Part 14 (2/2)
There were house-boats being tugged up and down the river, little groups of rowing men upon the bridge all day, the music of banjos by night, and lanterns glowing in the darkness. Anna watched this pretty scene as one who would really take a young girl's part in it. She simulated an interest in the rowing about which she knew nothing at all--visited the house-boats of such of her friends as had come down for the regatta, and was, in w.i.l.l.y Forrest's words, as ”skittish as a two-year-old that had slipped its halter.” Forrest had been to and fro from the stable near Winchester on several occasions. ”He comes to tell me that I am about to lose a fortune, and I am beginning to hate him,” Anna said; and on this occasion she enjoyed that diverting and unaccustomed recreation known as speaking the truth.
There had been such a visit as this upon the morning of the day when Anna spoke intimately to Alban of his future and her own. Her mood now abandoned itself utterly to her purpose. The close intimacy of these quiet days had brought her to the point where a real if momentary pa.s.sion compelled her to desire this boy's love as she had never desired anything in all her life. To bring him to that declaration she sought so ardently, to feel his kisses upon her lips, to play the young lover's part if it were but for a day, to this folly her vanity had driven her.
And now the opportunities for words were not denied. She had spent the afternoon in the backwaters up by s.h.i.+plake; there had been a little dinner afterwards with the old crone who served them so usefully as chaperone--a dependent who had eyes but did not see, ears which, as she herself declared, ”would think scorn to listen.” Amiable dame, she was in bed by nine o'clock, while Alban and Anna were lying in a punt at the water's edge, listening to the music of a distant guitar and watching the twinkling lights far away below the bridge where the boat-houses stand.
A Chinese lantern suspended upon a short boat-hook cast a deep crimson glow upon the faces of those who might well have been young lovers. The river rippled musically against the square bows of their ugly but comfortable craft. But few pa.s.sed them by and those were also seekers after solitude, with no eyes for their co-religionists in the amatory gospel. Alban, wholly fascinated by the silence and the beauty of the scene, lay at Anna's feet, so full of content that he did not dare to utter his thoughts aloud. The girl caught the tiny wavelets in her outstretched hand and said that Corydon had become blind.
”Do you like w.i.l.l.y Forrest?” she asked, ”do you think he is clever, Alban?”--a question, the answer to which would not interest her at all if it did not lead to others. Alban, in his turn, husbanding the secrets, replied evasively:
”Why should I think about him? He is not a friend of mine. You are the one to answer that, Anna. You like him--I have heard you say so.”
”Never believe what a girl says. I adore w.i.l.l.y Forrest because he makes me laugh. I am like the poor little white rabbit which is fascinated by the great black wriggly snake. Some day it will swallow me up--perhaps on Thursday--after Ascot. I wish I could tell you. Pandora seems to have dropped everything out of her basket except the winner of the Gold Cup.
If w.i.l.l.y Forrest is right, I shall win a fortune. But, of course, he doesn't tell the truth any more than I do.”
Alban was silent a little while and then he asked her:
”Do you know much about him, Anna? Did you ever meet his people or anything?”
She looked at him sharply.
”He is the son of Sir John Forrest, who died in India. His brother was lost at sea. What made you ask me?”
He laughed as though it had not been meant.
”You say that he doesn't tell the truth. Suppose it were so about himself. He might be somebody else--not altogether the person he pretends to be. Would it matter if he were? I don't think so, Anna--I would much rather know something about a man himself than about his name.”
She sat up in the punt and rested her chin upon the knuckles of her shapely hands. This kind of talk was little to her liking. She had often doubted w.i.l.l.y Forrest, but had never questioned his t.i.tle to the name he bore.
”Have they ever told you anything about us, Alban?” she continued, ”did you ever hear any stories which I should not hear?”
”Only from Captain Forrest himself; he told me that he was engaged to you. That was when I went to the Savoy Hotel.”
”All those weeks ago. And you never mentioned it?”
”Was it any business of mine? What right had I to speak to you about it?”
She flushed deeply.
”A secret for a secret,” she said. ”When you first came to Hampstead, I thought that you liked me a little Alban. Now, I know that you do not.
Suppose there were a reason why I let w.i.l.l.y Forrest say that he was engaged to me. Suppose some one else had been unkind when I wished him to be very kind to me. Would you understand then?”
This was in the best spirit of the coquette and yet a great earnestness lay behind it. Posing in that romantic light, the thick red lips pouting, the black eyes s.h.i.+ning as with the clear flame of a soul awakened, the head erect as that of a deer which has heard a sound afar, this pa.s.sionate little actress, half Pole, half Jewess, might well have set a man's heart beating and brought him, suppliant, to her feet. To Alban there returned for a brief instant all that spirit of homage and of awe with which he had first beheld her on the balcony of the house in St. James' Square. The cynic in him laid down his robe and stood before her in the garb of youth spellbound and fascinated. He dared to say to himself, she loves me--it is to me that these words are spoken.
”I cannot understand you, Anna,” he exclaimed, tortured by some plague of a sudden memory, held back from a swift embrace he knew not by what instinct. ”You say that you only let w.i.l.l.y Forrest call himself engaged to you. Don't you love him then--is it all false that you have told him?”
”It is quite false, Alban--I do not love him as you would understand the meaning of the word. If he says that I am engaged to him, is it true because he says it? There are some men who marry women simply because they are persevering. w.i.l.l.y Forrest would be one of them if I were weak enough. But I do not love him--I shall never love him, Alban.”
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