Part 7 (2/2)
”Talk quietly; you can't shout yourself into this. Are you certain that Mrs. Wins...o...b.. really finds the courts--stinking? I remember, at first,”
she stopped. Even in the midst of his pa.s.sion he listened for what revelation she might make; but none followed. She was silent for a minute. ”They become a habit,” she said finally; ”love, loves, become a habit. Only men brought up in the same atmosphere can understand. At first Felix Wins...o...b.. will be infuriated with you for speaking, then he will realize more, and the trouble will follow. Are you certain that you have comprehended? It would be stupid to mistake an episode, you would succeed only in making yourself ridiculous.”
He lifted up both his hands and closed them with a quivering, relentless force.
”Truly,” Isabel Penny remarked, ”truly I begin to be sorry for her.
There is something she has yet to learn about men. Nothing can be said; and that is what your father will not penetrate. Howat, I am even a little afraid ... now. That, I believe, is unusual for me. It's your blackness, like powder. The explosion can kill. Nothing may be said.
Life drags us along by the hair.”
Her questions about Ludowika joined to the memory of the latter's revulsion from the primitive conditions of the Province and added to the heaviness of his heart. He mentally denied his mother's suggestions, drove them from him, but they left a faint enduring sting, a vague unrest. His pa.s.sion for Ludowika swelled, dominated, him; he forgot everything but his own, supreme desire. Nothing else stood before its flood; all thought of Ludowika's final happiness was lost with the other detritus. The tense closing of his hands had symbolized his feeling, his intent. He held her in a manner as nakedly primitive as the inchoate s.e.xuality of the emotion that had engulfed him.
Ludowika did not appear for supper, and he was possessed by a misery of vague apprehensions. He must know something of her thoughts, have a token from her of some feeling like his own; and, waiting, he stopped the Italian on the stairs. The latter knew his purpose immediately, without a spoken word; and he followed Howat's brusque gesture to his room. He hastily wrote a note; and the latter brought him back a reply, only partly satisfactory, with an air of relish. For the first time the affair had the hateful appearance of an intrigue, like a court adventure. It was the Italian servant, Howat decided; and immediately he recognized why he disliked the other--it was because he expressed an aspect of slyness that lay over Ludowika and himself. He put that from him, too; but it was like brus.h.i.+ng away cobwebs. His hunger for Ludowika increased all the while; it became more burningly material, insatiable and concrete.
On the day following she clung to him, when opportunity offered, with a desperate energy of emotion. ”You must hold me tighter,” she told him.
Her mood rapidly changed, and she complained of the eternal, pervasive fall of the forge hammer. ”It will drive me mad,” she declared almost wildly. ”I can't bear to think of its going on and on, year after year; listening to it--” He heard her with sombre eyes. She had come to the counting house, empty for the moment but for themselves, and stood with her countenance shadowed by a frown. ”If the hammer stops,” he replied, waving his hand largely, ”all this, the Pennys, stop, too. I'm afraid that sound of beating out iron will be always wrought through our lives.
You will get accustomed to it--”
Her expression grew petulant, resentful. ”Do you mean that we couldn't, perhaps, go to England, if--if I wanted?” He moved closer to her, brus.h.i.+ng the circ.u.mference of her skirt. ”You asked me to hold you, to keep you from the past; and I am going to do it. London is all that you wish to forget; it must go completely out of your life ... never finger you again.” A faint dread that deepened almost to antagonism was visible on her countenance. ”I suppose to men talk like that seems a sign of strength, of possession; but it doesn't impress women, really.
You see, women give, or else--there is nothing.”
”I had no thought of impressing you,” he said simply; ”I only repeated what came into my mind, what I mean. It would be a mistake for me to take you to England, and make both of us miserable. Beside, there is more to tend here than I'll ever accomplish.” She objected, ”But other people, workmen, will do the actual labour. Surely you are not going to keep on with anything so vulgar--” she indicated the office and desks.
Her features sharpened with contempt. ”I'll not be a clerk,” he told her gravely. ”But I am responsible for a great deal. You should understand that for you showed it to me. Most of what I am now has been you.” He reached out his hands to her in a wave of tenderness, but she evaded him. She stood irresolute for a moment and then abruptly turned and disappeared.
A white rim of new moon grew visible at the edge of dusk, and he stood gazing at it before he entered the dwelling. A dull unrest had become part of his inner tumult, a premonition falling over him like an advancing shadow. But above all his vague fears rose the knowledge that he would never let Ludowika go from him; that was the root of his being.
Now she could never leave him. It was natural, he a.s.sured himself again, that she should feel doubts at first; everything here was so different from the life she had known; and women were variable. He would have to understand that, learn to accommodate himself to changing, surface moods, immovable underneath.
She had put on for supper, he saw, a daring dress; and her expression was that which he had first noted, indifferent, slightly scoffing. Her shoulders and arms gleamed under fragile gauze, her bodice was hardly more than a caress of silk. He watched her every movement, and got a sort of satisfaction from the knowledge that she grew increasingly disturbed at his unwavering scrutiny. His mother's att.i.tude toward Mrs.
Wins...o...b.. had not changed by a shade, an inflection; she was correctly cordial in her slightly distant manner.
In the ebb and flow of the evening Howat was left with Ludowika for a little, and he bent over her, kissing her sharply. She was coldly unresponsive; and he kissed her again, trying vainly to bring some warmth to her lips. She did not avoid him actually, but he felt that something in her, essential, slipped aside from his caress. His emotion changed to a mounting anger. ”You will have to get over this now or later,” he a.s.serted. She said surprisingly, ”Felix will be home this week.” He stood with an arm half raised, his head turned, as he had been arrested by her period.
”Well?” he demanded stupidly. Her tone had been beyond his comprehension. ”Felix,” she went on, apparently at random, ”is very satisfactory.” Something of her intent penetrated his stunned faculties.
He advanced toward her dark with rage. ”And if he is,” he replied, ”it will do him no good. It will do you no good, if you think--” he broke off from an accession of emotion. ”What d.a.m.ned thing are you thinking of?”
”The Princess Amelia's stockings,” she answered pertly.
”You'll never put them on her again, like any dirty chamber maid.”
”Felix, the end of this week,” she repeated.
”I'll kill him,” Howat whispered; ”if he lifts a hand I'll shoot him through the head. This was forced on me; some one else, responsible, can pay.” Her chin was up, her expression mocking. ”Ridiculous, like any cloddish countryman.” She walked deliberately away, seated herself in a graceful eddy of panniered silk.
A cold torment succeeded his rage; he had the feeling of being hopelessly trapped, stifling in his pa.s.sion. He followed her. ”Ludowika, this is horrible, so soon. I am willing to think that I am to blame; stupid; no experience. You will have to be patient with me. Naturally everything, now--” he broke off and wandered to a window, holding aside the draperies, gazing out into the night. The sky was so luminous that the barriers of surrounding hills were printed clearly against starry s.p.a.ce. The forest swept about in a dark veil; nowhere could be seen a glimpse of habitation. He heard the wavering cry of an owl.
The Province, immense, secretive! Paper lanterns strung in parks, hid music, provocative smiles only playing with the heart! It was tremendously unfortunate. Why must they suffer so unreasonably?
Something, he was certain, had gone wrong; it lay both within them and outside; a force diverted, a purpose unaccomplished. It bent, broke, them like two twigs; they were no more than two bubbles, momentarily reflecting the sky, on a profound depth. A wind stirred, oppressed them, and they were gone. A great pity for Ludowika took its place in his feelings. He was sorry for himself. Suddenly the rustle of her skirts approached.
<script>