her father had only been a provincial doctor, quick to make money, but a very ordinary man, and her mother's stock were Midland manufacturers in rather a small way; the uncle who had recently left her the handsome legacy was the founder of a big "chain stores" in the North, and the guardian who had brought her up since she was eighteen was a prosperous, but uncultured, cloth merchant. And it was only an accidental and extremely lucky chance meeting at Henley which had brought her to the notice of Adrian; Aprilis rather winced now to think how all this had been partly dressed up and partly hushed up by the Strypes, who would now, no doubt, with delicate malice, discover the bald truth.
Therefore she answered briefly:
"There's no one," and added at once: "Is Mr. Ushaw here?"
"Yes."
"Which is he?"
"There—talking to Borlace."
Aprilis was disappointed.
"Oh, that little man!" Custance laughed.
"He's big enough. Faunt has asked him to do something for Borlace."
"What can he do?" Aprilis was discontented.
"He's got a castle in Spain—really! And Borlace might put it to rights."
"A castle in Spain!" Aprilis was slightly interested, yet still vexed that Ushaw seemed so slight and insignificant.
"Yes. In the Vera. He had a Spanish great-grandmother—it's a romantic place, very wild and lonely."
Aprilis was still staring at Ushaw, who was standing silent, in a rather charming attitude of deference while Borlace spoke.
"Bring him over to me," she asked.
The hunchback rose at once to obey.
AFTER five minutes' conversation with Betterys Ushaw Aprilis decided that the man fired her ambition and her imagination.
It would be, she thought, equally possible to like or dislike him very much, but he was, at the least estimate, a most uncommon man.
Her taste, educated by those years with the Strypes, was pleased by the unusual and the choice; spoilt in many ways, she now detested what she considered the commonplace, and therefore Ushaw attracted her as Faunt had guessed he would.
When she had called him a "little man" she had been wrong; he was as tall as she was, and she was above me ordinary, but he was slight and had been dwarfed by the handsome bulk of Borlace. His features were thin and aquiline, his eyes too light, but he was gay, swift, amusing, and in the least of his rapid words and glances was power.
Though he was very quiet in his manner and had a most pleasing way of listening to other people, he seemed animated by an intense vitality and an intense confidence in himself that was very attractive; a dominating personality masked by a charming courtesy, thought Aprilis; and she responded both to what he showed and what he concealed of himself.
He was not young; yet younger than she had expected from the list of his achievements; he had travelled and explored and written and fought all over the globe.
And Aprilis reflected that he had been through just the same experiences that had left Borlace so marred and bitter, and seemed not a whit affected by them; others besides Aprilis had noticed the unquenchable good humour and gaiety of Ushaw, those who disliked him said he had the innate cheerfulness of the born adventurer.
Aprilis spoke about Borlace; not really caring much about him, but wondering all the while what Ushaw was thinking of her—impossible to guess secret opinions from such general affability!
"I saw you talking to Captain Borlace—were you telling him of your castle in Spain?"
Aprilis did not care if she was being indiscreet, she could not hope to fix this man's attention with sheer trifling nonsense.
"Yes. I hope he'll come out and help me build it up —do you know his drawings?"
"No."
"Rather fantastic, but I like them. He's a touch of genius, though he doesn't look like anything of the kind."
"Just a soldier," agreed Aprilis, then, to fix Ushaw's attention on herself—" but I don't know him, I don't know any one here, not even Mr. Faunt—I'm lost, at
The words were not wholly affectation; even as she spoke the thought of how strange all these people were to her, of that hotel awaiting her, of that horrible cleavage with everything familiar assailed her, and there was a genuine tremble in her voice and her lips.
Ushaw had heard the legend and just now, hurriedly from Faunt, of the destruction of the legend; he gave Aprilis the bright look, full of curiosity, that he turned on anything weak and foolish.
"It ought to be tremendously amusing," he remarked, "to be able to start fresh and make your life all over again; so few of us can."
"It doesn't amuse me," sighed Aprilis, "I'm too lazy. Did you ever meet the Strypes?"
"Yes—once or twice. I remember the boy Adrian quite well—it was an awful thing, his death like that."
Aprilis looked at him beseechingly.
"Do you think it was disgraceful of me to forget him, after six years?"
Ushaw smiled pleasantly.
"I daresay you forgot him really after six weeks—"
"Oh, no, that makes me such a fraud," protested Aprilis. "No, I won't have that—I did, I do still, care about Adrian, but Mrs. Strype drove me too hard."
"I can believe that. She is a very powerful kind of woman, with, of course, a jealous obsession."
Aprilis sighed, yet with a kind of pleasure. They were talking very intimately, very smoothly, his manner held an irresistible caress—surely he was being held, amused, attracted, perhaps had even fallen in love with her at sight.
"Tell me about your castle in Spain," she asked.
He told her; she hardly listened to his words, his voice was delightful, a delicious accompaniment to her thoughts.
What a solution of all her vague difficulties, her lazy dreads and wounded vanities, to marry a man like this!
To queen it in this castle he was telling her of, to travel with him over the world doing strange and beautiful things.
She felt greedy for this future, eager to clasp and secure it—why shouldn't Ushaw love her? Why? Why?
She was lovely, young, rich, clever and extraordinary, well, a little different to the majority of women.
She leant back lazily in the low chair cushioned with rich stuffs that gleamed with threads of gold and looked with admiration at the shapely head, the narrow face, the fine hands of Betterys Ushaw.
His castle rose from his words like the fragment of a fairy tale.
Aprilis vaguely, dreamily visualised it; on a crag, on a rock, sombre, isolated, crowned with turrets, filleted with clouds, hung above a gulf of purple depth
"Surely there isn't such a place," she murmured.
And he responded at once to the obvious challenge.
"Some day perhaps I will show it to you."
He was talking to her over long; they were too intimate, too absorbed; it was becoming conspicuous; Aprilis was glad; she felt impatient when Custance joined them; none of his practical concern, advice and kindness mattered so much to Aprilis as did the securing the vivid interest of Ushaw.
But she made the hunchback sit down the other side of her and she began talking quickly, familiarly and delicately about herself and her position, detaining Ushaw with appealing glance and word till he was drawn into the conversation; of course, so adroit a person could have escaped if he had wished, but he stayed.
And Aprilis, with a childish candour that was exaggerated, but with a childish helplessness that was genuine, murmured on about her queer little downfall, the dimness of her future, and the two men listened and advised in little admiring consolatory sentences.
It was assumed that she was wealthy and that seemed to both of them to solve all her troubles; Ushaw said:
"You feel strange now, of course, but your own life will grow up round you—you'll be hugely happy—"
At last she must go; the crowds were thinning, go back to those unusual surroundings—the bright alien hotel, full of strangers—this evening; now, what was she going to do this evening?
Aprilis clung to the company, the voices, the glances, the friendly kindness.
. But she rose and put on her plain silk cloak thinking that to-morrow she would buy furs, pearls—that Ushaw had not yet seen her at her most seductive.
Borlace was leaving; despite that castle in Spain, he looked gloomy, crossed; Aprilis, on an impulse born of her inner loneliness and her inner excitement, went over to him; when he saw her coming he stopped sullenly.
"You know, I bought the marionettes, I don't know what I shall do with them in a hotel—" She paused, not encouraged by his unsmiling silence. She wanted to give him the dolls, but the offer seemed impossible. "Come and see me sometimes," she finished. "I hear you've some wonderful drawings of castles—when can I see them?"
"Do you want to build a castle?" he asked, with a little shrug as if they wasted time. "They aren't drawings, they're architects' plans," and he shook hands reluctantly and left her, with that.
Aprilis, conscious of failure here, turned to say "goodbye" to Faunt (what, after all, did Borlace matter?).
The painter was standing by Ushaw; Aprilis knew that they were discussing her; she felt triumphant; it was all what Mrs. Strype would call a little vulgar, this display of her affairs, this flaunting of herself before strangers, but was a great deal more interesting than the legend of Adrian.
Faunt said half a dozen men and women were staying to supper with him—" you stay too."
"Of course you will," added Ushaw.
Aprilis, standing late that night in her hotel bedroom, felt that she adored life; she sat in the twisted shadows and bleached light that the electric standard outside cast through her windows, covered only with pale muslin.
She did not turn up her own light.
Betterys Ushaw had brought her home in his car (a luxurious car for a bachelor), and before they glided up to the glass portico of the hotel he had kissed her, just as she had known he would, since she had consented that he should drive her home.
It was the sort of thing that could never have happened to her while she was with the Strypes; she could not repress this reflection nor the sense that she had now definitely discarded the last, glimmers of the legend, and that it was a gracious, lovely legend.
Mrs. Strype's word "vulgar" spoken with such precise disdain, haunted her; she had only known the man a few hours
Yet, it was all adorable; she would marry him, she might even fall in love with him—he had been greatly moved and that had moved her; she flushed in the laced shadows and slowly took off her hat and cloak.
The whole evening had been delightful; every one pleasant and hearty with a more genuine ring to them than the dilettantes of the Strype set, workers all of them; and some not at all successful, but all eager and intelligent and enthusiastic, all disposed to admire and pet Aprilis.
She had even been glad that Custance, who was a friend of Mrs. Strype, had not been there; she had been so gay herself and even to this faithful friend that would seem a little brutal.
As she reflected on this he% dislike to Mrs. Strype suddenly rose, like a bitter taste to her mouth; she might have had all this years ago if it hadn't been for that woman, if she hadn't been chained to the memory of Adrian.
Why, she was like a schoolgirl, almost like a child, for all her cool airs; those kisses had thrown her into a tumult; she was impatient of the delay in meeting him again.
For long she did not sleep for going over the evening again and wondering when he would write or call or send
It was as she had hoped; there were flowers on her breakfast table, lilac, roses, tulips, forget-me-nots and narcissus arranged in an airy confusion and bound with a turquoise blue ribbon—like a French pastel sketch.
Aprilis sparkled with pleasure; life was indeed adorable.
There was something else, too, for her; the box of marionettes which had been forwarded by Mrs. Strype.
Aprilis had forgotten them; the paying for them would leave a hole in that slender bank balance, but she wrote the cheque at once and lightly.
Betterys Ushaw had pencilled on the back of the card in the tiny envelope among the flowers—" When can I see you?" and Aprilis thought with dislike of the promised visit of Mr. Delaunay; in her lazy dislike of business and in her satisfaction with her affair with Betterys she loathed the thought of the dull business interview, and half decided to ring up the lawyers and put off the appointment.
But she reflected that there were a good many things she wanted, needed, and that it would be pleasant to control her own money.
Besides, she could not summon Ushaw tilT the afternoon; it was pleasant to play with his card—to study that urgent little question, to stare at the little telephone number in the corner.
So she made no effort to evade the lawyer's visit and received him most charmingly in the light, conventional private sitting-room that was given some character by Ushaw's uncommon and elegant bouquet.
Mr. Delaunay did not respond to the smiles of Aprilis.
"This is a very sad business," he remarked rather sourly. "I don't quite understand it, Miss Campion."
"Don't lecture, "coaxed Aprilis. "No one would understand it if I was to talk all day—it simply happened."
"No chance of a reconciliation?"
"None—I wouldn't go back and they wouldn't have me—for anything."
Aprilis spoke seriously but the lawyer thought that she was being frivolous, and his manner became even more curt; but Aprilis did not mean to be flippant, she was merely absorbed in inner thoughts, of which the symbol was the airy bouquet and the card lying beside it on that side table just beyond Mr. Delaunay's dry figure.
Spain! How fantastic that sounded, that castle of which she had challenged the reality; but everything that you didn't know sounded fantastic, but of course Spain was real, just as real as Bond Street or Kensington—as Ushaw, with his narrow face and close auburn head, and his expected kisses were just as real as sitting in the dark drawing room with Mrs. Strype and talking of Adrian.
What did she know of Ushaw, of Spain?
Nothing.
What did she know of anything?
Little more; her futile little accomplishments hardly touched the truth of anything.
Mr. Delaunay was prosing on while Aprilis drifted into these vague, pleasant thoughts; he was making a vast preamble, sternly regretting her break with the Strypes, almost reproaching her for her folly in allowing such a break.
"I suppose you know, Miss Campion, that Admiral Strype had left you all his money?"
No, she hadn't been sure of that, though she had known that there was some handsome provision for her; of course that was all altered now?
"Naturally," said Mr. Delaunay, drier than ever. "I was informed yesterday that Adrian Strype had altered his will, leaving you out of it entirely. He is a very wealthy man, and his wife, too, has a great deal of property and some valuable jewels—after their deaths this would have all come to you."
Aprilis was silent; money was very desirable; she would have liked to have had this great fortune in her own control and she regretted the loss of it; but she was not in the least designing nor mercenary and had really not troubled at all about Admiral Strype's will.
Besides, Betterys Ushaw was also a rich man.
"I had no claim on that money," she said. "The Strypes have relations of their own, they spent too much on me and I only wish I could repay them."
"I am afraid that will not be possible, Miss Campion."
"No, I suppose not. And, of course, money didn't enter into it, one side or the other, Mr. Delaunay—I have always been independent that way and they, as you say, are very rich—so I don't suppose," she smiled, "we either of us thought about that side of it—and, of course, I left everything they had ever given me behind —including some quite valuable jewellery."
"Ah, indeed," replied Mr. Delaunay without any sympathy at all. "Well, may I ask, Miss Campion, if you have any idea how your affairs stand?"
"Not a very clear one," said Aprilis, still smiling and looking past the lawyer's pallid, flaccid countenance to the bouquet. "I know I had about five hundred a year, and then there was what my uncle left me, and those lucky investments."
"Admiral Strype managed everything for you?"
"Everything—I never bothered. I just drew on my own means for pocket money—what you paid into the bank."
"Have you any idea what you spent?" Aprilis shrugged her shoulders.
"No—not without.looking things up—"
"Anything saved, or invested, or in the bank?"
"A hundred or so in the bank—"
"Is that all?"
"Yes."
"Then," remarked Mr. Delaunay acidly, "this pocket money of yours has amounted to about eight hundred a year, Miss Campion."
Aprilis was startled; she had had no idea that she had been spending on that scale; she had imagined her money as accumulating—eight hundred on pocket money! And how much now to do for everything?
"I had not realised that," she said, feeling very foolish. "I shall have, of course, to be more careful—"
"I'm afraid so," interrupted the lawyer ironically. "You'll find a considerable difference in your means—"
"How much have I got?" asked Aprilis quickly and sharply; she no longer smiled.
"About two hundred and fifty pounds a year."
"IT'S impossible!" cried Aprilis angrily, the colour cooling into her face. "I can't believe it—what about this money I've been spending?"
"Provided by the Strypes."
"But my own money?"
Mr. Delaunay explained, with a rather contemptuous patience; when Aprilis's guardian had died, his executors had insisted on the return of the monies spent on the education and keep of Aprilis, matters that the man himself had not gone into, and the paying back of this sum had considerably reduced the capital of Aprilis.
"You were asked about this, you remember, Miss Campion?"
"Yes, and consented—but never realised what it involved—but my uncle's money?"
"When your uncle's estate was realised it was found insufficient to meet all his bequests; you received about a fourth of the amount mentioned in his will—"
"And those lucky speculations?" asked Aprilis angrily and desperately.
"Did not exist—on the contrary, some of your investments turned out very badly indeed."
"Why wasn't I told all this?" asked Aprilis fiercely.
"As far as I am concerned, Miss Campion, because you never asked. I did not even know if you were aware of the state of affairs or not—I wrote all these particulars to you and received answers."
"I handed all your letters over to Admiral Strype— and just signed the answers he brought me."
Mr. Delaunay shrugged his shoulders.
"What can I say to that? Admiral Strype paid me five hundred or so every year to pay into your private account as if it was your own; he said that he was going to be responsible for you as if you were his own daughter and that you were his sole heiress—he even showed me his will. And he said that you were a child in these matters and were not to be bothered about money."
"Still, I ought to have known," said Aprilis bitterly.
"My dear young lady, if you had come to me I should have told you, but you seemed perfectly satisfied. I believed you knew of the arrangements, and I must admit that it never occurred to me that your relations with the Strypes were such as to make this end possible."
These pompous words were hateful to Aprilis; her mind went back to that last scene with Mrs. Strype; how carelessly, indifferently, almost without knowing why, she had made the fatal rupture! How confident she had been throughout thinking of her future liberty and independence—and all the while she had been a pauper!
Never would she have found the courage to act as she had acted if she had known her dependence on those people.
"The Strypes behaved abominably," she cried with tears in her eyes, "to hoodwink me like that—and then turn me out, that is what it came to, Mr. Delaunay, turn me out, at the first excuse—"
The lawyer thought it unnecessary to remark that, of course, she exaggerated; he did not like this florid young woman very much and his sympathies were entirely with the Strypes; the Admiral had told him on the telephone that Aprilis had been "unspeakable."
Still, as a matter of form, he offered his services.
"If I could do anything for a reconciliation," he began.
"No—how could I now?" broke in Aprilis furiously. "How they would laugh to see me coming back, cringing, when I found I was beggared."
"A pity there should be these feelings," remarked
Mr. Delaunay. "I should have thought that, after a dose association of six years—"
"We never liked each other," said Aprilis. "And Mrs. Strype is deadly, a woman with an obsession—mad with jealousy for Adrian—and they have behaved atrociously."
"Well," said Mr. Delaunay, cautiously, "it certainly seems rather harsh and arbitrary on their part—but I don't know the circumstances, and, of course, the Admiral was quite within his rights. He doesn't ask for the return of a single penny he has spent on you, only he has stopped all supplies."
Aprilis writhed; she was baffled, confused and more distressed and angry than she had ever been in her life before.
"Two hundred and fifty pounds—that's nothing at all!" she exclaimed harshly.
"It's not very much—when you've paid the income tax," agreed Mr. Delaunay, "but one person can live on it, and then you're talented, Miss Campion, and you must have a great many influential friends—"
"I haven't any," said Aprilis, rising. "They were all friends of the Strypes; of course, they'll drop me now."
The lawyer rose also.
"Well, you can find something to do, no doubt," he suggested.
Work? The thought was hateful to Aprilis; and what of the things she had been going to buy that very day, pearls, furs, dresses—why she had scarcely more than she stood up in!
"I'll realise the capital," she said defiantly, "sell out everything—it must be some thousands, and something will happen by the time they are finished—"
She felt relieved, almost happy at this solution. As long as she had the money in her bank to spend what did the future matter? She would be married to Ushaw long before her capital came to an end, and meanwhile there would be the means she must have for her adornment, her backgrounds—
All this danced through her mind before she had time to grasp what Mr. Delaunay was saying.
"I'm afraid, Miss Campion, that's impossible; this money, nearly six thousand pounds, is tied up for your children, and failing them, it goes to some cousins and their children; you have only a life interest—it is a very safe investment, a special provision made by your father —it is lamentable that you should not have known all this."
As he spoke he turned away towards the window, for he did not care to look at the face of Aprilis as she listened to him; she had at last realised the depth of her misfortune.
She sat down on one of the gay satin chairs and gazed round the artificial brightness of the room.
"I shall have to leave this place," she said harshly.
"I'm afraid so, it must be expensive."
"I didn't ask," replied Aprilis wanly. "I've got one or two bills as well—there's the cheque I wrote out this morning for the marionettes—"
Mr. Delaunay picked up his hat and gloves; he re-minded himself that he was only her lawyer, not her guardian nor her friend. He was sorry for her in a cold, vague way, but he knew many more deserving girls worse off; she had been dreadfully spoilt and silly and vain— why the devil did she want to play up to the Strypes so long and then quarrel with them?
"If there's anything I can do," he said formally.
Aprilis Was so forlorn that she clung to even this chilly offer of assistance.
"What do you advise?" she asked faintly.
"Well, if you've got any friends—"
Aprilis shook her head.
"I mean—how am I to live?"
"I should suggest getting something to do—of course you can't live in London as you've been used to—but you've got a nice little income to help you along with a job—ladies are going into shops now, becoming mannequins—you're not trained for office or secretarial work—"
Aprilis laughed hysterically.
"Good-bye "—she held out her hand. "I'll think about it all—"
He was not sorry to go, the dry man; without much further protest he took himself off. But though Aprilis had dismissed him she felt a wave of panic when she was utterly alone.
The blow had been so unexpected, so deadly—so devastating.
How would this affect Ushaw?
Could she continue to enthral him encumbered by poverty?
And did not this same poverty turn into sordid vulgarity her desire to marry him!
She was trembling, sick, pale; when she chanced to see herself in the glass she thought with a further stab of fright that all her beauty had gone.
Her telephone rang.
Ushaw; could he come that afternoon?
Aprilis replied faintly:
"Yes."
Aprilis felt a reaction against the romance of last night, against Ushaw, his swift attraction, his swift kisses; in her fear, her anger and her panic, she viewed the whole coldly and saw it as rather trivial and even as rather vulgar.
Her confidence, too, had gone with her money; she no longer felt able to meet Ushaw on his own grounds; she felt, with bitter keenness the great protection of a steady, good income.
If she had had just a little money with which to achieve grace and ease for a short time, till she was married!
But having nothing she would show at once as a pitiful, frightened creature in almost sordid surroundings.
Of course, if Ushaw had fallen in love with her at sight her financial disaster would make no difference to him, but had he?
In her cold fit, Aprilis doubted this; it had all been so easy, and she had rather lost her head with the queer freedom and her exciting day and the license of the gay supper party—every one so jolly and kind and outspoken.
Aprilis looked out of the window; all manner of women were passing up and down; a number of them must be workers earning less perhaps than her shorn income, but resolute, independent, happy; she, Aprilis Campion, could never be so self assured, so cheerful on a few pounds a week; she had lost her poise and was floundering ungracefully in deep waters.
She was spoilt; literally, in the true meaning of the word, "spoilt "; first as an only child, next as something of an heiress, too pretty and too clever for a little country town, then as the heroine of the romantic love affair with Adrian, and lastly during these six years with the Strypes.
As she thought about this she considered yet again the detestable behaviour of these people who had loaded her with praise and luxury and then cast her off so abruptly, so sternly; her feeling for Mrs. Strype was a very unpleasant, almost a terrible one; it must, she thought, be near hatred, perhaps the same feeling as that Mrs. Strype had for her
Leaving the window she went over her possessions; just a trunk, a dressing case, a hat box, nothing worth much in any of them, for in her pride she had left every object of value behind—it seemed grotesque that this was all she owned in the world.
And this hotel; she would have to leave, she must ask for the bill, pay everything and leave—where for?
Aprilis winced before this question; a boarding house? rooms?
She knew nothing of either; she went downstairs with a guilty step as if pursued by curious stares, and glanced over the morning papers; there were advertisements of boarding houses, hotels and apartments.
But the prices! The very cheapest asked a sum that would only leave a pound or so a week out of her present income—and there would be everything else to find; how did these other women live, these trim, busy women she had been staring at from the window?
And which of these places to choose? And what an existence! to pinch through the tedium of a boarding house fife with no object at all in the days.
She got up and looked at herself in the bright mirror that hung above the green silk sofa; she distrusted her own beauty that had been made so much of; it seemed to her now that she was not any better looking than most young women now she was without her adornments and her setting.
The tears came to her eyes; she felt so scared that she could not find the courage to go to the efficient looking cashier in the glass box and ask for her bill.
That capable young woman now, she was probably doing well on five pounds a week—useless these thoughts, useless this childish panic.
She could not eat her lunch; her head began to ache; she thought with dread of meeting Ushaw again, for not in the least did she feel equal to picking up the thread of last night's romance.
For she had not, whatever might have happened to him, fallen in love at first sight; and she felt that she would forego any share of love if she might have plenty of money—money enough, at least, to make her feel safe.
It was the terrible sense of peril, of disaster, that was so unbearable.
She remembered the marionettes; she must send them back to Middletons and ask them to sell them for her again—but she could not bring herself to write that humiliating letter.
Ushaw came punctually to his appointment, serene, gay, alert, amused; Aprilis met him in a tumult of hope and repulsion; if only, ran her vague regrets, this man could have been her husband or her promised husband— for a pointless love affair she had now no heart.
He had brought an open two-seater and asked her where she would like to go.
Aprilis shook her head.
"To Richmond Park, then," he said, without seeming to be in the least perturbed by her downcast humour; and, as he drove through the crowded streets he began to talk about Borlace; he had been that morning to see his drawings and they were wonderful, and soon he hoped to send Borlace to Spain to patch up his castle that any architect without imagination would surely spoil.
Aprilis hardly listened; she was no longer interested in Borlace or in the Spanish castle, nor, indeed, in anything or anybody save herself and her own immediate concerns.
If Ushaw did not mean to marry her she felt no interest in him.
She looked sideways at his aquiline face and resented his power, his money, his self confident ease; every move in the game belonged to him, she was silly, weak, helpless by comparison; indeed, without her stately back ground, her choice friends, her .money, her handsome home, she felt lowered to the point of degradation.
Not lightly had she been trained in austere fidelity to the dead, in a sombre elegance of life, in a chill reserve towards men, and last night and this afternoon seemed hideously like cheap escapades to the unstrung mind of Aprilis.
They left the car at the inn where Aprilis refused tea, and walked across the park.
The day was remote and cold, the leaves a mere veil of green on the branches of the old trees, the grass under foot was dry and dun coloured; yet with it all was a weary elegance as of an ancient pleasure place deserted.
"You've changed since yesterday," said Ushaw quietly. "I suppose you're capricious—like all of you spoilt women."
Aprilis did not answer; she revolted from what must seem like an appeal to his charity, so could not tell him the truth, and she had no light reply ready.
"I daresay you find it strange and lonely in a hotel, don't you?" he persisted gently. "You mustn't drift, you know. I'm sure that you are very lazy."
"Of course you don't take me seriously," she murmured, disliking him for his half mocking manner. "I know that I am spoilt and lazy "; tears of self pity stood in her eyes. "I'm being punished for that."
Betterys Ushaw was thinking how lovely she was; in a curious old-fashioned sort of way she conveyed a melting gentleness, a bewildered distress that women rarely showed nowadays; to a man of his arrogant, active, vain type this was very gratifying; he had the pleasing sensation of being able to do as he pleased with Aprilis. Seldom, if ever, had he met a woman so alone, so little able to take care of herself as Aprilis: he thought her story piquant, and, secretly, that the Strypes had behaved desperately badly.
Jealousy, of course; that old woman was jealous for her dead son; extraordinary. (Ushaw had noted it before.) How powerful, how deadly a passion jealousy was!
They sat under a chestnut that bore sticky and tentative scrolls of leaves and he studied her at leisure.
"Just think," he said, smiling at the look of childish grief on her fair face, "of all there is in the world— every day ought to write a poem for you."
"I don't know why I came here to-day," replied Aprilis, thinking not of what he said, but of his kisses last night. "I have really no object in sitting here," she added wearily.
"You came because you have nothing better to do."
"I had something more important to do—"
Tired of fencing with him she offered the truth, wearily, almost disdainfully.
"I find I've got no money—I shall have to get work."
THIS was an affectation and she knew it; never had she, nor would she, consider work of any kind.
Ushaw's light eyes were pleasantly mocking as she told the state of her affairs as revealed to her that morning by Mr. Delaunay.
"So you see," she finished, "instead of sitting here— I ought to be finding a room somewhere and looking out my debts and seeing if I can pay them."
She spoke dryly, anxious not to seem to appeal to his pity, and, indeed, she had no idea of pleasing or impressing him by her story; she hardly thought that poverty would be an attraction in his eyes.
He said nothing but looked at her whimsically, and Aprilis rose, restless, impatient.
"What do you suppose I shall do?"
"You? You'll get married, of course."
"I suppose so."
He rose too; they walked side by side, slowly down the long avenues.
"Of course you've friends," he suggested.
"I have to keep explaining that they were all the Strypes' friends," replied Aprilis, sighing. "I suppose they'd cut me dead now, if they were to see me."
"But before that? Six years isn't always. You must have had your own life before you met Adrian Strype."
Aprilis thought of those ignored and obscure relatives in the Midlands; better the London boarding house!
"There's no one I care about or who cares about me," she replied. "Vincent Custance is the only creature who'll do anything for me—"
"There's Faunt—"
"I don't know him—I don't know you, do I? That is the worst of it," and again the tears came beneath her heavy lids, "that I should be so—"
She paused; Ushaw knew what she wanted to say, but would not help her—" so all to pieces," she meant, "so shaken out of all dignity and reserve—so stripped of all her graces and aloofness, so suddenly scared, so pitiful!"
"—Reduced to this," she finished, "walking about here complaining to you—"
"You know I like to hear you," he smiled. "Last night—"
She coloured childishly and interrupted him.
"Last night was different—I felt free and happy last night, I wasn't taking anything very seriously."
He said, gravely, that he understood that, yet added, audaciously:
"But you liked me a little too?"
He was able to say this without offending Aprilis, able even to put her at her ease; she was flattered by the more serious tone he now took towards her and by the tactful way in which he relegated last night's romance to a mere light-hearted and graceful condescension on her part.
And she rewarded him.
"Of course I like you. I'm grateful to your kindness to—in bothering about me—in listening to me."
He continued to "bother" to listen, as they walked slowly down the wide empty avenue, with the interlaced branches so sparsely touched with green against the ash coloured sky.
Afterwards Aprilis often remembered this queer afternoon when they had been such strangers, yet talked together with such pleasant intimacy in this chill loneliness of the English park.
Ushaw's company was itself a solace, and somehow he managed to restore to her some of her lost dignity and calm.
From the moment he had heard of her misfortune he had altered his tactics; he no longer made love to her, though his concerned interest was lover like; in brief, he took her seriously .
And nothing could have been more flattering to Aprilis.
She felt that here was, not a flirtation or a coquetry, but something definite, solid and reliable, and as they passed through the park her thoughts, a persistent undercurrent to her talk, turned hopefully to the prospect of being this man's wife.
