_ PART IV CHAPTER XXXVI. THE EAGLE STRIKES
Olga's recovery, when the crisis of the disease was past, was more rapid than even her father had anticipated; and this fact, combined with a spell of glorious summer weather, made the period of her quarantine very tedious, particularly as Nick was rigidly excluded from the sick-room.
At Olga's earnest request Muriel consented to remain at Redlands. Daisy had written to postpone her own return to the cottage, having received two or three invitations which she wished to accept if Muriel could still spare her.
Blake was in Scotland. His letters were not very frequent, and though his leave was nearly up, he did not speak of returning.
Muriel was thus thrown upon Jim Ratcliffe's care--a state of affairs which seemed to please him mightily. It was in fact his presence that made life easy for her just then. She saw considerably more of him than of Nick, the latter having completely relegated the duties of host to his brother. Though they met every day, they were seldom alone together, and she began to have a feeling that Nick's attitude towards her had undergone a change. His manner was now always friendly, but never intimate. He did not seek her society, but neither did he avoid her. And never by word or gesture did he refer to anything that had been between them in the past. She even wondered sometimes if there might not possibly have been another interpretation to Olga's story. That unwonted depression of his that the child had witnessed had surely never been inspired by her.
She found the time pass quickly enough during those six weeks. The care of Olga occupied her very fully. She was always busy devising some new scheme for her amusement.
Mrs. Ratcliffe returned to Weir, and Dr. Jim determined to transfer Olga to her home as soon as she was out of quarantine. With paternal kindliness, he insisted that Muriel must accompany her. Daisy's return was still uncertain, though it could not be long delayed; and Muriel had no urgent desire to return to the lonely life on the shore.
So, to Olga's outspoken delight, she yielded to the doctor's persuasion, and on the afternoon preceding the child's emancipation from her long imprisonment she walked down to the cottage to pack her things.
It was a golden day in the middle of September and she lingered awhile on the shore when her work was done. There was not a wave in all the vast, shimmering sea. The tide was going out, and the shallow ripples were clear as glass as they ran out along the white beach. Muriel paused often in her walk. She was sorry to leave the little fishing-village, realising that she had been very happy there. Life had passed as smoothly as a dream of late, so smoothly that she had been content to live in the present with scarcely a thought for the future.
This afternoon she had begun to realise that her peaceful time was drawing to an end. In a few weeks more, she would be in town in all the bustle of preparation. And further still ahead of her--possibly two months--there loomed the prospect of her return to India, of Lady Bassett's soft patronage, of her marriage.
She shivered a little as one after another these coming events presented themselves. There was not one of them that she would not have postponed with relief. She stood still with her face to the sunlit sea, and told herself that her summer in England had been all too short. She had an almost passionate longing for just one more year of home.
A pebble skimming past her and leaping from ripple to ripple like, a living thing caught her attention. She turned sharply, and the next moment smiled a welcome.
Nick had come up behind her unperceived. She greeted him with pleasure unfeigned. She was tired of her own morbid thoughts just then. Whatever he might be, he was at least never depressing.
"I'm saying good-bye," she told him. "I don't suppose I shall ever come here again."
He came and stood beside her while he grubbed in the sand with a stick.
"Not even to see me?" he suggested.
"Are you going to live here?" she asked in surprise.
"Oh, I suppose so," said Nick, "when I marry."
"Are you going to be married?" Almost in spite of her the question leapt out.
He looked up, grinning shrewdly. "I put it to you," he said. "Am I the sort of man to live alone?"
She experienced a curious sense of relief. "But you are not alone in the world," she pointed out. "You have relations."
"You regard marriage as a last resource?" questioned Nick.
She coloured and turned her face to the shore. "I don't think any man ought to marry unless--unless--he cares," she said, striving hard to keep the personal note out of her voice.
"Exactly," said Nick, moving beside her. "But doesn't that remark apply to women as well?"
She did not answer him. A discussion on this topic was the last thing she desired.
He did not press the point, and she wondered a little at his forbearance. She glanced at him once or twice as they walked, but his humorous, yellow face told her nothing.
Reaching some rocks, he suddenly stopped. "I've got to get some seaweed for Olga. Do you mind waiting?"
"I will help you," she answered.
He shook his head. "No, you are tired. Just sit down in the sun. I won't be long."
She seated herself without protest, and he turned to leave her. A few paces from her he paused, and she saw that he was trying to light a cigarette. He failed twice, and impulsively she sprang up.
"Nick, why don't you ask me to help you?"
He whizzed round. "Perhaps I don't want you to," he said quizzically.
