Imogen, in these days, had little time for self-observation. She seemed living in some dark, fierce region of her nature, unknown to her till now, where she found only fear and fury and the deep determination not to be defeated and bereft. So supremely real were will and instinct, that, seen from their dominion, conscience, reason, all the spiritual tests she had lived by, looked like far, pale clouds floating over some somber, burning landscape, where, among flames and darkness, she was running for her life. Reason, conscience, were still with her, but turned to the task of self-preservation. "He is mine. I know it. I felt it. They shall not take him from me. It is my right, my duty, to keep him, for he is all that I have left in life." The last veil descended upon her soul when, her frosty young nature fired by the fierceness of her resolution, she felt herself to be pa.s.sionately in love with Sir Basil.
On the third day, the third day of her _vita nuova_--so she named it--Jack had organized a picnic. They were to drive ten miles to a mountain lake among pine woods, and, thrilling all through with rage, Imogen saw Sir Basil safely maneuvered into the carriage with her mother, Rose, and Eddy, while she was a.s.signed to Jack, Miss Boc.o.c.k, and Mary.
She heard herself talk sweetly and fluently during the long, sunny, breezy drive, heard Jack answering and a.s.senting with a fluency, a sweetness as apt. Mary was very silent, but Miss Boc.o.c.k, no doubt, found nothing amiss in the tone of their interchange. Arrived at the beautiful spot fixed on, sunlight drifting over glades of fern, the shadowy woods encircling a lake of blue and silver, she could say, with just the right emphasis of helpless admiration: "Wonderful--wonderful;"--could quote a line of Wordsworth, while her eye pa.s.sed over the figure of Sir Basil, talking to Rose at a little distance, and over Jack"s figure, near at hand.
Jack and Eddy had driven, and the moment came when they were occupied with their horses. She joined the others, and, presently, she was able to draw Sir Basil a little aside, and then still a little further, until, among the rosy aisles, she had him to herself. Stooping to gather a tiny cone she said to him in a low voice:--"Well?--well?--What did she say?"
Sir Basil, too, lowered his voice:--"I"ve wanted a chance to tell you about it. My dear child, I"m so very sorry, but I"ve been a failure. She won"t hear of it. You"ll have to give it up."
"She utterly refused?" How far this matter of her father was from her thoughts--as far as the pale clouds above the fierce, dark landscape.
"Utterly."
"You asked for your sake, as well as for mine?"
"I asked for both our sakes."
"And," still stooping, her face hidden from him, she pierced to find the significance of that moonlight hand-clasp,--"and--she made you agree with her?"
"Agree with, her?--I was most dreadfully disappointed, and I had to tell her so.--How could I agree with her?"
"She might have made you."
"She didn"t make me;--didn"t try to, I"m bound to say."
"But,"--her voice breathed up to him now with a new gentleness,--a gentleness that, he well might think, covered heart-brokenness,--"but--you haven"t quarreled with her,--on my account? I couldn"t bear her to lose things, on my account. She thinks of you as a friend--values your friendship;--I know it,--I am sure of it,--even though she would not do this for you. Some hatreds are too deep to yield to any appeal; but it is friendship I know;--and I love her--in spite of everything."
She had murmured on and on, parting the ferns with her delicate hand, finding here and there a little cone, and as Sir Basil looked down at the golden hair, the pure line of the cheek, a great wave of thanksgiving for the surety of his freedom rose in him.
"Dear, sweet child," he said, "this is just what I would expect of you. But don"t let that thought trouble you for one moment. I do think her wrong, but we are perhaps better friends than ever. You and I will always care for her"--Sir Basil"s voice faltered a little as, to himself, the significance of these last words was borne in upon him, and Imogen, hearing the falter, rose, feeling that she must see as well as hear.
And as she faced him they heard Jack"s cheery call:
"Sir Basil--I say, Sir Basil!--You are wanted. You must help with the hampers."
Imogen controlled every least sign of exasperation; it was the easier, since she had gained something from this s.n.a.t.c.hed interview. Her mother had in no way harmed her in Sir Basil"s eyes, and this avowal of friendship might include an abdication of nearer claims. And so she walked back beside him--telling him that her cones were for her little cripples. "You are always thinking about some one else"s happiness," said Sir Basil--with a tranquillity less feigned than it had been of late. Nothing was lost, nothing really desperate yet. But, during the rest of the afternoon, while they made tea, spread viands, sat about on the moss and rocks laughing, talking, eating, the sense of risk did not leave her. Nothing was lost, yet, but it was just possible that what she had, in her folly, expected to happen the other night to her and Jack, might really happen to Sir Basil and her mother; in the extremity of alienation they might find the depths of need. He thought her wrong, but he also thought her charming.
