The dreams of a better understanding seemed swept away by her own thoughtlessness and folly. She had hurt him and she could never explain. To refer to it, to try and make him understand, would do more harm than good. With a pitiful sob she covered her face with her hands, and, beside her, Mouston the pampered cringed and whimpered unheeded and forgotten.
She had looked forward to his return with such high hopes and now they lay shattered at her feet. During a brief hour that might have drawn them nearer together they had contrived to hurt each other as it must seem to both by deliberate intent. For herself she knew that she was innocent of any such intention—but was he? He had never hurt her before, even in his most difficult moods he had been to her unfailingly kind and considerate. But to-day—shudderingly she wondered did it mark a new era in their relations? And in miserable futile longing she wished that this afternoon had never been.
After what had occurred the thought of facing him across a table during an interminable dinner and sitting with him alone for the long hours of a summer evening drove her to a state bordering on panic. She pushed the thick hair off her forhead with a little gasp. It was cowardly—but she could not, would not. Despising herself she crossed the room to the telephone.
At the Hermitage Peters was indulging in a well-earned rest after a long hot day that had been both irksome and tiring. Wearing an old tweed coat he lounged comfortably in a big chair, a couple of sleepy setters at his feet, a foul and ancient pipe in full blast. The room, flooded with the evening sun, was filled with a heterogeneous collection of books and music manuscript, guns, fishing rods and whips. The homely room had stamped on it the characteristics of its owner. It was a room to work in, and equally a room in which to relax. The owner was now relaxing, but the bodily rest he enjoyed did not extend to his mind, which was very actively disturbed. His usually genial face was furrowed and he sucked at the old pipe with an energy that enveloped him in a haze of blue smoke. The ringing of the telephone in the opposite corner of the room came as an unwelcome interruption. He glared at it resentfully, disinclined to move, but at the second ring rose reluctantly with a grunt of annoyance, pushing the drowsy setters to one side. He took down the receiver with no undue haste and answered the call gruffly, but his bored expression changed rapidly as he listened. The soft voice came clearly but hesitatingly:
“Is that you, David? Could you come up to dinner—if—if you’re not going anywhere else—I’ve got a tiresome headache and it will be so stupid for Barry. I don’t want him to be dull the first evening at home. So if you could—please, David—”
His face grew grim as he detected the quiver in the faltering indecisive words, but he answered briskly.
“Of course I’ll come. I’d love to,” he said, with a cheeriness he was far from feeling. He hung up the receiver with a heavy sigh. But he had hardly moved when the telephone rang again sharply.
“Damn the thing!” he muttered irritably.
This time a very different voice, curt and uncompromising:
“—that you, Peter?—Yes!—Doing anything tonight?—Not?—Then for God’s sake come up to dinner.” And then the receiver jammed down savagely.
With grimmer face Peters moved thoughtfully across the room and touched a bell in the wall by the fireplace. His call was answered with the usual promptness, and when he had given the necessary orders and the man had gone he laid aside his pipe, tidied a few papers, and went slowly to an adjoining room.
The Hermitage was properly the dower house of the Towers, but for the last two generations had not been required as such. The room Peters now entered had originally been the drawing room, but for the thirty years he had lived in the house he had kept it as a music room. Panelled in oak, with polished floor and innocent of hangings, the only furniture a grand piano and a portrait, it was at once a sanctuary and a shrine. And during those thirty years to only two people had he given the right of entrance. To the woman whose portrait hung on the wall and, latterly, to the girl who had succeeded her as mistress of Craven Towers. To this room, to the portrait and the piano, he brought all his difficulties; it was here he wrestled with the loneliness and sadness that the world had never suspected. To-night he felt that only the peace that room invariably brought would enable him to fulfil the task he had in hand.
Craven was alone in the hall when he arrived, and it was not until the gong sounded that Gillian made a tardy appearance, very pale but with a feverish spot on either cheek. Peters’ quick eye noticed the absence of the black shadow that was always at her heels. “Where is the faithful Mouston? Not in disgrace, surely—the paragon?” he teased, and was disconcerted at the painful flush that overspread her face. But she thrust her arm through his and forced a little laugh. “Mouston is becoming rather incorrigible, I’m afraid I’ve spoiled him hopelessly. I’ll tell him you inquired, it will cheer him up, poor darling. He’s doing penance with a bone upstairs. Shall we go in—I’m famished.”
But as dinner progressed she did not appear to be famished, for she ate scarcely anything, but talked fitfully with jerky nervousness. Craven, too, was at first almost entirely silent, and on Peters fell the main burden of conversation, until by a direct question he managed to start his host on a topic that was of interest to both and lasted until Gillian left them.
In the drawing room, after she had finished her coffee, she opened the piano and then subsided wearily on to the big sofa. The emotions of the day and the effort of appearing at dinner had exhausted her, and in her despondency the future had never seemed so black, so beset with difficulties. While she was immeasurably thankful for Peters’ presence to-night she knew it was impossible for him to act continually as a buffer between them. But from the problem of to-morrow, and innumerable to-morrows, she turned with a fixed determination to live for the moment. A chaque jour suffit sa peine.
She lay with relaxed muscles and closed eyes. It seemed a long while before the men joined her. She wondered what they were talking about—whether to Peters would be imparted the information that had been withheld from her. For the feeling of a nearly impending calamity was strong within her. When at last they came she looked with covert anxiety from one to the other, but their faces told her nothing. For a few minutes Peters lingered beside her chatting and then gravitated toward the piano, as she had hoped he would. Arranging the heaped up cushions more comfortably around her she gave herself up to the delight of his music and it seemed to her that she had never heard him play so well.
Near her Craven was standing before the fern-filled fireplace, leaning against the mantel, a cigarette drooping between his lips. From where she lay she could watch him unperceived, for his own gaze was directed through the open French window out on to the terrace, and she studied his set handsome face with sorrowful attention. He appeared to be thinking deeply, and, from his detached manner, heedless of the harmony of sound that filled the room. But her supposition was soon rudely shaken. Peters had paused in his playing. When a few moments later the plaintive melody of an operatic air stole through the room she saw her husband start violently, and the terrible pallor she had witnessed once before sweep across his face. She clenched her teeth on her lip to keep back the cry that rose, and breathlessly watched him stride across the room and drop an arresting hand on Peters’ shoulder. “For God’s sake don’t play that damned thing!” she heard him say in a voice that was almost unrecognisable. And then he passed out swiftly, into the garden.