He was considerably attracted, and he was taking a good deal of trouble; if he did not wish to marry her in the end surely he would not so brutally mislead her now
Thus the thoughts of Aprilis, vague though and half formed; aloud she said:
"You know, the worst of it is the fueling I have for Mrs. Strype—I feel that I hate her—"
"That is the greatest harm any one can do you," replied Ushaw, "to make you hate them—don't hate any one—it upsets you, disintegrates you, makes you ill morally, mentally—"
"Well, I feel as if I hated Mrs. Strype."
"Don't," urged Ushaw, with what seemed to Aprilis strange seriousness. "No one can be quite sane, or in the least happy, whose life is filled by hatred—"
"Well, I think Mrs. Strype hates me."
"Leave her to her punishment, then, she'll get it soon enough—"
"It's jealousy in her case—"
"Isn't it nearly always jealousy? Hatred grows from jealousy like a flower from a root—you don't often bother to hate what you're not jealous of—"
Aprilis smiled.
"I think I'm safe, then, because I can't imagine being jealous of anyone."
So much was left of her pampered self-confidence which had been fostered by praise, flattery and indulgence; she could not imagine jealousy!
"No need why you ever should be," agreed Ushaw, "but life has some strange turns and twists."
They were walking out of the park now; Aprilis felt soothed and comforted; like a child that has been picked up out of the dust, wiped and patted.
Her circumstances were the same, but she viewed them with much less panic; Ushaw had done nothing, promised nothing, but he had somehow made her feel at ease with herself—he had conveyed that life was an adventure, a romance, and that she was very fortunate to have it all before her.
A pale sun parted the wispy clouds as they neared the end of the avenue and made a dying radiance round the austere, bare trees.
Aprilis looked at her companion who had lapsed into silence; he knew how to be silent without being awkward or portentous, it was the quiet not of one who has nothing to say, but of one who has too much.
He was indeed attractive, charming with his reddish hair and narrow face and light eyes, and those aquiline features that, though rather arrogant in outline, were so pleasant and courteous in expression; he was indeed, perhaps just a Utile too affable and delightful for perfect, honest sincerity, but Aprilis did not know enough to think of this; the man was exceptionally interesting and pleasing and Aprilis asked for no more; she told herself that she would have been very pleased to marry him even in the midst of the Adrian legend and when under the stately spell of Mrs. Strype.
Yes, if she had met Ushaw before she was sure that she would have rebelled then against that dead fidelity to the dead.
Never before had she "got on" so well with any one, felt so intimate, at ease, secure, in any company; it was really as if the man had cast some spell over her, for she began to feel almost gay; and when he looked at her and laughed, for no reason at all, she laughed too, childishly and light-heartedly.
How often was she afterwards to recall every moment of this pale cold spring afternoon!
He asked her where she was going when she left her hotel—"a horrible gaudy place" he called it, and added that she would be far happier when away from such banal surroundings.
Aprilis didn't know, her spirits sank at the question.
"There's a place here," said Ushaw, "a delicious little house near the Terrace which you would like very much, I know—shall we go and see if rooms are vacant? A woman I know lives there, you'd like her, Isabel Graham; she plays the violin."
This did not please Aprilis; of course he must know hundreds of women, but she did not want to hear about them, nor did she want to be too dependent on him— just yet.
"I'll find a place in London," she said. "I must ask Vincent Custance, too, he'd be hurt if I didn't."
"Of course," agreed Ushaw. "And I dare say you wouldn't have liked Isabel Graham, she is a queer sort of creature."
Aprilis was glad to hear that Isabel Graham was "queer," glad, too, to note the indifferent tone in which Ushaw spoke; it was absurd, of course (but so many true things were absurd), but she actually felt that she did want the interest and sympathy of this attractive man entirely for herself.
She was immensely elated at the serious tone he had taken towards her; his air of sudden and delicate aloofness was most gratifying to feminine pride; it was as if he had said: "See, I am not taking advantage of your poverty and helplessness—this is not a mere trifling flirtation with me, but something far more serious— serious."
When he left Aprilis at the door of her hotel she had almost forgotten the sharp sting of that morning's revelation; life was an adventure after all, an adorable adventure.
A few days saw her in her modest boarding house, found by the useful Custance. He had quarrelled with the Strypes for her sake and was totally at her service; but he was going away soon, to Germany, on the matters on which his livelihood depended, and Aprilis would be left with only those new friends—if so weighty a word could be used—she met in Martin Faunt's studio, Ushaw, Borlace and their acquaintance.
At first it was all amusing, almost exciting; perfect freedom was a great asset, and her surroundings, though mean, were not sordid or uncomfortable—and, more than all, almost every day there was a meeting with Ushaw, a little expedition into the country, a theatre, a dinner, some small pleasure of his contrivance, and then Martin Faunt's gatherings in the studio, parties, suppers, or teas with only herself and Ushaw.
All very pleasant and agreeable and lazy and purposeless; Aprilis never had a harder task than that of twisting a fresh ribbon round her hat or sewing a new collar on her gown, or putting a stitch in a glove, and she drifted in this new life as she had drifted in the old life, taking each easy day as it came, slipping down the lines of least resistance, the lines that were becoming worn from use.
It was her shabbiness that first pulled her up; the summer had come with abundance of sunshine and Aprilis was without a chiffon, a scrap of lace, a parasol; she was, as it were, stranded in the few clothes she had brought from the Strypes, and these she began to detest; she wanted shoes, too, and she was used to give for a pair what she now paid for her week's board in the Cromwell Road.
All this was very trifling, yet a tragedy to one of Aprilis's temperament; she felt blighted, her beauty discounted, and the panic she had known when Mr. Delaunay told her of her narrow means, returned.
What was she going to do?
The summer was hastening to the holidays; people were going away (Custance had already gone), the pleasant friendly crowd at Faunt's studio was thinning, they all had their plans, their homes or haunts or companions.
And what of her when they had all gone? Nothing had happened.
Not so much as a week-end invitation from any one had she received; when she met these people they were delightful, when she wasn't there they appeared to forget her; no one bothered to ask her what she was planning— not even Faunt who had been so kind.
Custance wrote long letters of advice, of anxious inquiry, from abroad, now this town, now that, which she hardly read and seldom answered.
Her mind began to be wholly centred on Ushaw as if her fate lay solely in his fine hands. And she was no farther with him than she had been on the occasion of that walk in Richmond Park.
No more kisses, no attempt at playing the lover, yet the most intimate companionship, caressing, warm, protecting—nothing more, every day the same, as if they were permanently established in this level relationship.
Mingled with the growing panic of Aprilis was a growing anger, against herself as much as against him; she now definitely wished to marry this man and she thought that it must be some great fault in herself that she could not do so.
Her self-confidence languished, a lassitude fell on her spirits, she began to discover that her surroundings were abominable, that she was weary of London, that it was terrible to be without money, that, and this was worst of all, she was now nearly as dependent on Betterys Ushaw as she had been on the Strypes.
Above all she felt doubtful, confused and totally at odds with life, both defiant and supplicating towards her fate.
Towards the end of June an incident occurred that set the seal on her fluctuating moods and made her acutely realise the peril, almost the desperation of her position.
She was seated, idly and vaguely dreaming, in Kensington Gardens when she saw Mrs. Strype coming towards her up the flower walk; somehow it had never occurred to her that she might meet the Strypes again because they seemed so utterly cut off from her present life, yet really, of course, it was strange that she had not chanced on one of them before. - Mrs. Strype came on slowly; she looked, Aprilis thought, very elegant and withered in her costly attire, her face blank and cold, her head a little bent. , She looked straight at Aprilis without a blink or a twitch of an eye or a muscle and passed on, with the slightest movement of drawing aside.
Aprilis felt like an outcast; the blood stormed her cheeks, and, with a sense of shock, she saw herself as Mrs. Strype must have seen her—seen her with triumphant contempt behind that white atrocious face.
Seated idly in the Park, alone, in the clothes she had taken with her, weeks ago, with mended gloves and mended shoes! Oh, no doubt Mrs. Strype had noticed those details!
Aprilis stared after the figure walking slowly away with a backward glance, and she felt a wave of hatred mount to her heart; it was monstrous; it was grotesque that she should be treated like this—it shouldn't be possible.
The bitter reflection came to her that perhaps Mrs. Strype even knew (somehow) of her long dalliance with Betterys Ushaw and was laughing endlessly at her befoolment.
She rose impetuously and walked rapidly in the opposite direction from the loathed enemy (she thought of Mrs. Strype as no less now) and all her intelligence beat against the problem of Betterys Ushaw.
"Surely he loves me, admires and respects me too— hasn't everything shown me that? Surely he doesn't mink of money or position! A man like that! Why does he hesitate?"
With yet keener vexation she viewed her own fault in the matter; she had always instinctively believed that a-lovely charming woman with plenty of opportunity could bend any man to her will, and surely she had not spared loveliness and charm with Ushaw; she liked him so well that it had not been difficult to be an entrancing companion to him, no effort to let him see that she delighted to be with him—wasn't all this enough?
What more could she do?
Some women, no doubt, would have bold methods, but Aprilis shrank from the thoughts of these; she felt that she had already, in giving Ushaw so unstintingly of her time, gone the extreme length of encouragement.
Then, just faintly across these anxious calculations and reflections came the troubled thought—" if only I loved him! how easy that would make everything—"
She didn't love him, she couldn't love him; if he had been any one but the one man who was there at hand capable of taking on the burden of her life that she found so heavy on her own hands, she would hardly have regretted his disappearance, attractive and interesting as he was; if only she possessed again money and position no doubt but she would have her choice of interesting and attractive men like Betterys Ushaw.
But she had nothing; nothing in the world but this man's kindness, and her tired mind went back to the weary puzzle of why he didn't speak
If only she knew some of his friends, or relatives, if only she had some sort of hold on him in that way; but he seemed as solitary as she was, answerable to no one but himself.
Neither her side nor his was there a creature to play the monitor to them, to remark on their meetings, their intimacy, to speculate on their possible marriage.
As far as Aprilis knew no one was even aware how often they did meet, probably not even Faunt of Borlace, often as both these saw Ushaw.
He came to see her that evening, and Aprilis came down into the sad little "drawing" room with her beauty blurred by useless tears.
Unnerved, she dropped into one of the drab chairs, folding her hands on the lap of the black evening gown that was now so shabby.
"I saw Mrs. Strype this afternoon," she said by way of excuse. "She almost frightened me—an atrocious woman!"
Ushaw looked at her with a more direct keenness than she liked.
"Poor Aprilis," he said quietly.
"Don't pity me." She spoke without design or impulse, only with a vague fatigue; Ushaw stood near her dingy seat; as she spoke he stooped and for the second time kissed her flushed cheek.
APRILIS believed that the moment had come and shrank from it; more poignantly than before, as she felt his kiss, came the unbidden thought—"if only I loved him!"
She suffered his kiss without moving, ready to accept his vows—to return them, yet with no feeling of triumph, but rather of resignation, and it was not with regret, but rather with relief that she saw him turn away, troubled, it seemed, and half vexed.
"If you'd be frank with me," he said on a queer note of irony, "it would all be so much easier."
"Frank?" she answered, truly amazed, "but I've told you everything."
"Have you?" he insisted. "Really everything?"
Aprilis thought that he was jealous, jealous perhaps of poor dead Adrian; she schooled herself to indulgent patience.
"There's nothing you don't know about me."
"I dare say," he smiled, "but not because you've told me."
"There's nothing I haven't told you."
Looking at her he sighed; she thought there was something infinitely melancholy in his narrow face and pale eyes that seemed so suspicious and lonely in their expression; she felt sorry for him, sorry for herself; she rather wished that they had never met, or, at least, that she had not been forced to look to him as her only refuge.
He said, suddenly:
"You remember those marionettes you sent back to Middletons to be sold?"
"Of course."
"Well, I bought them."
" I'm glad."
"Borlace saw them the other day when he was at my place talking over his plans—he liked them so much that I gave them to him—the lot of them."
"So he got them at last," remarked Aprilis without interest. "I always wanted him to have them, but I didn't know how to give them—"
"Well, I gave them—I was glad to get rid of them."
"Why?"
"Tired of them, sick of them," said Ushaw with feeling. "You do get sick of dolls, you know."
" I didn't know."
Aprilis wondered listlessly why he had told her about the marionettes; was it to cover the emotion he felt after mat kiss?
Certainly this evening he would ask her to be his wife; perhaps he was troubled about this, nervous, afraid; she could not help him; she sat there, passively.
This master was her master—at least the master of her circumstances.
He walked, graceful and restless, up and down the featureless little room.
Why didn't he take her out? They would be late; but Aprilis didn't care.
"Borlace has done some wonderful drawings—like to see them?"
"For your castle in Spain? Yes, I'd like to see them."
"I'll send him round with them."
"Oh, no!"
"Why not?" He stopped in front of her. "Faunt said that you were interested in Borlace, sorry for him—"
Aprilis shook her head; was he jealous of Borlace as well as of Adrian? Queer that she must keep meeting jealousy.
"I've forgotten all about him really." She rose, picked up her still handsome cloak. "Shan't we go?"
" Yes, of course." But he hesitated.
She saw, on a rickety side table, his usual offering of costly flowers, and something peevish in her discontented humour was fanned into expression.
"Don't keep bringing me flowers! What do you think I can do with them! And they are such a contrast to this wretched, dismal place—"
"What else can I bring you?"
"Nothing, of course."
She was surprised to find her hands trembling, her breath short; she felt so tired of it all, she wished she had money, plenty of money, so that she could get away from everything round her, even from Betterys Ushaw.
They went out into the luminous evening, so serene and sweet in the wide solemn street; Aprilis felt a little wind on her face and a pang of some nameless yearning in her heart—for some lover she had never known— some moments that she had dreamed of once, and of which these were a subtle mockery.
As they drove along through the streets that seemed to her to be full of gay and happy people, she began to talk, nervously, of Mrs. Strype.
"How that woman must hate me! Martin Faunt said once that she had awful eyes. I noticed that to-day—"
"Don't think of her—"
"I try not to—her face keeps crossing my thoughts." He repeated, earnestly:
"Don't think of her, she can't possibly do you any harm if you ignore her—above all, don't hate her—it's awful to hate any one."
"You said that before."
"I feel it strongly." His tone was dry. "I've been to many places and seen many things and nothing else so dreadful as a human being hating another human being."
"Well, she hates me, and as for harming me, she's done that already."
"Perhaps—but you're the only one who can really harm yourself, you know."
The car slid into a wedge of traffic; Ushaw said with sudden passion:
"Aprilis, I've been wondering what to do with you—"
He looked at her, and put his hand, with deep tenderness, on the bare fingers she rested on her lap.
"Have you?" she said. "Have you?"
After all, this was supreme good luck—no more poverty or shifts, no more doubts or panic, no more meetings with Mrs. Strype in old clothes!
She smiled on him; he was very attractive; if only she could have loved him, it would have been a romance like young girls muse over.
"I haven't thought of much else but you, Aprilis, since we first met. I dare say you've guessed that."
She tried to be very honest; it was a kind of luxury to be very honest in little things when she was going to be dishonest in something so tremendous; as she must pretend at love, she could avoid pretence at everything else.
"You were so wonderfully kind—and I was so wretched and lonely—I did think perhaps it was just pity."
"Not pity."
His hand tightened on hers.
"Of course I love you, Aprilis. And you know it."
She had not known it; never been quite sure, and she felt abashed and almost mean before his gravity.
She wanted to say—" don't, you're wasting something splendid, for I don't love you," but she controlled herself, remembering sharply what this man meant to her crazy fortunes.
So she was silent and he watched her intently.
"Didn't you know it?" he insisted.
Aprilis fumbled for the answer to this; she was so afraid of making a mistake; if she had loved him would she have known? Had she known with Adrian?
But that was no help, for surely she had loved Adrian.
"I suppose I did," she murmured.
He took his hand from hers; the car moved on, jerking through the ranks of other cars; she glanced at his handsome head outlined against the light square of the window; she felt sorry for him, sorry for herself that they had come to this pass.
"It's my moment and I've missed it," she thought, "a damp squib! Nothing in it—"
But she must pretend, for the sake of the great relief from her present miseries, for the sake of the ease and luxury, for the sake of thrusting all her burdens on to some one else—pretend.
"I'm glad that you love me."
He turned sharply.
"Are you—glad?"
"Yes—" she faltered, hesitated—" I think—that it's an honour—I don't see why you should—love me I That's a lot! There's nothing in me—"
"Never mind that." He smiled, ironically, she thought.
Secure of him after his definite declaration she took pleasure in belittling herself; this made her feel that she was playing fair.
"I'm so wild and weak—I know so Utile. I've had a stifled kind of life. I know so little, I'm terribly helpless in all kinds of ways—not a bit like most women nowadays."
He said:
"Not a bit, Aprilis."
They had nearly reached the restaurant that was their destination; Ushaw added, with great seriousness and force (he conveyed this though he spoke softly):
"Would you marry me, Aprilis?"
She took it with a rush, with hot shame and gratitude.
"Yes—yes."
"Then, it follows that you love me, as I love you?" he said gravely. She said:
"Yes, yes—oh, of course—it follows." The car stopped.
Aprilis, knowing herself so fortunate, endeavoured to feel happy, but her thoughts were vague and floating and would not concentrate on the present moment.
And she found herself, to her shame, thinking of wretched trivial benefits that would accrue from her marriage.
Ushaw talked, and talked well, during their quiet dinner, of some travels of his and the outline of a city discovered in the jungle, but Aprilis gave him but a faint attention and never could remember afterwards what he had said; her glance travelled slowly, furtively round the restaurant, though she kept her face towards her companion, and she was thinking—" soon I shall be as well dressed as any woman here—soon I shall be buying pearls and furs and really good clothes again— and how delicious to have a maid once more and lovely rooms—I wonder where he will want me to live?"
While she smiled, with a dim sweetness at Ushaw and murmured admiration of his tales, no better reflections than these were creeping in and out of her mind.
The restaurant was not extremely fashionable nor very crowded, but Aprilis felt the shabbiest woman there and this really did preoccupy her—" what is the use of being beautiful! How I used to be stared at, and now no one turn their head for me—"
And then again she tried to concentrate her mind on her luck, her huge good luck in securing a man like Ushaw—so soon, really, and so easily, and, all that was honest in her made her look at him with gratitude and remorse.
How little she knew of him; he seemed so easy, so good humoured, so likeable, but as she was so emotionally undisturbed, she was able to reflect that very likely he had other moods, that he might be difficult—she believed he was already jealous—he had seemed jealous of Adrian, and even of Borlace.
How absurd jealousy was!
And it would be hateful to fall under that tyranny again, to have to be careful, as careful as she had had to be with the Strypes; and she reflected, with a cloud over her heart, that she would be as dependant on Betterys Ushaw as she had been on Mrs. Strype and her husband.
She asked him where they were going—and he said—"to a concert."
"I hope the Strypes won't be there—if it's a worth while show they will be—"
"They won't, though it's a quite worth while show— but why should you be afraid of them?" and he smiled ironically.
Aprilis reflected that it would not be so degrading as the encounter of the morning, to be seen with Ushaw— she might even get him to tell them of their engagement, which would be something of a triumph.
But the Strypes were not there; it was not one of the most fashionable or popular concert halls and the audience was not the audience that the Strypes mingled with.
"Why have we come?" asked Aprilis, smiling (she already felt it was her duty to continually smile). "To hear a girl I know—"
Aprilis glanced at the programme; she had never met any of his friends, now she would have to, and make herself agreeable too.
"Miss Isabel Graham," she read out. "Ah, yes, the girl from Richmond. I remember."
"You've got a good memory."
She had not; but like every one she could remember keenly when it was her advantage to do so, and it had been her particular business to remember everything that Ushaw had said.
"Is she clever?"
"Rather. I knew her brother quite well."
" Knew?"
"He's dead. He died in Spain—near my place, an accident."
"Oh." Aprilis, not really interested, did not know what to say without being conventional. "Has she no one else?"
"No one who counts, I think."
"Poor thing!"
"Oh, she's all right. She's got a little money and she does pretty well with her music—she's always busy and content."
Aprilis looked at the programme again; Isabel Graham played twice—Aprilis knew neither of the pieces, they were very modern and very difficult.
She felt a little curiosity to see the girl, but not much perhaps they would see her afterwards and she would have to say kind things.
Isabel Graham appeared in the middle of the evening; she was dark, tall and effective, dressed in black with bare arms, very erect, bold and arrogant; Aprilis disliked her definitely.
She played well, with an insolent ease, and Aprilis, who had always thought violin playing most unbecoming to women, had to admit that she held herself gracefully and knew all the arts of making the most of herself with her long clinging dress and train, her bare whitened arms and her ebony hair gathered in a smooth lustrous knot behind her shapely head.
She was not pretty; her eyes were too close together, her nose was too small and her mouth too large, yet, full as the carmined lips were, they never seemed to quite close over the white teeth, no, not pretty, but very graceful and audacious and rather splendid.
Aprilis applauded; Ushaw turned towards her and asked deliberately:
"Do you like her?"
"Of course," said Aprilis mechanically. "She ought to be a huge success."
"Yes—she works extremely hard—but, do you really like her?"
Thus urged, Aprilis still contrived to restrain herself and smiled back: "I really do—"
"I should not have thought that you would—you are such opposite types."
Aprilis was spared an answer for the concert began again.
At the conclusion, when they rose to go, Aprilis asked:
"Won't you take me round to see your friend?"
"Not to-night—she always has a crowd, and she's not expecting me. She didn't know that I was coming."
"I thought I saw her looking at you—"
"Did you? Well, she may have seen me, of course. But I think one often imagines that people on the stage are looking at you when they aren't."
Aprilis said no more; she was not interested in Isabel, and vaguely hoped that she would not see much of her, or even ever again; she had found the concert dull and rather wondered why Ushaw had taken her there on this evening of all evenings.
She could hardly think that he was the type of man to do anything banal or stupid, so she puzzled over the incident to see if she could discover any meaning in it— but there seemed none.
The night was chill and delicious after the concert hall.
"Why do people pack into concert halls to hear music?" she said. "I hate it really—"
"Ah," smiled Ushaw, "I thought you did—but you wouldn't say so—"
"No," protested Aprilis, "you asked me if I liked Miss Graham."
They entered the car; she thought that he would kiss her again as soon as they moved away in their little dark isolation among the lit streets, and she faintly dreaded his caresses.
Why had he filled these hours with that third rate concert, made her sit beside him in the light and press till she had a headache and all seemed so dull and commonplace?
Now, she could not get her spirits up again; the whole affair tasted stale almost before it had begun.
But Ushaw did not kiss her; he did not even take her hand.
"Do you remember that tag," he said—" some poet, Browning, I think, about;—how does it go—'for life and all it yields, of joy and woe—and hope and fear, is just our chance of the prize of learning love'—"
"I remember that," answered Aprilis.
"Finish it—"
"'How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is,'" quoted Aprilis; she felt vaguely ill at ease.
"Well, then," said Ushaw gravely, "if that is true, and I think it is—we are queerly fortunate, aren't we? A prize, you see, Aprilis, the prize of learning love."
She did not speak.
"And you really love me—even as I love you?"
Though he spoke softly, even sadly, she felt that he was laughing, with that constant irony of his, at himself.
"That's wonderful, isn't it?" he urged, and she, forced to emphasise her part, groped for his hand in the dark and whispered:
"I do love you—I'm tired and do be kind to me."
They said "good-bye" on the step of her boarding house.
"You're too tired now for anything more—to-morrow, to-morrow morning."
Aprilis heard, with relief, the door close on him; she was indeed tired.
When, soon after her dreary breakfast, she was told that "a gentleman wanted to see her," she went down ready for Ushaw.
But it was Stephen Borlace she found waiting.
BORLACE looked sullen; he had a large portfolio with him, which he had laid on one of those little tables, shiny with cheap varnish, that Aprilis so detested.
"I suppose this is a funny time to come," he began, "I dare say it is funny to come at all, but Ushaw sent me—begged me to come."
"To show your designs?" said Aprilis gracefully. She thought, with a throb of pleasure, that it was very gallant of Ushaw to send her architect with the plans of this castle in Spain that was to be her castle, and she wondered if Borlace knew that she was going to marry Ushaw.
"Yes," replied Borlace. "You remember, some time ago, you said, at Faunt's studio, that you would like to see them, but we haven't met since then. Have you seen much of Ushaw?" he added curtly.
Then he didn't know; and Aprilis wouldn't tell him; to do so seemed banal, even vulgar. Borlace looked harassed, haggard, the air of blight over his splendour was very manifest. Yet Aprilis would have as soon talked with him as with Ushaw, she found him just as attractive, neither more nor less.
She opened the worn portfolio and took out the drawings, some in white on blue paper, some in black on white; they seemed to her extremely fantastic and extremely magnificent, at times grotesque, mighty sinister palaces on cloven rocks with streamers waving and bugles blowing; it did not seem to Aprilis as if they could belong v to the same world as this dismal little room with the crazy bits of gimcrack furniture, the pallid colours.
"What makes you think of them?" she asked foolishly.
"Oh, I don't know—Ushaw's place is rather like that, you see."
"You've been there?" She was surprised. "Yes—"
Aprilis had thought, somehow, that the two men had only recently met; it gave her a new point of view to think of Borlace as being in Spain.
"I'm going there again, in a week or two," he added. "Ushaw's got the mood to go on with the work—"
"You'll like that," she said at a hazard, for it seemed to her that he didn't much like anything.
"I don't mind the work." He emphasised the last word.
"Oh, the country, then?"
"The country's all right," he answered with bitter frankness. "It's Ushaw I don't like."
She was a little taken aback; she did not want to hear anything against Ushaw, this man she was going to marry and of whom she knew so little, but curiosity, of course, urged her to pursue the matter further.
"He seems to me very likeable."
"I dare say," replied Borlace dryly. "He's got pleasant ways with women."
"Oh—rather more than that, isn't it? He's had a fine career."
"He's done some showy things," corrected Borlace. "That's easy, when you've money. But he's cruel and treacherous "
Aprilis interrupted; she could not, of course, as she recollected with a sense of panic, discuss her future husband with this man; how unpleasant it would be for them both afterwards when they met, and she was Ushaw's wife—and what bad taste it was, in any case; yet to tell Borlace of her engagement seemed more than ever impossible.
"Don't go to Spain, then," she said, turning over the drawings which, queer and sinister as they were, yet had for her a powerful fascination. "If you dislike Mr. Ushaw it doesn't seem worth while."
"I've got to," replied Borlace grimly.
Aprilis thought that he alluded to his poverty and said no more.
It was a peculiar reflection that they were both being forced by the necessity, need of money into the power of Ushaw and that they would both find themselves, against their will, in that Spanish castle which seemed so unreal, so remote, so grotesque.
Aprilis looked at her companion with a melancholy sympathy; they were both shabby, at once shy and defiant, at odds with fortune, alone and desperate.
If she had to endure obscurity and poverty as long as he bad, she knew that over her also would come the tarnish that disfigured him, nay, probably she would not resist even as he had resisted; body and soul she would get "down at heel."
She shuddered inwardly, thinking how marvellously she had been saved, from the very brink of disaster, by the fortunate chance of marriage, even as Borlace was saving himself by taking this distasteful work.
They gazed at each other over the portfolio of drawings, then, he said, with sudden violence:
"It's ghastly to see you in this place!"
Aprilis flushed; her mind flew back to her first meeting with him at Middletons—how aloof, how elegant, how choice she mast have appeared to him then, and now, something below his own level.
"I suppose you heard that I had left the Strypes," she said. "Everyone most have heard—it was rather dramatic."
"Faunt told me. What a beast that woman must be!"
"She is, rather." Aprilis thought of the meeting in the Flower Walk and that curious, ugly little dart of hate touched her cruelly. "She cut me dead the other day. Such unspeakable behaviour—incredible!"
"What's the matter with her?" asked Borlace fiercely.
"Oh, she thinks it disgraceful of me to have let her know I'd begun to forget her son—poor Adrian."
Strange to think that she had ever been supposed to love Adrian, that she had, for so long, let it be thought that she loved him and mourned Adrian! He seemed so utterly dead.
"She thought I'd been pretending," continued Aprilis, "but I hadn't—not consciously. I just drifted, then, suddenly, something made me say I was tired of it all—"
Even as she said this she did not know if it was true or not; how evoke anything as definite as truth from these crossed and blended emotions?
"And they turned me out," she finished, "and let me discover that I'd got no money—I'd been living on them all those years and never known it."
"They behaved vilely," murmured Borlace.
Hadn't you any one to stand up for you?"
"No one. I'd cut off from my own people to join their set—who, of course, sided with them—not a soul I used to know at the Strypes has looked me up since I left except Vincent Custance."
"He's a good sort."
"Yes, poor fellow." Aprilis tied the strings of the portfolio. "Your drawings are rather terrible, I almost wish that I hadn't seen them—it looks as if demons." she excused the childish word with a smile, "lived in those castles."
"Does it? Well, there are demons about—Mrs. Strype, for instance."
"Oh, she! She's only a jealous woman."
"Well," said Borlace gravely, "what worse demon than that do you want? But how do you mean— jealous?"
"Jealous for her son—for Adrian—she tried to keep him alive through me—she was jealous of anything, or anyone that detracted from the glory of Adrian. I was to stay there for ever, reciting Adrian's poems, talking about Adrian, being faithful to Adrian, so that people shouldn't forget him."
Aprilis spoke more bitterly than she knew and Borlace's tired eyes sparkled with angry sympathy.
"You should never have submitted to it! You should never have stayed so long!"
Aprilis shrugged and sighed.
This man was obviously her champion; she knew that from the first he had admired her in a resentful, hopeless sort of way, and that he was willing to take her part violently against anything and everyone.
She liked him, she was sorry for him—but what use was he to her?
They were two derelicts, and their meeting could mean nothing but the wreck of both.
She had been sorry for him once and meant to help him, but now she could no longer help any one, she would have to fight hard for herself, and it was foolish to drift into liking or sympathy with Borlace when she was going to marry Ushaw, the man on whom they were both dependent.
