Part 25 (1/2)
”It is most beautiful,” she agreed. ”Look at the line of the sea--how wonderfully blue it is. You can see the smoke of a steamer on the horizon--over there.” She pointed with the whip in her hand. ”When I was a child I used to watch the s.h.i.+ps, and make up all sorts of stories as to where they were going and the wonderful adventures they would meet with--pirates and desert islands and s.h.i.+pwrecks and sea-serpents.
I think I must have had a very vivid imagination. But my stories always ended up happily. After endless perils and hairbreadth escapes my vessels sailed home laden with treasure. Where is that s.h.i.+p going, and what sort of pa.s.sengers does she carry? I wonder if they are all very unhappy at leaving England, or full of hope about the new land they are going to?”
”Perhaps they are bound for the Magical Island,” Francis said, smiling.
”Is it north, south, east or west, that fairyland? And is it really more beautiful than Bessmoor after all? Just think of it. If I hadn't been ill we might be there now, and by this time I should have discovered your secret. Tell me where it is, darling.”
”No, no,” she replied, laughing. ”I won't tell you. You want to know too much. You must be patient. It is to be a surprise for you.”
”I wish we were sailing there now, in that s.h.i.+p over there,” he said.
”But anyway I am sure of one thing, and that is that even on the Magical Island we couldn't be happier than we are now.”
”No, I don't think we could,” a.s.sented Philippa, in a tone of great contentment.
”I cannot say how glad I am that we should have come here for our first drive together since all the shadows rolled away. It seems right, somehow. Thank you, dear one, for bringing me. It is a perfect spot, isn't it? It seems a worthy setting for the perfect joy which came to me here. Phil, I wonder--when you promised to marry me--here--standing by that gate--did you love me as much as you do now?”
Again that curious chill ran through the girl, but this time it was much more definite, so strong that it gave her a feeling of physical sickness. It was only with an effort that she could wrench her mind free from the grip of it and answer calmly and with perfect truth, ”I have never loved you so well as I do to-day.”
His arm pressed hers with a movement full of affection, and he smiled into her eyes.
”We must be going back now. You will have been out long enough.” So saying she turned the pony round and they retraced their road.
”Oh, how it all comes back to me!” Francis continued. ”You were so full of life and spirits that day, I thought I should never get a chance to say the words which were burning on my lips--to tell you what I was longing you should know. I don't know which I love best, the Phil who was always overflowing with fun and laughter, or the sweet serious Phil of to-day.”
He changed his tone instantly as he saw her face. ”I was only speaking in jest, dear one,” he whispered. ”I, too, can say as you said just now, that I have never loved you so well as at this moment. But I have a happy memory of the old Phil as she was before I was such an anxiety to her that she almost forgot how to smile. But never mind, soon you will forget all the sadness, and I will teach you your old trick of laughter.”
But Philippa did not speak. She was wrestling with the most insupportable sensation of mingled misery and revolt, and she seemed to hear words as clearly spoken as though the speaker were actually by her side--”He does not love you. It is not you he loves.”
A surge of anger blotted out the suns.h.i.+ne and darkened the whole world, and through the darkness one lightning flash shot through the girl's sick heart. This was jealousy. Suddenly she felt she could not bear it--she could not sit there beside the man she loved and hear him talk of other days which she had never known and of his love for another woman. In a minute or two the storm pa.s.sed, but it left her faint and numb, with the beautiful veil which had enveloped her dream of bliss torn to ribbons.
She fought desperately to recover her self-possession and succeeded to a certain extent, but her hands were so cold that she could hardly feel the reins, and in her ears there sounded the rus.h.i.+ng of great waters.
Step by step the old pony trod down the steep, uneven track, and the necessity for careful driving seemed sufficient excuse for her preoccupation.
”We must come here again,” said Francis thoughtfully. ”It will help me to remember;” and then, as though his thoughts had gone back to the scene enacted long ago on the place they had just visited, he added half to himself, ”Dear little girl, with her happy face and clouds of dark hair under a scarlet cap!”
Philippa suppressed a wild desire to scream aloud. The words were like a knife turning in her heart at the moment; but to her relief he did not speak again until they reached the house.
Keen and a footman were waiting for them at the door, and he was carried up-stairs to rest as usual after his drive. Philippa followed, and arranged his cus.h.i.+ons and attended to his comfort in the way that had become habitual to her, but she left him as quickly as she could and sought the privacy of her own room. She wanted to be alone to battle with the unexpected enemy which had in some unaccountable way stormed the stronghold of her heart and threatened to lay it in ruins.
The words Marion had spoken--words which had been utterly unheeded at the time--now battered for admission to the fortress and met with slight resistance. ”His love is not for you--every bit of the love in his heart belongs to another woman.” It was not true! It could not be true! Francis loved her--now--to-day. What right had the woman who had failed him to rob her, the living Philippa, of one corner of his heart? For she wanted it all. She, by right of her love for him, claimed his every thought, she could not spare one.
Phil had renounced her privilege, had thrown it aside as something of no value, had broken the tie which bound her to Francis the first moment that it galled. Could Philippa then be blamed if she had riveted the chain afresh and possessed herself of what Phil had discarded as worthless? Surely not. This was a point which Philippa had considered thoroughly at the time of making her first decision. In her first interview with Francis she had, as has been stated, blamed herself for listening to words of love intended for another; but once she had learned the rights of the whole affair she had altered her opinion, and had deliberately set aside all thoughts of Phil. So entirely had she identified herself with the woman whom Francis loved, that she had ceased to allow her a separate individuality at all. She, Philippa, was in effect that woman, as she was in reality the woman who loved him. His allusions to Phil had never troubled her up to the present, save, of course, that they required careful answering.
Marion's plain speaking had glanced off the armour of her security without even denting it--why should she think of it now?
It was so dreadful to be jealous--she had always considered jealousy a vulgar failing--and her face flushed with shame and humiliation that she, who had always prided herself upon being above petty weakness, should harbour so despicable a sentiment, and that of a dead woman.
And yet she could only acknowledge honestly that it was torture to her to hear Francis speak of Phil in terms of such affection. Now that this odious whisper had made itself heard, how could she submit to his embrace? Could she ever forget? What could she do? Her deep, pa.s.sionate love craved for evidences of his in return. Was this horrible ghost always to stand between them?
She paced up and down the room, striving with all her might to straighten out this abominable coil. Of all the pains to which poor human nature is liable, and not a few are self-inflicted, none is sharper than jealousy. It has been well described as the child of love and the parent of hate.
But for all that at the moment Philippa was suffering acutely, she was by no means prepared to permit this vile thing to conquer. She would fight it and root it out. It had come upon her so suddenly. What was the cause? Was it merely a freak of that incomprehensible phenomenon the human mind that had twisted the chain of her affection into so mischievous a knot, or merely a figment of the brain springing from inner consciousness to torment her with devilish ingenuity? or did the fault lie with her in some simpler, more tangible way? Was it possible that her love was not the great and boundless force that she had imagined, but weak, in that it could not dispel and overcome any thought that dimmed its purity--such a poor selfish thing that she allowed an idea to influence her to its despite?