She took the match-box from him. "Don't be absurd! Why shouldn't I?" She struck a match and held it out to him. But he did not take it from her. He took her wrist instead, and stooping forward lighted his cigarette deliberately.
She did not look at him. Some instinct warned her that his eyes were intently searching her face. She seemed to feel them darting over her in piercing, impenetrable scrutiny.
He released her slowly at length and stood up. "Am I to have the pleasure of dancing at your wedding?" he asked her suddenly.
She looked up then very sharply, and against her will a burning blush rose up to her temples. He waited for her answer, and at last it came.
"If you think it worth your while."
"I would come from the other side of the world to see you made happy," said Nick.
She turned her face aside. "You are very kind."
"Think so?" There was a note of banter in his voice. "It's the first time you ever accused me of that."
She made no rejoinder. She had a feeling at the throat that prevented speech, even had she had any words to utter. Certainly, as he had discovered, she was very tired. It was physical weariness, no doubt, but she had an almost overmastering desire to shed childish tears.
"You trot back now," said Nick cheerily. "I can grub along quite well by myself."
She turned back silently. Why was it that the world seemed so grey and cold on that golden summer afternoon? She sat down again in the sunshine, and began to trace an aimless design in the sand with the stick Nick had left behind. Away in the distance she heard his cracked voice humming. Was he really as cheerful as he seemed, she wondered? Or was he merely making the best of things?
Again her thoughts went back to Olga's pathetic little revelation. Strange that she who knew him so intimately should never have seen him in such a mood! But did she know him after all? It was a question she had asked herself many times of late. She remembered how he had lightly told her that he had a reverse side. But had she ever really seen it, save for those brief glimpses by Olga's bedside, and as it was reflected in the child's whole-souled devotion to him? She wished with all her heart that he would lift the veil just once for her and show her his inner soul.
Again her thoughts passed to her approaching marriage. She had received a letter from Blake that day, telling her at length of his plans. He and Daisy had been staying in the same house, but he was just returning to town. He was to sail in less than a fortnight, and would come and say good-bye to her immediately before his departure. The letter had been courteously kind throughout, but she had not felt tempted to read it again. It contained no reference to their wedding, save such as she chose to attribute to the concluding sentence: "We can talk everything over when we meet." A sense of chill struck her when she recalled the words. He was very kind, of course, and invariably meant well; but she had begun to realise of late that there were times when she found him a little heavy and unresponsive. Not that she had ever desired any demonstration of tenderness from him, heaven knew. But the very consciousness that she had not desired this added to the chill. She was not quite sure that she wanted to see him again before he sailed. Certainly he had never bored her; but it was not inconceivable that he might do so. She shivered ever so slightly. It was not an exciting prospect--life with Blake. He was quite sure to be kind to her. He would consider her in every way. But was that after all quite all she wanted? A great sigh welled suddenly up from the bottom of her heart. Life was ineffably dreary--when it was not revoltingly horrible.
"Shall I tell you what is the matter?" said Nick.
She started violently, and found him leaning across the flat rock on which she was seated. His eyes were remarkably bright. She had a feeling that he suppressed a laugh as his look flickered over her.
"Sorry I made you jump," he said. "You ought to be used to me by this time. Anyhow you needn't be frightened. My venom was extracted long ago."
She turned to him with sudden, unconsidered impulse. "Oh, Nick," she said, "I sometimes think to myself I've been a great fool."
He nodded. Her vehemence did not seem to surprise him. "I thought it would strike you sooner or later," he said.
She laughed in spite of herself with her eyes full of tears. "There's not much comfort in that."
"I haven't any comfort to give you," said Nick, "not at this stage. I'll give you advice if you like--which I know you won't take."
"No, please don't! That would be even worse." There was a tremor in her voice. She knew that she had stepped off the beaten track; but she had an intense, an almost passionate longing to go a little further, to penetrate, if only for a moment, that perpetual mask.
"Don't let us talk of my affairs," she said. "Tell me of your own. What are you going to do?"
Nick's eyebrows went up. "I thought I was coming to your wedding," he remarked. "That's as far as I've got at present."
She made a gesture of impatience. "Do you never think of the future?"
"Not in your presence," laughed Nick. "I think of you--you--and only you. Didn't you know?"
She turned away in silence. Was he tormenting her deliberately? Or did he fail to see that she was in earnest?
There followed a pause, and then, urged by that unknown impulse that would not be repressed, she did a curious thing. She got up, and, facing him, she made a very earnest appeal.
"Nick, why do you always treat me like this? Why will you never be honest with me?"
There was more of pain than reproach in the words. Her voice was deep and very sad.
But Nick scarcely looked at her. He was pulling tufts of dried seaweed off the rock on which he leaned.
"My dear girl," he said, "how can you expect it?"