She was even sorry that her grievance against the Strypes had led her to speak so intimately and warmly about her affairs, so she rose and said, with a conventional return to vague generalities:
"When are you going away, Captain Borlace?"
"In two or three weeks' time, I think."
"Well, tell Mr. Ushaw that I'm most grateful to him for sending me the plans to see—"
"I'll say that when I write."
"Write?"
"Yes. He leaves for Spain to-day—he won't be back till next year."
Blind panic touched Aprilis; the same hideous panic she had felt when Mr. Delaunay had told her of the state of her financial affairs. Ushaw gone—after last night?
The disaster seemed as complete as it was unbelievable; then the instinct of self-preservation overcame even this terrible shock, and she said, with a ghastly mechanical smile and look: t
"You are sure that Mr. Ushaw has gone to Spain?"
"Yes, to-day—he telephoned to me this morning, telling me to come round to you with the drawings—he said that he would let me know when I was to join him."
Aprilis tried to steady herself; of course there was some explanation, of course he had written, it was all right, all right—he was coming back. Borlace had been mistaken, of course he was coming back.
Anything else was incredible—why, even this was a disaster, and as she realised how hateful even a few days of lonely waiting would be—in a boarding house, in London, in the summer; she was frightened at her absolute dependence on this man.
Borlace was looking at her intently; he must have seen her emotion; she smiled and interlocked her hands nervously in an obstinate attempt to deceive him.
"I dare say you will be glad to go to Spain after all —London isn't so pleasant in the summer—"
Her words came senselessly, but served as a barrier to her mind. Borlace rose.
"When are you going away, and where?" he asked. She was glib, almost gay.
"Oh, I don't know—I've several invitations, I'm leaving town soon—"
She forgot that this did not agree with the confession of a few minutes before, she forgot everything but the necessity of deceiving Borlace as to her anguish, her amazed bewilderment. Conventional phrases came to her lips, she spoke of the drawings, the weather, of the kindness of his visit.
"I hate to think of you in this place," he said gloomily, as if he paid no attention to her words.
And he seemed to hesitate, as if debating something he should say or not say.
But at last he was gone, the door safely closed behind him; Aprilis went to the telephone and rang up Ushaw's flat.
The manservant whose suave tones she had always disliked, answered her:
"Yes, Mr. Ushaw was away, he had left that morning for Spain. Any letters would be forwarded. No, he was not expected back till the autumn. At earliest."
Aprilis crept upstairs to her detestable little room.
There was nothing she could do.
Now she tasted the full bitterness of her position—a ridiculous odd waif with no background, no friends, no position.
Better almost those stately fettered days at the Strypes than this!
Yet still she clutched at hope—there must be an explanation—there must!
People didn't behave like this—but hadn't she said that of Mrs. Strype?
At best delay, loneliness—this wretched existence, this gnawing lack of money—at best, even if he came back for her
The midday post set at rest these hopes and fears. A letter from Ushaw.
For a full five minutes she could not muster the courage to open it; she almost preferred the deadly suspense to the deadly certainty.
A brief letter.
"My Dear Child,
"As I was never more to you than the most convenient 'way out' I am sure that my departure will only cause you a passing regret. Alas! I am too old for shams, but there are many who delight in them. I wish you the good luck you will so gracefully adorn and so easily find.
"Yours with infinite regrets,
"John Betterys-Ushaw."
Brutal—hideous, brutal and devastating beyond measure!
Aprilis felt sick and faint with fury; neither her thoughts nor her emotions could find any coherence.
She paced up and down the narrow room; she had the letter under foot again and again. He had accused her of being a sham, a cheat, he had repeated the indictment of Mrs. Strype—what was the matter with her that two people, two such different people should treat her in this atrocious way?
When the first dazzle of her wrath had passed she looked at herself in the glass, with the common woman's instinct to blame a lack of beauty for all misfortunes.
She could not be lovely, she could not be charming or this would not have happened.
Frantically she went over all his words of last night— he had said: "Would you marry me?" not "Will you marry me?" A trap, then, a trick, and that quotation about love, all just to lead her on, while he laughed.
Why, the man was cruel and treacherous; wasn't that what Borlace had said, cruel and treacherous!
And then, the marionettes; he had given these contemptuously to Borlace—" I don't like dolls," and he had sent Borlace round to her with—what?
Drawings of a castle in Spain!
Through all his behaviour she could now see the thread of mockery, of irony, of contempt. From the first he had seen through her; she had pretended to love him, as she had pretended to love Adrian, and each time she had been found out.
It was bitterly hard; as if men only married women who were in love with them! What did he want, what did he expect—a cold, arrogant, cruel ruffian.
So her wild thoughts raged at him, and so little had she cared for him that now she loathed him as much as she loathed Mrs. Strype.
The sharpest part of her torment was the remembrance of Isabel Graham; there had been so ironic reason for taking her to that concert, it was even possible that that hateful woman had been in the plot to fool her; perhaps he was going to marry her, and they would laugh together over the downfall of Aprilis Campion.
Then her mood toppled over into despair, into long weeping, into utter abasement.
Face downwards on her mean bed she humbled herself before her disastrous fortunes.
No one was to blame save herself; she was lazy, greedy and selfish, and people found her out.
Yet even in the midst of her desperate tears she knew that this was also only a pose—that she meant to make no effort to avoid being idle and greedy and mean, that she would go on using the same methods again and again and again, and that the only genuine feelings she had even now were fright and rage.
The fright, as she exhausted her first furies, proved stronger than the rage.
What was she going to do now?
The future showed an arid blank—no friend, no lover —lonely idleness in this miserable house in London, already becoming insufferable, and that she had never had to endure in summer before—shabby, poor, ill-considered; yet too pampered and fastidious to care for anything save the best of life. Never could she solace herself with cheap pleasures, dubious acquaintances or modest diversions.
Work and effort of every kind were hateful to her, and such little talents as she possessed completely withered in the discomfort of poverty.
Aprilis knew all this about herself without putting it into definite thought, and under all her wild despair she became bitter, hard and reckless—the attitude of the animal who snarls.
She hated Mrs. Strype, she hated Ushaw, and she would gladly have seen trouble come to either.
She was even conscious of a crude, a primitive desire for revenge.
But all this was but a dark, poisonous and sombre undercurrent to her active, personal fear and terror of loneliness, of neglect, of discomfort, of poverty, of a life clipped of all caresses and luxuries.
She found herself sitting up on the tumbled bed, half distracted as if she faced, in helpless rage and terror, a concrete, dominant foe that advanced to overwhelm her useless defiance.
What to do? What to do?
She thought of Custance, but he was away, of Faunt, but she knew him indifferent to her at heart—of all those pleasant people she had met at his studio, none of them really interested in her, none of them of any use; she knew what they would say if she hinted at any difficulty, any loneliness.
"Why don't you get something to do?"
Then she remembered Borlace.
A sorry champion, but still a champion; her heart beat more steadily. There was then, some one. She would at once write to Borlace.
IMPOSSIBLE, however, to write to Borlace, impossible to concentrate on any course of action; Aprilis could only suffer in an atrocious idleness.
Every ugly detail of her surroundings now started into bold relief; she had been able to endure these trifling torments because she had thought them transitory; now that she knew they were likely to be lasting, now that there was no reasonable way of escape from them available, they became viciously detestable.
The miserable little room; the arid view of dirty stone houses and pallid sky, the few worn clothes hanging on coarse pegs, the prospect of poor meals, of void days, of summer in London, hot, weary, neglected; why, even this place was emptying, becoming even more careless and dispirited.
Soon even Faunt's studio would be closed; and Aprilis recalled delicious, luxurious summers with the Strypes in their country house in the midst of the big park, or visiting other houses equally charming.
How she detested the Strypes—how she even detested the memory of Adrian; she wished that she had said more, a great deal more, to that fell woman, to that heartless old man, that she had accused them fiercely, bitterly, in terms they would not be able to forget.
That afternoon Borlace came again; even in the midst of her devastated thoughts this seemed to her strange; she was hardly capable of seeing any one, yet forced herself to this interview with some sort of stormy hope of consolation or succour.
They met again in the trivial, dreary "reception room" where now the ocherish blinds screened the colourless afternoon sun from the fusty furniture.
Borlace seemed as perturbed as Aprilis, as unhappy, as unnerved.
"Why did you come back?" she asked.
"I don't know." He spoke half sullenly, averting his face, then he added, with a stammering effort: "Yes, I do—I couldn't bear to think of you here—in this sickening place—"
Aprilis glanced at him suspiciously; had he guessed her disaster with regard to Ushaw?—surely he must see her swollen eyes, her marred face—her complete collapse, her manner all to pieces?—for she could hardly control herself; seated on a velvet chair of a sour green colour she fidgeted with a rough, dusty tassel.
"I suppose it is as good as I deserve," she replied at random.
"There must be something you could do—"
"There isn't, you don't know how worthless, how useless I am."
"There must be somebody—"
She could tell by the ingenuous, bewildered manner in which he spoke that he knew nothing about Ushaw, and she was thankful for that at least.
"There's nobody—why should there be, after all?"
"A woman like you!" he said wistfully, and Aprilis, glancing at his anxious face, thought, "Why, he's fond of me, really fond of me," and a faint glint of hope, like the first glimmer of light to one groping in the dark, roused her; someone who was fond of her. . . .
"I've found my own level, I suppose," she murmured. "Of course, if I'd anything in me I'd get some- thing to do, I'd have friends, opportunities—"
"But you're wonderful," he interrupted nervously, "there's nothing you couldn't do—"
"My little show tricks? Oh, I'm decorative, but nothing else."
She was shivering, unnerved; as he continued to look at her with a piercing melancholy she almost broke down; she wanted to cover her face and weep and weep.
"It seems incredible," said Borlace with slow difficulty, "a woman like you—I can hardly believe it; why, I've thought of nothing else since I saw you first, but I'd never have dared to come forward—"
A silence.
"I've nothing to offer," he finished miserably.
No, she knew that, or she would have encouraged him before; she liked him as well, better, perhaps, as Ushaw; and he was simple, she could manage him; he couldn't see through her, mock her, leave her, but he had nothing to offer.
The tears brimmed over her eyes; pity for herself, pity for him, disgust at the whole situation, so dingily staged, overcame her remnant of pride, of honesty; she wept.
Borlace was cast into an agony of dismay and passion. "Oh no, my darling, oh no, dearest, don't cry
—surely there's something I can do—"
Aprilis continued to weep.
Her abandonment was genuine, and yet she was sensible of the effect of it, of the dominion it gave her over this man, of a greedy desire to bind him, useless as he seemed, to her service.
"I've not any right to inflict this on you," she whispered. "I don't know what's the matter with me to-day—the loneliness, I suppose—and not knowing what to do—oh, I wish I'd never been born, or I wish I was dead. I can't stand it all, I really can't."
He was bending over her, he was clumsily trying to take her hands from her eyes.
"Will you marry me, Aprilis? I could look after you a little, I've got this work with Ushaw—"
He began to put his arm round her; Aprilis did not resist, she had ceased to sob—of course, his work with Ushaw.
"I can't do anything for you, darling, I've no right to be talking to you—"
She did not listen to his fond incoherences—wasn't there something he could do for her?
He could take her to Spain, to that castle in Spain, where she could meet Ushaw again on his own ground.
"Say something," he was urging desperately, "send me away or give me a word of hope—don't mock me, or laugh at me—"
She looked up.
"Why should I do that? You're all that's generous and kind—"
"I've got so little," he kept painfully returning to his humiliation, "but I'd work—I'd see you had something better than this—there's Spain now, you might like that."
And still he was doubtful, afraid, horribly conscious of being in every way inferior, of being audacious, precipitant. Nothing but her breakdown could have brought him to this declaration.
Aprilis saw that she must reassure his diffidence; she had already, in a fury of motives, decided to marry him and go to Spain.
"You don't know anything about me," she murmured, "I'm pampered, spoilt—"
"I wish I'd the means to spoil you further—"
"I'm useless, worthless, I dare say."
She continued to belittle herself, knowing that this only served to inflame his tenderness; she let him take her in his arms, at last, and sobbed on his shoulder, in miserable relief.
It was a reprieve, an escape; she had succeeded in throwing the whole burden of her existence on to some one else; she had protected her idleness, her lazy greed.
While he was trembling in his incredible delight she was already calculating that he had some means, and his work; she could keep her pittance for pocket-money; the worst edge would be gone off her poverty and her humiliation.
Yet she was not conscious of absolutely deceiving him, she had laid no trap to catch him; it had seemed to happen naturally with no effort on her part.
And if she had an undercurrent of feeling for revenge on Ushaw through this marriage, it was something that she did not acknowledge and could not help—a sharp instinct not to be denied.
Never, while Borlace caressed her in dumb abasement, did it occur to Aprilis that for the third time she was "pretending," that the first time she had not been able to play her part to the end, the second time she had been found out, and that either one or the other, would occur on this third venture. No, she was hardly conscious of deceit; Borlace was kind, was good, was fond of her—she liked him.
He pestered her with no shrewd questions, no ironic glances, no mocking references, as Ushaw had done.
He did not even force her to say that she loved him; either he took it for granted or was too humble to expect such bliss.
In either case it was easy for Aprilis; she had only to be passive and smile and weep, and allow him to timidly caress her hand and timidly kiss her forehead.
It was a definite solution to her problem; it cut her off from her present difficulties, her present humiliation and pain.
A poor way out, but still a means of escape and a chance of putting herself on a level with at least one of her enemies.
She felt so relieved as she thought of what the future would have been if Borlace had not come that she kissed him with sudden passion that caused him to deeply flush with sudden breathless joy.
"Were you really waiting for me to come for you?" he stammered.
Aprilis, smiling at him, found it so innocent to lie.
"Yes."
They were married, suddenly, secretly, within the shortest possible time from the visit of Borlace bringing his fantastic drawings of Spanish castles.
The secrecy consisted, indeed, of nothing but the circumstances, for there was no one now in London who was in the least interested in either Aprilis or Borlace.
The Strypes, Martin Faunt and all their various acquaintances had long since gone away and a prolonged heat had cleared the town of all who could escape; Borlace seemed as poor in relations and friends as was Aprilis; he lived, it transpired, in dingy rooms and seemed averse to any kind of social life; and he only briefly mentioned his dead parents.
"A couple of waifs," thought Aprilis with more indifference than bitterness, "a couple of 'odd men out.'—"
She was not happy nor content, but a queer restless excitement buoyed her spirits into a false gaiety.
Constantly she reminded herself how she had been rescued from the worst of humiliation and despair; that ardent sense of relief would last her for weeks yet; and then Borlace was attractive, quite humbly and desperately in love and dutifully at her service; sullen and dry and even embittered as he often was with others, he showed the most gentle good humour, the most tender patience towards Aprilis; she found that he would endure any mood, whim or humour from her without reacting into irritation or temper himself, and therefore, Uke many another woman before her, she indulged recklessly in caprices without regard to kindness or prudence and with no thought that the husband might be less easy than the lover.
Secretly and unconsciously she regarded herself as in every way the superior of Borlace; she thought and believed that his attitude would be one of eternal gratitude and hers perpetually one of tolerant domination.
She condescended to the meanness of asking for money; she was, she said, in rags, and it would be impossible for her to go abroad without some sort of a wardrobe.
Borlace gave her, instantly, two hundred pounds.
This represented nearly all the money Ushaw had sent him for his expenses and on account of his work; Aprilis spent it all on things for herself, easily and without compunction.
She had to go without so much that she wanted that she felt very economical and self-sacrificing.
Borlace, in his infatuation, the elation of his breathless luck in possessing such a woman, also took this point of view.
"It must be terribly hard for you after what you've been used to—"
Aprilis thought that it was; a twinge of regret shook her every time she thought of the luxuries of the past.
It was hateful to pass the delicious shops which had known her so well and where now the Strypes would have given orders that she was to have no more credit, and to hunt out the cheap, crowded places she so disliked.
"It comes of being honest," she said. "// I'd been content to fool the Strypes—"
"But you couldn't," put in Borlace eagerly.
"No, I couldn't."
And this now seemed to Aprilis a fair view of the case; she had behaved well, she had spoken out when silence would have been to her advantage, and the Strypes had been atrocious. By the same reasoning, and encouraged by the flattery of the praise of Borlace, she had completely justified her affair with Ushaw.
She had been fond of him, ready to fall in love with him, he had been (she had thought) noble, kind and generous—in brief, the fairy prince.
And then she had discovered that he was only disguised as the fairy, that he was really hateful, mean, detestable, a creature who did not know the fairy princess when he saw her, but rode on, mocking, leaving her chains for a better man to loosen.
Not that Borlace was, in the eyes of Aprilis, by any means the fairy prince either, but he seemed to understand quite well what was expected of him in playing that part.
So Aprilis glossed over the past very prettily, arranging everything to fit in, as people will, with the steadfast notion of her own perfection and misfortune.
The future she regarded more vaguely; she was too lazy to make plans.
Even with regard to Ushaw her idea of revenge had as yet gone no further than showing him how delicious a wife he had missed in flaunting before him, in provoking him—surely, after all, he had been a little in love with her!
Then she had some dim plans of pushing Borlace towards the heights of fame and money; (she must have money, of course) and of so regaining her old position in those choice circles she so regretted and thereby inflicting a keen punishment on the Strypes.
But all this was very nebulous; the long, colourless, hot days in London were sufficiently filled by the submissive adoring ardour of Borlace, by the ease of relief, by the pleasure of spending even fairly lavishly, by the excitement of this abrupt journey to a totally unknown place. Borlace was most dubious about this Spanish visit and constantly regretted the necessity for their leaving England.
"Why?" Aprilis would ask, hugging the thought of Ushaw.
"Oh, you won't like it—it's queer, it's rough—it isn't a bit what you've been used to.
And Aprilis would answer with an effective plaintive smile that caned attention at once to her misfortunes and her bravery:
"Well, it'll be better than the Cromwell Road."
"Oh, that!" and then, shyly, with difficulty he would come out with the hint of a tender vision of his own— "we might get a little place in the country—a cottage— they're awfully cheap—you know—"
Aprilis knew quite well; roses, honeysuckle, chintz curtains, fresh eggs—miles from anywhere; by some wonder of self-control she always repressed the ironic comments that rose to her Ups; how queer that this big, sullen, soured man, with all his experiences, should indulge in this childish, these puerile dreams!
"That's for later on," she would smile. "You can't throw over this big job with Ushaw—"
"I could," he would protest—" it's a question of the money I've had—"
The money that she'd spent; Ushaw's money spent on adorning her!
"Oh, no, think how wretched I'd feel if you gave up this chance for me! Don't talk of it—why, I shall enjoy Spain. I know I shall."
That was true enough; she certainly would enjoy Spain with the chance of baiting Ushaw thrown in, with the chance of any possible excitement and adventure far better than she would have in that cottage shut up with Borlace in rustic bliss or rustic loneliness waiting for the City trains to go and come, for the vicar's wife to call, for the neighbours to gossip and pry
The persistence of Borlace in returning to this idiotic vision gave Aprilis a sense of lazy annoyance.
Was the man demented that he could not see her as she was?—that he could possibly imagine her in such surroundings? Humble as he was, he must cherish secretly a vast conceit.
Aprilis thought of Adrian, of Ushaw—" I believe any man would think Venus herself not too good to darn his socks—"
Then she had a queer dim reflection—" the man's in love, of course, and you're not," just as if some one had said this to her; perhaps if she had been in love she too would have liked to have stayed hidden in a Kent or Essex cottage.
"It will be so hot for you," sighed Borlace tenderly.
Aprilis thought of the chiffons and muslins in which she looked like a flower, of her drooping crinoline hats, of a golden sunshade. "Oh, I love the sun!"
He thought she was being brave and kissed her in a passion of gratitude; she liked his kisses and his praise.
Two clerks in the Registry Office were their witnesses; Aprilis carried an extravagant bouquet of white roses; she felt self-possessed, satisfied if not content.
Glancing at Borlace she was surprised to see that he looked unnerved, almost ill, and that he avoided looking at her at all. She was sorry for so much emotion, a little disdainful, too. The next day they left for Spain.
IT had been the insistence of Aprilis that had caused mis quick departure; Ushaw had written to say that he was waiting for Borlace, but a few days' delay could have been taken without any trouble.
But Aprilis did not want this, she wished to get away at once from London, and to break up, by the distraction of new experiences, her relations with Borlace; she did not want to stop and think these out, nor even to blankly realise—" I am this man's wife, we know very little about each other and I certainly am not in love with him.
No, let the whole thing be taken at a rush, in a stride, as it were, without time to ponder or bother.
Borlace gave in, not because he agreed, but because he could refuse her nothing. He had also agreed (and here considerably to her surprise) not to tell Ushaw of his marriage.
Aprilis had given any her reason for this reserve that she did not want any "fuss."
"You are quite right. And it is no business of his— I lodge in the village always and I have written making my own arrangements—"
"Then he'll find out that way," said Aprilis, vexed.
"Oh, no, he won't—he never bothers to ask those people anything and they would never dream to telling—why, you might be there weeks before he heard of your existence."
Aprilis smiled.
"Besides, I dislike him," continued Borlace with a disturbed air. "I don't mean to tell him any of my affairs."
"I dislike him, too."
"Yon do?" He was keenly pleased.
"Yes. Of course, I don't know anything about him, but I dislike him." And she thought:
"I don't know anything about you, either—what sort of crazy adventure am I drifting into?"
The journey was hateful; with all Borlace's abnegation and patience and devotion he could not greatly mitigate the fatigue, the discomfort, the heat; Aprilis detested every place they stopped at as much as she detested the trains.
She had even moments of despair, of panic, when even the boarding house seemed a haven, when she wanted to return home at any cost and finish this strange journey with this strange man.
But she contrived to keep her charm untarnished by temper or gloom; when she could endure no more she affected a graceful exhaustion and retired into a silence that seemed to Borlace a heroic endurance of physical fatigue.
During these hours of weariness Aprilis thought constantly of her meeting with Ushaw; of how she would surprise, startle and vex him by her sudden appearance, by her graceful, chill remark—"So you see that I have come to see your castle in Spain after all, Mr. Ushaw."
And yet sometimes even this scene was blurred and she was left with nothing but a vague angry wonder as to why she was here—what she was embarking on—a strange way, with a stranger.
Mrs. Strype and Adrian, all that long London life seemed grotesquely remote; it was something so dead, yet it had made her what she was.
And in truth, when her position seemed most distasteful, her circumstances most vexing, it was Mrs. Strype that Aprilis blamed, not herself, not Ushaw, but Mrs. Strype who had forced her into taking this desperate and intolerable way of escape from utter wretched disaster.
Why had Ushaw warned her, with such seeming earnestness, against hating Mrs. Strype, against hatred at all?
Ironic enough in face of his behaviour which was itself so nicely calculated to inspire hatred!
She endeavoured, in such intervals of quiet as they had on this long journey, to discover from her husband something of himself and something of Ushaw and particularly the manner of their first meeting, acquaintanceship and knowledge of each other.
But Borlace was taciturn on this, and indeed on most subjects; he had obviously no wish to refer to the past and lived only in the present and his love for Aprilis.
As they reached Estremadura the strangeness of the country began to affect and absorb the senses of Aprilis.
She knew the South of flowers and fountains, of fruit and sun, not this sombre, sulphurous South, parched by a pale blaze of heat, a withered tableland, sinister, monotonous, melancholy.
Even in summer the flats round Burgos were bleak and to think of them in winter was to think of desolation; nor were the vast heaths, with thickets of dwarf oak, uncultivated, neglected, seemingly useless to man and beast, more cheerful; and the steady white heat was abominable, though the gloomy plains and blasted negation gave evidence of the windswept bitterness of later months.
Stopping at the ancient, crumbling town of Barco de Ávila, Aprilis had a glimpse of the high Sierras of Bejar and Credos and had a sense of being lost in a foreboding loneliness.
"How much farther do we go? This is a hateful country!"
"For you, of course,' said Borlace, troubled. "I wish I could take you back—"
Aprilis was silent.
It required some courage for her not to admit to herself that she was sick of her adventure, which seemed likely to prove as dull and arid as this hateful country; only the remembrance of the bitter fact that she had nothing to return to held her silent, and when Borlace, deeply distressed at her shrinking from the place, began to actually consider if they might not return, she found it difficult to give him the sweet, kind assurances he needed.
At Tornavacas they had to leave the railway; a hired car took them some way along the Vera, or Valley, and then they had to strike up a mountain track where only mules could go, the luggage going by a longer, even more tedious route.
At this the spirits of Aprilis rose a little; she rode well and hardly needed the guide at her bridle, and the scenery, though wild and melancholy, yet was now full of a fearful magnificence more stimulating than the scorched wastes of the heathy tablelands.
The air was cool and the ever climbing track shaded by huge oaks and chestnuts, the leaves of which, outspread beneath the full rays of the sun, had already turned ruddy hues of amber, gold and ochre through which the filtered light streamed with a lovely radiance.
Here and| there frightful rocks jutted above streams, now dark and still, but which in winter, Borlace said, were furious torrents, and sometimes the path skirted an abrupt abyss which, after rain, was slippery and almost impassable; Aprilis, so cowardly before poverty or discomfort or any mental or physical effort, was bold enough before this showy danger; she laughed at the intense nervousness Borlace displaced as to her safety and the bitter irritation with which he constantly regretted having given in to her wish to ride instead of going along the easier way with the luggage.
"That will be the trouble," he said at last gloomily. "I shall always give in to you and regret it afterwards."
"Why?"
"Because you aren't to be trusted with yourself—I know better what is good for you."
"And I know that I can ride," said Aprilis sweetly. "And the path isn't at all bad—what is the name of the place we are going to?"
"Xarandilla."
"The village or the castle?"
"Both."
They continued to climb the mighty wall of the Sierras; even at midday the heat was temperate beneath the golden leaves, and Aprilis felt in better spirits than she had done since she left London.
After crossing the pass of Puerto Nuevo, they came on their first sight of the Vera, lying lovely and placid in the afternoon light, Plasencia, rising on rocky ramparts to the west, the placid streams of the Xerte winding among vineyards, orchards, villages, pasture, forest and convents; all, in the airy distance, as small as paintings in a missal.
Soft, futile, rich in exotic trees and flowers the Vera stretched in voluptuous richness beneath the frowning and rocky Sierras which wailed it from wind and tempest.
"Shall we live down there?" asked Aprilis elated by this sadden beauty.
"No, Xarandilla is half-way up the rock."
"Like your drawings," said Aprilis.
She smiled and felt a slow, lazy pleasure in the soft air, heavy with the perfume of citron and lemon, in that rolling silver azure prospect of the flowery valley —in the thought that she would meet Ushaw—soon —whatever Borlace might mean or plan. Soon indeed.
A messenger met them as they neared Xarandilla on. the slope of the Sierra of Xaranda.
He was from Ushaw and invited them to the castle for the night—Mr. Borlace and his wife.
Borlace was amazed, Aprilis vexed.
"How did he know I was married?"
The first vexation of Aprilis passed rapidly; if from the village gossips, Ushaw had discovered that Borlace was bringing a wife with him, by no possible means could he have discovered that the wife was Aprilis Campion.
And, therefore, when Borlace, after accepting the proffered hospitality with a bad grace, continued to wonder how Ushaw had come by his news, Aprilis said wearily:
"It would surely be strange if he hadn't found out—"
"Not at all. He hardly ever goes to the village, there is no one who is likely to tell him—"
"Well, why are you vexed about it?"
Aprilis was indeed sincerely surprised at his open annoyance; she had her own strong secret reason for wishing to surprise Ushaw, but what could it matter to Borlace whether Ushaw was warned or not of their coming?
He answered evasively, and, as she thought, uneasily.
"I dislike the fellow. I don't want to be thrust into his company at once—and more than I can help. I thought we might have been left alone in the village, for a while at least."
This seemed to Aprilis unreasonable to the point of craziness; how could, in this remote spot, the existence of an Englishwoman be long concealed?
It must be a proof of the surliness of the man, and perhaps of his jealousy of her; perhaps he really thought that he was going to keep her shut away as the Strypes had kept her shut away; for her own part, she was pleased to be able to go straight to the castle instead of to the village; Ushaw, she thought, would be very angry and startled at seeing her, but she would make him want her to stay.
Her thoughts went no farther than this; the strangeness of her surroundings had the effect of making both the past and the future vague.
In themselves so fantastic and so unlike anything she had ever seen, the castle, the Sierra and the valley were so impressive and powerful as to efface everything else from her mind; while she gazed on them they seemed the only reality she had ever known.
London, the Strypes, Faunt's studio, the Cromwell Road room became obscured and forgotten; this place, so strange, so sinister and so grand seemed as if it was the most vital scene of her life; she had that not uncommon impression, given by fatigue and the sight of surroundings completely new, of having reached a spot to which she had been journeying blindly all her days, and of which she had often, vaguely and not very pleasantly, dreamed.
Xarandilla was in. itself sufficiently startling to excite wonder and even a certain apprehension in any one on first sight.
We are so bound up with our usual surroundings, so inclined to disbelieve in imaginings, our own or those of other people, as having any foundation in truth, that the first sense of a completely different setting to our lives is sometimes sufficient for a time to eclipse or disintegrate our personality.
So it was with Aprilis after the long ride up the rocky Sierra; all that had seemed so important to her in London, or even on the journey, now became .trivial and cloudy; Mrs. Strype was but a name in a dream, and even her wish to meet Ushaw was not as vital and as angry as it once had been.
"What do you call this place?" she asked Borlace, who, although he rode beside her, seemed as remote as Ushaw, even as Adrian.
