And Ted, with a furious glance at me, pushed past me, and went into the room.
"It would be a great kindness to my sister, who is very nervous," I said to the Duke, "if you would wait a moment in the garden."
He instantly went towards the open door into the garden. Then I darted after Ted. Between us we would hurry Essie into one of the many other rooms that opened into the hall.
She was standing by the window frantically endeavouring to break the lattice of the central cas.e.m.e.nt, which was a little larger than the others.
There was blood on her hand.
Ted was speaking, but she cut him short.
"Not in here," she said pa.s.sionately. "I won"t have it. He mustn"t come in here."
"He must come in if I say so," said Ted. The colour had left his face. I had seen him angry before now, but never so angry as this.
"No," said Essie, "he must not."
She came and stood before her husband.
"Haven"t I been a good wife to you these five years past," she said.
"Haven"t I done my best to make you happy? Haven"t I obeyed you in everything, everything, everything--till now?"
He stared at her open-mouthed. She had never opposed him before.
She fell on her knees before him, and clasped his feet with her bleeding hands.
"If you love me," she said, "send him away. I refuse to see him."
"You are hysterical," said Ted, "or else you"re stark staring mad. I"ve spoilt you and given way to you till you think you can make any kind of fool of me. Get up at once, and cease this play acting, and come into the hall."
"He"s in the garden," I broke in. "You can pa.s.s through the hall, Essie."
She rose to her feet, and her vehemence dropped from her. Her eyes were rivetted on Ted. She paid no heed to what I said. She had no attention to give to anything but her husband.
"I will not come out," she said, and she sat down again on the divan.
"Then by--he shall come in," said Ted, and before I could stop him he strode to the door, calling loudly to the Duke to enter.
There was a moment"s pause, in which we heard a step cross the hall.
Then the Duke came in, and Ted introduced him to Essie. She bowed slightly, but he did not. He stared at her, transfixed, overwhelmed.
At that moment the discreet voice of Mr. Rodwell was heard in the doorway.
"Can I have one last word, Mr. Hopkins? A matter of some importance."
"Yes, yes," said Ted darting to the door, thankful to escape. As he left the room he said to me, "Take Essie at once into the hall. At once, do you hear?"
He might as well have said, "Take her to the moon."
The Duke and Essie gazed at each other with awed intentness. There was sheer amazement on his face, blank despair on hers. They were entirely absorbed in each other. As I stood in the background I felt as if I were a ghost, that no word of mine could reach their world.
At last he spoke, stammering a little.
"Madam, on the night of my coming of age I left the dancers, and came in here, and behold! you were sitting on that divan, all in white."
"Yes," said Essie.
"We saw each other for the first time," he said, trembling exceedingly.
"Yes."
"And I knelt at your feet."
"Yes."
A suffocating compa.s.sion overcame me. It was unendurable to pry upon them, oblivious as they were of my presence. I left the room.
"He will go out of her life in five minutes," I said to myself, "never to return. Poor souls. Poor souls. Let them have their say."
I had never seen Romance before, much less such a fantastic romance as this, in a faery land as forlorn as this. My heart ached for them.
Presently I heard Ted"s voice in the distance shouting a last message to the departing Rodwell, and I went back to the octagonal room.
He was kneeling at her feet, her pale hands held in his, and his face bowed down upon them.
"You must go," she said faintly.
He shuddered.
"You must go," she repeated. "To me you can only be a picture. To you I am only a dream."
"Yes, it is time to go," I said suddenly in a hoa.r.s.e voice. I obliged them to look at me, to listen to me.
Slowly he released her hands, and got upon his feet. He was like a man in a trance.
"Go! Go!" I said sharply. Something urgent in my voice seemed to reach his shrouded faculties.
He looked in bewildered despair at Essie.
"Go!" she repeated with agonised entreaty, paler than I had ever seen a living creature.
Still like a man in a trance he walked slowly from the room, pa.s.sing Ted in the doorway without seeing him. In the silence that followed we heard his motor start and whirl away.
"He"s gone," said Essie, and she fainted.
We had considerable difficulty in bringing her round, and, angry as I was with Ted, I could not help being sorry for him when for some long moments it seemed as if Essie had closed her eyes on this world for good.
But Ted, who always knew what to do in an emergency, tore her back by sheer force from the refuge to which she had fled, and presently her mournful eyes opened and recognised us once more. We took her back in the motor to the village inn, and I put her to bed.