The Lamp of Fate Part 29

"Do you mean that Mr. Quarrington told you he was leaving England on my account?" she asked.

"I don't often meddle, Magda--not really meddle." Lady Arabella's voice sounded unusually deprecating. "But I did in this instance. Because--oh, my dear, he's the only man I've ever seen to whom I'd be glad to give you up. He'd--he'd manage you, Magda."

Magda's head was turned away, but the sudden scarlet flush that flew up into her face surged over even the white nape of her neck.

"And he loves you," went on Lady Arabella, her voice softening incredibly. "It's only a man here or there who really _loves_ a woman, my dear. Most of them whip up a hotch-potch of quite commonplace feelings with a dash of pa.s.sion and call it love, while all they actually want is a good housekeeper and presentable hostess and someone to carry on the name."

No answer came from Magda, unless a stifled murmur could be regarded as such, and after a few minutes Lady Arabella spoke again, irritably.

"Why couldn't you have left Kit alone?"

Magda raised her head.

"What has that to do with it?"

"Everything"--succinctly. "I told you I meddled. Michael Quarrington came to see me before he went away--and I know precisely why he left England. I asked him to go and see you before he sailed."

"What did he say?" The words were almost inaudible.

Lady Arabella hesitated. Then she quoted quickly: "'There is no need.

She will understand.'"

To Magda the brief sentence held all the finality of the bolting and barring of a door. So Quarrington, like everyone else, had heard the story of Kit Raynham! And he had judged and sentenced her.

That night in the winter-garden he had been on the verge of trusting her, ready to believe in her, and she had vowed to herself that she would prove worthy of his trust. She had meant never to fall short of all that Michael demanded in the woman he loved. And now, before she had had a chance to justify his hardly-won belief, the past had risen up to destroy her, surging over her like a great tidal wave and sweeping away the whole fabric of the happiness she had visioned.

She had not wholly realised before that she loved. But she knew now. As the empty weeks dragged along she learned what it meant to long for the beloved one's presence--the sound and touch of voice or hand--with an aching, una.s.suagable longing that seems to fuse body and soul into a single ent.i.ty of pain.

Outwardly she appeared unchanged. Her pride was indomitable, and exactly how much Michael's going had meant to her not even Gillian suspected--though the latter was too sensitive and sympathetic not to realise that Magda had pa.s.sed through some experience which had touched her keenly. Ignorant of the incidents that had occurred on the night of Lady Arabella's party, she was disposed to a.s.sign the soreness of spirit she discerned in her friend to the general happenings which had followed from the Raynham episode. And amongst these she gave a certain definite place to the abrupt withdrawal of Quarrington's friends.h.i.+p, and resented it. She felt curiously disappointed in the man. With such fine perceptive faculty as he possessed she would have expected him to be more tolerant--more merciful in his judgment.

Once she had tentatively approached the subject, but Magda had clearly indicated that she had no intention of discussing it.

Not even to Gillian, whom she had gradually come to look upon as her closest friend, could Magda unveil the wound to her pride. No one, no one in the whole world, should know that she had been ready to give her love--and that the offering had been silently, but none the less decisively, rejected.

Diane's warning now found its echo in her own heart: "Never give your heart to any man. If you do he will only break it for you--break it into little pieces like the gla.s.s scent-bottle which you dropped yesterday."

"She was right," Magda told herself bitterly. "A thousand times right!"

CHAPTER IX

THE BACK OF BEYOND

The season was drawing to its close. London lay sweltering under a heat-wave which had robbed the trees in the Park of their fresh June greenness and converted the progress of foot-pa.s.sengers along its sultry pavements into something which called to mind the mediaeval ordeal of walking over hot ploughshares.

Even the garden at Friars' Holm, usually a coolly green oasis in the midst of the surrounding streets, seemed as airless as any back court or alley, and Coppertop, who had been romping ever more and more flaggingly with a fox-terrier puppy he had recently acquired, finally gave up the effort and flung himself down, red-faced and panting, on the lawn where his mother and Magda were sitting.

"Isn't it nearly time for us to go to the seaside, mummie?" he inquired plaintively.

Magda smiled down at the small wistful face.

"How would you like to go to the country instead, Topkins?" she asked.

"To a farm where they have pigs and horses and cows, and heaps of cream--"

"And strawberries?" interpolated Coppertop pertinently.

"Oh, of course. Or, no--they'll be over by the time we get there. But there'll be raspberries. That's just as good, isn't it?"

Gillian looked up, smiling a little.

"It's settled we're going 'there,' then--wherever it is?" she said.

"Do you think you'd like it, Gillyflower?" asked Magda. "It's a farm I've heard of in Devons.h.i.+re, where they want to take paying-guests for the summer."

Gillian, guessing from Magda's manner that the whole matter was practically arranged, nodded acquiescence.

"I'm sure I should. But will _you_?"--whimsically. She glanced at the sophisticated simplicity of Magda's white gown, at the narrow suede shoes and filmy stockings--every detail of her dress and person breathing the expensiveness and luxury and highly specialised civilisation of the city. "Somehow I can't imagine you--on a farm in the depths of the country! I believe you'll hate it."

"I shall like it." Magda got up restlessly. "I'm sick of society and the theatre and the eternal gossip that goes on in London. I--I want to get away from it all!"

Gillian's thoughts turned back to the happenings of the last few months.

She thought she understood what lay behind Magda's sudden decision to bury herself in the country.

"Have you taken rooms at this farm?" she asked.

"Yes, I have"--shortly. Then, with one of those sudden flashes of affectionate insight which were part of her essential lovableness, she went on: "Gilly, are you sure you don't mind? I ought to have asked you first"--remorsefully. "I expect you'll be bored to death. Perhaps you'd rather not come?"

Gillian's quiet brown eyes smiled at her rea.s.suringly.

"'Where thou goest--'" she quoted. "Of course I want to come. I've never been to Devons.h.i.+re. And I know Coppertop will adore the pigs and cows--"

"And cream," put in Coppertop ruminatively.

"Tell me about the place," said Gillian. "How did you hear of it?"

"Through the prosaic columns of the _Daily Post_," replied Magda. "I didn't want a place recommended by anyone I knew. That doesn't cut the connecting line one bit. Probably the people who've recommended it to you decide to look you up in their car, just when you think you're safely buried, and disinter you. I don't _want_ to be disinterred. I propose to get right away into the country, out of reach of everybody we know, for two months. I shan't give our address to anyone except Melrose, and he can forward on all letters." A small amused smile crossed her lips. "Then we can answer them or not, exactly as we feel disposed. It will be heavenly."

"Still I don't know where this particular paradise is which you've selected," returned Gillian patiently.

"It's at the back of beyond--a tiny village in Devons.h.i.+re called Ashencombe. I just managed to find it on the Ordnance map with a magnifying gla.s.s! The farm itself is called Stockleigh and is owned and farmed by some people named Storran. The answer to my letter was signed Dan Storran. Hasn't it a nice sound--Storran of Stockleigh?"

"And did you engage the rooms on those grounds, may I ask? Because the proprietor's name 'had a nice sound'?"

Magda regarded her seriously.

"Do you know, I really believe that had a lot to do with it," she acknowledged.

Gillian went off into a little gale of laughter.