"The Vera of Plasencia," he answered indifferently. "That is Plasencia in the valley—the 'Pleasant Town' it means—this is the Sierra of Xaranda—that is the castle of Xarandilla and the village—"
In the castle Aprilis could see the inspiration of those drawings which Borlace had brought to show her; four-towered, imposing and gloomy, it seemed to grow out of the beetling rock on which it was built; a part of it overhung a ravine in which two stormy torrents merged into one, another part was completely in ruins and seemed darkly gnarled and blasted like a lightning-ravaged gigantic tree; behind, sombre rocky mountains were piled up ruggedly against the heavens pale with heat; below, were the woods sloping to the exotic fertility of the valley and the village, clinging to the rough-hewn rocks and surmounted by a grim little church reached by steps which appeared of an incredible steepness hewn in the side of the rock.
The sun was now behind the mountains, so that, despite the intense heat, there was no dazzle of light, and the whole scene, of castle, village, church, torrent, rock and mountain was sharply outlined and in dark, rich, sombre colours, colours at once scorched and heavy, a burnt brown in chestnut and oak, a melancholy dry green in ilex and olive.
"You don't like it?" asked Borlace suddenly.
Aprilis was almost startled.
In her rapt contemplation of the scene she had almost forgotten her companion.
"Like it?" The question vexed her; the remarks of Borlace, she thought, had always this bald, yet trivial air; he knew nothing of any subtleties of speech.
"Oh, like it!" she echoed impatiently, "I don't know, of course. It's queer—to me—and impressive."
"You wish that you hadn't come?" urged Borlace, and his insistence further irritated Aprilis; she did not wish to be forced into speech.
"I'm tired," she said. "It all seems strange, of course—but I don't dislike it—"
It was true that she was tired; she felt a light-headedness as they passed into the courtyard of the castle that could not have been anything but the result of continued fatigue.
She hoped that she would not have to meet Ushaw that evening, and not before her luggage came up; surely she had a good excuse to remain in her room a whole day if need be.
Yet, at the same time, she did not wish Borlace to reveal her identity to Ushaw, she wanted that to be her own dramatic surprise. And she thought, lazily:
"It's funny how we're all educated to despise melodrama in art and how we love it in real life—for ourselves—at least I do, though I'm so fastidious about books and pictures."
Borlace was looking about him with a gloomy interest, the interest of the artist opposed to the aversion of the man.
"This was the castle of the Oropesa," he said. "They never lived here much, it was supposed to be too damp, and it had pretty well gone to pieces by the time Ushaw got it."
"How did he get it?"
"Through his grandmother, she was an Oropesa, almost the last of them; he's got other property too, at Tornavacas, but he's always had a fancy for this."
"I suppose that he doesn't get his money from these places?" asked Aprilis.
Borlace answered angrily and contemptuously.
"Oh, no—he's got property in England, and then he's made a lot at various stunts, travels, books, lectures, speculations—he's very keen on money, really."
. As they made these remarks in lowered tones they were crossing the wide courtyard behind the guide they had brought with them and Ushaw's messenger, both Spaniards, who, as Borlace had already assured Aprilis, knew no English.
"We won't stay long," whispered Borlace as they dismounted. "We won't stay any longer than we can help." He spoke not only with irritation but with a certain anxiety which seemed to Aprilis unaccountable and stupid.
"Well, if I'm comfortable here—"
"You won't be," he answered eagerly. "I'll make you more comfortable—much more comfortable—at my place in the village."
Jealous, thought Aprilis, jealous and selfish, and in this moment of relaxed fatigue, standing in the midst of this strange scene, it occurred to Aprilis, for the first time, how terribly her husband would have resented that ugly little episode between her and Ushaw, if he had known of it; all his dislike of Ushaw would be, as it were, confirmed, and he would certainly be foolishly jealous.
As to what he might think of her part in the matter Aprilis did not consider this at all, so completely had she justified herself in her own eyes.
"He should be here to receive us—he ought to be here to receive us," grumbled Borlace as their mules were led away.
"It's decent of him not to be," replied Aprilis. "I, at least, want a rest and a wash—and other clothes—"
Borlace was instantly contrite.
"Of course. I don't think enough of those things— I hope he'll make you comfortable, I hope there's some woman to look after you."
Aprilis did not answer; she was following her husband to the dark open doorway and thinking:
"I would have liked to have come to this place as mistress."
They entered; the hall was dark, cool and lofty; even more than cool perhaps, even now dampish, almost chill.
Aprilis sank on to a bench inside the door; it was long since she had ridden so far.
Then she was aware of Ushaw greeting them from the shadow, in his quiet, very courteous fashion; she heard her husband:
"Who told you I was married?"
"No one. I guessed."
"Guessed?"
"That you had married Miss Campion," smiled Ushaw.
SULLENLY on her bed lay Aprilis and watched the pencillings of light that fell through the slats of the green shutters on to the floor.
She had lain here a whole day in lazy resentment of her situation, begging her husband to leave her alone as she was "tired," and refusing to even unpack her boxes which had arrived and were piled incongruously in a corner of the ancient room. There was no use for speech with the woman who waited on her for Aprilis knew no Spanish, and therefore, for a full twenty-four hours she had indulged in a sulky silence, and still lay, inert and mute, stretched on the state bed of Xarandilla on the evening of her second day in the Vera.
She resented, with childish fury, the miscarriage of her plans for a dramatic meeting between herself and Ushaw; she had counted so on his surprise, his mortification !
And he had been expecting her; he had been quite sure that she would marry Borlace and come to Spain. Why?
Aprilis tormented herself with that "why?" which remained so absolutely unanswered.
She even tried to persuade herself that Ushaw had been acting, that he had been clever enough to conceal his amazement by pretending that he had "guessed "; (with what odious meaning he had said that word, with what calm irony beneath his exaggerated courtesy I); yet this seemed unlikely, oh, unlikely! Had he not sent some one out on to the road to meet them?—to offer a welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Borlace? Had he not said, as she went upstairs: "I hope you'll like your room, I tried to remember your celebrated tastes," and was there not a spinet such as she used to sing Adrian's songs to, a shelf of the most mystic of English poets, and a vase holding one of those artificial bouquets where various blooms mingled in airy confusion, such as he had so often offered her in London?
No, she was forced to believe, however angrily and reluctantly, that Betterys Ushaw had really, as he had said, "guessed" that she would marry Stephen Borlace and come to Spain.
"He may have seen that Stephen was in love with me," she argued. "He saw, perhaps, a good deal of him, and he may have found that out, but what should lead him to suppose that I, whom he had accused of mercenary husband-hunting, should marry Stephen?"
There was no answer to this problem unless she accepted the simple one of admitting that Ushaw had come to absolutely right conclusions about her, and read her so accurately as to be able to perfectly understand the various motives that had induced her to that hasty marriage.
But what remained- to Aprilis of pride and dignity would not allow her to concede this; impossible that Ushaw should read her so clearly as to so get at the inmost obscure truths of her of which she was scarcely aware herself!
Yet argue to herself as she would and toss the wretched situation over in her mind she could by no means be rid of the conviction that not only had Ushaw known of her marriage and her coming to Xarandilla, but that in both these things she had unconsciously served some wish or plan of his own.
In that glimpse of him that she had seen on the night of her arrival she had surely seen a man not only satisfied, but greatly triumphant.
That evening Borlace, who occupied the adjoining room, broke in upon her angry solitude, and this time was not so easily to be put aside with the plea of fatigue.
"Stephen, I'm not up to anything, really I'm not," came faintly from the bed. "I must have been more tired than I knew."
"But you can talk to me, Aprilis—don't shut me out as if I had done something wrong."
His tone was exasperated, almost desperate, and Aprilis made an effort.
She did not want to alienate him, nor yet to let him think she was a peevish or stupid woman; apart from her instinctive wish not to tarnish her charm in the eyes of any one, Borlace was now, more than ever, her sole friend.
"You mustn't think that, Stephen." She sat up in the bed. "Only, really I am tired and the place is strange—it affects one rather at first."
"I know—I should like to get you away from it, even now," he frowned.
Aprilis was silent; she was wondering, in a vague, unhappy way, if she did want her husband to take her back, whether after all it wouldn't be better to risk things in London, well, in England, than to continue what seemed to be this dismal, flat affair here.
On the other hand were vague but horrible financial complications, the old dread of poverty, of struggle in sordid surroundings.
If she urged a flight back to London on Borlace, that would mean a break with Ushaw, return of money and surely almost destitution for them.
And in her present mood of exasperation, destitution with Borlace seemed as detestable as destitution in solitude.
While she was thus thinking she was looking at him with serene eyes that to him held nothing but an appealing pathos; her hair, thick and tumbled, lay like a pale light on her loose blue gown; she looked like a tired child, helpless and pathetic.
Borlace went on his knees beside the bed and dropped his head close to where she rested her hand.
"Darling, darling Aprilis—a woman like you, I ought not to have undertaken it—"
His muffled voice went on murmuring endearments for her and reproaches for herself; Aprilis smiled dimly across his bowed head, not without pleasure in his submission, yet not wishing to be wearied either by his love-making or his remorse or his tenderness.
She looked curiously round; though her hand lightly caressed her husband's head, the room was impressing her more than his bowed figure.
A grand room, so ancient, stately and sombre, with tapestries in inky greens and indigo blues, a painted ceiling, dark and tarnished, wide, deep, gorgeous chairs with rubbed purple velvet cushions and knotted fringe of stiff gold, and those narrow arched windows where the green slats let in the pencillings of light to lie on the red tiled floor.
The bed was massive, draped and canopied with queer, old dark stuffs, and all these silks and tapestries in the room gave out a musty perfume of sweetness and dust, like the dim whiff of scent from a petunia flower.
Borlace was talking about himself now; he had taken the submissive hand of Aprilis and was caressing it between his own.
He was talking about his misfortunes, his aspirations, his failures, his repressions, his loneliness.
Aprilis comforted him with meaningless phrases.
What did his past or his troubles matter to her?
She had enough burdens of her own; yet out of native gentleness and the desire to please, she repressed her own vexations and gave him this murmur of consolation which he received so greedily.
He told her, with a wistful ingenuousness, of his life; he confessed, with a certain reluctance, his humble, uncultured youth; his father had been a little farmer—oh, a very little farmer; it was only by great good luck that he had got a scholarship and the chance to train as an architect; he had never been near any of his people for years, didn't get on with them—and then there was the war, rather splendid, a chance for him. Oh, he'd flourished during the war—liked it—met people—no one bothered then who you were, not much anyhow— a good time—he liked soldiering.
Aprilis thought of the magnificent portrait in Faunt's studio.
Then the peace, not wanted, drifting about at a loose end
No need to listen to his murmur; Aprilis knew the whole story; the man had no friends, no family; Uke herself he had climbed above his own station and then been flung down again; unadaptable too, stiff and arrogant; poor Stephen!
Humiliating for her, too, all this; she could hear Mrs. Strype's thin, acid voice: "odd men," "outsiders "; in marrying Borlace she had found her own level; she would rather, far rather have married a gentleman, a great gentleman.
"I've got so Utile to give you, Aprilis."
She did not contradict him though she knew that what he had just given her, this broken confidence, was all his heart and soul.
"What is that noise outside?—that steady rush?"
"Oh, that! The two torrents."
He raised his face and she kissed him; somehow she must stop his sad, futile confessions.
"I'm only tired—we'll get along somehow."
This was golden balm to him; to escape his adoration, she slipped from the bed.
"Isn't it getting late? I'll dress and come downstairs—or Mr. Ushaw may think it—queer."
As Aprilis came down into the castle she could not resist a certain elation of spirits due to the strangeness of her surroundings; her lazy, luxurious nature responded greedily to this atmosphere of voluptuous idleness; she felt that this careless grandiose atmosphere was a fitting background for her own elegant fragility.
She had left her room to get away from her husband and his futile confidences, but she was pleased, almost enchanted with the apartments Borlace showed her and which he said Ushaw had told him she was to use.
This portion of the castle had been completely and carefully restored, looked upon the south, and seemed to have no connection with the crazy ruins that overhung the torrents of Peñanegra.
A terrace topped a gentle slope of the Sierra which rolled through rock-perched woods down to the luxuriance of the Vera and the delicate arabesque that the airy spires of Plasencia made in the delicate distance.
This terrace was adorned with lemon, orange and citron trees in terra cotta bowls; the fruit was already hanging, jade-green among the glossy leaves, and the aromatic odour was bitter sweet, almost too powerful in the hot, still air.
In the centre was a fountain which cast up a thin jet from a basin supported on the backs of squat stone lions; a balustrade garlanded with a vine, curling gold leaves and dusky purple grapes, separated the terrace from the slopes of chestnut, olive, oak and ilex.
Borlace, standing beside Aprilis, grumbled about the place.
It was detestable, an aerie for eagles, not for men; even in the old days it had been abandoned as too damp and too wild; it was pretty well inaccessible, and in any but the few summer months bitten and gnawed by the ferocious storms and trenchant winds of the Sierra.
"Well," said Aprilis, "it was a chance for your fantastic castle. I don't suppose you would find many such—the place is like a dream—"
"A nightmare," he corrected.
Aprilis was vaguely impatient; with his moody temper; a sullen, difficult man.
She said: "Why did you come? Why did you ever undertake the work?"
"For the money. It's well paid. And the work itself I like that. And then," he added unexpectedly, "Ushaw and I like to keep an eye on each other."
"What do you mean?" smiled Aprilis; the expression sounded so childish.
"Oh, people do when they dislike each other very much "
"But you and Mr. Ushaw don't dislike each other as much as all that, surely?"
Borlace muttered that he thought they did, quite as much as all that, and again Aprilis laughed; this laugh had, even to herself, a silly sound in the hot empty air.
"When did you first meet him?"
"Oh, in the war." Borlace was uneasy, evasive. I disliked him from the first—one of those chaps who have got everything—and let you know it."
"Jealousy again," thought Aprilis. "How I keep meeting it—jealousy."
"What brought you together?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing in particular."
"But if you disliked each other, I can't think why you ever bothered—"
"The work, I suppose," he replied reluctantly. "I tell you, there isn't much chance of work like this and it's just in my line—"
"But Mr. Ushaw doesn't really dislike you, does he?"
She remembered what Ushaw had himself said about the folly and harm of hatred, how earnestly he had warned her against hating Mrs. Strype.
"Oh, I don't know," said Borlace uneasily, "we don't get on well together."
And then he added:
"You don't like him either, do you?"
Aprilis remembered that she had said that deliberately to give Borlace a false impression of her knowledge of Ushaw. Now it seemed wearisome to have to keep up a show of dislike for Ushaw; the dislike was real enough but she wanted to keep it secret.
"I don't really know him," she replied; she leant against the balustrade and gazed through the tangling, withering vines, down at the prospect of the Vera which looked unearthly in the gorgeous remoteness of evening.
"You won't like him," said Borlace eagerly. "If you do get to know him at all you will dislike him very much."
Yes, Aprilis had already found that out for herself; she knew something of the hard irony, the queer cruelty behind that pleasant serenity, and yet, what she had said, "I don't really know him" was true also.
The heavy, sad sullenness of her husband's manner jarred on her; she wished to have the monopoly of moods and caprices; she resented the signs that his ardent gentleness, his sweet patience were wearing thin; if he ceased to be her eager slave trembling to please, he would be odious; yet Aprilis did not want to make any effort to please or hold his affections.
"Hadn't we better take it all more lightly?" she suggested. "The man's our host and your employer—if we keep on fostering this—queer dislike—we make ourselves, I think, rather ridiculous."
"We will leave the castle," replied Borlace doggedly, "and then you'll never see him."
Aprilis glanced beyond her husband.
"He's coming," she whispered quietly, "Mr. Ushaw—"
Borlace then did a surprising thing; he turned sharply away, in a stubborn, boorish manner, and went quickly into the house, leaving Aprilis by the balustrade and Ushaw corning towards her; Ushaw had taken no notice of his guest; he approached Aprilis as if they were alone.
"You like my view, at least?" he smiled, very pleasantly.
"There is a great deal here that I like," said Aprilis; she was recalling, bit by bit, word by word, every detail of this man's atrocious behaviour towards her, going over every line of that letter he had written her—his one letter; it was strange that she could sit here quietly and talk to him, strange that she did not run from him in a passion of fury.
But Aprilis felt merely lazy, scornful and apathetic, as if drugged by this hot, foreign air.
He sat, close and facing her, on the low wide balustrade, his head resting against one of the short red pillars that upheld the trails of vine.
He looked exactly the same—reddish, thin, narrow-faced, aquiline, but burnt now an ochre brown and wearing light clothes.
"You like it here?" he asked smiling.
"I don't know," said Aprilis. "I haven't been here long enough.'
Then she tried on him the directness she had always found so effective.
"What made you think I had married Stephen Borlace and was coming here?" she asked.
"I told you. I guessed."
"Some one told you—here or in England."
"No one. Was it so difficult to guess? Remember that I sent Borlace to you—with the plans of Xarandilla."
"Oh, yes, I remember that."
"And I knew," continued Ushaw serenely, "that the poor fellow was desperately in love with you—had been ever since he first saw you."
"I dare say." Aprilis echoed his indifference, his serenity.
"And then I told you about the marionettes—I said
I had given them to Borlace because he wanted them so much, and because I was tired of them—"
"You said," interrupted Aprilis, "that they were— after all, just dolls."
"Precisely, Mrs. Borlace."
"Ah!"
Aprilis saw now the stinging parable; she was a doll that Ushaw had wearied of, that Borlace had admired, that had been tossed to him in disgust.
And like,a doll she had allowed herself to pass from one to the other.
"In plain words you thought I would clutch at the first chance of marriage?"
"I thought you would marry Borlace."
She was baffled by this, hardly knew what to think, certainly did hot know what to say.
"Did you want me to come here?" she asked at a tangent.
"Oh, yes, I wanted you to come here. I knew you would."
He rose as if they had been discussing some casual subject.
"There is another Englishwoman in Xarandilla— you must meet her—you will remember, perhaps, Isabel Graham?"
APRILIS could only meet this with that look of rather vacant sweetness that she had been famous for in the days of her success.
She did not understand him, nor feel equal to him, and all she could do for the moment was to mask the acrid rage she had felt at this news.
She had detested that self-assured, dark woman, and now was aware that, since there was a meaning in everything that Ushaw had done towards her, there certainly had been a meaning in taking her to hear Isabel Graham play that horrible evening when he had allowed her to think they were going to be married.
"Miss Graham is very fond of Xarandilla," continued Ushaw smoothly. "She has a little house outside the village, and comes here to rest and practise."
"Didn't you say that her brother was killed here?" asked Aprilis as indifferently as she could manage.
"Yes, he lost his way in a storm and slipped into the Peñanegra torrents; in the winter and in rough weather the paths round here are very dangerous indeed."
"I wonder his sister cares to return here," said Aprilis faintly.
"Oh, she isn't morbid," replied Ushaw, "though she was very fond of her brother; she continues to love Xarandilla—his cenotaph is in the church too."
"How did they come to know of such a place?"
"The mother was Spanish," was all the explanation that Ushaw gave. "I am very glad that she comes here —there is no other English person for a great many miles—we are right out of the way of the tourist and the visitor."
"It is very wild," murmured Aprilis, hardly thinking of what she said, "very wild and lonely—hardly the castle in Spain of one's dreams, Mr. Ushaw."
He rose.
"You may find it so yet, Mrs. Borlace."
Again the faint ironic stress on her new title—so new that she hardly recognised herself in it; again that quizzical look from his light eyes.
Aprilis kept her seat on the hot balustrade under the festoons of dry vine leaves; the flies were buzzing among the dark shrivelling bunches of grapes.
"I hope," continued Ushaw, "that you will stay here as long as you wish—it is far better than the place Borlace has down in the village. An Emperor once lodged here, you know, in the very rooms you have."
"You do me great honour," replied Aprilis with what mockery she could summon into her voice and bearing, "but I think that I do not care to stay—and that can hardly surprise you."
"But it does—didn't you want to see Xarandilla? Especially after Borlace had shown you the drawings?"
"Perhaps I did—but that curiosity is soon satisfied," replied Aprilis restlessly.
She still did not know how to conduct herself, what demeanour to preserve before a man who had treated her so atrociously, so contemptuously, and at the same time forecast so accurately her behaviour as to catch her, as it were, in this net of her greed, laziness and futility where she was exposed to his derision and pity.
Her bewilderment even outbid her rage; she was, as it were, too amazed to be angry, as terribly angry as she ought to be, as she would presently be.
"You have seen nothing yet," said Ushaw. "You'll like the ruins—and you haven't seen the place that Borlace has got for you—very rough and hot."
"The best there is to be got, I suppose," said Aprilis, half unconsciously resenting this cool dismissal of her husband and his efforts.
She wished that Betterys Ushaw would leave her; she wanted to be alone, to try to think, to endeavour to make some cohesion out of the chaos that everything that composed her life seemed to be.
"Your husband is in the ruins now," added Ushaw. "Shall we go also?"
Aprilis remembered how rudely, boorishly, abruptly Borlace had left them, and became even further depressed and confused.
Curious that Ushaw continued to employ a man who treated him with such obvious dislike, such blunt curtness!
"No, I don't want to see any more of your castle, Mr. Ushaw."
She sighed and looked down to that pearly golden distance that was beginning to dissolve into the mauve mists of evening; a coolish breeze was blowing now from the Sierras; she felt it gratefully on her forehead, her bare arms and neck.
The almost childish laziness and foolishness that had brought her to this position helped her to face it; she was so little of a born intriguer that at a certain point she always gave herself away from sheer inability to be bothered about pretending and from a real ingenuousness of heart.
She felt now that she could engage in no verbal duels, no mental hide and seek with Betterys Ushaw; she was too confused and bewildered even to vent her anger on him; she sighed again and spoke with a certain frankness.
"I don't know why you bothered about me, Mr. Ushaw, you behaved so atrociously that I can't begin to think of it—and I suppose you feel that I'm pretty well ashamed and exposed towards you."
She looked at him with large eyes in which the pathos was not all assumed; at that moment it seemed to her as if her whole soul shivered in dread and loneliness.
"But perhaps you make a little mistake," she went on rather valiantly. "I married Stephen Borlace, just as you expected I should—but perhaps not quite for the reasons you thought."
"Because you were in a panic," he said, "and I dare say in a rage, and poor Borlace was the only way out. It was, of course, obvious that you would marry him. I knew that from the moment I sent him round with those drawings."
Aprilis was goaded into making some attempt to deny this too cruelly accurate reading of her behaviour.
"I was attracted to Stephen Borlace when I first met him—believe me, we understood each other; that little comedy of yours—was a comedy to me too."
The words rang stiff and artificial even in her own ears; Ushaw smiled; no doubt he knew better from his observation of Borlace himself.
Seeing this ironic smile Aprilis dissolved into pathos again.
"I would have married you; you were, I thought, kind and rather noble—I didn't know you, you see— if I had I wouldn't have come near you—when I did find out what you were like," she rushed the words, "it was wonderful to find some one who was really kind and noble—who loved me, there—Stephen—Stephen there."
She got this out with a kind of wistful defiance; there was enough truth in it to lend it a serious air.
Ushaw could not gainsay this; she even believed that he slightly flushed under his red sunburn, and she followed up her advantage with an emphasis of her pathos:
"I dare say it is shameful for a silly spoilt woman to catch at any kindness and think it love and want to shelter under it, in her distress and loneliness—but don't you think, Mr. Ushaw, that it is rather shameful of a man to play on that—and pretend—to make a fool of her—and why?"
She felt that she had dexterously justified herself again and made a contemptible figure of him; this gave a sly triumph to her pathetic pose; now he was definitely in the wrong the issues seemed clearer.
"Why?" she asked. "Why?"
The man was moved.
"You lied to me—so horribly," he said.
"That's a harsh way of putting it." Her voice trembled.
"Yes, I know, women are supposed to have a charter to behave with all manner of caddish meanness in their love affairs."
"I didn't lie," said Aprilis suddenly; she had seen her opportunity in his sudden emotion. "No?"
"I said I'd marry you and I would have done," said Aprilis quietly.
"You said more than that."
"I know—I said—'I love you' and so I did. I loved the man I thought you were."
She defied him gently, sadly, with a lazy look.
He turned away, if not struck as she had meant to strike him, at least without an answer.
Though Aprilis had left his first encounter with almost a sensation of victory, the tumult of anger and confusion returned when Ushaw left her; she was no nearer reaching any coherent idea of his motives nor of her conduct.
And the strange scene, the heavy perfume, the hot air involved her in a further lethargy of spirit.
Ushaw was queer, freakish, cynical; that much was clear.
Perhaps he had really loved her and been so piqued by the certainty that she was only pretending to return this affection as to cast her to Borlace in a moment of sardonic rage.
In this case Aprilis would soon have her revenge between her hands; especially as she had been clever enough to plant that sting into his ironic serenity.
"I did love the man I thought you were."
Surely that would bite and rankle into his self-sufficiency.
Meanwhile there was Borlace to reckon with; she was married to Borlace.
That was a sharp fact, rigid as a rock among her cloudy angers, wonders and speculations.
She saw neither of them that night; she went upstairs and locked her door against her husband.
No matter what he thought of her whims or tempers; it was true enough that she was tired, tired.
With the dawn of another white, stifling day she rose restlessly and slipped the bolts of her door.
"Stephen, come in if you are awake, I want to talk to you."
He was already dressed and working at a rococo table by the window which was covered with architects' paper and tools.
Haggard he looked, quite old and lined, and of that splendour that Martin Faunt had painted little remained but the fine lines of his gaunt figure.
He came at once, obediently, but, as Aprilis thought, reluctantly; he had an air of deep reserve.
Aprilis sighed with a faint regret; no doubt she had chilled him for ever when she had been so sweetly indifferent towards those poor wrenched-out confidences of his; but she could not help that; impossible to show sympathy for, or interest in, those pathetic commonplaces that she only wished she hadn't heard.
"Still tired?" asked Borlace abruptly.
"Not so tired."
"Homesick, perhaps?"
"For what home?" asked Aprilis. "For Mrs. Strype —or the Cromwell Road?"
"For England, I thought, perhaps."
"Oh, England—no, it isn't where you are that matters, Stephen, it's what's happening to you."
"Well," he answered harshly, "you don't like this, of course."
"I like the place—what I've seen of it," said Aprilis with careful gentleness, "but I think we ought to move into our own house."
She thought that this would please him, and to further cajole him, she added:
"Mr. Ushaw isn't very civil, is he?"
Borlace did not respond to this.
"I mean he's strange," said Aprilis, "and then, a bachelor establishment in a strange country—it's dull for me."
"It's all going to be dull for you," answered her husband.
Aprilis sat in a chair of rubbed gilt leather with her pale locks loose on the blue shadow of her gown; she looked appealingly, lonely, timid.
Borlace said suddenly:
"I didn't know that you knew Ushaw—he tells me that you do."
"Of course you knew," said Aprilis quickly. "Don't you remember that I told you I didn't like him?"
"But you went about with him—in London, it seems —how was that, if you didn't like him?"
So Ushaw had told him that! There were, then, no limits to the atrocity of Ushaw's behaviour; he would be telling next of the ghastly trap he had set for her and how she had fallen into it; perhaps, thought Aprilis, he had a copy of that outrageous letter he had sent her and would one day flick that before her husband's eyes.
"What a caddish sort of thing for Mr. Ushaw to say! —one has to go about with men one doesn't like, sometimes."
Borlace was looking at her with keen discontent. "But this was every day—you saw hardly any one else."
"Mr. Ushaw told you that?"
"Yes."
"How extraordinary—and vulgar—"
"Never mind that. I know Ushaw. Is it true?"
"Please don't make an accusation of it," said Aprilis bitterly. "It is greatly exaggerated, of course."
"But he used to come and take you out," insisted Borlace.
"Yes. I thought he was kind. I was horribly lonely. How queer to question me about it, Stephen."
"Pretty queer," he retorted harshly, "for you to keep repeating that you disliked Ushaw and hardly knew him—"
Had she said that so often?
Aprilis was amazed, as people so often are, when their deliberate lies are cast up at them; she had really hardly been aware how far she had committed herself in falsehoods about Ushaw.
She took refuge in a childish, rather pathetic indignation.
"But this is intolerable, Stephen, and foolish; please don't."
"It's intolerable to think that while I didn't dare come near you, didn't think myself good enough to bother you for a moment, didn't believe you'd remember me, you were going about with Betterys Ushaw—"
Jealousy.
Aprilis felt the word creep through her heart; this was jealousy, the same fell passion that had animated Mrs. Strype, that had cast her out of security into those outer perils where she had become at the mercy of these two men.
"After all," she said wearily, "Mr. Ushaw sent you to me—you must have known that we knew each other."
"That was the most casual thing—he said he'd met you at Faunt's studio and that you'd had a terrible time with the Strypes; he said you'd mentioned my wretched drawings, and suggested I took them round to you. Martin Faunt had given him your address."
"And that's true."
"But why didn't he tell me he'd been taking you about, why didn't you mention it?"
"Because it was too trivial to bother with, I suppose," replied Aprilis with sad impatience.
"Well, he remembered to tell me yesterday evening."
"That was just his caddishness."
"Oh, I know all about Ushaw's caddishness." Borlace went restlessly to the window, pulled the jalousies apart and looked out. "I shouldn't have thought," he added heavily, "that he was a man you'd have bothered about a second—"
It was as clear as it was hateful to Aprilis to see that she had fallen in this man's estimation, to know that he had convicted her of bad taste and duplicity; a husband in this mood was very different from the husband of a few hours ago, adoring, submissive, patient; she felt alarmed in a horrid sick fashion—if Borlace "found her out" as Mrs. Strype and Ushaw had "found her out" where would she be?
All her specious clouds of self-justification availed her nothing then from the touch of panic; she had "pretended" to Borlace as she had pretended to those others, and if he saw through her, she would be without resources; that was the bald truth.
"Don't make so much of it," she pleaded. "Don't be absurd. One can dislike a man and find him amusing "
"And give him so much of your time and company?"
Borlace spoke from the window without looking round.
She tried to laugh off his ugly mood.
"After all, Stephen, I married you."
He gave her a queer look from his eyes narrowed against the early sun.
"Oh, yes, you married me," he replied shortly.
