Imprudence Part 31

A quality both wild and lawless sprang to life in him and overrode his better nature for the time. Disappointed hope and baulked desire drove him to a frenzy of excess which in saner moments he would not have believed himself capable of. He would have been horrified at this complete loss of control had he been able to appreciate it. But a spirit of recklessness held him before which his commonsense melted like snow consumed by the fires which pa.s.sion lit in his breast. It occurred to him while he held her, crushed and trembling, in his arms and kissed her madly, that he was a fool to attempt to reason with her. A girl nursed in the washy traditions of her cla.s.s, as Prudence was, should not be hampered with the responsibility of choice: he ought to decide for her--ought to take full responsibility for the step he was urging her to accede to. It wasn't fair to burden her conscience with a sense of willing concession. That was where he had made the mistake. He was asking too much of her.

"Little love," he whispered against her lips, "don't be afraid. There is nothing to fear in love; and I love you better than life. You are going with me to-night. No, don't speak! You are nervous and unstrung.

You don't know what you want. Leave this to me. I've got a car waiting in the village. We'll travel up to town in it; and later, when I am drafted across the water, you'll go to France as my wife, and live there until I can be with you again."

He drew back his head to look at her, and his face softened to a wonderful tenderness; there were tears in his eyes. After a barely perceptible pause, he resumed more quietly:

"Prudence, I've thought of this hour day and night since I saw your dear face light up at sight of me, and your dear eyes smile their welcome into mine. You are mine by every natural law; and I'm going to take you. Scruples! We have no use for such folly. They didn't scruple to marry you to a man too old for you. He had no scruple against taking you without love. They've themselves to thank for this. What does it matter? It's our own lives we have to think for. Leave everything to me. Don't worry. I'll manage things. I am taking you away with me to-night... Life's going to be just splendid, dear. We'll be together.

Oh, Prudence, it will be great--wonderful! My dear! ... Oh, my dearest!"

Very tenderly he kissed her lips again. Prudence suddenly disengaged herself from his arms and slipped to her feet and stood facing him, the moonlight splashed on her hair and face, and on the slender bare arms, which she lifted on an impulse, bringing the hands to rest on his shoulders.

"We can't, dear," she said. "We can't. It isn't that I'm afraid; it isn't that I don't love you--better than any one in all the world. It's just because I love you so well, I think, that I can't have the beauty of it spoiled. That sort of thing brings regret--always."

"You don't dare," he said in sullen tones. "You are thinking of what people will say."

"No; it isn't that. I don't wish to pose as good--I've never been good.

But clean and decent living appeals to me. I'm cold, perhaps--even a little hard; it isn't so difficult for me to practise restraint--when I try--hard. I'm loving you with all my heart, dear; but I don't want to do what you ask. If I agreed, I should hate myself, my life, everything, when the glamour faded and I had time to reflect. I know myself so well. I would rather go on with my dull loveless life than go away with you and lose my self-respect."

"You don't love me," he said. "You couldn't talk like that if you were in love. It's unnatural. I'd risk d.a.m.nation for you."

She leaned a little nearer to him, and a new quality came into her voice; her face was solemn and tender.

"There's something else I'm thinking of besides these things," she said.

"I can't bear that you should go to face death--to meet death, perhaps--with this sin upon your soul. I don't like to think that men can talk so lightly of sinning in such grave and terrible times."

He made an impatient sound that was like a cry of protest, and moved restlessly under her hands.

"Oh, hang it all! One doesn't want to be thinking all the time about that."

"When death stands so close as it stands to nearly every one of us these days; when one reads of nothing else," she added quietly; "it makes one think. It alters all one's view of life. I used to feel that my own life mattered tremendously; that I had to make the most of every opportunity which might add to my enjoyment. Now I see things differently. I don't hold a lesser belief in the importance of life, quite the reverse; but the personal point of view is altogether unimportant. Satisfaction comes from living worthily. I have never done that. I have been always selfish and inconsiderate for others. I believe that to-night you have taught me self-knowledge. Teach me also to be strong."

Her voice fell into silence, but she did not remove her hands from his shoulders. And he remained for a few seconds motionless, looking at her without speaking. The appeal in her eyes and in her voice was irresistible; it was as an appeal to his manhood from some one pathetically weak and conscious of her weakness; and the better side of his nature responded to it. But it cost him more than she could ever know to relinquish his dreams at her bidding.

He put his hands over hers and stood up. And so they remained for a while close together, looking into each other's eyes.

"You are everything to me," he said at last, breaking the silence unexpectedly. "I've thought of you so much--thought of you always as belonging to me. It doesn't seem possible to rid myself of that idea.

I've no interest in life outside it."

"I know," she said. "I know. It is not going to be easy for me either."

They came upon another pause.

"At least you have a cause to fight for," she said presently.

He shook his head.

"All that doesn't count, somehow. But I shall be glad to go now. I shall never come back. Prudence."

"Ah, don't!" she cried, with a sob in her voice. "Don't say that. I shall pray for your safety every day of my life."

"Pray rather for a swift and merciful bullet," he said. Then, seeing the pain in her eyes, he took her face between his hands and kissed it.

"Don't cry, little love. There are worse things to face than the long sleep. Alive or dead, you will live in my heart always. Keep my place green in your memory, dear."