Sitting a little above them all, on a higher rock, watching them while seeming not to watch, she felt that her sense of peril strangely isolated her from the thoughtless group. She could guess at nothing from her mother"s face. She had not spoken with her mother since the day of the disaster--and of the dawn. It was probable that, like her own sad benignity, her mother"s placidity was nothing but a veil, but she could not believe that it veiled a sense of peril. Under her white straw hat, with broad black ribbons tying beneath the chin, it was very pale--but that was usual of late--and very worn, too, as it should be; but it was more full of charm than it had any right to be. Her mother--oh! despite pallor and fading--was a woman to be loved; and that she believed herself a woman loved, Imogen, with a deep stirring of indignation and antagonism, suspected. Yes, she counted upon Sir Basil, of that Imogen was sure, but what she couldn"t make out was whether her mother guessed that her confidence was threatened. Did she at all see where Sir Basil"s heart had turned, as Jack had seen? Was her mother, too, capable of Jack"s maneuvers?
From her mother she looked at Sir Basil, looked with eyes marvelously serene. He lounged delightfully. His clothes were delightfully right; they seemed as much a part of his personality as the cones were of the pines, the ferns of the long glades. Rightness--exquisite, unconscious rightness, was what he expressed. Not the rightness of warfare and effort that Imogen believed in and stood for, but a rightness that had come to him as a gift, not as a conquest, just as the cones had come to the pine-trees. The way he tilted his Panama hat over his eyes so that only his chin and crisply twisted mustache were unshadowed, the way in which he held his cigarette in a hand so brown that the gold of the seal ring upon it looked pale, even the way in which he wagged, now and then, his foot in its shapely tan shoe,--were all as delightful as his limpid smile up at her mother, as his voice, deep, decisive, and limpid, too.
Imogen was not aware of these appreciations in herself as she watched him with that serene covertness, not at all aware that her senses were lending her a hand in her struggle for possession and ascendancy, and giving to her hold on the new and threatened belonging a peculiar tenacity. But she did tell herself, again and again, with pride and pain, that this at last was love, a love that justified anything, and that cast all lesser things aside. And, with this thought of rejection, Imogen found her eyes turning to Jack. She looked at Jack as serenely as she had at Sir Basil, and at him she could trust herself to look more fixedly.
Jack"s rightnesses were not a bit like those of nature. He was hesitant, unfinished, beside Sir Basil. His voice was meager, his form was meager, his very glance lacked the full, untroubled a.s.surance of the other"s. As for his clothes, with a sly little pleasure Imogen noted, point by point, how they just missed easy perfection. Very certainly this man who had failed her was a trophy not comparable to the man who now cared. She told herself that very often, emphasizing the unfavorable contrast. For, strangely enough, it was now, at the full distance of her separation from Jack, an irrevocable separation, that she needed the support of such emphasis. In Jack"s absent stare at the lake, his nervous features composed to momentary unconsciousness, she could but feel a quality that, helplessly, she must appreciate. There was in the young man"s face a purity, a bravery, a capacity of subtle spiritual choice that made it, essentially, one of the most civilized she had ever known. Sir Basil"s brain, if it came to comparison, lacked one or two convolutions that Jack"s undoubtedly possessed.
And, appreciating the lost lover, as, through her own sharpness of intelligence she was bound to do, poor Imogen knew again the twisted pang of divided desire. Was it the higher that she had lost, or the higher that she so strangely struggled for? Her eyes, turning again on Sir Basil, stayed themselves on the a.s.surances of his charm, his ease, his rightnesses; but the worst bitterness of all lurked under these consolations; for, though one was lost, the other was not securely gained.
Imogen, that night, made another dash for the open, only, again, to be foiled. Her mother and Miss Boc.o.c.k were safely on the veranda in the moonlight, the others safely talking in the drawing-room; Sir Basil, only, was not to be seen, and Imogen presently detected the spark of his cigar wandering among the flower-borders. She could venture on boldness, though she skirted about the house to join him. What if Jack did see them together? It was only natural that, if she were unconscious, she should now and then seek out her paternal friend. But hardly had she emerged from the shadow of the house, hardly had Sir Basil become aware of her approach, when, with laughter and chattering outcries the whole intolerable horde was upon her. It was Rose who voiced the a.s.sociated proposal, a moonlight ramble; it was Rose who seized upon Sir Basil with her hateful air of indifferent yet a.s.sured coquetry; but Imogen guessed that she was a tool, even if an ignorant one, in the hands of Jack. Miss Boc.o.c.k and her mother had not joined them and, in a last desperate hope, Imogen said,--"Mama, too, and Miss Boc.o.c.k,--we mustn"t leave them. Sir Basil, won"t you go and fetch them?" And then, Sir Basil detached from Rose, on his way, she murmured,--"I must see that she doesn"t forget her shawl," and darted after him. Once more get him to herself and, in the obscurity of the woods, they might elude the others yet. But, as they approached the veranda, she found that Jack was beside them.
Neither Valerie nor Miss Boc.o.c.k cared to join the expedition; and Valerie, cryptically, for her daughter"s understanding, said: "Do you really want more scenery, Sir Basil? You and Imogen had much better keep us company here. We have earned a lazy evening."