He turned to leave the room; Aprilis called after him, her sense of panic deepening:
"Won't you take me away from here? That was what I wanted to ask you, to take me away from here—"
He closed the door without answering; the outer door; she heard his footsteps going downstairs.
Mechanically she went close to the jalousies for the sun was an arid blaze in the room.
Glancing on to the terrace below she saw Isabel Graham walking among the citron and lemon trees.
APRILIS watched the other woman with that eager intentness common to those who observe some one at once disliked and unknown.
Holding the jalousies but lightly apart she stared down at the terrace where already the sun had given everything a pale dry look and where even the dark leaves of the oranges, lemons and citrons had a brittle appearance, as if their dark glossiness concealed no sap.
Isabel Graham was walking to and fro as if she expected some one; Aprilis peeped cautiously, for she feared an upward glance would discover her, and she held the green blinds ready to drop.
But Isabel Graham did not raise her head; Aprilis was able to continue in safety her keen scrutiny.
For one thing, the most important thing perhaps and keenly noted, Miss Graham away from the lights of the concert room was not by any means beautiful or attractive.
She was middle aged, her skin was sallow, her eyes fine, but too near together, her mouth large and colourless, her figure good and even graceful, but unattractively dressed in very ordinary summer clothes of nondescript cotton; she wore no hat but carried in her hand a worn straw.
As she stepped to and fro with an impatient idleness, she conveyed an energetic restlessness, a rather formidable vitality.
If she was not to be dreaded on the score of beauty, she might be on that of strength and power; not a desirable person to have as an enemy, and Aprilis for no reason whatever (for what did she know of Isabel Graham?) could think of her as nothing else.
"Curious for her to be here so early in the morning," thought Aprilis. "Who is she waiting for? She is alone in Xarandilla? Does Ushaw really like her?"
While she was vexing herself with these teasing questions the second at least was answered.
Borlace came out on to the terrace, said something in a low voice to Miss Graham, and the two walked up and down together.
Aprilis drew yet closer the jalousies so that the merest pencil of light was visible between them.
"So they know each other—well, I suppose that is natural, he has met her in Spain before—they seem very intimate, as if they had something important to discuss."
Thus mused Aprilis, peering and wondering. Intimate the two seemed if not friendly; their looks and gestures were those of people familiar and at ease with one another.
Yet they did not smile nor show any pleasure in each other's company and Aprilis had the impression that whatever they talked of, it was not trivialities.
Then from the other wing of the house came Ushaw, cool, authoritative, and greeted them both quietly and went with them into the house.
Aprilis dropped the jalousies.
She felt shut out, alone, a stranger in a queer place and among queer people; the fact that one was her husband made no difference to this impression; she was utterly alien to the whole thing and yet involved, enmeshed, in other words, a prisoner.
As she dressed she reflected bitterly that she might as well have put up with Mrs. Strype, or even the Cromwell Road, as this. She had clutched after it because it seemed new, a chance for revenge on Ushaw, a chance for possible adventure, an opportunity to cast her burdens on to the back of a loving slave.
But it was Ushaw who was being revenged on her (for what?—" You lied so terribly?") and already Borlace had ceased to be a loving slave and had shown himself jealous, sulky and unkind.
"My fault," thought Aprilis drearily. "I must be a fool. I don't know how to manage things—"
She resented her ill luck; were other women always sincere in their love making? Did not numbers of women marry for expediency and find husbands docile and satisfied?
But she, it seemed, must be always found out and punished, even for her lightest deceptions, and they did all seem to her right and natural.
When she was dressed she went at once downstairs.
There was no one about and again the sombre strangeness of the ancient rooms fell over Aprilis like a rich spell.
All was dark, shaded from the light, painted gorgeously with figures now indistinguishable that blended in mellow shades of dead golds and purples.
The furniture was heavy, brocaded, worn, extremely imposing and stately, and the few large pictures were of a ghastly tawny darkness from which the wan features of pallid nuns and saints peered dismally.
Aprilis went from room to room, meeting only a woman servant who said something to her in Spanish.
Aprilis shook her head and passed on.
Opening a large door at the end of one of these rooms her ears were assailed by the sudden rush of the twin waterfalls and she felt as if struck by the shaft of sunshine that fell brazenly across her face.
She had come out on to the north side of the castle of Xarandilla, on to the ruins that Borlace was supposed to be re-building.
This portion lay roofless to the heavens; only a few walls and the half of a tower rose from the bleak rock that overhung the waterfall.
The scene was wild and sinister in the extreme.
The sun, now of a surprising strength, was drawing out the perfumes from a bed of pot herbs at the feet of Aprilis; these grew in the square of what had once been a grandiose room, rosemary, mint, thyme and marjoram shrivelling their poignant sweetness in the heat.
Near by was a huge chestnut tree whose fan-shaped yellow leaves drifted down, softly through the still air on what must once, hundreds of years ago, have been a noble hearth.
The mutilated granite walls, blackened and storm shaken, rose up rigidly across the dark rocks, and in one place was the fragment of a massive beamed ceiling still bearing the traces of a flaunting coat of arms. Green and red tiles, broken and stained, but still a beautiful clear colour, were strewn here and there among the wild plants, shrubs and blooms that filled the grounds; through them, here and there, showed the fragment of a piece of carved woodwork or the shattered shaft of a cracked pillar. By the extreme edge of the ruin where it looked on to the twin torrents of Peñanegra were two cypress trees, of a sombre blackness against the colourless sky and white rushing water.
And round about those disfigured walls of mouldering granite grew tangled snaky boughs of broad-leaved fig now heavy with bursting fruit, the light foliage of almond and olive, and the crawling disarray of wild vines.
Beyond, the prospect was lovely as a dream of youth; the Sierra sloped through chestnut and oak to the golden dazzle of the Vera, so remote, so unearthly, so exquisite.
The orchards, the vineyards, the fields of maize and grain stretched through the whole luxuriant length of the valley into the ethereal, the airy distance.
Aprilis stood silent and motionless for a moment, shading her eyes with her hand and gazing across this lovely, this enchanting prospect till her soul was absorbed and she forgot her troubles, her vexations, her fears.
She was glad to be alive, she was glad to be there; she felt young and free and happy as she had never felt young and free and happy since those far-off days when she had idled a summer away with the adoring Adrian.
It was an illusion; the illusion of a moment; but while it lasted it was perfect and she was afterwards often to refer to it—that happy, peaceful moment, in her distracted mind.
A moment indeed, too soon gone.
Withdrawing her eyes, with a sigh, from the lustre of that rolling perspective, she saw Ushaw and her husband come round from behind one of the cypress trees.
Close behind them came Miss Graham and the three stood earnestly talking together, so absorbed that they did not notice Aprilis standing in the doorway.
She watched them.
For the first time she was conscious, and acutely conscious of something definite and tangible going on of which she knew nothing.
Of some design or plan behind what seemed the in-coherencies, the confusions of the situation.
These people knew something that she did not, were bound together by some common object.
Aprilis was suddenly sharply aware of this.
It was a very unpleasant sensation.
As soon as Aprilis felt this conviction that all these people were engaged in something strange and secret from which she was closely excluded, she felt also a pang of indescribable fear of all of them—of Ushaw who had admitted that he had acted as her enemy, of Borlace who appeared to have suddenly suspected her sincerity, of the woman whom she did not know but had, at the first sight, instinctively disliked.
With this fear came the desire to hide. She stepped back from the luxuriant ruins and closed the big door behind her, leaving herself in the darkness of the old sombre painted room which was so much more dark and sombre now after the radiance of the early southern sun without.
She sat on one of the large rococo sofas with stiff bolster-Uke cushions of frayed plum-coloured damask and handled the long stiff worn tinsel tassels with mechanical fingers.
Of course, it was absurd for her to feel afraid of these people, and absurd to suppose that there was any conspiracy between those three. What could there be?
The place was, of course, already getting on her nerves—the place and the company of strangers.
For they were all strangers, the man she had married included.
Aprilis could not rely on him for anything, not even for kindness—how rough and surly he had been that morning!
She had to thank Ushaw for that; a pang of rage transfixed her quickly beating heart as she thought how meanly, how caddishly Ushaw had behaved.
It was obvious that he had actually told Borlace of that London episode, perhaps, for all she knew, hinted, or even told, of the trick he had played, and taunted her husband with the fact that she had been willing and eager to throw herself into his arms!
And what possible terms could Ushaw be on with Borlace that the latter endured such talk and continued, not only in his employment, but under his roof!
Aprilis was bewildered.
Then, as she reflected, her selfishness gave way, for once, to a consideration for some one else.
She remembered how her husband had knelt by her bed, with his head buried in her coverlet and murmured that confession of his past which she had found so trivial and so boring; how sincere he had been then, how humble, how eager to please and serve
And this morning he had looked at her with hostility, with reproach, almost with contempt.
Aprilis felt the pathos of this, the man felt he had been deceived; Ushaw's words had destroyed his dream, his security, his hope.
More and more did Aprilis hate Ushaw—Ushaw and Mrs. Strype—how badly they had both treated her, how atrociously, forcing her into detestable behaviour!
They were both wrong; she was not false or greedy, she would have made Borlace a good wife, if she had been left alone.
So argued Aprilis to herself when the big door opened harshly admitting a blaze of sunset and Betterys Ushaw.
Aprilis drew herself together at the end of the big stiff couch; she was glad when the door was closed again and the raking sunshine shut out.
"I saw you looking at us just now," said Ushaw quietly. "Doesn't Xarandilla interest you? Why didn't you join us?"
Aprilis could not possibly have explained why she had hung back.
"The sun is too strong for me," she answered. "Where are the others?"
"Miss Graham has gone back to the village. You will meet her to-night. Your husband is busy with his surveying."
"There seems a great deal to be done," remarked Aprilis absently.
"Nothing has been begun yet. It is still all on paper."
He stood close by the couch, looking at her in an insistent, challenging way, and she, irritated and forlorn as she was, felt impelled to speak.
"Do you take pleasure in making mischief, Mr. Ushaw? What object was there in telling my husband —what you did tell him?"
He responded promptly, as if glad that she had opened the subject.
"You mean that I chanced to mention we had seen a great deal of each other in London?"
"You told him more than that."
"What more was there to tell?"
Aprilis rose; she felt a kind of strength from the man's cruelty; he was so hateful that her defence was justified.
"You conveyed to him, somehow," she said passionately, "that I was there for the first comer—that I was desperate and clutched at any chance, that I had just been making use of him because there was no one else "
"Borlace may have made those deductions for himself," said Ushaw dryly. "I said nothing to put them into his head."
"I don't believe it," she answered. "You said all you could say—probably even that you'd left me— handed me over—your pretty simile of the marionettes I Somehow Stephen is changed since last night."
"Has found you out, you mean?" smiled Ushaw, "only after marriage instead of before—"
Aprilis hated that phrase—" found out "; she had heard it used so often about herself.
She broke down and began to cry in a quiet, pathetic manner.
"Yes, I dare say it is all true," she admitted, "but I never had a chance I've been so spoilt—so pampered, no one ever taught me anything. The Strypes kept me chained to Adrian and the memory of Adrian and then threw me off when I was fit for nothing—I've never had a chance—"
Ushaw flared into anger.
Aprilis ceased crying; she had never seen him angry before.
"I hate that excuse," he said fiercely. "' Never had a chance!'—of all the weak whines that is the most detestable. Were you ever starved or beaten or thrown into the gutter? Didn't you always have comfort and money and your wits and your health? What more of a chance did you want?"
"There was no one to tell me what was right," whispered Aprilis. "I didn't know anything."
"No? You knew that by a little clever acting you could get all the petting and luxury and flattery you wanted, didn't you?" asked Ushaw ironically. "You knew enough for that—you played up to the Strypes for years, long after you'd really forgotten their Adrian, whom you weren't ever in love with."
Aprilis was silent; the indictment was true and put in a way that admitted of no denial; she felt his withering words dissolve these delusions, these excuses with which she had veiled her motives from herself.
"You only broke with the Strypes because you lost your temper," continued Ushaw, "and because you didn't know that you had no money—and as soon as you felt yourself stranded you began ail over again, pretending, trying to make any poor devil you could get hold of believe that you loved him—"
Aprilis began to cry again.
"Just that you might slip back into ease and luxury —and then, when the rich man saw through you, you snatched at the poor man; he was better than nothing, better than work, eh, Aprilis?"
She lifted her face, marred by tears, "obscured by shadows.
"Well, if I was like that, and you knew it, why didn't you leave me alone? You weren't forced to come after me, it wasn't for you to be punishing me—"
Ushaw looked at her intently, bitterly.
"I happened to love you, Aprilis, just like any fool I loved you even though I knew what you were. And I hoped—"
What had he hoped? She waited, sobbing, abashed.
"I hoped," sighed Ushaw, "that you'd be sincere, that you wouldn't try to take me in, that you'd say, when it came to it—'I don't really care for you but I'm frantic for help, for money'—but no, you lied, horribly. 'I love you,' you said, so hideously glib!"
His voice fell; he looked at her with a reluctant tenderness.
"If only you'd been frank! I'd have done anything for you, Aprilis, waited, perhaps made you love me in time, given you more money than you'd ever dreamt of—"
There was a silence; Aprilis dried her eyes. "Why did you want me to marry Stephen Borlace?" she asked at last in a muffled tone. Ushaw answered in his light ironic tone. "Because I wanted to do him an ill turn."
APRILIS was startled, she was more than startled, she was afraid as she had been afraid when she saw those three talking among the ruins.
"You dislike my husband?" she breathed.
"Dislike? You remember that I told you to beware of hatred once? Well, if I wasn't careful I should hate Borlace."
"Why?"
"That's an old story. There is a great deal between Borlace and me We never liked each other, and there's more than that. I thought it would be a good punishment for you, too," he smiled, not pleasantly.
"I see," said Aprilis slowly, miserably. "You wanted us to do just what we have done—get married and come here at your mercy—while you, at your leisure, were to tell Stephen the cheat I am. I see. Yes, you hate both of us, I suppose, and that's a pretty good punishment for any one, . wretched marriage like ours will be."
She could indeed see no hope for either of them; how could she deny or combat the ugly truths that Ushaw had told and would tell about her?
There was nothing to help her; she did not love Borlace, she was even already estranged, alienated from him; she could not get happiness out of what was so designed, so deliberately designed for unhappiness.
Yet stranger even than her fear and dismay was her contempt and loathing for Ushaw.
However ill a woman may treat a man she always scorns him for any retaliation.
"I don't know what there is between my husband and you," she went on slowly to his silence, "but there was nothing between us to merit this miserable revenge —I didn't know men troubled about such things."
She gained courage from her own words, she even contrived a wavering laugh.
"And how do you know that you were so right, after all? I might, as I told you. have cared for the man I thought you were."
"You didn't care for me in the least, Aprilis."
"Oh, I don't know, it wasn't all a greedy clutch at your money—your readings are rather crude, Mr. Ushaw." Her voice trembled. "I liked you. You attracted me very much. I didn't know you."
"I suppose," he answered grimly, "that you liked Borlace—that he attracted you very much?"
"Yes." She tried to keep her ground with a certain pathetic valiency. "He was so different from you; after you sent me that atrocious letter and I found out what you were—I thanked God for a man like Stephen—"
"And a little for the chance to follow me out here, eh?"
This shrewd thrust startled Aprilis; it seemed as if this man knew all her motives, all her thoughts.
And then she reflected, with a wave of self-contempt, that perhaps this was not a wonderful or even a difficult feat; no doubt she in her selfish absorption, in her eager greediness was easy enough to read.
"Yes," she said with the boldness of one shamed, "I dare say I should have liked to have paid you out."
His tone, his expression changed instantly.
"I have no doubt but you will," he replied. "People don't meddle like I've meddled and escape—"
"Escape what?"
"Punishment," said Ushaw.
"Oh." She could not follow his sudden trouble, his sudden unsteadiness of look and voice. "Punishment? How could you be punished?"
He did not answer.
"I thought that the punishment was to be for us," added Aprilis.
"For me too," said Ushaw with his bitter smile, "for I happen to—"
"Yes?" She probed his sudden pause.
"to love you still, Aprilis."
She stared, suspecting a trap, but his haggard look re-assured her; his expression was one of the most bitter irony, but this time an irony directed against himself; at last Aprilis saw behind the mask of pleasant yet sardonic calm with which this man concealed himself from the world, and beheld a spirit distracted, tormented, at odds with itself and with everything.
"You could hardly have cared for me," she murmured, "to have treated me like this—"
But even to herself the words sounded futile; what did she, who had never cared for any one but herself, know what strange actions passion might push people to?
He answered:
"I was angry with you—to the extent to which I cared for you, my dear, and angry with myself for being troubled by you—and I wanted to see if you really would take Borlace."
"You thought perhaps I shouldn't? And yet you were sure enough to get my room ready here?"
"One is such a fool, Aprilis! I had just that lingering hope—but no."
"And now it's done," she said heavily, "and you've proved that you were quite right about me—"
"Yes. And I still love you, poor, greedy, lazy creature as you are."
"I don't understand," sighed Aprilis. "I think that if I loved any one I should want to be kind to them—"
Ushaw laughed savagely.
"If you loved any one? You know nothing about it, you see. What a queer, stupid lot of talk this is—we both know each other pretty thoroughly by now, I should think, and both despise each other equally, I've no doubt."
"I shall leave here," said Aprilis, "at once. I hope you'll forget me."
"Sacrifice yourself in the miserable rooms Borlace has got for you in the village?" demanded Ushaw scornfully.
"No. I meant I'll leave Xarandilla, and Spain—it's like a nightmare, the whole place—"
"And Borlace?"
"Of course, he'll come with me, he can't go on working for you."
"He can't get away," said Ushaw with quick force.
"Why not?" challenged Aprilis. "He'll give you back your money, we'll find that, anything, as long as we can get away at once."
"It isn't a question of money," returned Ushaw. "Borlace is bound to stay as long as I want him to.
I chose him to stay here and he'll stay; you'll both stay, here in Xarandilla."
Aprilis looked at him with contempt; he was pale and his light eyes were suffused and yet sparkling; his thin hands, resting on the smooth back of the huge couch were shaking slightly.
"Why do you want us to stay?"
"I dare say you know," he sneered, "seeing I told you I happened to have a silly infatuation for you."
"I see," answered Aprilis slowly. "And as you say you hate my husband, I suppose it would please you to make love to me behind his back?"
He looked at her insolently.
"Well, you see the sort of position you've got yourself into with your shams and lies."
Aprilis saw, with a ghastly acuteness.
"We shall go away," she repeated in a dull panic. "Of course, we shall go away."
"I tell you, my dear child, that you don't know what you are talking about. Borlace can't leave Xarandilla without my permission."
"I suppose," said Aprilis faintly, for she felt as if body and soul were chained and imprisoned, "that I could go alone and escape both of you."
"I'll leave that to Borlace," smiled Ushaw. "He's a nasty man to cross. I dare say he'll keep you in order."
"I'll tell him everything, the truth."
"Do you know what the truth is by now? And won't it come rather late, now? He won't be much impressed by you telling him what he knows already."
Aprilis paled; she felt so isolated, the hostility of her husband seemed more dreadful than the enmity of Ushaw.
"Why are you trying to corner me?" she asked wildly. "After all—it's only the same wretched jealousy, like Mrs. Strype's, because I didn't care for you—"
He blenched at the word 'jealousy' and murmured:
"Well, I told you to be careful of that kind of thing, hatred, jealousy, didn't I?"
Aprilis moved away, rather blindly, down the ancient dark room; as she closed the door on Ushaw and hurried away through the silent, sombre apartments of Xarandilla she had more and more the sensation of being caught and imprisoned.
To assure herself that she was really free, at least in her body, and at no one's mercy, Aprilis found her way, after some fumblings and stumblings to her room, took a hat and a parasol (perhaps for the first time in her life without any consideration of the effect thereof) and went out of the castle on to the rocky slope of the Sierra of Xaranda.
It would be impossible to go far; she was too timid, too nervous, too utterly strange to the place, but she might find her way at least to the village, she might see what possible means of possible flight there was, for, in her disgust and panic, she had already come to consider flight.
Even a flight back to the dull purlieus of the Cromwell Road where everything was at least sane and safe. And here Aprilis felt that nothing was either sane or safe.
She descended with some difficulty and a high beating heart, the rude step; cut in the rocks that fell bleakly into the overhanging wood of oak and chestnut that sloped to the olive groves and vineyard terraces that merged into the luxuriant plains of the Vera.
The scene was one of amazing, if sinister beauty; when she looked back she saw the castle in grotesque grandeur rising sombrely from the rock plateau; in front the courtyard opening on the mountain path; the exotic fruit trees and the fountain behind the cypress and chestnut, the fig and almond that overgrew the ruin climbing above the twin torrents of Peñanegra which rushed past in a dark cascade; and, behind all, the stern outline of the Sierras rising distantly into a sky from which the sun had burnt all colour.
Below the castle, beyond the narrow belt of wood, was the village, perched on a spur of craggy rock and dominated by a fortress-like church which rose austerely above the houses, only approachable by another flight of rough-hewn rock steps.
And below all stretched the bewitching expanse of the Vera, radiant, vague, sunny, melting into a rich, undulating horizon.
Aprilis passed under the yellow oaks and chestnuts and continued her descent to the village.
The houses were all rude and mean, the streets tortuous, narrow and on a sharp incline; the place was at once wild and melancholy.
Such people as were about leant against doorways or out of windows in what seemed sullen apathy; their ragged garments were of gay harsh colours, orange, faded red, clear blue, but this was all the brightness there was in Xarandilla.
Aprilis, walking with hesitant and almost fearful step through these strange streets, looked back more than once at the castle which overhung the village like some monster, at once squatting and winged, ready to swoop down on its prey; the mutilated towers, like horns, the great dark gateway like a gaping mouth, the arched windows like cruel eyes all combined to form this fantastic image.
Aprilis was conscious of the glances of the loungers following her, alien, unfriendly glances bright with hostile curiosity, and she began to wonder, with a sudden passionate homesickness, how it would be possible to get away from Xarandilla. There, was no railway, she knew; probably not one nearer than Plasencia.
A mule or a cart would be the only mode of transit; if any one here possessed a motor the roads were clearly impossible.
Aprilis thought of this with despair; thought with misery of her miserable financial means, that poor quarterly allowance that would have to painfully accumulate from month to month till it would be any use to her; why, a whole year's income, two hundred and fifty pounds, would be the least she would need in hand before she could undertake to leave Spain and her husband and begin life again alone.
Aprilis possessed no daring spirit of adventure or she would not have found herself in her present predicament; it was not in her nature to do as many women would cheerfully have done, set off in a strange country with a few pounds in her pocket and chanced her luck.
No, lack of money, perils, fatigues, discomforts were all terrors that fenced Aprilis round in an impenetrable ring of terrors; her spirit utterly failed as she mournfully climbed the winding street of Xarandilla and she fell back on her old weapons, tricks, flatteries, shams.
Her husband was her sole hope.
If she could make him believe in her again, make a friend of him, bring him back to his former attitude of meek devotion and humble service she could by his means extricate herself from an intolerable position.
And Ushaw?
Ushaw had said that he loved her; however caddish, atrocious and vile he had been he had said that, and, she thought, meant it.
Under all her humiliation there was a prick of tingling satisfaction there.
The man loved her, or felt for her some passion akin to love, and surely, if she kept her head, could turn this to some account.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Borlace."
Aprilis came with a start out of her reverie; Isabel Graham was crossing the narrow street toward her, with out-held hand.
"I dare say you remember me, I do you, quite well. "Betterys Ushaw brought you to my last concert—I noticed you there."
"Yes, I remember," replied Aprilis; she was thinking: "How much do you know about me? How much did Betterys Ushaw tell you? And how far are you in league against me?"
Even in this alien setting, when the face of an Englishwoman should have been so grateful, Aprilis felt definitely hostile to Isabel Graham.
She looked with intense dislike at the hard dark face with the large eyes so close together, with the expression of cool self-assurance and insolent strength.
"How long are you up at the castle?" continued Miss Graham. "I was there this morning, but only saw you in the distance."
The two women, certainly without Aprilis wishing it, had fallen into line and were walking up the twisting street which became narrower and more full of foul and acrid odours.
"I am leaving at once," said Aprilis. "My husband has a house here—"
"Rooms," answered Miss Graham. "I wonder if you'll like them?"
She smiled.
"It'll seem dirty and cramped after the castle. Betterys Ushaw does himself rather well up there."
"You know the place?" was all that Aprilis could find to say.
"Oh, yes, of course." Her laughter conveyed a deep intimacy with Borlace and his affairs. "/ couldn't live there though it is the best Stephen could get."
Aprilis noted the "Stephen."
"But you live in Xarandilla yourself, don't you?" she asked.
"Not in the village—outside. Would you like to see the place? Come on, then."
Aprilis hesitated; she did not in the least want to go with this woman.
Miss Graham smiled.
"You haven't anything better to do, have you? It isn't very pleasant wandering through the village."
"I don't want to bother you," said Aprilis lamely and foolishly.
Miss Graham disdained the polite disclaimer of convention.
"This way," she said briefly.
And led Aprilis through a rocky alley that opened out of the narrow street between two squalid houses with pots of carnations and fluttering rags standing on and hanging from the twisted iron balconies.
A dull sour odour rose from this closed-in lane, the acrid tang of crude wine, the sickly whiff of decay, the foul scent of sheer dirt rotting in the heat; the air was thick with flies; the burnt up black-haired women and lean children hanging around the doorways (doors there were none, nor windows, merely this one aperture) were filthy and sickly; Aprilis felt all the surrounding grandeur and beauty of the Sierras and the valley blotted out.
Miss Graham seemed to notice her look for she said sarcastically:
"I think you had better stay up in the castle." Aprilis ignored this.
"Do you live alone?" she asked.
"At present, yes." Then Miss Graham said a curious thing. .." Did you hear that Admiral Strype was dead?"
APRILIS had the Strypes so constantly, if unconsciously, in her heart, that she did not feel, at first, any surprise at hearing the name from this stranger.
But she did feel a considerable surprise at hearing of the death of Admiral Strype.
"No, I never knew," she said. "When was it?"
"Oh, some weeks ago."
When she had been in London then, absorbed in her fear of poverty and in her hopes of marrying Betterys Ushaw; yes, so absorbed, so obscured had she been that she had never heard of the death of the man in whose house she had lived for six years.
On the heels of this reflection came another more amazing still.
She had been, for some time too, the dead man's heiress; if she could have restrained herself for just a little longer she would now have been a very rich woman—only a little longer, a matter of a few weeks and she need not have humiliated herself in an attempt to win Ushaw, she need not have made that desperate move of marrying Borlace!
These thoughts made her head swim; she certainly was a fool, a poor unlucky fool, too; if she had been more designing, more clever, more crafty she would have taken good care that she did not offend that frail old man; it was to her credit that she had never speculated on the possible deaths of the Strypes and her possible benefits thereby, but it also now seemed like a mighty foolishness.
She walked on in a heavy silence, forgetting her companion.
"I'm sorry," she said at length and vaguely.
She was sorry; that last bleak interview could not efface from the mind of Aprilis the many, many kindnesses of the old man; he had been ridiculously generous!
She recalled all his gifts, his courtesies. Oh, she would have liked to have been reconciled to him before he died, to have wiped away the memory of those hideous last days; of course, he had behaved with frightful cruelty, but for that she blamed more his fell wife, the dreadful Mrs. Strype demented with hatred and jealousy.
"You had a frightful quarrel, didn't you?" asked Miss Graham coolly.
"I hardly know what did happen," replied Aprilis truthfully enough; the events of those last days with the Strypes, the details of her rupture with them were indeed by now involved in an ugly mist; then she recollected herself and her companion and added, though still in a dazed fashion, "I should not have thought you would have known anything about it, Miss Graham."
"Oh, it made rather a talk in a certain set, didn't it? Not my set exactly, but I heard of it from Betterys Ushaw. And then I used to know Mrs. Strype."
"Did you? I never remember you coming to the house—"
"I never did, while you were there," replied Miss Graham dryly. "I've hardly been anywhere since my brother died—was killed, here. That concert you came to was the first I have given, since. I gave up people —and things."
She did speak in a way calculated to evoke sympathy, and Aprilis, both out of dislike and timidity, offered none.
"It's queer to think that you used to know Mrs. Strype," she remarked.
"Queer to you? I suppose it is. But Mrs. Strype used to know a lot of people before Adrian died. I met her in Switzerland and we got on very well together. Of course, she was infatuate with her son, she wrote to me all about you at the time of the engagement."
"She is still infatuate with Adrian," said Aprilis.
"Is she? I thought it had been transferred to you, from all I heard."
"Never to me," replied Aprilis. "I was just to keep his memory alive—she was jealous of me, for him."
"I see. And what was the split about?" asked Miss Graham in her abrupt, coarse way.
"I don't know," replied Aprilis wearily. "I never meant to hurt them—I grew tired, I suppose."
Miss Graham looked at her shrewdly.
"They were always rather eccentric people, but I liked Mrs. Strype. I wrote to her on her husband's death and she replied very pleasantly."
"Yes, she can be delightful," admitted Aprilis. "But she behaved atrociously to me."
Miss Graham shrugged her broad shoulders.
"Oh, well," she said speaking crudely, "they gave you a good time for six years, didn't they?—in that choice little crowd they cultivated after Adrian died."
Aprilis flushed with annoyance; it was miserably provoking that this unpleasant, unfriendly woman should know the Strypes and therefore all her own history.
She walked ahead a little so as not to be beside her companion on the narrow path.
They had now left the village of Xarandilla behind and were again passing through the belt of oaks and chestnuts which protected them from the sun with a wide screen of golden and amber leaves and allowed glimpses of the radiant valley between the stems and boughs.
Aprilis felt hot and tired; her ankles ached, her heart thumped and she could feel her face both burning and moist.
She paused and leant against one of the thick chestnut trunks.
Miss Graham surveyed her with a critical smile.