She dropped her face on his breast and sobbed her heart out in the shelter of his arms.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

More credit is given to heroism which arises from physical courage than is accorded usually to moral bravery. Yet the standard of physical courage, however loudly acclaimed, ranks no higher. To win a victory over one's self demands greater strength of purpose than is required for the defeat of an ordinary foe. To obey a sense of right from motives other than discretion necessitates courage of a superior order. And it is through this courage, this quiet self-denial, that the world is kept a little better, a little sweeter, than would be possible if each individual set-out with the poor determination to gratify his every desire.

Prudence had won a victory; but she did not feel triumphant; there was no conscious elation in her heart. If the night air struck fresher and purer by reason of this restraint, it also struck very chill. Its cold breath enveloped her. She was weary and sad at heart.

Steele, too, was silent and dispirited. He parted from her in the road outside the gate, parted in almost apathetic calmness, and turned and walked quickly away down the hill. He did not once look back to where Prudence waited at the gate and watched him with sad eyes, tearless now, until the night enfolded him and hid him from her view. Then she let herself into the house and went wearily up to bed.

That was the beginning and the end of her romance. All the fine thinking in the world could not reduce the feeling of irreparable loss which she experienced in the knowledge that he had pa.s.sed out of her life for ever. She had sent him away; and all her happiness went with him, all her love. If for a moment she regretted the triumph of virtue, it was but a transitory regret; but she did regret, pa.s.sionately, that life had come between her and the realisation of love. She believed that she could never feel happy any more. She also believed that she could not return to her husband. The thought of living again beneath his roof was hateful to her.

Then merciful sleep overtook her, and the darkness closed down upon the misery of her thoughts.

The morning brought no relief. Heavy-eyed and languid, Prudence went downstairs, to find that she was late for prayers. She was aware of William's gaze, as she slipped quietly into the room and took her seat, fixed upon her with a curious, it seemed to her, even a suspicious scrutiny. He paused in the reading and waited with a sort of aggressive patience until she was seated. Then he continued in his sonorous voice reading the lesson for the day.

Upon the finish of prayers breakfast followed, after which Mr Graynor repaired to the library with Prudence who since her return read the papers to him because of his failing sight. William prepared to start out on the day's business. From the library Prudence could hear him calling loudly for his boots, and demanding of the servant who brought them why they were not in their accustomed place. It transpired that he had omitted to put them outside his bedroom door on the previous night and thereby caused delay in the cleaning of them. He muttered something in response, and hastily proceeded to draw them on.

The servant meanwhile went to the front door in answer to an imperative ring. Commotion followed upon the opening of the door. Mr Graynor looked round at these unexpected interruptions and signed to Prudence to cease reading. She sat with the newspaper open in her hands and listened to the sound of angry voices without.

Some one had entered and was talking loudly and defiantly to William in the hall. William was doing his utmost to eject the intruder and to talk her down at the same time--two impossible feats. The noise of their voices raised in fierce altercation drew nearer; and, attracted by the disturbance, Agatha made her appearance from the morning-room and stood, pink and trembling with indignation, looking upon the scene in incredulous amazement.

"What is that--creature doing here?" she asked of her brother.

He seemed to find some difficulty in answering her, and, evading her eyes, glared furiously at the defiant young woman, who, holding a child by the hand, maintained her stand with an air of a.s.surance which refused to be cowed by his lowering scowl.

"You tell 'er what I want," she said. "I don't mind."

"Go away," he shouted. "Do you hear? Go away!"

"It isn't difficult to 'ear you," she retorted sharply. "I want a word with you, William Graynor; and I'm not going away until I've 'ad it."

"Turn her out," Miss Agatha exclaimed, shocked and affronted. "How dare she speak to you like that?"

"Why don't you tell 'er," the insolent voice insisted, "what I've come for, and why I speak as I do? Seems as if you was afraid of 'er."

She looked round suddenly, and caught sight of Mr Graynor, standing with the library door open, surveying the scene. She shrank back, quailing before the cold anger of his look. But he had recognised her, and spoke now in a voice of sharp command.

"Come in here, girl," he said; and to his son he added fiercely: "William, bring that woman inside, and shut the door."

From force of habit, perhaps too because he recognised that there was no possible chance of evading explanations, William obeyed the order. He allowed Bessie Clapp to precede him, and following her into the room, shut the door sharply behind him, and stood with his back against it in an att.i.tude of gloomy anger. Once he looked at Prudence, seated opposite their father with the newspaper in her lap, regarding the woman and child with pitiful understanding eyes. He would have liked to suggest the advisability of her retiring; but his natural effrontery had deserted him, and he remained silent.

Bessie Clapp also looked at Prudence. The sight of the quiet figure, the light of friendly interest in the blue eyes, proved heartening: the hardness melted from her own face. Standing a few steps inside the door against which William leaned, superb in her magnificent beauty, with the child clinging nervously to her hand, she confronted Mr Graynor, who, reseating himself, remained staring at her fixedly across the writing-table upon which he rested his shaking hand.

The stillness of their various poses, for with the closing of the door each had maintained a rigid immovability, was fraught with significance.

There was no need for a verbal explanation of the presence of the woman with her child in that house. Mr Graynor knew, Prudence knew, as surely as William and the girl, what brought her there. Nevertheless Mr Graynor, leaning heavily upon the table, with his cold eyes upon the girl's frightened face, demanded the reason of her noisy intrusion.