Part 4 (1/2)
”Threatened men live long,” said Mr. Manley carelessly.
CHAPTER III
There is in the collection of the Earl of Ellesmere a picture of the head of a girl which the connoisseurs of the nineteenth century ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci. The connoisseurs of the twentieth century ascribe it to Luini. But for the colour of the hair it might have been a portrait of Lady Loudwater, a faded portrait. It might also very well be a portrait of one of her actual ancestresses, for her grandmother was a lady of an old Tuscan family.
Be that as it may, Lady Loudwater had the soft, dark, dreamy eyes, set rather wide apart, the straight, delicate nose, the alluring lips, promising all the kisses, the broad, well-moulded forehead, and the faint, exactly curving eyebrows of the girl in the picture. Above all, when Lord Loudwater was not present, the mysterious, enchanting, lingering smile, which is perhaps the chief charm of Luini's women, rested nearly always on her face. But while the hair of the girl in the picture is a deep, dull red, the hair of Olivia was dark brown with glimmers of gold in it. Also, her colouring was warmer than that of the girl in the picture, and her alluring charm stronger.
At a quarter to three that afternoon she came out on to the East lawn in a silk frock and hat of a green rather sombre for the summer day. She had been bidden by a fas.h.i.+onable fortune-teller never to wear green, for it was her unlucky colour. But that tint had so given her colouring its full values and her dark, liquid eyes so deep a depth, that she had paid no heed to the warning. There was a bright light of expectation in her eyes, and the alluring smile lingered on her face.
She walked quickly across the lawn with the easy, graceful gait proper to the accomplished golfer she was, into the shrubbery on the other side of it. A few feet along the path through it she looked sharply back over her shoulder. She saw no one at those windows of the East wing which looked on to the lawn and shrubbery, but a movement on the lawn itself caught her eye. The cat Melchisidec was following her. She did not slacken her pace, but for a moment the smile faded from her face at the remembrance of her husband's outburst at breakfast. Then the smile returned, subtile and expectant.
She did not wait for Melchisidec. She knew his way of pretending to follow her like a dog; she knew that if she displayed any interest in him, even showed that she was aware of his presence, he would probably come no further. She went on at the same brisk pace till she came to the gate in the East wood. She went through it, shut it gently, paused, and again looked back. All of the path through the shrubbery that she could see was empty. She turned and walked briskly along the narrow path through the wood, and came into the long, turf-paved aisle which ran at right angles to it.
The middle of the aisle was deeply rutted by the wheels of the carts which had carried away the timber from the spring thinning of the wood.
She turned to the left and sauntered slowly up the smooth turf along the side of the aisle, a brighter light of expectation in her eyes, her smile even more mysterious and alluring.
She had not gone fifty yards up the aisle when Colonel Grey came limping out of the entrance of a path on the other side of it, and quickened his pace as he crossed it.
She stood still, flus.h.i.+ng faintly, gazing at him with her lips parted a little. He looked, as he was, very young to be a Lieutenant-Colonel, and uncommonly fragile for a V. C. At any time he would look delicate, and he was the paler for the fact that at times he still suffered considerable pain from his wound. But there was force in his delicate, distinguished face. His sensitive lips could set very firm; his chin was square; his nose had a rather heavy bridge, and usually his grey eyes were cold and very keen. He gave the impression of being wrought of finely-tempered steel.
His eyes were s.h.i.+ning so brightly at the moment that they had lost their keenness with their coldness. He marked joyfully the flush on her face, and did not know that he was flus.h.i.+ng himself.
About five feet away he stopped, gazing, or rather staring, at her, and said in a tone of fervent conviction: ”Heavens, Olivia! What a beautiful and entrancing creature you are!”
She smiled, flus.h.i.+ng more deeply. He stepped forward, took her hand, and held it very tightly.
”Goodness! But I have been impatient for you to come!” he cried.
”I'm not late,” she said in her low, sweet, rather drawling voice.
He let go of her hand and said: ”I don't know how it is, but I've been as restless as a cat all the morning. I'm never sure that you will be able to come; and the uncertainty worries me.”
”But you saw me for three hours yesterday,” she said, moving forward.
”Yesterday?” he said, falling into step with her. ”Yesterday is a thousand years away. I wasn't sure that you'd come today.”
”Why shouldn't I come?” she said.
”Loudwater might have got to know of it and stopped you coming.”
”Fortunately he doesn't take enough interest in my doings. Of course, if I didn't turn up at a meal, he'd make a fuss, though why he should make such a point of our having all our meals together I can't conceive. I should certainly enjoy mine much more if I had them in my sitting-room,”
she said in a dispa.s.sionate tone, for all the world as if she were discussing the case of some one else.
”I _am_ so worried about you,” he said with a hara.s.sed air. ”Ever since that evening I heard him bullying you I've been simply worried to death about it.”
”It was nice of you to interfere, but it was a pity,” she said gently.
”It didn't do any good as far as his behaviour is concerned, and we saw so much more of one another when you could come to the Castle.”