"I'm afraid your kit is rather wrong—you didn't know this part of the world?"
"I've been to Spain,' replied Aprilis coldly, "but not to these wild places."
"Not off the route of the good hotels," smiled Miss Graham. "Well, you'll need low heels and stout clothes —and in the winter—"
"I shan't be here in the winter," replied Aprilis quickly.
"I think so, won't you? Stephen means to work for months now, I thought."
"I don'+ see how they can build in the winter, it must be terribly wild."
"Yes, terribly wild. I've seen a torrent rushing down the streets of Xarandilla, you have to wear waders. Still, I think you'll find Stephen means to stay."
"You seem to know all about it," said Aprilis with wan scorn.
"Yes, I do," replied Miss Graham directly, "all about it."
Aprilis looked at her keenly, but no scrutiny could gain anything from that dark, cool face that had a certain grandeur of line and expression, not pleasant but imposing.
Miss Graham's last remark, quiet as it was, had been like a challenge, and one that Aprilis did not wish, perhaps did not dare, take up.
She hardly wanted to know what it was that Miss Graham knew "all about." She hardly wanted to know what mystery bound these three together; she only wanted to get away from all of them.
"This is my house," called Miss Graham who had gone ahead with her bold strides.
Aprilis followed, reluctantly up the steep path, now thick with fallen leaver and came out on to a craggy slope, on the top of which a rough platform had been made and a house built of the native granite.
"I live here," said Isabel Graham. "I bought it some years ago."
Aprilis thought that she had never seen a more unlikely and gloomy habitation, fitted indeed to the gloomy Sierras and the wild woods, but dreadful to consider as a dwelling place.
It was four square with a turret at one corner, a courtyard, high narrow gate and iron balconies, light and elegant, to the top rooms.
The farther side overhung a cleft in the rock that cut sheer to the valley and was filled with the luxuriant untouched vegetation of wild vine, olive, ilex and cistus growing in tangled confusion; beyond the mighty walls of the Sierras rose again, shutting out the glare of the brilliant sky and casting a sombre shadow over the hollow.
At the foot of this stretched the valley, looking from here even farther away, more remote, more ethereal, more radiant, with that wistful melancholy of a sunny distant horizon.
"How can you live in such a place?" asked Aprilis with a fearful glance round; the loneliness was intense, for the jutting crags shut out the view of both the castle and the village, and the gloomy Sierras and the sombre woods seemed uninhabited by anything human.
"I like it," said Miss Graham dryly. "I make myself very comfortable here; come in and see—"
But Aprilis had stopped, with a look of unaccountable, amazed fear; she saw, standing at one of the upper windows of Miss Graham's house, her husband, Stephen Borlace.
"There's your husband," said Miss Graham calmly. "I didn't know he was coming here this morning."
Curious indeed, thought Aprilis, seeing that these two had been talking together only a little while ago in the ruins of Xarandilla; curious too, that he should be upstairs; he must be very intimate with Isabel Graham.
She hesitated in the arid little courtyard; the situation seemed not only unpleasant but absurd.
"Come up." said Miss Graham, "the view's extraordinary."
As they entered the dark doorway Aprilis saw that the lower rooms were used, one as a kitchen, the other as a storehouse filled with sacks of grain, strings of dried grapes and figs, melons and apples, for the doors stood wide open.
In the kitchen an old woman was peeling onions; the place seemed to Aprilis dirty, dark and repulsive; the sombre, crazy little staircase was hateful too.
Seeing her shrinking Miss Graham laughed.
"You don't Uke it? But I've two decent rooms upstairs."
Aprilis followed.
The door at the top of the stairs opened directly into the room where Stephen Borlace waited. .-
A largish room, with pale washed walls, and heavy, dark, worn rococo furniture Uke that from the castle of Xarandilla.
Aprilis saw by the quick look that passed between
Isabel Graham and her husband that there was some understanding between them and that she had intruded into what Borlace had intended to be a private interview, a secret interview.
"I met your wife in Xarandilla," said Miss Graham casually. "She looked rather lost, so I brought her up here."
Stephen Borlace looked coldly at his wife. ,./' I never thought you would venture out alone."
"Why not?" asked Aprilis faintly.
"Well, after staying for days in your room scarcely able to move," he replied in a tone of displeasure he did not endeavour to conceal, "it was queer to go out the moment my back was turned—you can't wander about here alone, you know."
Aprilis did not answer; no doubt her action would seem strange to any one not knowing on what an impulse of anger and despair she had fled from Xarandilla, to any one who did not know of her miserable encounter with Ushaw.
"I never thought to see you here," said Miss Graham, still carelessly, indicating one of the large sombre chairs to Aprilis. "I thought we'd talked everything out at Xarandilla."
"Not everything," answered Borlace uneasily. "But it can wait—I came over because I got tired of work—until Ushaw engages some workmen there's nothing much more that I can do."
Aprilis had not sat down on the proffered chair; she was tired, however, and leant on the back of it as she spoke.
"I'll go. I can easily find my way back."
" I'll come with you, of course," said Borlace indifferently.
"No." Aprilis detested both of them at this moment.
"I'll go alone. Why not? You came over to see Miss Graham. I'm in the way."
"Any time will do," returned Borlace.
And Isabel Graham dropping on the big stiff couch said:
"Of course—come back this evening, or to-morrow morning."
"I don't know if I can. It depends on Ushaw," said Borlace with ungracious hesitancy, and Miss Graham laughed in a provoking manner.
"Oh, all right, Stephen, choose your own time!"
Aprilis could not be in any doubt as to the relationship of these two.
With her inexperience of actual men and women she might have been inclined to think they were in love, or had been in love, and that this was the matter between them; but even to her it was clear that not love, but dislike and even hatred animated these two; something they had in common, something held them together in an ugly intimacy, but it was, Aprilis thought, horrible, perhaps shameful.
She felt a wild desire for flight, from this room, this house, this country.
There was something awful in the isolation of this gloomy dwelling hanging over that deep ravine like a deep wound in the Sierras, in that sheer drop of many hundreds cf feet below the window, on to that tangle of wild and rank vegetation.
Without another word she turned and hastened to the point of stumbling down the narrow stairs, across the courtyard bare in the blazing sun and quickly into the wood again.
She lid not know her way; there were many paths and she had only a vague idea of the direction of Xarandilla. When she had come she had mechanically followed Miss Graham, thinking nothing of where she was going and all the tracks through the hoary golden woods looked the same.
But she thought of nothing but of getting out of sight and call of that hateful house and plunged into the wood without a backward look.
She had soon the sensation of being completely lost in a wilderness of trees and stopped, bewildered and exhausted, sitting down on a bank of dry earth and rock and holding her side.
So forlorn she felt that she was not sorry to be lost; it seemed to her that the loneliness of the woods was better than the company of the three people into whose lives she had been forced, and that she would sooner die of fatigue in this wilderness than face the inhabitants of the castle of Xarandilla. How foolish and bitter a tangle it all was!
She could not even see where her own fault in the whole thing began and ended; her main sensation was one of confusion, she seemed to have been swept up and carried away on the muddy currents of other people's destiny, and to be forced, against her own volition, to some vague and dreary fate.
The mention of Mrs. Strype had evoked a sceptre to add to her misery.
Sitting still under the gnarled and mighty trees, and listening to the faint rustling of the shrivelled leaves that was all the noise in the wood, she thought of the dead man and of his widow, who now was, it seemed to her, released to pursue her jealous hatred against Aprilis, free—Aprilis thought of her as free, free of her husband, free of that stately house, free of every tie and responsibility, and with money, plenty of money.
How strange that this hateful Miss Graham knew her; that seemed to bring her closer, almost into Xarandilla, almost into the wood.
Aprilis turned and shuddered with a pang of superstitious terror.
Some one was approaching along the twisting path through the trees—but not Mrs. Strype, or the phantom of Mrs. Strype, but Stephen Borlace.
He looked hot agitated and angry; as soon as he saw Aprilis he called out:
"What on earth did you do that for? It is only a chance that I've found you—you might have wandered here all night."
"Did you come to look for me?" asked Aprilis faintly.
"Of course, I followed you at once—I shouted after you, but you took no notice."
"I dare say I wasn't listening," said Aprilis without moving. "I didn't care, I don't care, whether I get lost or not."
"That's foolish talk.' He was standing over her now. "A stranger might easily die on the Sierras, you've wandered away from the village as it is."
Aprilis looked at him; his tone was harsh, his glance unfriendly; he seemed a different man from the humble devoted lover she had left England with, from the man who had knelt by her bed sobbing out his poor confession.
Yet in his eyes was a great, almost a despairing, almost a terrified loneliness; Aprilis knew that he was as unhappy as she was and she made a desperate effort to break down his icy reserve.
"Who is that Miss Graham?" she asked appealingly. "I don't Uke her and I don't think that you do."
"Never mind her," he answered sullenly. "Come home, I've work to do."
"Home!" echoed Aprilis bitterly. "And it seems I must mind her—you've got reason to mind her I think—"
They stood looking at each other with hostile eyes, two strange enemies to be standing thus in these deep alien woods; her tired beauty woke a savage pity, an ironic regret in his sore heart and his haggard splendour gave her a pang for the sad folly of it all.
"Need we go back to the castle?" she faltered.
"Yes, Ushaw wishes us to—and I'm bound to do what Ushaw says."
APRILIS returned to Xarandilla weary in body and soul.
She and her husband had spoken no further on the road and the cloud of their common unhappiness seemed to settle deeper on to both.
When they reached the castle, it was well into the afternoon and Ushaw, a servant told Borlace, was out.
Some food was waiting in a huge room that Aprilis had not seen before, a great dining-hall, lined with dark tapestry in indigo blues and stormy greens that seemed to represent an indistinct procession of monstrous figures.
For the rest the room was handsomely furnished; a long black buffet carved with heavy foliations held dishes of glittering majolica and vessels of richly chased silver, while the meal laid on the long dark gleaming table was served with opulent appointments of coloured glass, silver gilt and painted china.
Borlace ate little in a vapid silence; and Aprilis had not the heart to question him; she felt too utterly fatigued.
When they had finished he rose abruptly and said: "Don't go out—it'll be terribly hot now till evening—you can do what you like here, Ushaw won't return till evening, if then, you've got the place to yourself—"
"I haven't the strength to move," smiled Aprilis faintly. I shan't want to go out—where are you going?" she added wistfully.
"I've got to get my office in order."
"Where is that?"
"A temporary place that's been rigged up on the ruin's; some new men Ushaw's engaged are coming over this afternoon, and an engineer he thinks of employing," said Borlace curtly. "I've got to see all these people."
Aprilis timidly strove to detain him; she was afraid of her own company.
"Isn't Mr. Ushaw taking a lot of trouble over those ruins?"
"A great deal. It's a difficult, perhaps an impossible task—but why not?"
"It seems queer—this wild place, so far from civilisation."
"Ushaw was glad to get away from civilisation," replied Borlace grimly. "Why?"
She thought that he was going to confide in her something of the mystery she suspected as involving Ushaw and himself, but instead he answered:
"He's a very rich man, you see, and tired of being pursued for his money—"
Aprilis felt the hot blood storm her face; he knew then. Ushaw, that miserable cad Ushaw, had told him everything.
She could not trust herself to speak and Borlace continued in his hard, implacable voice.
"Always some one after him for his money—think what that must be—the men who pretend to like him, the women who pretend to love him—"
Aprilis turned away sharply that he might not see her face; he continued with a dark stress of scorn in his voice.
"Yes, women pretending to love him, my dear, for the sake of his money! But they're all fools, those women, they never see through Ushaw, never understand what a sharp, cunning, cruel devil he is, how incapable of being hooked by the cleverest feminine bait!"
Without looking round Aprilis answered: "He is detestable."
"Oh, yes, I dare say they all say that when they know he's found them out." He stopped abruptly, as if he checked himself in a flow of furious words; Aprilis shrank away. She thought:
"If he let himself go he might murder me—and I suppose I should deserve it."
A little silence.
Then:
"Well, I'm off," said Borlace and moved heavily away.
Aprilis furtively watched his big figure go down the dark room.
He looked older, more bowed than when she had first seen him at Middletons or in Faunt's studio; the last lingering remnant of his pride, the last faint radiance of his gaiety seemed gone and quenched.
"My fault," thought Aprilis miserably, "my fault."
She moved to one of the big chairs near the wall and sank into it, drowsy with fatigue and unhappiness.
She did not know where to go or what to do; the heat was, as her husband had said, terrible; she felt that if she faced that colourless blaze again she would be ill; here at least, though stiflingly hot, it was dark, shaded.
Two servants cleared away the meal and one brought her iced coffee which she drank gratefully.
Not feeling the strength to even go up to her own room she remained crouching in the big chair, her head back against the leather pillow, her eyes closed.
Her husband knew.
Her weary thoughts could not get beyond that; her husband knew that she had tried to marry Ushaw and taken him when she had failed.
He knew that she had lied; that, out of sheer cowardice, greediness and laziness, she had said, "I love you" to two different men in the course of a few days, he knew that she had clutched at his few poor hundreds when she had missed Ushaw's thousands, that she had thrown the burden of her useless life on to him when she found that the other man cast her off.
She was still wincing from the contempt with which he had spoken, deep bitter contempt with a note of agony in it—how horribly he must have been hurt!
Tears of shame stung the lids of the closed eyes of Aprilis; she saw herself, dimly, as it were, and vaguely, yet without hope of denial, as miserable, vile.
He had said that he loved her; she had taken no notice of that save to feel that it gave her .a sense of security; she held the old foolish belief, cherished by so many pretty women, that one could do anything with a man in love.
And she had been able to do anything with him; he was her slave, until he found her out.
Yes, that was it, found her out.
Like Mrs. Strype had found her out, Uke Ushaw had found her out.
As she lay there, in the deep sombre chair she did not know how fair she looked, how sweet an excuse she was in herself for the two men who had wished to persuade themselves that she loved them.
Lately, these last few weeks, when she had become more and more unconscious of herself, when she had begun to lose faith in her own charm, to forget the affectations and graces learnt in the Strypes's house, her loveliness had increased, and she was exquisite enough as she lay there in the ancient chair, in the shadows of the dark room, her pale dress tumbled and clinging to her rounded limbs, her loops of smooth cedar coloured hair falling on to her shoulders, her face softened by tears, looking in her misery more tender and womanly than the old Aprilis had looked in her pride.
The door was open and Betterys Ushaw entered without Aprilis hearing him; he had been told she was there and looked for her eagerly in the shadows; seeing that she was, as he thought, asleep, he came treading softly down the long room until he stood beside her, while she, still in her drowsy sad fatigue, was yet unaware of him.
He looked long at this gentle dishevelled loveliness, the blonde rose, the white and gold of a young fair woman, and a strange look passed over his own stern face, a look of regret, of remorse, of yearning.
Conscious that some one was watching her, though he was still careful to make no sound, Aprilis suddenly looked up, and seeing him there, shrank back, not only with amazement, but with an instinctive loathing that caused him to flush darkly.
"I thought you were away," she said, catching at her falling hair. "I thought you were not coming back till late;—"
She hardly knew what she said; she would have risen and fled, but he stood in front of her chair so that she could not very well without a struggle have got past him.
"I said so," he replied in an agitated voice, "but I came back to see you. I could not wait any longer to see you."
"y suppose you want to further mock me," said Aprilis hoarsely. "Haven't you done enough mischief?"
"I want to ask you to forgive me for that, I've been crazy, unpardonable."
Aprilis took no heed of this.
"You've told my unfortunate husband all you know about me—what do you think that is going to mean to us?"
She was thinking of Stephen Borlace, of the wrong done to him, as she spoke, and this gave her a dignity she had never had when defending herself.
"I was contemptible," said Ushaw fiercely. "It was jealousy, Aprilis—sheer jealousy; you see I love you more than I thought I did."
But a little while ago Aprilis would have received such a moment as this with triumph for the man was deeply moved and at her mercy.
And was it not for some such end as this that she had w.shed to come to Spain?
Vague indeed had been her desire, her scheme of revenge on Ushaw, but it had been there, a powerful motive inducing her to a crazy marriage, a crazy journey.
Always, at the back of her confused thoughts had been this one:
"He said he loved me, perhaps after all he does—"
And now the moment had come; he was telling her, in stumbling, passionate words, that he had been a fool, mad, that he did love her, that he thought of nothing else night and day—and yet there was no triumph in it for Aprilis; she merely felt shamed and bitter.
"Love me?" she interrupted. "How could you have loved me and written that letter. Wasn't I," she added bitterly, "quite willing to marry you?"
"For my money," he replied harshly. "That's what I couldn't endure; you don't know how many women have been willing to marry me for my money, and it was more than I could endure that you should be one of them—if only you hadn't played that stale old game of pretending, that made me wild—beyond myself, if only you hadn't lied!"
Aprilis, roused, tried to defend herself.
"Is it lying to use words you don't know the meaning of?" she asked desperately. "As I told you, I might have loved you, as long as you were kind; it wasn't all sheer greed, I never cared much for money as money, I wanted protection—affection, all you seemed to offer—"
"I was perfectly indifferent to you," interrupted Ushaw. "You made that most obvious, it was for that I wanted to punish you, Aprilis."
"You have punished me."
"And myself, too."
She looked at him without pity.
"To a point I suppose you had the right—that letter —but why did you send Stephen Borlace to me?"
"I could hardly tell you now. In sheer fury, I suppose, at my own loss—to see if you really would clutch at the next man who came along, to prove just how worthless you were."
"Well, you found out," murmured Aprilis. "Wasn't that enough?"
"There was another motive too. Borlace is in my power, in a queer sort of way, I know all about him,
I'm able to keep him near me if I want to. I thought, even if she marries him, I shan't lose hold of her."
Aprilis gazed at him in silence; her eyes were red with tears.
"And of course, I was a fool," continued Ushaw harshly. "I suppose a man in love always is—I knew afterwards that I would rather have married you, lies or no."
"I'm thankful I didn't," said Aprilis shuddering. "Oh, I'm glad you found me out—I didn't know what I was doing, indeed I didn't; the position, the money, wouldn't have been worth the price—"
"Of marriage to me?" he asked grimly.
"Yes—now I know what you are," she sighed. "So base! worse than I—whatever you think of me, you are worse than I, Mr. Ushaw."
"Don't say that, Aprilis, don't think that. I've tried to explain. Can't you understand it all now?"
"No," she replied heavily and wearily, "I understand none of it."
"That is because you are cold-blooded," he exclaimed angrily, "because you) don't know what passion is, because you always act on calculation "
"Don't talk of it any more. I can't, I won't forgive you."
"Forgive me what?"
"Telling my husband; anything but that I would have taken, but that was utterly vile."
"Don't you see I was jealous—jealous, jealous?"
The hideous word rang fantastically in the ears of Aprilis.
"Jealous! Didn't you tell me to take care of jealousy and hatred? Didn't you say they were both too terrible for any one to bear?"
"I did. That doesn't prevent me being enmeshed by them. You ought to understand that, if you can understand anything—in tormenting you I've tormented myself. Isn't that clear?"
He moved sharply away and at last Aprilis was able to rise without fear of touching him.
She supported herself against the arm of the chair as she answered:
"I suppose we have both got what we deserve, but what about my husband?"
Ushaw replied savagely:
"Surely you aren't troubling about him!"
"Why shouldn't I? He's been pretty badly served between us—" murmured Aprilis, sad. "He was fond of me, loved me perhaps, and you've destroyed that, he thinks I fooled him."
"Well, he's right, isn't he? That's exactly what you did do."
"There was no need for him to know it—while he had his faith in me he was happy."
"How greatly you cared whether he was happy or not!" sneered Ushaw.
That was true enough; she had not cared; even the other day when her husband had knelt by her bed, opening his heart, she had not cared.
But now it was different, she felt an unhappy remorse towards Borlace
"One changes," she answered, "one comes to see things differently. I was never really bad, I do believe, only in a panic and selfish—"
"You managed to do a good deal of mischief," he accused her.
"I know. A horrible tangle!"
She could say no more, the tears overbrimmed her tired eyes.
"T don't believe you've ever been straight," continued Ushaw. "From the first you fooled the Strypes, for, of course, you never cared for that boy of theirs "
"I did, I did," cried Aprilis, "or, at least I thought I did. What did I know of myself? It was so much easier to act as people expected me to act—"
He caught at that.
"That's it I Easier! Sheer laziness at the bottom of it all. Easier to stay with the Strypes than say you were pretending—easier to drift into a marriage with any man who came along than to fight on alone, eh?"
"Yes, I suppose so,' she admitted wearily.
He came a step closer.
"And what is the easiest way now, Aprilis?"
She looked at him, not comprehending his meaning.
"To let me love you, eh Aprilis?" he added hoarsely. "We've been a couple of fools, but let's forget that—"
Aprilis moved back from him.
"I'm not lying to you now, Mr. Ushaw. I don't care for you; as you guessed, you're not only indifferent —but hateful to me, yes, hateful—"
He flushed, but held his ground.
"And I don't care any longer what you feel—I've got everything you want, money, power, that'll make you happy, that'll make you forget whether you care for me or not.
"Do you think I'm like that?" wondered Aprilis, drawing farther, farther away.
"Yes, I do," he answered. "Haven't you said so? You've drifted, taken the easiest way, had no feelings for any one—well, I'm the easiest way now."
She laughed hysterically.
"And what about my husband?"
"He doesn't matter," said Ushaw contemptuously. "I'll manage him.
"Will you? Will you?"
She edged away fearful that he was going to touch her, try to embrace or kiss her; she looked at him with horror, holding her handkerchief to her wet cheeks, staring at him with large frightened eyes.
"Borlace has nothing," continued Ushaw, "penniless and a brute where he hates; he'll hate you by now —I can make things as you like them—well, easy!"
"Easy," repeated Aprilis wistfully. "Yes, I've always wanted things easy."
Farther, farfher she moved away from him towards the door.
"I'm tired—I'll lie down," she whispered. "I'll think over what you say—about the easy way—"
Ushaw looked at her defiantly.
"It's about the only way too," he reminded her.
FOR several days Aprilis saw nothing of her husband, of Ushaw, or of Isabel Graham, save only a distant glimpse from her windows as one of them chanced to pass across the courtyard below.
In her fear, her confusion and her loneliness she refused to come downstairs, remaining in the two great rooms that had been assigned to her, waited on by the Spanish servant who now made no attempt to communicate with her.
No one intruded on this self-chosen isolation which was like an imprisonment, she was left at peace and perfectly free to do what she wished.
Yet in this very solitude and liberty was something ominous and sinister.
What most distressed and frightened her was that her husband made no attempt to see her or communicate with her.
He had locked the door between their rooms and all she heard of him was an occasional footfall early in the morning or late at night when he went from or returned to the castle.
It was clear that he had done with her, that he repudiated her with disgust and loathing, that he had turned from her as the Strypes had turned, and that he would have cast her off as they had done, if it was as easy to get rid of a wife as of an adopted daughter.
Ushaw's jealous malice had been completely successful; he had separated them at once and for ever.
And he had also, Aprilis was bound to admit when she considered her plight in cold blood, given her little chance to turn in any direction save his; however she might detest Ushaw and resent his behaviour, who else was there to look to if Borlace coldly repudiated her?
As he had said, with passionate scorn, it was not the easiest, but the only way.
If she did not turn to Ushaw she saw herself utterly outcast, for how continue to live as the wife of a man who loathed her, who held her in bitter contempt, who had resolved to have nothing more to do with her?
Some way or other she must leave Borlace, and what easier than to leave him for Ushaw, who very likely, thought Aprilis with sad irony, would engineer some divorce and marry her after all.
In her lonely idle isolation, in this alien country, in this alien heat Aprilis became used to this idea.
A lazy apathy quenched the passionate revolt she had felt against Ushaw, the pity and remorse that had stirred in her towards Borlace; she had sunk back into her usual laziness, she was drifting towards "the easiest way" as Ushaw had said she would.
She reflected that that was very likely why he had left her so carefully alone; he was astute enough to know that a long contemplation of her position would leave her with no alternative but that of turning to him.
She began to lose a1l hope of, and faith in, herself; every one thought so meanly of her—she must be contemptible; what was the use of struggling against her own worthlessness?
No one believed in her, thought well of her, encouraged her to strive for something better than comfort and ease and safety, no, they all turned on her, mocked her and left her, without patience, kindness or pity.
Even Stephen Borlace, her husband
Her heart hardened against him; after all, whatever she was, he hadn't given her a chance; he had turned her down without waiting to hear if she had any defence to make, without trying to make an excuse for her, without making an effort to do her justice.
No, he had accepted Ushaw's tale, which very likely was worse than the truth, though he must have known the kind of man Ushaw was.
And he had seemed to love her!
A queer thing, this love!
They scorned her because she did not know what this love was; well, she didn't know and didn't want to; kindness was all she asked and she would give kindness in return.
After some days of this idle seclusion in these two ancient grand rooms that still seemed to her so foreign and unfriendly, Aprilis felt a restlessness that impelled her to go out.
She thought that she had lately heard the sound of blows and hammering, and she felt a dull curiosity as to whether or no work had been begun on the ruins.
Perhaps they were already being cleared and the granite towers and the cypress tree were being alike laid low.
She came out into the corridor, long, dark and gloomy.
No one about.
A silence that seemed to throb with a long intense stillness.
Aprilis noticed the door next to her own door.
She knew that it was that of her husband's rooms, and cautiously, impelled by she knew not what queer curiosity, she opened it slowly.
The chamber was like her own, gloomy, large, grand, shuttered from the sun by green slat blinds that only allowed pencils of sun to fall on the red tiled floor.
The furniture was spare and heavy; a big table was littered with portfolios and papers.
The only personal and intimate detail was the familiar marionettes' box standing at the foot of the bed, with the puppets seated on the lid.
This sight gave Aprilis a horrible pang; those limp dolls in their tawdry, gay finery! How remote seemed that day when she had fondled them, that wintry spring afternoon at Middletons!
How secure she had been then, in her luxurious security, how totally unaware of the disasters just ahead.
And Stephen
He had first seen her with that red and white clown across her knee, and loved her, foolishly loved her, for her empty beauty and artificial grace.
And she—she had been sorry for him and considered the fantastic project of marrying him and thereby escaping from the Strypes with a noble gesture of riches renounced for love.
Vague and foolish dreams!
She had married Stephen Borlace, not with any idea of redeeming him, but out of a desperate selfish panic, and he, whom she had thought of then with a pity not untouched by a gentle scorn, now regarded her as a creature beyond contempt.
Aprilis leant against the door and sighed, going over again that afternoon in April in the big sale room; and then Custance came into her mind.
How could she have forgotten Custance?
Probably the only true friend she had ever had.
She would write to him.
Yes, but what could she write?
Nothing of the truth.
But she might write a friendly letter, just for the pleasure of a friendly reply—dear good Custance, who really cared for her and was sorry for her as she was, who never would have let her down and scorned her as these other men had done.
Aprilis returned to her room, took materials from her trunk, and wrote her letter, just a few pleasant lines telling of her marriage, recalling herself to his memory, begging him to write, she wan "rather homesick."
She cried a little as she closed the letter and addressed it to Custance's Club with a request for it to be forwarded; she did not know where he was; he was always travelling and only in London for a few days at a time.
When the letter was finished, she wondered how she should post it—she had a little Spanish money left from the journey, perhaps if she showed that and the letter to one of the servants they would understand.
It had given her a certain pleasure to write that letter, and there was even a sense of touch with something friendly and kind in holding the envelope with the familiar name on it that would be opened with such generous warm feelings (she knew) towards herself.
Timidly she ventured down the stately dark stairs, down the long sombre corridors and out in the courtyard and the blazing sun.
Still without seeing any one.
She stood hesitant, shielding her eyes with her hand against the merciless glare.
The air was heavy as a drug with the odour of citron, orange and lemon; it was so sweet as to be almost nauseating.
Aprilis leant against one of the pillars that supported the arcade round the courtyard; some one was coming towards her—her husband
Her husband! No, a stranger, Stephen Borlace.
He came close to her and said:
"Looking for Ushaw?"
Aprilis revolted against this, as one, however in the wrong, will revolt from a sudden blow.
Too severe a punishment throws justice on the side of the culprit.
"I never want to see Mr. Ushaw again," she replied violently.
"What are you here for, then?—you didn't come to see me?"
"No, I wanted to post this letter, I was looking for some servant."
Her breast heaved, she looked at the poor epistle in her hand with eyes misted by tears.
"A letter?" said Borlace suspiciously. "Who are you writing to?"
"You may well ask," replied Aprilis bitterly. "I have no friend save this one—poor Custance."
She showed the letter.
"And what is the use of writing to him?" demanded her husband.
"No use. Do you think that I do everything by design? I wrote on an impulse to the only kindly person I know, the only friend."
"Queer you should have only one friend—those who play fair aren't usually so lonely."
You know I haven't played fair," replied Aprilis unsteadily, "but Custance doesn't care if I play fair or not—he is a real friend."
Borlace looked at her keenly, hesitated a moment, and then said:
"Give me the letter. I will see that it is posted."
She offered it in silence and he put it in his pocket.
"Well, what are you going to do?" he demanded.
"How do I know what I am going to do?" she replied in despair. "You are making everything intolerably difficult for me."
"Am I? I thought that you and Ushaw had arranged things."
Aprilis flushed.
"Did he tell you that?"
"What if he did?"
"Don't you know that he is a treacherous liar?"
"I think," said Borlace grimly, "that he told the truth about you."
"You don't give me much chance, do you?" asked Aprilis wildly, "either of you? You're pushing me over the precipice, both of you."
"Oh, leave the high-flown terms," said Borlace bitterly. "You're at liberty to make what terms you like with Ushaw. I'll clear out easily enough—"
"Don't talk like that, don't—"
"Why not? It's what's in your mind, isn't it? You missed Ushaw once, don't let him go a second time; he'll marry you, no doubt, oh, I'll make it easy!"
"This is horrible," said Aprilis in despair, half to herself. "I never thought that any one would speak to me like this."
