Prisoners Part 35

"No. Please don't."

"I think I will all the same. Why not marry Lord Lossiemouth after all?

Don't speak. I want to place the situation dispa.s.sionately before you. I have thought it carefully over. You are an extremely attractive woman, Magdalen. I don't know what it is about you, I fail to a.n.a.lyse it, but one becomes attached to you. You can make even a home pleasant. And if a man once cared for you it is improbable that he would cease to care just because you are no longer young. I take my stand on the basic fact that there certainly has been a mutual attachment. I then ask myself----"

At this moment the door opened and the footman announced "Lord Lossiemouth."

The shock to both women was for the moment overwhelming.

Magdalen recovered herself almost instantaneously and welcomed him with grave courtesy, but she was unable to articulate.

He had seen the amazement in the four eyes turned on him as he came in, and cursed Colonel Bellairs in his heart. Why had not the old idiot warned Magdalen of his coming?

He had felt doubtful of his reception. A simulated coldness on Magdalen's part was, perhaps, to be expected. But for her blank astonishment he was not prepared.

"This is Bessie," she said in a shaking voice.

Bessie! This tall, splendid young woman. Could this be the tiny child of three who used to sit on his knee, and blow his watch open.

"I cannot be expected to remember you," said Bessie, advancing a limp hand. She fixed a round dispa.s.sionate eye on his heavy, irritable face, and found him unpleasant looking.

He instantly thought her odious.

And they all three sat down simultaneously as if by a preconcerted signal.

"Are you staying in the neighbourhood?" asked Magdalen, as a paralysed silence became imminent. A faint hectic colour burnt in her cheeks.

Lord Lossiemouth pulled himself together, and came to her a.s.sistance.

Together they held back the silence at arm's length.

Yes, he was staying in the neighbourhood--at Lostford in fact. House property near the river. Liable to floods.

Did he mention the word floods?

Yes. Floods at certain seasons of the year. Time to take measures now before the autumn, etc.

Magdalen was glad to hear of some measures being taken. Long needed.

Yes, culpable neglect.

A wall?

Yes, a wall. Certainly a wall.

Bessie rose, marched to the door, opened it, hit her body against it, and went out.

A certain degree of constraint went with her.

"I had your Father's leave to come," he said after a moment. "I should not have ventured to do so otherwise."

"I wish Father had warned me," she said.

They looked away from each other. Here in this room fifteen years ago they had parted. Both s.h.i.+vered at the remembrance.

Then they looked long at each other.

Magdalen became very pale. She saw as in a gla.s.s what was pa.s.sing through his mind; and for a moment her heart cried out against those treacherous deserters, her beauty and her youth, that they should have fled and left her thus, defenceless and unarmed to endure his cruel eyes. But she remembered that he had left her before they did. They had not availed to stay him. They had only slipped away from her in his wake. And at the time she had hardly noticed their departure, as he was no longer there to miss them.

Lord Lossiemouth had come determined to propose to Magdalen, his determination screwed "to the sticking point" by a deliberately recalled remembrance of the change the years had wrought in her. He had told himself he was prepared for that. Nevertheless, now that he was actually face to face with her, in spite of his regard and respect for her, a horrid chasm seemed to yawn between them, which only one primitive emotion can span, an emotion which, like a disused bridge, had fallen into the gulf years ago.

And yet how marvellously strong, how immortal it had seemed once--in this same room with this same woman. It had seemed then as if it could not break, or fall, or fade.

It had broken, it had fallen, it had faded.

As he looked earnestly at her he became aware that though she had been momentarily distressed a great serenity was habitual to her. The eyes which now met his had regained their calm. It seemed as if her life had been steeped in tranquil suns.h.i.+ne, as if the free air of heaven had penetrated her whole delicate being, and had left its clear fragrance with her.

Oh! if only they had been married fifteen years ago! What happiness they might have given each other. How perfect to have owed it all to each other. How fond he would still be of her. How tender their mutual regard would still be. Then his present feeling for her would not be amiss.

They ought to be sitting peacefully together at this moment, not in this intolerably embarra.s.sing personal relation towards each other, but at ease with each other, talking over their boy at Eton, and the new pony for their little daughters. He did not want to _begin_ being married to her now.

She knew what he felt.

"Magdalen," he said, "I am distressed that I have taken you by surprise.

I had hoped that you were prepared to see me. But my coming is not, I trust, painful to you."

A pulse fluttered in her cheek.

"I am glad to see you," she said. "If I did not seem so the first moment it was only because I was taken aback."

"A great change has come over my fortunes," he continued, anxious to give her time, and yet aware that no conversation except on the object of his visit was really possible. "I am at last in a position to marry."

"When I heard the news I thought that you would probably marry soon."

"Our engagement was broken off solely for lack of means," he continued.

Her eyes dropped. "Now that that obstacle is removed I have come to ask you, to beg you most earnestly to renew it."

"It is very good of you," she said almost inaudibly. "I appreciate your--kindness."

He saw that she was going to refuse him. But he was prepared for that contingency. It was a natural feminine method of readjusting the balance between them. He would certainly give her the opportunity. He owed it to her. Besides, the refusal would not be final. He knew from her relations that she still loved him.

"If your feeling towards me is unchanged will you marry me?"

The door opened, and the footman announced "Mr. Thomson."

The new curate came slowly into the room, his short-sighted eyes peering about him, a little f.a.ggot of papers girdled by an elastic band, clasped in his careful hand against his breast.

Magdalen started violently, and Lord Lossiemouth experienced a furious exasperation.

Magdalen mechanically introduced the two men to each other, and they all three sat down, with the same sudden automatic precision as when Bessie had been present.