Читать книгу Silver Slippers - Temple Bailey - Страница 5

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Joan Dudley, riding down to the sea with her lover was aware of the day as transcendent in her experience. It was wonderful to have Drew there beside her, sitting his horse in splendor like a king. That was the way Joan thought of him, always,—as splendid, like Richard of the Lion Heart, or any other of the mighty heroes of her dreams.

As he brought his horse to a walk, she was glad his hands were ungloved, so that she might see the strength of his brown fingers on the bridle. She was glad, too, when he rode for a time without his hat and the wind blew back the silver of his hair and touched his cheeks with ruddiness. She liked the strength and the ruddiness. They seemed to link him with youth—not that he needed to be thus linked, for she would not have had him younger, yet it added to his fascinations that in him the boy and the man were so marvellously mingled.

But more marvellous than all the rest was the fact that he loved her. He had not put it definitely into words. He had spoken rather through the touch of his fingers on her hand, the glance of his eyes, significant and exciting. He had spoken, too, through his silences, making them pregnant with possibilities,—as if when he opened his lips the miracle would come for which she waited.

Yet even as she waited she was half afraid. There had been now a long silence, and she felt impelled to break it.

She had stuck a wild rose behind her horse’s ear and one in the lapel of her riding coat. “Aren’t we gay?” she asked, and touched the rose with her finger tips.

He turned in his saddle, “I was willing you to speak.”

She was puzzled, “Willing me?”

“Yes. Forcing you by my mental attitude to look at me—or say something.”

She considered that. “I’m not sure I like it,” she said at last.

“Why not?”

“It puts too much power in your hands.”

“You mean I might use it to harm you?”

“Well, you could.”

“Do you think I would?” he leaned down to her.

She blushed, “Oh, no.”

He did not press her further and as they rode along the sands they talked of other things, and while they talked the fog crept across the sea—that summer sea of the Maine Coast, jade green before the fog caught it, its waves fluting themselves in snowy frills down the broad beach.

As the gray mist draped its mantle over them Joan said, “Aunt Adelaide hates days like this. She is talking about leaving Maine and going to Granitehead.”

His voice showed his dismay, “Surely not.”

“Yes. She likes more gayety—bridge and all that. The doctor advised coming up here in the woods to help her nerves. But she’s getting frightfully tired of it.”

“Do you want to go?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Oh ... I’m having such a heavenly time.”

He knew why she was having a heavenly time. He needed no vanity to know it. Because of his presence her days had been filled with rapture. In spite of his sophistication, the thought thrilled him. The child was so ingenuous, so untouched by the world. The weeks with her had seemed set apart from all those other affairs of the heart with which Drew Hallam had amused himself before he met her.

The fog wrapped them now in a veil. Joan, half-hidden by it, had an ineffable air of mystery.

Drew leaned forward, “Stop your horse,” he said.

She stopped, “Why?”

“I was afraid you might slip away from me—in the fog.”

“Oh, but I wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

His hand came through the mist, searching for her hand. He found it and drew her close. “You know, of course, that I shall never let you slip away?”

She whispered, “Yes.”

“Even if you try, I shall call you back.”

“I shan’t try.”

His laugh was triumphant. “There is something I want you to say to me.”

She did not answer, and he dismounted and stood beside her, “Say that you love me, Joan.”

“But—it has been only two weeks.”

“What has time to do with—you and me?”

The fog drifted between them like the smoke of incense rising from some sacred altar. Joan’s face, veiled by it, was rapt as that of a young priestess, starry-eyed.

Hallam lifted her from her saddle, held her close, “Mine?” he murmured with tense insistence, “tell me, Joan ... tell me.”

When they rode on again, she had given him a breathless promise. It seemed incredible. Two weeks ago she had not met him, and now she was to be his until—eternity ...

He asked as they went along. “Did you think it would be like this.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I had always fancied it would be somebody I had known a long time.”

“Is there anyone—you have known a long time?”

“Oh, no,” she emphasized, “you see I’ve lived a rather—cloistered life—schoolteachers do in small towns like ours, don’t they? There has never been anyone else.”

“But since you’ve lived with your aunt?”

“Oh ... I’ve been so busy getting accustomed to being a princess instead of a Cinderella that I haven’t had time to think of men.”

“You must have time now to think of me.”

He caught up her hand in his and they rode on thus linked together. At last out of the fog came Joan’s happy voice: “You’re not in the least the kind of man I thought I’d marry.”

“What kind did you think?”

“Well, not so—splendid,” she laughed a little as if to soften the extravagance of her praise. “Now and then I had a dream, it used to come and go—of a boy with dark clouds back of him, and his hand up and the wind blowing his hair, and a touch of red against the blackness. It was very vivid, and it was always the same ... night after night.”

Drew lifted her hand to his lips, “It sounds like a Bolshevik or a brigand. And after this you are to stop dreaming about him. I shan’t allow any rivals.”

“You will never have one.”

He liked that. “I can give you more than any boy would give. And I’ll show you the world. We’ll have our honeymoon at Cannes.”

“I’m afraid Aunt Adelaide won’t let me go so far.”

“Not when you are my wife?”

“I promised her I’d stay with her as long as she wanted me.”

“Won’t she always want you?”

“I can’t be sure. She told me when I came to live with her that she usually tired of people and she couldn’t tell whether she was going to tire of me or not.”

There was a subtle change in his voice. “Aren’t you legally her adopted daughter?”