"No? Women take a long licence, don't they?"
Aprilis gazed at him with increasing horror; what impressed her more than the insults he was giving her, was the anguish he seemed to be suffering himself.
She even forgot her own aspect of the matter, in an amazed pity tor his grim suffering.
For it was obvious that, whether on her account or no, the man was in hardly endured mental torture.
"Stephen," she said timidly, "things can't have gone so wrong that there isn't some way of putting them right—"
"By Heaven, they have," he muttered, and put his hand to his head as if to ease some intolerable pain there.
"Come out of the glare," said Aprilis, for even in the colonnade where they stood the vivid light penetrated and she was sick of the pungent odour of the exotic white flowers and jade coloured fruit, so acid sweet.
He followed as if he hardly knew what he did and they went together into the big dark room that opened off the courtyard.
Aprilis sat down on the first chair she came to; she was trembling with exhaustion; Borlace stood irresolute, with a look almost dazed.
"Where is Mr. Ushaw?" whispered Aprilis, she had a terror of him suddenly appearing.
"Out there, on the ruins, they've begun work," replied Borlace mechanically.
"Can't we go upstairs? I don't want to see him— I don't want him to interrupt us."
"Why?" he asked, suddenly animated again. "What trick are you trying to put on me now? Haven't you done enough?"
"I want to talk to you," persisted Aprilis desperately.
"Why? What have we got to say? Haven't I told you that I'll set you free?" he exclaimed savagely. "Ushaw's a queer beast—he's taken a queer way to break me but he's done it—"
"You don't understand," pleaded Aprilis. "I detest
Mr. Ushaw, I loathe him, I don't want to be set free."
He looked at her uncomprehendingly; again she was overwhelmed by compassion for his dark and deathly look, so lonely, so pitiful, under all his ferocity.
"Forgive me," she cried impulsively, "forgive me—"
"Forgive you?" he echoed stupidly, "forgive you for what?"
"For marrying you." He laughed unsteadily.
"I ought not to have married you, Aprilis. I had no right, either. I'm justly punished—I'm trying not to whine."
"Where's your fault? (You were honest about it, I wasn't."
"I wasn't honest either," he replied grimly. "I shouldn't have married you or any one."
She thought that he alluded to his poverty, his humble birth, and was bitterly ashamed.
"What am I, Stephen? I've nothing, I'm a nobody. What impressed you about me was bought by other people's money. I was just a sham."
"I'm not thinking of money," he answered, "there's something else."
"You mean, perhaps, that you didn't really care for me?"
"I cared for you, Aprilis," he answered in a low, hoarse tone. "I cared for you so much that I was blind to everything else—so blind, such a fool, such a vain fool, that I even thought you cared for me, I thought of you as a refuge, I thought I would save myself by your love—I thought it would make worth while a life that hadn't been worth while—oh, yes, I cared for you, it wasn't that."
"Some trouble then?" she asked deeply moved. "You were in some trouble?"
"Yes—"
"You are still?"
" Yes."
"It concerns Mr. Ushaw and Miss Graham, doesn't it?"
"Both of them.
"I guessed it," said Aprilis.
"I dare say you did," said Borlace wearily. "You're a clever woman."
"No, I'm not," replied Aprilis, "or I shouldn't be in this pass now. I guessed that from a kind of instinct."
"Well, it won't matter much longer, it's all coming to an end."
"Won't you tell me what it is?"
"Why should I? I ought to have told you before I married you."
"Tell me now. I might help."
Borlace laughed sardonically.
"You? Want to help me?"
"Indeed I do."
"Why?"
"Oh, I want to try and put things right—I'm frightened of being so unhappy, I can't bear it—"
Borlace looked at her queerly. v
"You're trying to trick me again—Ushaw put you on to this—"
"I hate him—that woman Graham too, they're up to mischief."
She spoke with a conviction that seemed to impress Borlace.
"Isabel Graham is hounding me," he said, "pursuing me with hatred—"
"Hounding you?"
"Yes. I'm in her power, in a way, but it will soon be all over, now, very soon." Aprilis was terrified by his expression, terrified by that image of Isabel Graham relentlessly pursuing, hounding with hatred.
They were both silent, staring at each other, when the door opened, the inner door from the corridor, and Miss Graham herself stood before them.
"Good day," she said pleasantly. "Betterys Ushaw sent me to find you, Stephen, you've been gone so long."
"I'm coming," he muttered sullenly.
Miss Graham smiled at Aprilis.
"I've got a piece of news for you—your old friend, Mrs. Strype, is coming to stay with me."
APRILIS felt as if she had expected this; as if it was the dimly foreseen horror of which she had uneasily dreamt ever since she had come to Spain.
"What is Mrs. Strype coming here for?" she asked through pale dry lips.
"She wants a change," said Miss Graham smoothly. "She wants to get away from London. She has no ties now. And she says that she feels a certain sympathy with me. She lost her son, and I lost my brother through a terrible accident."
"But to come here—to this place!" whispered Aprilis.
"I'm glad to have her," said Isabel Graham, "it's lonely enough in Xarandilla."
"Did you tell her that I was here?" asked Aprilis fearfully.
"Yes, I did mention it. One would, you know."
Aprilis understood; this dreadful woman had set that other dreadful woman on her track; she was being hounded, pursued as Borlace had said he was being hounded and pursued, and Mrs. Strype was being called in to join the fell chase.
Mrs. Strype—full of venom and vengeance, hurrying to gloat over her present humiliation and distress; that was a terrible image to Aprilis.
But she tried to preserve her composure before those keen evil eyes of Isabel Graham.
"I dare say Mrs. Strype won't care to see much of me," she remarked.
"Queer she should come," said Borlace sullenly and turned away and left them.
Aprilis hoped and expected that Miss Graham would follow him; but that lady threw herself into another of the ancient chairs and lit a cigarette.
Aprilis wanted to flee but felt really incapable of movement.
"You've kept yourself rather shut up, haven't you?" remarked Miss Graham. "You'll get awfully out of condition, you know. You ought to go out in the evenings, at least."
"The heat's too much," murmured Aprilis. "I haven't strength enough for anything—I hate the place."
"Do you? It is cold enough in winter, often then you can't get out if you want to."
Aprilis was too sick at heart to be able to carry on this kind of conversation; she sat dejected, with bent head, and after staring at her intently, Miss Graham remarked abruptly:
"You don't know anything about Betterys Ushaw, do you?—or your husband either, for that matter, do you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just exactly what I say. Do you know, for instance, that Ushaw saved your husband's life in the war?"
"No."
"Well, he did. Never mind the story, it put poor Stephen under a fearful obligation. Ushaw helped him afterwards too, brought him out here to see the ruins, with an idea of restoration: that's when I met him first."
"Yes?" Aprilis was listless.
"At that time I was engaged to Betterys Ushaw. Something happened to break it off. A pity, for I should have made him a good wife."
She lit another cigarette.
"Why are you telling me this?" asked Aprilis fearfully.
"I thought you might as well know," replied Miss Graham calmly. "You seem such an innocent, you've come into the middle of this and you don't know anything about it—queer to marry a stranger like you did."
Aprilis could not afford to resent the insolence of this; it was quite clear that nothing would make Miss Graham behave differently and she might have something to say that would be useful to Aprilis, that would help her in the maze in which she groped.
"You haven't heard anything about my brother's death, for instance?" asked Miss Graham abruptly darting a dark glance at Aprilis.
"No—only that he was killed here, by an accident."
"Ah, if you understood Spanish you'd hear a great deal more than that. Every one talks about it still. It was a great scandal."
"She means to tell me whether I question or not," thought Aprilis, and so sat silent.
And Miss Graham continued without waiting for encouragement.
"It was supposed to be a case of murder," she added dryly.
Aprilis still did not speak.
The word "murder" which Isabel Graham had spoken very slowly and deliberately seemed to hang like an echo round the dark, sinister, rich room. Aprilis thought:
"She hates me. I won't answer, there's a trick or trap here, she's not telling me this for any good purpose."
Isabel Graham was watching her and she made her face as impassive as she could, though it seemed to her that her heart was beating so loud that her companion must hear the throbbing.
"You've nothing to say to that?" questioned Miss Graham shrewdly.
"What should I have to say?—I know nothing about it," replied Aprilis.
Miss Graham smoked in silence a moment, then said:
"I dare say I shall marry Betterys Ushaw after ail. He always comes back to me after his little— romances. He knows how to make love very prettily, but no woman holds him more than a week or two."
The warning, the threat in this was plain enough; however Borlace might talk of "making things easy" Miss Graham did not intend to do this; she might permit an intrigue, but never a marriage.
Aprilis said:
"I don't think any woman would much want to be one of Mr. Ushaw's 'romances'; he seems to me very unattractive and hard, but I suppose that I ought not to say that if you're going to marry him."
It was the only shaft in her quiver but it struck home.
Miss Graham flushed and her eyes darkened as she answered harshly:
"Oh, he gets his way with most women, I assure you."
"Queer that Mrs. Strype should come here," said Aprilis rising heavily at last. "She dislikes Mr. Ushaw. I remember hearing her say that. And that Adrian had disliked him also."
"I suppose," said Miss Graham coolly, "that Mrs. Strype had her good reason for wanting to come here."
"Yes," thought Aprilis, "she wants to torment me, and you have invited her to do so."
A double jealousy hand in hand to slake their fury on her; Mrs. Strype jealous for Adrian, Miss Graham jealous because of Betterys Ushaw
And behind the two women the two men both jealous of each other, four jealousies, four hatreds linking, crossing, clasping, struggling round the helpless figure of Aprilis.
As she moved slowly down the room, followed by the malicious, mocking glance of Isabel Graham, she seemed to see herself, as in a horrid vision, cast down and trampled by these four passions, as by four ravening beasts.
They would not let her go, they were driving her, hounding her, pursuing her to some dreadful end.
The resentful jealousy of Stephen Borlace was casting her off to her fate, the brutal jealousy of Ushaw had stolen her sole pretence at happiness, and the jealousy of the two women was tracking her down to ultimate disaster.
What did they want?
She thought she knew.
They wanted to separate her from Borlace, to thrust her on to Ushaw, and then, when she was compromised, degraded, cast off by him, penniless and outcast, perhaps they would be satisfied.
There had been a devilish malice behind Miss Graham's contemptuous warning—it was as if she had said:
"You can't escape, Ushaw will get you, we'll tee that he gets you—and Ushaw'll leave you—we'll see that he leaves you."
She crept upstairs, wondering, wondering. What had Borlace meant when he had said, so often and so desperately, that there was to be an end soon?
What was the meaning of Miss Graham's sinister reference to her brother's murder?
She hoped that she might find her husband upstairs.
But the great rooms were empty.
A sense of utter loneliness, of fear, of panic overcame Aprilis; she flung open the shuttered windows and leant out in the hope of seeing Stephen, of hearing his voice.
But there was no one; and no sound save the blows that were demolishing the ruins and the rush of the stormy waters of the torrents of Peñanegra.
It seemed to Aprilis impossible that things could long continue like this, there was a sense of tension in the air that could not long endure; circumstances, or people, must some of them break or change soon. She herself would not long be able to endure this strange life where she was so isolated, so despised, so set upon for her final ruin and discomfiture.
Nor could, surely, Ushaw and Borlace long continue at this pitch of jealous fury, so sullen on one side, so mocking on the other, or those two women, Mrs. Strype and Miss Graham, continue to pursue her with their bitter spite.
There must be some way out, or if not, then the whole situation must resolve into ultimate, and not far-distant disaster. Aprilis saw, as her own most likely course, sheer flight.
She had, after all, sufficient means to keep her from starvation, and though there were bothering details, such as ready money and a passport to contend with, still it should be possible, she thought, for her to leave
Xarandilla and even Spain and so break away from the problems with which she was enmeshed.
Timid and lazy as she was, it was neither timidity nor laziness which now held her back from making a desperate effort to escape from a situation that had become intolerable.
What kept Aprilis in Xarandilla was Stephen Borlace.
A queer loyalty, a queer shame, a vague pity, and even a desire, a hope to justify herself in the eyes of her husband kept Aprilis from day to day in Xarandilla. She had no opportunity of speaking to him, scarcely of seeing him; he avoided her most carefully and persistently.
Once, when she had made an effort to stop him and ask him if they could not move to his old rooms in the village, he replied curtly that it was impossible.
Aprilis had tried to stand her ground.
"But you said we would go there, you seemed annoyed when Mr. Ushaw asked us here—"
"Everything was different then," he reminded her harshly.
"But, Stephen, I want to go, I detest being here—"
He had looked at her curiously then, as if impressed by the note of panic in her voice, but finally had gone his way with no more than this:
"It is all coming to an end very soon now."
And if he avoided Aprilis, Aprilis avoided Betterys Ushaw and Miss Graham who came every day to look at the ruins and watch the workmen demolishing the remains of the granite towers that overhung the torrents.
Yet all this avoidance was useless since the day must come when they would all reach an issue, and when at last Aprilis aid come face to face with Betterys Ushaw, she was not sorry, after the first shudder, that the matter was to be brought to a climax.
It was on the ruins she met him.
This wild scene, so grand, gloomy, strange and melancholy, had a strong fascination for Aprilis.
She liked to stand in the little garden of pot herbs that filled the space of the ancient dining-hall, to rest under the shade of the doomed walnut tree, to listen to the blows of the hammers on the grim towers mingled with the ceaseless roar of the Peñanegra torrents.
And though she only went there when she had first H carefully ascertained that neither Miss Graham nor Ushaw were about, this time he came on her suddenly, rounding one of the fragments of ilex shaded bulwarks as if he had been following her.
Aprilis remained motionless, seated on a fallen block of stone in the thick dark shade of the dry dense trees.
"Aren't you getting tired of avoiding me?" he asked.
"Tired of everything," said Aprilis.
"Yet you don't try to go away, do you? No, you are far too indolent for such an effort, of course," he smiled. "Well, hadn't we better come to some sort of terms?"
Aprilis did not answer.
"I will take you away from Xarandilla," continued Ushaw. "I have pleasanter houses than this. And Borlace is only hoping, expecting that you will go."
Aprilis thought that likely enough to be true.
"We can take things up, Aprilis, where we left them —after our temper, our indulgence in the sulks," he added ironically. "I dare say we shall be good friends."
Aprilis raised her eyes.
"I am perfectly willing to marry you now," he added in the same tone. "The prize you strove for is ready to fall into your lap."
Aprilis, expressionless in face and voice, added:
"And Stephen?"
"Don't think of him. He is only eager to set you free."
"You've got some hold on him, didn't you say?" asked Aprilis curiously. "Yes, I have in a way."
" What is it?"
" You want to know?"
Ushaw, obviously pleased by her placidity, seated himself on the broken wall behind her; the ilex shade was dense over them both.
"Of course," said Aprilis slowly. "Miss Graham told me a good deal."
"Oh, she did? About what?"
Still quiet, almost lazy, in an indifferent voice Aprilis said:
"A lot of queer rambling statements, about her brother—and you."
"Her brother?"
"Yes, she said some people thought he had been murdered, she spoke as if she thought so herself."
"She may think, she can't prove."
"What is the story?"
Ushaw lit a cigarette with a casual air.
"My dear child, there isn't much of a story and certainly not any mystery. I can tell you the whole thing in a few words if you really want to hear it—do you?"
"Yes."
Ushaw smiled.
"I suppose you might as well know."
She waited in silence for she perceived that he meant to tell her, not because of any wish or pleading of hers, but because it was part of his design to do so.
No doubt it was with this object that he had sought her out and her question had only hastened a revelation he had always intended to make.
For a moment there was no sound but the roar of the torrents of Peñanegra, and then Ushaw, sitting in a casual attitude on the ruined wall and overlooking the dark gorge and bright valley, began his astounding narrative which he told in the fewest possible words.
Aprilis had turned her face away so that she could not see his face nor could he see hers.
"John Graham was an architect. I had him and Stephen Borlace here to compare their plans and their work. I believed both to have a touch of genius and I had chosen them from dozens of architects—I couldn't make up my mind whose work I preferred. They were, both difficult men and extremely jealous of each other."
Jealousy.
Everything seemed to bring Aprilis back to that. Jealousy.
"The feeling between them ran very high," added Ushaw calmly, "and still I couldn't make up my mind. They were both hard up.
"Graham had his sister with him—she would have been very willing to marry me—for the usual reason. Money. Of course. Money."
He was silent, and, by a wonder of self-control, Aprilis refrained from telling him her contempt of the caddish behaviour he was revealing.
Caddish? Devilish, rather—those two men pitted against each other
Ushaw's ironic voice came coolly:
"There was a squabble over a woman, a native beauty from Xarandilla, and Borlace shot Graham."
Aprilis was afraid to speak, to move.
"Only I know that. Isabel Graham suspects it— she is always hounding him to a confession. But I hushed the affair up and only I know."
Slowly, cautiously, without looking round, Aprilis spoke.
"And you hold this over him? You always have?"
"What need have I to do that, my dear?" asked Ushaw. "But I dare say that if I wanted to get rid of Borlace I might lodge my information."
"I see."
Aprilis looked beyond the shadow to the glare of the white sunshine.
Across this, like the embodiment of an evil dream, came Mrs. Strype.
CONSCIOUS of no volition of her own Aprilis rose and moved away across the ruins, away from Ushaw sitting under the ilex trees, watching her with mocking eyes, away from Mrs. Strype in her black dress with her pale menacing face.
Away, anywhere, even if it were over the edge of the abyss into the torrents of Peñanegra—anywhere from these two.
But Mrs. Strype turned across the herb garden and stood across her path.
"Curious that we should meet again, Mrs. Borlace. Curious, especially, in such a place, eh? I suppose you are very happy."
Different tactics these from those that had caused Mrs. Strype to pass her without a nicker of an eyelid in London.
The words were friendly enough, but there was no friendliness in the cold grey face, in the malicious, keen eyes.
"She wants to get familiar with me," thought Aprilis, "so that she can torture me the more easily." And she did not answer; not from any deliberate design of insult, but merely from incapacity of speech caused by terror and amazement.
With one ghastly look at her tormentor she moved away towards a little door in the castle wall that admitted to a back staircase.
Once inside in the welcome dark and loneliness she leant against the wall, panting with horror, then, suddenly remembering the chance of pursuit and discovery by one of those frightful people in the ruins, she ran up the dark old stairs, along the dark old corridors till she came to her one sanctuary, her own room.
It was early evening and she threw open the shutters with an impulsive and instinctive desire for air; the room seemed hot, close, hateful.
A clangour of bells from the village below broke on her ear, they echoed from the fortress-like church of Xarandilla with a ferocious melancholy.
Aprilis heard a movement in the next room.
She turned instantly and struck on the inner door.
"It that you, Stephen?"
A short pause, then a reluctant, sullen voice answered :
"What do you want?"
"I want to see you."
Silence again.
Now Aprilis beat on the door with her clenched hands.
"Oh, for Heaven's sake speak to me, open and speak to me; it's our only chance. Oh, our only chancel"
The sincere and unrestrained passion in her voice moved him evidently, for she heard his step, the key turned and he stood in the dark doorway, looking at her with an unwilling concern.
Aprilis stepped back at the sight of that sad and frowning face, that certain haggard magnificence that from the first had impressed her about Stephen Borlace.
"I don't think there can be anything for us to say," he muttered.
"Come in and shut the door," pleaded Aprilis.
She wanted the door shut because when it was open she could see that pathetic row of Venetian marionettes sitting on their box against the wall, and the memory they brought of her first meeting with Borlace was intolerable.
He looked at her sharply, and seeing her pallor, her obvious distress, his own austere expression softened.
He closed the door and came into her room.
The jangling bells filled the air; as nervously as she had opened it Aprilis shut the window, leaving them in a half obscurity with that muffled noise in their ears.
Stephen Borlace stood, tall, stately and yet awkward by reason of his distaste and reluctance, in the centre of the bare tiled floor.
"What can you want to tell me?" he asked uneasily. "Whatever it is I can be of no help. I'm useless to any one."
"I don't want your help," said Aprilis faintly. "I only want to—clear up some of this trouble, this horror ¦"
"That can't be done.
"Don't say that. If I'm sincere with you can't you trust me a little?"
"Sincere!" he echoed with sad contempt.
"I am now. Sincere. I wasn't in London."
"Need you talk of that?" he asked with aversion.
"Yes, because I want to tell you I see how hateful it was. I was detestable. There was no excuse."
She thought of the way Ushaw had received her feeble cry: "I never had a chance!" and she made no attempt to palliate her conduct.
Borlace did not answer; his silence was cold and stubborn.
But Aprilis continued frantically.
"I never thought of anything but my own safety and comfort. I would have married Ushaw and when I couldn't I married you, in a panic."
He winced at that and began to walk up and down the room.
"I liked you as well, perhaps better," continued Aprilis, merciless with herself, "than I liked Ushaw, but I would not have considered either of you if I had had money. That's frank, you can believe that?"
"Yes, I can believe that."
"I see myself as atrocious—it is as if I had woken up, Stephen."
He looked at her now with some pity.
"Why did you distress yourself? I was to blame too. I was a fool. I lost my head. Who was I to think a woman like you would care for me? I had, too, no right to marry. I've told you that."
He paused, struggled with himself, and then added, with barely suppressed vehemence:
"Why need we talk any more about it? Why need we talk any more about anything?"
"But you're in awful trouble," said Aprilis passionately, "and so am I—Mrs. Strype is hounding me. She's here, that frightful woman."
They stared at each other.
"Ushaw's been talking to you?" asked Borlace at last.
"He told me something," stammered Aprilis. "He's hounding you, he and Miss Graham—like Mrs. Strype is hounding me."
"He told you that I shot John Graham?" asked Borlace curtly
Aprilis struggled with the desire to scream out: "Is it true? Is it true?"
That was foolish, so crazy; of course, it was true.
She dropped into one of the big heavy chairs and tried to control her trembling. Borlace watched her.
"Could he prove it?" she managed to ask at last.
"He thinks he could. Anyhow he could make it pretty ugly for me. In this country, you know," he smiled slowly. "Oh, Ushaw's got the screw on me all right whenever he likes."
Aprilis put her cold hand to her sick and aching head.
"Won't you tell me anything about it?" she whispered.
"What is the use? I dare say Ushaw told you all."
"He didn't. And that woman came as he was speaking. I had only just strength to get away."
"There's nothing to say. The fellow was shot when it was supposed he'd been killed by falling into the torrent. Never mind the story."
Aprilis guessed that this was ugly enough.
"And Miss Graham guesses?"
"Yes. She wants to make me confess—she's always hated me. She was jealous of my influence over Ushaw —she tried to marry him and I put him off. Brother and sister were adventurers."
Jealousy, thought Aprilis wearily, jealousy around her closing her in, enmeshing her, choking her.
"So you see," continued Borlace in the same tone of cold anguish, "you owe me nothing—I was a scoundrel to marry you with this over my head."
Aprilis sighed.
"And a fool," he added, "to think you could possibly have cared for me."
This was the second time he had said that; this time Aprilis answered it, sadly enough.
"I might so easily have done, Stephen—so easily."
There seemed nothing that she could, say and yet everything must be said, now or never.
She felt a desperate need of Stephen Borlace, of comforting him, of being comforted by him, of entering into some alliance with him against these other people, their common tormentors.
What did this dark story matter to her? It did not seem so terrible that one man had shot another in a quarrel.
She did not know the details, but she had a queer definite feeling that they were not to the discredit of Stephen Borlace.
It was terrible that he was in the power of Betterys Ushaw; that was the awful, the unbearable thing—and then Isabel Graham hounding like a fury!
"Why does that woman hate you?" asked Aprilis.
"Isabel Graham? She detests me because I was her brother's rival—she loved her brother as Mrs. Strype loved her son. In both cases it is an obsession, a mania —jealousy for the dead."
He spoke dryly and moved away to the window so that Aprilis could not see his face.
Aprilis thought wearily:
"How alike our cases are! Each being pursued by hatreds so insane, so relentless, hatred roused by a wrong to the dead."
"What does Isabel Graham hope to do?" she asked.
"To force me to a confession, or persuade Ushaw to denounce me, which he will do whenever it suits him. Very likely that is his intention whenever he wishes to get rid of me."
"It mustn't happen." said Aprilis desperately, pacing up and down the room, "it mustn't happen."
He shrugged his shoulders: he was keeping himself well in hand, resisting her, holding himself aloof, beyond her influence.
"He has a great deal of wealth and power, Ushaw," he said coldly, "and I have nothing. Whether he could procure a conviction or not I don't know, but he could rake up a tale, aided by that woman, which would send me to a Spanish prison and ruin, make life intolerable for me one way or another."
He paused, looked at Aprilis, and added:
"Not that it is really worth while going on as it is. I've nothing to live for."
"Not even your work?" asked Aprilis. "Don't you care about that?"
"No. I'm tired of that, there doesn't seem to be anything in that even, any longer, after this Graham affair."
"Why did you come to Xarandilla, that's what I can't understand." Aprilis put the question wearily.
"Ushaw put pressure on me to come, he wants the castle finished and he knows that I am the only person who can do it. And then I wanted to find out if quite all the savour had gone. I'd been pretty keen on the job before—when I was fighting Graham for it."
"Is it that man's death which has spoilt it for you?" murmured Aprilis, supporting her head in her hand.
"Yes. In a way. I suppose so," he admitted reluctantly.
"But, Stephen," she urged timidly, "I don't think it was dastardly—not any real crime, you haven't got anything atrocious on your mind, I am sure."
Borlace smiled grimly.
"So you think I did it, do you?" he replied. "Just because Ushaw told you so—"
"But you never denied it!" cried Aprilis amazed.
"Didn't I' I suppose I didn't think it worth while. Ushaw can fasten the thing on me if he wishes, he has already surrounded me with suspicion, but I never shot John Graham."
Aprilis was conscious of an immense relief, almost amounting to joy, to which was added a feeling of contempt for herself. Why had she been so credulous to the tale of a man like Ushaw.
"I dare say you won't believe me," continued Borlace, "but after all there is no great matter in that. This old story doesn't affect things as they stand between you and me."
"It didn't affect me," replied Aprilis truthfully. "I did not care whether you had done it or not—" then she added suddenly, "Who did shoot John Graham?"
"It doesn't matter," said Borlace briefly, "there was a scrap and we were all in it—but the man was no good and well out of it. He would have been forgotten by now if it hadn't been for his sister,"
"She was going to marry Ushaw, wasn't she?"
"Yes—or hoped that she was. She means to still, that is partly why she keeps up this sensation about her brother, it gives her a hold over Ushaw, brings her in touch with him—her only excuse for being here is to haunt the scene of Graham's death and investigate the cause of it."
Borlace spoke dryly, leaning against the window in a weary attitude, yet he looked at Aprilis with a certain compassion for her exhausted grief and white distress.
"Look here," he added, "there is no need for you to bother about any of this—it's my particular affair— it doesn't touch you at all."
"I want it to," protested Aprilis, despairing of ever getting inside his guard, of making him understand her deep desire to have him for an ally, a friend.
"Don't talk like that," he replied coldly, "there is no need for you to feel any compunction about me."
"I do. I ought never to have married you."
"And I should never have married you. With this over me. I told you that. I lost my head."
"There's no such excuse for me. I acted in cold blood. Remember what you said about me yourself."
There was a slight pause, during which she listened, in a half-dazed fashion, to the rush of the Peñanegra torrents and stared at the blaze of sunshine on the red-glazed brick floor.
"I'm sorry I said what I did," Borlace spoke at last, not looking at her. "I was stung, of course, rather beside myself to think what a fool I'd been. Now I can look at it quietly, without feeling—"
Aprilis, overwrought as she was, could not here resist a weak, foolish, feminine remark.
"That means you don't care about me any more?"
He looked at her, sharply, with a wry smile.
"No, I suppose I don't, not in that way, Aprilis. I've got over that particular foolishness."
Aprilis hung her head; she was sorry, sorry; she had missed, or rather thrown away something worth while; she had counted so recklessly on his caring always, loving her eternally with that humble affection she had at once despised and relied upon.
And now it was over—all ended.
He continued kindly enough.
"That should be some relief to you, Aprilis. I shan't bother you and you needn't bother about me. It was a ghastly mistake, but it can be put right."
She made a sad movement of her hand to her eyes, but could not speak.
"I shall clear out. I don't care to go on with Xarandilla. Ushaw'll marry you, Aprilis—I dare say, from a woman's point of view he isn't so bad—anyhow, he's got what you want, what you ought to have—power, money."
"I could not marry him," murmured Aprilis. "You wanted to once?"
" Yes—I've changed since then."
" Not so much as you think, perhaps." He smiled with a certain tenderness. "And listen, Aprilis, I don't want you to trunk that I blame you—it was really quite reasonable that a woman of your type, left alone, abandoned, like that, should snatch at any one, anything; you hadn't been brought up for anything else—I don't see that you could have behaved differently, or that you are to be blamed at all."
Aprilis could not answer; she saw him move, turn to go away, and she could do or say nothing to stop him, she was at the end of her resources.
"By the bye," added Borlace, "here is a letter I had for you—from Custance, I think."
He dropped it into her lap and then went into his own room; she heard the key turn in the lock.
Mechanically she opened the letter; from Custance, yes; a warm and kindly greeting on her marriage.
"I am sure," wrote Custance in his simple childish way, "that you will be happy, for Stephen Borlace is a good man."
IT seemed so inevitable to Aprilis that she must meet Mrs. Strype that she hardly endeavoured to avoid her; Aprilis was too, in a strange way, secretly comforted by those quiet words spoken by her husband in extenuation of her behaviour.
He might no longer care for her, love her, but he could be just and more than just, generous.
He could pity and forgive.
And if he could forgive then so should Mrs. Strype, for the wrong that she, Aprilis, had done to her was far less than that she had done to Stephen Borlace. His forgiveness, his kind words, had raised her in her own eyes; she no longer felt so utterly humiliated.
She had wept over that letter from Custance which was so touchingly confident of her happiness.