"Oh, no, but Rose has claimed Sir Basil as her cavalier," Jack, astonishingly, cut in. "It"s all her idea, so that she could have a talk with him. Do you come, too," Jack urged. "It"s only a little walk and the moonlight is wonderful among the woods."
Mrs. Upton"s eye rested fixedly upon him for a moment. Imogen saw that, but could not know whether her mother shared her own astonishment for Jack"s development or whether the look were of the nature of an interchange. She shook her head, however.
"No, thanks, I am too tired. Be sure and show Sir Basil the view from the rustic seat, Imogen. And, oh, Imogen, do you and Sir Basil go to the pantry and ask Selma for some cakes. You will like something to eat."
"I"ll come, too," said Jack cheerfully. "I must get my stick."
And thus it was that Sir Basil remained standing beside Mrs. Upton, while the young couple, in absolute silence, accomplished their mission.
Imogen only wondered, as they went, side by side, swiftly, round to the pantry, if Jack did not hear the deep, indignant breaths she vainly tried to master. The rest of the evening repeated the indignities of the afternoon. She was watched, guarded, baffled. Proudly she relinquished every attempt to checkmate; and her mother was not there; for the moment there was no anxiety on that score. But the sense of deep breathing did not leave her. What _wouldn"t_ Jack do? She was quite sure that he would lie, if, technically, he had not lied already. The stick had been in the hall near the pantry. If it hadn"t;--well, with her consciousness of whistling speed, of a neck-to-neck race, she really would not have had time for a pause of wonder and condemnation.
XXV
She woke next morning to that fierce consciousness of a race. And the goal must now be near, defeat or victory imminent.
It was early and she dressed quickly. She couldn"t boldly rap at Sir Basil"s door and call him to join her in the garden for a dewy walk before breakfast, for Jack"s was the room next his; but, outside, as she drifted back and forth over the lawn, in full view of his window, she sang to herself, so that he could hear, sang sweetly, loudly, sadly, a strain of Wagner. It happened, indeed, to be the Pilgrim"s March from Tannhauser that she fixed upon for her _aubade_. Jack would never suspect such singing, and Sir Basil must surely seize its opportunity. But he did not appear. She surmised that he was not yet up and that it might be wiser to wait for him in the dining-room.
As she crossed the veranda she heard voices around the corner, a s.n.a.t.c.h of talk from two other early risers sitting outside the drawing-room windows.
Mary and Rose; she placed them, as she paused.
"But Jack himself often talks in just that way," Mary was saying, pained it was evident, and puzzled, too, by some imputation, that she hadn"t been able to deny.
"Yes, dear old Jack," Rose rejoined; "he does talk in a very tiresome way sometimes; so do you, Mary my darling;--you are all tarred with the same solemn brush; but, you see, it"s just that; one may talk like a prig and yet not be one. Jack, behind the big words, means them all, is them all, really. Whereas Imogen;--why she"s little--little--little. Even Jack has found that out at last."
"Rose! Rose! Don"t--It"s not true. I can"t believe it! I won"t believe it!"
broke from Mary. Her chair was pushed back impetuously, and Imogen darted into the dining-room and from there into the hall to find herself, at last, face to face with Sir Basil.
"I hoped I"d find you. I heard you singing in the garden. What is that thing,--Gounod, isn"t it? Do let"s have a turn in the garden."
But even as he said it, holding her hand, the fatal c.h.i.n.k of the approaching breakfast tray told them that the opportunity had come too late. Rose and Mary already were greeting them, Jack and Miss Boc.o.c.k called morning wishes from above.
Valerie was a late riser; and Imogen, behind the tea-pot and coffee, was always conscious of offering a crisp and charming contrast to lax self-indulgence. But this morning, as they all hemmed her in, fixed her in her rightful place, her cheeks irrepressibly burned with vexation and disappointment. The overheard insolence, too, had been like a sudden slap.
She mastered herself sufficiently to kiss Mary"s cheek and to take Rose"s hand with a gaze of pure unconsciousness, a gaze that should have been as a coal of fire laid upon her venomous head.
But Rose showed no symptom of scorching. She trailed to her place, in a morning-gown all lace and ribbons, smiling nonchalantly at Jack and saucily at Sir Basil, with whom she had established relations of chaffing coquetry; she told Imogen to remember that she liked her coffee half-and-half with a lot of cream and three lumps of sugar. She looked as guiltless as poor Mary looked guilty.
"Eddy"s late as usual, I suppose," she said.
"He inherits laziness from mama," Imogen smiled, putting in four lumps, a trivial vengeance she could not resist.
"Some of her charms he has inherited, it"s true." Rose, in the absence of her worshiped hostess gave herself extreme license in guileless prods and thrusts. "I only wish he had inherited more. Here you are, Eddy, after all, falsifying my hopes of you. We are talking about your hereditary good points, Eddy;--in what others, except morning laziness, do you resemble your mother?"