"Expect it!" she echoed. "I don't understand. What do you mean?"
He drew himself slowly to a sitting posture. "How can I be honest with you," he said, "when you are not honest with yourself?"
"What do you mean?" she said again.
He gave her an odd look. "You really want me to tell you?"
"Of course I do." She spoke sharply. The old scared feeling was awake within her, but she would not yield to it. Now or never would she read the enigma. She would know the truth, cost what it might.
"What I mean is this," said Nick. "You won't own it, of course, but you are cheating, and you are afraid to stop. There isn't one woman in ten thousand who has the pluck to throw down the cards when once she has begun to cheat. She goes on--as you will go on--to the end of her life, simply because she daren't do otherwise. You are out of the straight, Muriel. That's why everything is such a hideous failure. You are going to marry the wrong man, and you know it."
He looked up at her again for an instant as he said it. He had spoken with his usual shrewd decision, but there was no hint of excitement about him. He might have been discussing some matter of a purely impersonal nature.
Muriel stood mutely poking holes in the sand. She could find nothing to say to this matter-of-fact indictment.
"And now," Nick proceeded, "I will tell you why you are doing it."
She started at that, and looked up with flaming cheeks. "I don't think I want to hear any more, Nick. It--it's rather late in the day, isn't it?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I knew you would be afraid to face it. It's easier, isn't it, to go on cheating?"
Her eyes gleamed for a moment. He had flicked a tender place. "Very well," she said proudly. "Say what you like. It will make no difference. But please understand that I admit none of this."
Nick's grin leapt goblin-like across his face and was gone. "I never expected it of you," he told her coolly. "You would sooner die than admit it, simply because it would be infinitely easier for you to die. You will be false to yourself, false to Grange, false to me, rather than lower that miserable little rag of pride that made you jilt me at Simla. I didn't blame you so much then. You were only a child. You didn't understand. But that excuse won't serve you now. You are a woman, and you know what Love is. You don't call it by its name, but none the less you know it."
He paused for an instant, for Muriel had made a swift gesture of protest.
"I don't think you know what you are saying," she said, her voice very low.
He sprang abruptly to his feet. "Yes," he said, speaking very rapidly. "That's how you will trick yourself to your dying day. It's a way women have. But it doesn't help them. It won't help you. For that thing in your heart--the thing that is fighting for air--the thing you won't own--the thing that drove you to Grange for protection--will never die. That is why you are miserable. You may do what you will to it, hide it, smother it, trample it. But it will survive for all that. All your life it will be there. You will never forget it though you will try to persuade yourself that it belongs to a dead past. All your life,"--his voice vibrated suddenly, and the ever-shifting eyes blazed into leaping flame--"all your life, you will remember that I was once yours to take or to throw away. And--you wanted me, yet--you chose to throw me away."
Fiercely he flung the words at her. There was nothing impersonal about him now. He was vitally, overwhelmingly, in earnest. A deep glow covered the parchment face. The man was as it were electrified by passion.
And Muriel gazed at him as one gazing upon sudden disaster. What was this, what was this, that he had said to her? He had rent the veil aside for her indeed. But to what dread vision had he opened her eyes?
The old paralysing fear was knocking at her heart. She dreaded each instant to see the devil leap out upon his face. But as the seconds passed she realised that he was still his own master. He had flung down the gauntlet, but he would go no further, unless she took it up. And this she could not do. She knew that she was no match for him.
He was watching her narrowly, she knew, and after a few palpitating moments she nerved herself to meet his look. She felt as if it scorched her, but she would not shrink. Not for a moment must he fancy that those monstrous words of his had pierced her quivering heart. Whatever happened later, when this stunned sense of shock had left her, she must not seem to take them seriously now, with his watching eyes upon her.
And so at last she lifted her head and faced him with a little quivering laugh, brave enough in itself, but how piteous she never guessed.
"I don't think you are quite so clever as you used to be, Nick," she told him, "though I admit,"--her lips trembled--"that you are very amusing sometimes. Blake once told me that you had the eyes of a snake-charmer. Is it true, I wonder? Anyhow, they don't charm me."
She stopped rather breathlessly, half-frightened by his stillness. Would he understand that it was not her intention to defy him--that she was only refusing the conflict?
For a few moments her heart beat tumultuously, and then came a great throb of relief. Yes, he understood. She had nought to fear.
He put his hand sharply over his eyes, turning from her. "I have never tried to charm you," he said, in a voice that sounded curiously choked and unfamiliar. "I have only--loved you."
In the silence that followed, he began to walk away from her, moving noiselessly over the sand.
Mutely she watched him, but she dared not call him back. And very soon she was quite alone. _