“I am not legally anything. When Mother died, Aunt Adelaide wrote and said if I’d come on we could see how we liked each other. She never cared for Mother. Daddy was her nephew and after his death, she didn’t seem to know that Mother and I were in the world. But I think as she has grown older she has been lonely. And we have learned to care for each other a lot.”

For a few moments he rode on in silence. Then he said: “Do you think she’ll object to your marriage?”

“Oh, no. She’s really been a darling. And even if she does object it won’t be what she wants, will it?”

“You mean it will be what I want?”

“Yes.”

His laugh was triumphant. “Do you know how adorable you are?”

He told himself that her youth was lovely. And as for the aunt, she was a vain old creature. A little tact and loads of flattery would keep her complacent. Joan had a right to believe herself an heiress, and it would make a great difference in every way if he could be sure she would inherit a fortune. Romance if it was to be worth while for himself and Joan must have its nest well feathered.

They set their horses presently to a gallop. They rode on and on like wild wraiths in the mist, hearts beating, blood surging, gay, careless of the future. The present was enough. They would make the most of it.

Their way led back across the moor, and up to the top of a bluff where stood a log house which had been originally the summer residence of a retired sea-captain from one of the towns below. Wings had been added from time to time because of the needs of an increasing family of children and grandchildren. But now there were no children. There was only Penelope Sears, a widow of sixty, to walk through the sedate and silent chambers, and remember the companions of earlier days.

Penelope, having only a modest income, took paying guests in the hot season. She had made the log cabin comfortable with bathrooms, huge fireplaces, and old furniture which belonged to the simple and somewhat austere background. She wanted people to be satisfied and as a rule they were. But this summer there was one woman who was not satisfied. She sat now in her room which overlooked the bluff and voiced her dissatisfaction to her English maid, Farley.

“The sooner I go the better.”

“Miss Joan will be disappointed.”

“She’ll have to get over it.”

Farley, who had just put on her mistress’ head a transforming structure of carefully waved white hair, studied the effect in the mirror. Then she said, “Will the Hallams go if we do?”

“Of course. He’s mad about Joan.”

Nothing further was said about it while Farley added finishing touches to her mistress’ toilet, but Mrs. Delafield’s quick brain was busy. Drew Hallam and Joan! A good thing for both of them. And as for herself, a troublesome grand-niece off her hands and a charming grandnephew gained! She liked Drew and his sister, Nancy. They treated her as contemporaries, though she was easily three decades ahead of them. Her seventy years to Drew’s forty and Nancy’s thirty-eight. And way down the line, Joan—sweet and twenty!

Adelaide was dressed and ready for dinner, when Joan came in from her ride. By all the arts at Farley’s command she had been refreshed and rejuvenated: There was a faint flush of rose on her old cheeks, but she was in a frightful temper. The coming of the fog had been the last straw. She felt that somebody besides Providence must be to blame for it. And if they were not to blame, at least she could vent her spite on them.

Joan bursting in had a beauty which needed no artificial aids. Her riding-coat was green, and her breeches white, her hat was off and showed her hair, thick and brown, with a wave of its own, and drawn, Madonna-fashion, over her ears. Joan’s shorn head was a thing of the past. She hated the commonplace. When everyone else was shingled, it was time, she felt, to have a nice flat little bun at the back of her neck. Her eyes were darkly blue, her lashes black. She was not beautiful but the richness of her coloring and a certain slender grace made her good to look upon. There was, too, in her manner, an appealing, almost child-like quality which gave the lie to her twenty years.

“Darling,” she said, “I’m afraid I’m late. But it was such a perfect ride ...”

“Perfect? In this weather?”

Her tone should have warned Joan. But it did not. She blundered on. “How lovely you look. That green and silver gown is gorgeous.”

“Are you saying that because you mean it, Joan? Or because you want my money?”

Joan stared at her for a moment, speechless. Then she demanded, chokingly, “Oh, why should you say a thing like that to me?”

She began to sob. She was over-excited, and the reaction from her ecstatic moments with her lover broke down her composure. She cried and cried, standing in the middle of the floor with her hands before her face.

“Joan,” Adelaide commanded, “stop it.”

But she couldn’t stop. “You shouldn’t have said it. Oh, you shouldn’t.”

Her distress was so genuine, that Mrs. Delafield softened. “Well, perhaps I shouldn’t. I’m a cross old thing, Joan. And the deadliness of all this is driving me mad.”

Joan dropped on her knees beside her aunt’s chair, and laid her wet cheek against the wrinkled hand which gripped the arm of it. She was still crying, but with less passion.

The old woman bent down to her, “I’m a cross old thing,” she repeated.

Joan lifted her head, “You know I love you,” she said.

Adelaide knew that the child was telling the truth. Strange as it might seem, Joan loved her. And not many people loved Adelaide Delafield. She was witty and worldly-minded, and a power in her own social circle. But it had remained for Joan to put her on a pedestal and worship her.

When, after a time, Farley came to announce dinner Joan was not dressed. She sat on the floor at her aunt’s feet, talking quietly. She had not told her, however, about Drew Hallam. She had meant to do it the moment she arrived, but the things which had been said had made it impossible.

When she went to her room to make a hurried toilet, she was conscious that the exaltation with which she had left her lover had been succeeded by a deep depression. She felt like one who is lost in a wood ... a beautiful wood, but strange and with no way out ... She said to herself, “How silly,” yet she knew she was not silly. Love was a tremendous thing. And being lost in a strange wood was no light matter. Even if the wood was beautiful.