Poor Custance believed that she had married the man of her heart, a poor man, a man she loved, and wished her boundless felicity.
Custance admired her for her courage, for her capacity for loving and must, though he did not say so in his letter, have thought of that first meeting at Middle-tons that bitter spring day that seemed so long ago and yet was only half a year away!
"Ah, if only she had been the woman that Custance thought she was, how happy she might indeed have been, as happy as he believed her to be—for she had come to see that Stephen was, in the old-fashioned phrase of the letter "a good man," one who would have loved long and greatly, one in whose hands her happiness would have been safe.
It was while she was wandering in the low oak woods behind the castle that she met Mrs. Strype.
The widow was in heavy black that was like an affront to the glare of white sunshine that made the wood, dense as it was, an amber light beneath the canopy of yellow leaves.
She set herself deliberately across the path of Aprilis, as if she had been waiting for her, expecting her.
The young woman, in her loose pale gown and blonde beauty, was a cruel contrast to the other so bleached and hard in feature, so rigid and gaunt in figure, giving out such an atmosphere of age, bitterness and quiet fury.
"I'm sorry," said Aprilis, "that you've pursued me out here, Mrs. Strype."
" Pursued you?"
"I don't think," replied Aprilis, "that you would have come out to Xarandilla if you hadn't known that I was here."
Mrs. Strype considered whether she should evade this frankness or not.
Her reply was a compromise between candour and guile.
"I came here to see Isabel Graham," she said, "with whom I have a great deal in common—owing to her terrible tragedy, a more terrible tragedy even than my own."
Aprilis had never before heard Mrs. Strype admit that any tragedy could possibly be worse than her own.
"But you knew that I was here, Mrs Strype?"
"Yes, I knew that you were here, Mrs. Borlace." The sneer, the hatred behind the quiet manner were unmistakable. "I hope you are happy, of course. I knew that you left us to marry Stephen Borlace though you may recall that you denied it."
"It was not in my mind then," said Aprilis. "And you don't hope that I am happy, Mrs. Strype, and you know that I am not."
She spoke gently and with a sigh.
"Well," replied the old woman, "if you choose to be so very plain let us put it, then, that I am interested, very interested in you, Mrs. Borlace."
Seeing that she could not pass this dark, foreboding figure set so sternly in the narrow path, Aprilis sat down under one of the gnarled oaks and clasped her hands in her lap.
She looked sad and pitiful enough to one who had known her in the past of her arrogance and plenty; she was submissive, subdued, stripped of all airs and graces, all pride and vanities.
And she was lovely, in a pale delicate, soft way, as she had never been before.
But there was no pity in the cold warped heart, in the hard icy eyes of the woman who looked at her so unmercifully.
"Mrs. Strype," said Aprilis desperately, "can't you forget me? You passed me once in London without taking any notice of me—can't you go on pretending I am dead to you?"
"No. I found that I couldn't," answered the other woman slowly and leaning heavily on the stick that she carried. "You had taken up too much of my life—of our life."
"You heard that I was being punished?" Mrs. Strype's eyes gleamed. "I heard something."
"From Isabel Graham, of course. Wasn't that enough for you?"
"I suppose I wanted to see for myself how you took your punishment."
"And now you've seen," said Aprilis, "can't you leave me?"
Mrs. Strype moistened her lips.
"I think I'll stay a little." %
Aprilis looked at her steadily.
"Whatever wrong I did you, Mrs. Strype, I've expiated—my punishment for that came when I found myself alone and almost penniless, spoilt, helpless, frightened—you'd trained me to be greedy and lazy and vain, you didn't care what I was as long as I was faithful to Adrian, did you?"
"/ was not responsible for your faults, your great faults."
'"No, I dare say not. You threw me off and I was in a panic,. You knew my whole life, my friends, my acquaintances, my background depended on you, and at one blow you took them all away—I was bewildered."
"You deserved it."
"Did I? It was pretty sharp revenge, Mrs. Strype. And you deceived me cruelly about the money. I was spending yours and thought it was my own.'
"You knew all the time, you were only pretending," said Mrs. Strype contemptuously. Aprilis flushed.
"That isn't true. Anyhow, haven't you done enough?"
"Nothing could right the wrong you did me. I was amused to hear how true to type you'd acted—an attempt to catch a rich man, a loveless marriage in a panic!"
"I suppose Isabel Graham told you that." Aprilis rose wearily. "But in one thing you and Miss Graham are both wrong—mine isn't a loveless marriage."
"Indeed! Well, I suppose your husband does love you. I'm sorry for him, very sorry for him."
Aprilis gave a queer sad little smile.
"It is I who love my husband, Mrs. Strype."
Taken off her guard the other woman exclaimed:
"But there's talk of a divorce, of your marriage to Mr. Ushaw!"
"Miss Graham has primed you well with gossip," said Aprilis proudly, "but she is quite wrong. Tell her that she need not be concerned, for I shall never marry Mr. Ushaw."
Mrs. Strype looked baffled; she was slightly ashamed at the figure she had cut in listening to the venom of Isabel Graham; it had not been her intention to reveal herself so completely.
"I suppose," continued Aprilis steadily, "Miss Graham sent for you to assist in driving me into a divorce, and then preventing Mr. Ushaw from marrying me, that is her design, I know. You want me— both of you—want me and my husband utterly ruined and humiliated, don't you?"
"You're crazy," muttered the old woman. "There's no plot against you—your husband is suspected of a crime and if it is brought home to him you will be involved. There's nothing but justice in that."
Aprilis answered, rather wildly:
"Justice! Oh, Mrs. Strype, can't we make an end of this? All these hatreds and jealousies, pulling us all down?"
Mrs. Strype drew back rigidly.
"Can't you forget?" asked Aprilis. "Haven't I been punished enough?"
"No," said Mrs. Strype violently, "no."
She turned and walked rapidly away; a fell black figure in the brightness of the lonely wood.
When Aprilis returned from this encounter with Mrs. Strype she had to cross the ruins and enter the castle from that side; it was impossible to reach the front of the castle from these woods without crossing the torrents of Peñanegra which could be done and had been done, as the dark water at one place was only a couple of feet across, but it was dangerous indeed to leap across the slippery rocks with the foaming cataract beneath, and Aprilis shuddered at the thought.
No doubt it was here that John Graham had been killed, shot and pushed backwards into the torrent to be dashed down hundreds of feet below into the pool into which the water thundered in the valley.
A ruined tower, now partly demolished, overhung Peñanegra torrent, and these toppling granite walls, flanked by the dry and sombre foliage of ilex trees, added a note of deeper sinister gloom to the dark grandeur of the scene.
Aprilis paused by these ruins, stood under the shade of the gloomy trees and watched, fascinated, the tumble of the waterfall now flecked with dazzling sparkles from the sun which was just beginning to disappear behind the dark and lofty ridge of the Sierras.
She was in a strange tumult of soul and spirit that had nothing to do with her desperate circumstances or her profound unhappiness
She had told Mrs. Strype that she loved her husband.
On what impulse or instinct she had said this she did not know; she had not meant to say it—the words had rushed to her lips.
It was no deliberate lie, no thought-out piece of deception—she did not know why she had said it—said it twice.
"I love my husband."
The thought of the words gave her pleasure; there was something noble in the sound—comfort and support.
She had seen Mrs. Strype shrink from them confused, almost disarmed.
Mrs. Strype, of course, had been so sure that she, Aprilis, was incapable of love, and all her venom had, as it were, been discounted when she heard those words.
"She believed them," thought Aprilis. "I must have spoken them as if they were true. Is it possible that they are true?"
And if they were?
What then?
Too late now.
Too late for her to discover that she loved Stephen Borlace.
He had done with her; he had said, coldly and sadly that he no longer cared for her, that "that folly" was past.
He had been just, generous, kind, but he had said that he was cured of his passion, his crazy passion for her, and he was willing to hand her over to the man she had tried in vain to marry, to arrange a divorce and leave her free to enjoy Ushaw's money and power.
She trembled at the thought of what she had missed— what joy, what happiness, love!
To have loved Stephen when he loved her, why, nothing else would have mattered. But now it was too late.
And if she did love him, or felt she might come to love him, it would be for her but an added misfortune.
And Aprilis, leaning from the shade of the ruins and the ilex trees looked almost longingly into the swift rush of the water.
Perhaps that would be a good way to end it—to step into the torrent and be swept away to instant nothingness.
No one would regret her—Stephen would be free and Mrs. Strype and Isabel Graham disappointed of their malice.
And Ushaw?
Even he would not long mourn for her; the quality of his love was not fine enough for much grief.
"Why don't I do it?" thought Aprilis. "Why don't I throw myself over and end such a silly, worthless, spoilt and selfish life?"
She was startled from these bitter reflections by hearing the voice of Betterys Ushaw at her side.
"You are standing in a dangerous position, Aprilis."
She could only just distinguish the warning through the roar of the torrent and she drew back reluctantly, still fascinated by the dark danger that swirled away beneath her feet.
Ushaw was standing in the ilex shade.
"This tower is dangerous too," he remarked. "It might topple over—indeed, it is intended to—they are undermining the foundations—but it might come before it was intended to—"
"If it fell and overwhelmed both of us," said Aprilis gazing up mournfully at the sombre ruin, "I think it would be a good end."
He laughed.
"What do you mean by talking like that?" he asked mockingly.
"You think that I am always acting," replied Aprilis, "but sometimes I do speak the truth, you know. I speak it now when I say that I am very, very unhappy."
He still laughed, as one might at the whim of a child who chooses to pout and sulk for no cause.
"You'll be happy enough presently," he said. "I'll give you toys and jewels—anything you want, my dear."
They had now left the shadow of the dark, menacing tower, and stood beneath the walnut tree, near the queer fragrant herb garden.
Aprilis, clasping her hands, turned to Ushaw as she had turned to Mrs. Strype.
"Can't you let me alone?" she cried. "Can't you let me go?"
He looked at her keenly but seemed to disdain a reply.
Aprilis continued her desperate pleading.
"Can't you leave off hounding Stephen? He is innocent of that crime, anyway, and I don't know what harm he has done you."
"He told you that, did he?" sneered Ushaw.
"Yes, and I believed him."
"Why?"
Aprilis sought for an answer; the simple phrase of Custance's letter came into her mind.
"Because he is a good man," she said.
Ushaw smiled in cynic amusement.
"A good man!" he repeated. "What new mood is this, Aprilis?"
"No mood at all."
"Yet I don't think that you used to care much about good men, did you, my dear?—"
"I was a fool, in a panic, when we first met—you can't think worse of me then than I do now but I've a right to change—"
"I'll admit that," he said ironically. "I said I wouldn't marry you and now I say I will, so I've changed that much."
Aprilis looked at him steadily.
"And I've changed too. I wanted to marry you, I would have married you only a few months ago. And now nothing would induce me to do so—nothing."
Ushaw turned on his heel with a movement of vexation.
"It's time we stopped all this nonsense, all these silly words," he replied. "I've given you long enough, Aprilis, I haven't harried you or bothered you—and now I'm tired of waiting."
He paced back again so that he stood close beside her.
"I and Borlace have arranged matters," he added. "He is clearing out, he quite agrees that it is the best thing to do."
"Because you are hounding him," cried Aprilis, "because you and Isabel Graham are making his life intolerable between you."
"Not at all. Because he has discovered the folly of ever marrying you, because he sees the hopelessness of such a marriage as yours. You see, the crazy idiot thought that you cared for him."
Ushaw said this with a quiet triumph in his tone and a gleam of malice in his pale eyes.
And Aprilis was silenced.
Because this was so near the truth, so much what Stephen had said himself—it was not because of any threats on the part of Ushaw that he was willing to relinquish her, but because of the way she had cheated him, because of his heart-broken disgust at her behaviour.
Ushaw was gazing at her, enjoying her discomfiture when the words she had used to Mrs. Strype again rose to her lips:
"You see, I love my husband."
APRILIS saw Ushaw wince as Mrs. Strype had winced.
He lost his air of easy triumph.
"How many shifty has you put on me," he said roughly.
"It isn't a lie," replied Aprilis. "You must see it isn't, for I am prepared to stand by him—poor, persecuted and unfortunate as he is. If he goes, I am willing to go with him."
"That is very fine," sneered Ushaw, "but I know you better than to credit it—you've been out for money and ease all your life."
"One changes," said Aprilis, "one wakes up."
"Don't act with me. I can see through you. I don't want any more tricks, Aprilis," he replied with rising temper. "I've had enough, and remember that I can see through you every time, my dear."
"What does that matter to me?" she said wearily. "I only want to go away, I only want you to leave me alone, to forget me."
"I suppose," he retorted harshly, "you are trying to put up your value? Or else to revenge yourself on me because I left you in London?"
"No, no."
"Well," he went on unheeding, "I've explained that—I've admitted that I was jealous, vain, that I lost my temper. I always meant to make it up to you, Aprilis, and I will make it up to you, in ways of which you can't dream."
She replied, indifferently
"I've forgotten all about it."
"Then why are you fooling me, or trying to fool me with this wild talk?"
There was some anxiety behind his harsh, dominating manner.
"I'm only telling you what I feel," whispered Aprilis. "How do you suppose I could gladly come to you now, knowing what you are, Mr. Ushaw? How treacherous, ungenerous and wholly cruel."
He uttered an exclamation of impatience.
"Never mind that—I've got money, heaps of money; that's what you wanted, isn't it?"
"What I wanted, yes," said Aprilis quietly. "But I don't want it now."
He glared at her.
"Don't want money?"
"No, I really don't. The moment I got up against anything real I found that money wasn't the least use," said Aprilis earnestly. "I found out how lazy, selfish and idle I'd been—how mean in trying to clutch at safety and ease, what a horrible wrong I had done to Stephen."
"Oh, and you didn't think of what you'd done to me, I suppose?" Aprilis smiled faintly.
"I'm sorry for that too. But I did you no such great harm. I didn't marry you. I didn't break your heart."
"No, break my heart you won't, Aprilis, but you'll marry me.
"I couldn't. I'm married to Stephen, I shall remain his wife."
"I hope he appreciates such devotion," sneered Ushaw.
Aprilis paled.
"I dare say he detests me. I deserve that he should."
"He is certainly going away."
"You are trying to force him to go away."
"I prefer that he should."
"And his work here?"
"I can get another man for that."
"I believe you can't."
Ushaw shrugged.
"Well, perhaps I can't, but Xarandilla can go."
Without this work, without the patronage of Ushaw Borlace would be ruined.
Aprilis thought of that; poverty and struggle would be ahead of him.
"Come," said Ushaw impatiently, "enough of word making. Borlace goes to-morrow and you remain with me.
Aprilis started.
"Has he agreed to that? So soon?"
" Yes, he has. agreed."
"When he goes I shall go with him, he can't refuse that, however much he detests me."
" Indeed he will."
"I know he will not," said Aprilis steadily. "Do you think I can remain here at your mercy?"
H Oh. I shall be kind enough."
"And what of Mrs. Strype and Isabel Graham?"
"What have those two women to do with you?"
"A great deal," replied Aprilis bitterly. "Isabel Graham has already told me that I shall never marry you, she hates me, she hates Stephen, this terrible jealousy! And Mrs. Strype has come over here especially t > see my discomfiture, my humiliation—they are both of them waiting to see me discarded by Stephen and discarded by you."
Aprilis paused, and then added:
"And how do I know that they are not right? You may be in league with them for all I know or trust you —you may never intend to marry me at all."
Ushaw flamed into sudden temper; his thin face coloured darkly.
"It is not for you to make bargains with me, or to hold me to account. I don't know what game you are trying to play now but it is a very stupid one. You should be thankful to me that I still keep a fancy for you, you should be grateful to your luck that yOu may still have the money you were scheming for in London—"
"We shall never understand each other," interrupted Aprilis. "How can I convince you that I no longer care for money and that I do care for my husband?"
"Very well," said Ushaw passionately, "if you choose to stick to that tale, I shall know what to do."
"Leave us in peace I hope," said Aprilis sorrowfully.
"I shall denounce Borlace as the murderer of John Graham."
"He's innocent!"
"Innocent or guilty it will go hard with him, I think."
"You wouldn't do that?" faltered Aprilis frightened by his grim fury.
"I shall. And however the matter goes Borlace will have a year or so in a Spanish jail before the trial comes on, and you won't see much of him, my faithful wife."
"You're only trying to frighten me," stammered Aprilis. "It isn't possible you've got a tale that would put Stephen in prison—"
"You will see to-morrow," he replied in quieter but none the" less deadly tones. "I have three or four witnesses, men working here who heard the shot, ready to come forward at a word from me—I've Isabel Graham panting to ruin Borlace—I saw the whole thing, and she nearly saw it, she came up as I was throwing the revolver down the torrent after Graham, she saw Borlace peering after his victim, she knew of the hatred between the two men—I tell you it was only the influence I had here that enabled me to hush the matter up. Every one suspected and still suspects Stephen Borlace."
" But you've no proof."
"Haven't I?" he smiled. "I got the remains of Graham from the pool and buried at once. They were much disfigured then and only dust now, no doubt, but somewhere in that dust is the bullet from Borlace's revolver. A great many people here could identify that, for it was a different weapon to any here."
Aprilis was intimidated, overwhelmed; she thought of what the look on Stephen's face would be if this horrible fate was brought on him through her agency.
Would it not be better to allow him to go in safety, and remain herself at the mercy of Ushaw than to insist on accompanying him at the cost of rousing this terrible revenge?
Useless to plead with Ushaw, useless to tell him how base, how fell was his conduct, useless to plead with him for mercy.
Soothed by the sight of her fear he smiled and said:
"Now do you see why I wanted you to marry Stephen Borlace?"
"Give me," said Aprilis, "a little time, a little time."
"Till to-morrow?"
"Oh, no, longer!"
"I've waited long enough, Aprilis," he replied ironically. "If you can't decide to let Borlace go quietly and remain here with me, I'll get rid of the fellow in the way I've just told you."
She moved away across the ruins without answering.
She felt absolutely in despair; every way she looked she was enmeshed by the ravening flames of hatred and jealousy. Jealousy.
"There must be a way out," thought Aprilis, "there must be a way out."
It was the night after her fierce interview with Ushaw and she could not sleep for sick fear and agitation.
She had not even made any attempt to go to bed, and sat by the window looking out on to the courtyard and the other wing of the castle which were outlined with startling clarity by the white brilliance of the full moon which flooded the scene with a dazzle that seemed unnatural, almost artificial to Northern eyes.
Aprilis had heard the footsteps of her husband in the room adjoining hers and her first impulse had been to summon him, to tell him what Ushaw had threatened and to implore him to let her stand by him.
But she had not felt the courage or the need for this how useless to implore him again when he had so recently and so definitely repulsed her!
How hopeless to warn him of what Ushaw had said, for it was she, not Borlace, on whom the realisation of these threats depended.
Her husband knew how much he was in Ushaw's power and how much he was likely to exercise this power, and no warning of hers could help him.
So Aprilis had remained forlorn and lonely by her window, communing with her own sad heart.
Presently she heard the footsteps, which had lately been pacing up and down the adjoining room, pass into the corridor and the door close softly.
A pause.
And then the steps again, slowly descending the stairs. Stephen was going out, in the middle of the night. A sudden terror seized Aprilis that she might never see him again, that he might go away now, creep away secretly like this.
And leave her to the mercy of Ushaw, Mrs. Strype and Miss Graham.
It was a crazy thought, born of the night and fear and loneliness, but Aprilis could not resist the impulse to act on it—at once.
She snatched up a shawl, flung it round her, opened the door cautiously, listened in the darkness.
Through the silent old castle those distant footsteps still faintly sounded.
Aprilis crept furtively down the wide stairs.
She sped quicker than she realised and when she reached the bottom she saw clearly the tall figure of her husband outlined in the open doorway that gave on to the courtyard and that now framed a glare of vivid moonlight.
As Aprilis caught sight of him he stepped into the courtyard, closing the door behind him.
Aprilis fumbled her way across the darkness of the corridor to the lines of white light round and under the closed door, opened it, and hurried after her husband who was rapidly crossing the broad space of moonlight.
He did not look back and her light step made no sound on the pavement; he wore no hat, she noticed, and carried nothing, not as much as a dispatch case.
So it was hardly likely that in this guise he was leaving Spain, or even Xarandilla for ever.
This conviction made Aprilis the more eager to follow her husband.
Not that she wished to spy on him, she never even thought of that, but because she felt, vaguely, yet with ghastly force, the fell menace of some bitter danger.
Borlace crossed the courtyard and entered the low arched door that led to the ruined portion of the castle.
He had to fumble a little with the bolts of this and Aprilis drew back into the inky shadow of the arcade until he had gone through the door.
Then she darted out and followed him; as she stepped on to the ruins she saw him just in front of her, passing under the black shade of the ilex trees.'
Grisly and grand looked the scene in this sombre hour.
The rugged line of the distant Sierras was black against a pallid sky flooded with white light in the midst of which the moon floated like a silver ship on a crystal sea.
Sharp and dense against this pellucid light rose the ruins, highest of all the broken granite tower.
Bare to the moonlight lay the plan of the ruined chambers, encumbered with fallen masonry, grown with herbs and wild flowers, cistus, cactus and the dark blots of the cypress, ilex and walnut trees.
There was something so mournful, grand and impressive about this scene that Aprilis paused for a second and caught her breath.
Then she saw the figure of her husband pass from under the blackness of the trees in the direction of the tower and the torrent, the roar of which was steady like incessant thunder in the air.
Aprilis remembered how she had stood by the torrents of Peñanegra and with what thoughts
She ran across the rough ground, never heeding bruised feet, or the rough clinging wild vines, and caught her husband's arm as he stood by the torrent.
He turned with a sharp but low exclamation of amazement and for a while they gazed at each other in silence.
Each saw the other's face pallid in the silver of the moonlight, and each heard the menacing roar of the torrent, while near by them, so near as to lie across their feet, was the crooked shadow of the dark and sinister tower.
"Come away."
Aprilis spoke at last and as she spoke drew him gently away from the edge of the gulf.
"Was this," she added in a voice that but faintly pierced the thunder of the cataract, "your way out?"
He tried to evade her meaning, he tried to look away.
"What do you mean?"
"You meant to go away," said Aprilis, "now and for ever—I see now, you meant to throw yourself into the cataract."
"Well," muttered Stephen, "it would have been the easiest way."
"Why?"
"It would have set you free without any scandal or bother,' he replied, still not looking at her and half shamefacedly. "And after all I have nothing left to live for—"
"Haven't you? Haven't you?" cried Aprilis clinging to him desperately "Haven't you me to live for?"
"You?"
He did turn now and look at her and she saw his magnificent face distorted and passionate.
"Won't you live for me, Stephen?" she repeated forlornly.
It was because of you that I was going to end it all, Aprilis."
"Not because of Ushaw and his threats and power?"
"No. What would that have mattered it—"
"If what, Stephen?"
"If you had cared for me."
"I do care for you—I do—"
"Don't mock me." But she clung closer. "I love you, Stephen."
"It is not possible."
"So possible that if you wish I will go over the torrent with you. I would rather die with you than live with Ushaw. Can't you hear the truth in my words?"
So white and frail and piteous she clung to him in the moonlight, near the shadow of that dark tower.
"Don't you want Ushaw—and his money?" asked Borlace slowly.
"No! No!"
"Don't you want to be rid of me?"
"No! No!"
"You want me to live, Aprilis?"
"Yes, I want you to live and to take me away." She felt his strained attention relax. "You wouldn't lie to me now, would you?" he asked earnestly.
"No—can't you tell when I speak the truth?" sobbed Aprilis.
Her tears completed his surrender.
He put his arms round her and kissed her with that humble love, that passionate devotion that at first she had despised, but which, now that it was returned to her, she found beyond price.
"Come away from the sound of the torrent," he said, and led her back to the castle.
AS the two, Aprilis and Stephen, united but overwhelmed and exhausted, came slowly back across the inky shadows and glaring lights of the moon they saw in one of the windows of the castle a pallid light burning.
"Some one is awake," whispered Aprilis, "we shall be seen."
"It does not matter if we are," replied Stephen. But Aprilis trembled.
She believed that Ushaw was watching her from that upper window where the pale light glowed, and she shrank closer to Borlace.
"Take me away, soon," she whispered.
"To-morrow if you wish."
"At once—cannot we put a few things together and go now? Surely we could walk to the nearest station if you could not get mules—"
Stephen saw no need for such frantic haste, and said so.
"If you are with me, Aprilis, I do not mind Xarandilla."
But Aprilis was thinking of what she dared not mention, those wild threats of Ushaw, his determination to ruin Borlace and to separate them.
She did not doubt that once he knew of her reconciliation with her husband, once he suspected that she and Borlace meant to live together, he would put his menaces into execution.
"Stephen," she whispered as they passed into the darkness of the arcade, "who really killed John Graham?"
"Ushaw, of course," he answered dryly. "Didn't you guess?" Aprilis shuddered.
"Yes, I guessed. But how is it that he can fasten it on to you?"
"I don't know if he can. But he might. He had a quarrel with Graham about the sister, they were both trying to force on a marriage between him and Isabel Graham—and then Graham hated him because he favoured me. And Ushaw amused himself pitting us one against the other and in leading the woman on just to let her down."
"He's cruel, cruel," whispered Aprilis.
"Yes. A devil. Well, we were all three together on the rains and it happened that I was the only one armed, though we were all usually in this country. There was a hot quarrel between Ushaw and Graham. Ushaw snatched my revolver from my hip pocket and shot Graham who toppled back into the torrent, I snatched the weapon back and Isabel Graham ran up to find us like that '
Aprilis's heart sank; it seemed to her that the case was black against Borlace, given his helpless position and Ushaw's money and power.
And the more terrible seemed this horrible menace now she was at one with Stephen, her husband.
How terrible to lose what she had so dearly gained, what she so dearly, yes, dearly loved!
But Borlace seemed light of heart; he had told his tale indifferently, but when he spoke to Aprilis there was a note of exultation in his voice.
They had now reached the corridor and were slowly proceeding up the dark stairs cautiously, so as not to make a noise, when a door above them was opened and showed a patch of pallid light.
They paused.
"We were watched," whispered Aprilis fearfully. Borlace clasped her hand.
"Come up quickly," he said, "maybe it is Ushaw in one of his mad moods—"
They came up till they were on a level with the door which opened on to the top corridor.
And there, in the open lit space, stood Ushaw, a candle in his hand, staring at them.
To the terrified eyes of Aprilis he looked grotesque, unearthly, for he wore a brocade dressing-gown of rich colours, and his narrow face was of a yellowish pallor from which the pale eyes looked with a keen blaze; wizened he appeared and much older than Aprilis had ever believed him to be, and she shrank back against Stephen.
Ushaw noted the movement and smiled grimly. He was silent. And so was Borlace.
But the two men never took their gaze from each other as they passed and Ushaw continued to smile. Aprilis turned away.
She did not want to see that narrow face with the ironic smile and the malevolent eyes.
Yet as she reached the door of her room a certain fascination of terror impelled her to look back.
Ushaw was still watching them with pale intentness, with that sardonic smile, with those steady light eyes.
Borlace followed Aprilis and bolted the door.
Ushaw continued without a change of expression to watch that fastened door for a full minute.
Then he also softly closed his own door and the castle was dark and silent again.
But in the chamber of Aprilis, Borlace had hastily lit a lamp and closed the shutters, for Aprilis had lost control at last and had sunk into a chair, sobbing violently.
"Stephen, he means to ruin us—he understood we had come together and he will be avenged."
Stephen endeavoured to comfort her, to make light of his own peril and Ushaw's malice.
"Didn't you see his eyes?" whispered Aprilis. "He is mad with jealousy, he will stop at nothing."
"Neither shall I," replied Stephen quietly, "now that I have something to live for and fight for—"
He stooped over Aprilis who was quietly crying in the old heavy chair.
"Listen, dear, you must be brave. At the best, things aren't very bright for us—I'm in Ushaw's debt for the money he's advanced, we've got very little between us, and I don't find it easy to get work."
He paused; Aprilis had ceased to sob and was listening intently.
"But we've got something, enough to win through with if you'll stand by me. We'll manage. Even poverty needn't be so ugly if you know how to manage."
"I'm not afraid of poverty now," said Aprilis pitifully. "I've had my lesson, Stephen, I shan't be greedy, or selfish, or lazy any more "
"Darling," said he in his loyal love, "you never have been any of these things—if you'll trust me we shall be all right—I have been lazy and selfish—now I shan't sulk if I can't get castles to build, but be content with cottages."
He made he: get on the bed and rest; and she, like a child, made him promise to stay with her till she slept; which she soon did from sheer exhaustion.
She was awakened by the noise of the hammers of the workmen demolishing the granite tower and she sprang up at once, thinking—" if only we could gel away from Xarandilla!"
The servant brought her her coffee as usual and on the tray was a letter; from Ushaw, his final threat, no doubt.
She gulped the coffee, hastily dressed, and with the unopened letter in her hand knocked on her husband's door.
He came at once.
"A letter from Betterys Ushaw, I daren't open it." Borlace took it and ripped the envelope and read:
"Dear Aprilis,
"I'm glad you are sincere at last, you only wanted to fall in love to become a very delightful woman. I congratulate you—and Stephen Borlace.
When my will is read you will find yourself handsomely provided for—after all—"
A dull crash broke on the air; Borlace looked up sharply.
"The tower—that sounds as if the- tower had fallen—-—"
He looked out of the window; the workmen were running across the courtyard. Borlace shouted out to them . in Spanish and in Spanish they yelled back.
"Ushaw was on the tower," he cried. "They say that he seemed to be striking the stones from beneath his feet—the tower has crashed into the torrents—"
They looked at each other in horror and yet with unutterable relief.
Like the black forms of evil birds of prey the fell I figures of Ushaw, Mrs. Strype and Isabel Graham fled out of their horizon; but Aprilis, taking up Ushaw's letter, gave him her truest tears as her husband held and comforted her tenderly.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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