His outburst had been a perfectly natural reaction, but while she admitted the fact she felt a nervous dread of its recurrence.
She feared anything that might precipitate the upheaval that loomed always before her like a threatening cloud. For sooner or later the unrest that filled him would have to be satisfied. The curse of Craven would claim him again and he would leave her. And she would have to watch him go and wait in agony for his return as other women of the race had watched and agonised. And if he went would he ever return? or would she too know the anguish of suspense, the long drawn horror of uncertainty, the fading hope that year by year would become slighter until at last it would vanish altogether and the bitter waters of despair close over her head? A moan, like the cry of a wounded animal, broke from her. In vivid self-torturing imagination she saw among the sinister record around her another tablet—that would mean finality. He was the last of the Cravens. Did it mean nothing to him—had the sorrow of that past that was unknown to her but which had become woven into her own life so inextricably, so terribly, killed in him even the pride of race? Had he, deep down in the heart that was hidden from her, no thought of parenthood, no desire to perpetuate the family name, the family traditions? It would seem that he had not—and yet she wondered. The woman he had loved—of whose existence she had convinced herself—if she had lived, or proved faithful, would he still have desired no son? She shrank from the stabbing thought with a very bitter sob.
A sudden horror of her environment came over her. Around her were suggestions from which she shuddered, evidences that raised the haunting dread with which she lived to a culmination of fear. It had never seemed so near, so strong. It was stronger than her will to put it from her and in it, with inherent superstition, she saw a premonition. The little peaceful church became all at once a place of terror, a grisly charnel house of vanished hopes and lives. The spirits of countless Cravens seemed all about her, hostile, malign, triumphing in her weakness, rejoicing in her fear—spectral figures of the dead crowding, hurrying, threatening. She seemed to see them, a dense and awful concourse, closing round her, to hear them whispering, muttering, jibing—at her, a thing apart, an alien soul whose presence they resented. The clamorous voices rang in her ears; vague shapes, illusive and shadowy, appeared to float before her eyes. She shrank from what seemed the contact of actual bodily forms. Unnerved and overwrought she yielded to the horror of her own imagination. With a stifled cry she turned and fled, her arms outstretched to fend from her the invisible host that seemed so real, not daring even to look again at the pitying Christ whose calm serenity formed such a striking contrast to her storm-tossed heart.
Blindly she sped down the chancel steps, along the short central aisle, out into the timbered porch, where she blundered sharply into somebody who was on the point of entering. Who, it did not at the moment seem to matter—enough that it was a human creature, real and tangible, to whom she clung trembling and incoherent. A strong arm held her, and against its strength she leaned for a few moments in the weakness of reaction from the nervous strain through which she had passed. Then as she slowly regained control of herself she realised the awkwardness of her position, and her cheeks burned hotly. She drew back, her fingers uncurling from the tweed coat they clutched so tightly, and, trying to slip clear of the arm that still lay about her shoulders, looked up shyly with murmured thanks.
Then: “David,” she cried. “Oh, David–” and burst into tears. Guiding her to the bench that rested against the side of the porch Peters drew her down beside him. “Just David,” he said, with rather a sad little smile, “I was passing and Mouston told me you were here.” He spoke slowly, giving her time to recover herself, thanking fate that she had collapsed into his arms rather than into those of some chattering village busybody. He had caught a glimpse of her face as she came through the church door and knew that her agitation was caused by something more than sorrow for Miss Craven, great as that sorrow was. He had seen fear in the hunted eyes that looked unrecognisingly into his—a fear that he somehow resented with a feeling of helpless anger.
The affection he had for her was such as he would have given the daughter that might have been his had providence been kinder. And with the insight that affection gave he had seen, with acute uneasiness, a steadily increasing change in her during the last eighteen months. The marriage from which he, as well as Miss Craven, had hoped so much seemed after all to have brought no joy to either husband or wife. With his intimate knowledge and close association he saw deeper than the casual visitor to whom the family life at the Towers appeared an ideal of domestic happiness and concord. There was nothing he could actually take hold of, Craven was at all times considerate and thoughtful, Gillian a model of wifely attention. But there was an atmosphere that, super-sensitive, he discerned, a vague underlying feeling of tension that he tried to persuade himself was mere imagination but which at the bottom of his heart he knew existed. There had been times when he had seen them both, as it were, off their guard, had read in the face of each the same bitter pain, the same look of unsatisfied longing. Possessing in so high a degree everything that life could give they appeared to have yet missed the happiness that should by all reasoning have been theirs. Whose was the fault? Caring for them both it was a question that he turned from in aversion, he had no wish to judge between them, no desire to probe their hidden affairs. Thrown constantly into their society while guessing much he shut his eyes to more. But anxiety remained, fostered by the memory of the tragedy of Barry’s father and mother. Was he fated to see just such another tragedy played out before him with no power to avert the ruin of two more lives? The pity of it! He could do nothing and his helplessness galled him.
To-day as he sat in the little porch with Gillian’s hand clasped in his he felt more than ever the extreme delicacy of his position. Intuitively he guessed that he was nearer than he had ever been to penetrating the cloud that shadowed her life and Barry’s but with equal intuition he knew he must convey no hint of his understanding. He gauged her shy sensitive mind too accurately and his own loyalty debarred him from forcing such a confidence. Instead he spoke as though the visit to Miss Craven’s memorial must naturally be the cause of her agitation.
“Why come, my dear, if it distresses you?” he said, in quiet remonstrance; “she would not misunderstand. She had the sanest, the healthiest conception of death. She died nobly—willingly. It would sadden her immeasurably if she knew how you grieved.” Her fingers worked convulsively in his. “I know—I know,” she whispered, “but, oh, David, I miss her so—so inexpressibly.”
“We all do,” he answered; “one cannot lose a friend like Caro Craven lightly. But while we mourn the dead we have the living to consider—and you have Barry,” he added, with almost cruel deliberation. She faced him with steady eyes from which she had brushed all trace of tears.
“Barry understands,” she said with quick loyalty; “he mourns her too—but he doesn’t need her as I do.” It was an undeniable truth that reduced Peters to silence and for a while Gillian also was silent. Then she turned to him again with a little tremulous smile, the colour flooding her delicate face.
“I’m glad it was only you, David, just now. Please forget it. I don’t know what’s the matter with me to-day, I let my nerves get the upper hand—I’m tired—the sun was hot–”
“So of course you sent the carriage away and proposed walking two miles home by way of a rest cure!” he interrupted, jumping up with alacrity, and taking advantage of the turn in the conversation. “Luckily I’ve got the car. Plenty of room for you and the pampered one.” And waving aside her protests he tucked her into the little two-seater, bundling Mouston unceremoniously in after her.