Rosa Mundi, Ethel May Dell [epub e reader TXT] 📗

the green stretches of the park rose peak after peak of sunlit mountains. There were a few cloud-shadows floating here and there. In one place, gleaming like a thread of silver, he could see a waterfall tumbling down a barren hillside.
Suddenly, through the summer silence, an octave of bells pealed joyously.
Nina started
"Why, it's Sunday!" she exclaimed. "I had quite forgotten. We ought to go to church."
Wingarde turned round.
"What an inspiration!" he said dryly.
His tone offended her. She drew herself up.
"Are you coming?" she asked coldly.
He looked at her with the same cynical smile with which he had received her overture the night before.
"No," he said. "I won't bore you with my company this morning."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"As you please," she said, turning to the door.
He made no rejoinder. And as she passed out, she realized that he believed she had suggested going to church in order to escape an hour of his hated society. It was but a slight injustice and certainly not wholly unprovoked by her. But, curiously, she resented it very strongly. She almost felt as if he had insulted her.
She found him smoking in the garden when she returned from her solitary expedition, and she hoped savagely that he had found his own society as distasteful as she did; though on second thoughts this seemed scarcely possible.
She decided regretfully, yet with an inner sense of expediency, that she would spend the afternoon in his company. But her husband had other plans.
"You have had a hot walk," he said. "You had better rest this afternoon. I am going to do a little mountaineering; but I mean to be back by tea-time. Perhaps when it is cool you will come for a stroll, unless you have arranged to attend the evening service also."
He glanced at her and saw the indignant colour rise in her face. But she was too proud to protest.
"As you wish," she said coldly.
Conversation during lunch was distinctly laboured. Wingarde's silences were many and oppressive. It was an unspeakable relief to the girl when at length he took himself off. She told herself with a wry smile that he was getting on her nerves. She did not yet own that he frightened her.
The afternoon's rest did her good; and when he returned she was ready for him.
He looked at her, as she sat in the garden before the tea-table in her muslin dress and big straw hat, with a shade of approval in his eyes.
He threw himself down into a chair beside her without speaking.
"Have you been far?" she asked.
"To the top of the hill," he answered. "I had a splendid view of the sea."
"It must have been perfect," she said.
"You have been there?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," she answered, "long ago; with Archie."
Wingarde turned his head and looked at her attentively. She tried to appear unconscious of his scrutiny, and failed signally. Before she could control it, the blood had rushed to her face.
"And you found it worth doing?" he asked.
The question seemed to call for no reply, and she made none.
But yet again she felt as if he had insulted her.
She was still burning with silent resentment when they started on their walk. He strolled beside her, cool and unperturbed. If he guessed her mood, he made no sign.
"Where are you taking me?" he asked presently.
"It is the road to the wishing-gate," she replied icily. "There is a good view of the lake farther on."
He made no further enquiry, and they walked on in dead silence through exquisite scenery.
They reached the wishing-gate, and the girl stopped almost involuntarily.
"Is this the fateful spot?" said Wingarde, coming suddenly out of his reverie. "What is the usual thing to do? Cut our names on the gate-post? Rather a low-down game, I always think."
She uttered a sudden, breathless laugh. "My name is here already," she said, pointing with a finger that shook slightly at some minute characters cut into the second bar of the gate.
He bent and looked at the inscription--two names cut with infinite care, two minute hearts intertwined beneath.
Nina watched him with a scornful little smile on her lips.
"Artistic, isn't it?" she said.
He straightened himself abruptly, and their eyes met. There was a curious glint in his that she had never seen before. She put her hand sharply to her throat. Quite suddenly she knew that she was afraid of this monster to whom she had given herself--horribly, unreasonably afraid.
But he did not speak, and her scare began to subside.
"Now I'm going to wish," she said mounting the lowest bar of the gate.
He spoke then, abruptly, cynically.
"Really," he said, "what can you have to wish for now?"
She looked back at him defiantly. Her eyes were on a level with his. Because he had frightened her, she went the more recklessly. It would never answer to let him suspect this power of his.
"Something that I'm afraid you will never give me," she said, a bitter ring in her voice.
"What?" he asked sharply.
"Among other things, happiness," she said. "You can never give me that."
She saw him bite his lip, but he controlled himself to speak quietly.
"Surely you make a mistake," he said, "to wish for something which, since you are my wife, can never be yours!"
She laughed, still standing on the gate, and telling herself that she felt no fear.
"Very well," she said, "I will wish for a Deliverer first."
"For what?"
His naked fist banged down upon the gate-post, and she saw the blood start instantly and begin to flow. She knew in that moment that she had gone too far.
Her fear returned in an overwhelming flood. She stumbled off the gate and faced him, white to the lips.
A terrible pause followed, in which she knew herself to be fighting him with every inch of her strength. Then suddenly, without apparent reason, she gave in.
"I was joking," she said, in a low voice. "I spoke in jest."
He made her a curt bow, his face inflexibly stern.
"It is good of you to explain," he said. "With my limited knowledge of your character and motives, I am apt to make mistakes."
He turned from her abruptly with the words, and, shaking the blood from his hand, bound the wound with his handkerchief.
"Shall we go on?" he said then.
And Nina accompanied him, ashamed and afraid. She felt as if at the last moment she had asked for quarter; and, contemptuously, because she was a woman, he had given it.


IV
A GREVIOUS WOUND

After that moment of madness by the wishing-gate Nina's wanton desire to provoke to wrath the monster to whom she was chained died a sudden and unnatural death. She was scrupulously careful of his feelings from that day forward, and he treated her with a freezing courtesy, a cynical consideration, that seemed to form a barrier behind which the actual man concealed himself and watched.
That he did watch her was a fact of which she was miserably conscious. She knew with the certain knowledge of intuition that he studied her continually. She was perpetually under the microscope of his criticism, and there were times when she told herself she could not bear it. He was too much for her; too pitiless a tyrant, too stern a master. Her life was becoming insupportable.
A fortnight of their honeymoon had passed away, when one morning Wingarde looked up with a frown from a letter.
"I have had a summons to town," he said abruptly.
Nina's heart leapt at the words, and her relief showed itself for one unmanageable second in her face.
He saw it, and she knew he saw it.
"I shall be sorry," he said, with cutting sarcasm, "to curtail your enjoyment here, but the necessity for my presence is imperative. I should like to catch the two-thirty this afternoon if you can be ready by then."
Nina's face was burning. She held herself very erect.
"I can be ready before then if you wish," she said stiffly.
He rose from the breakfast-table with a curt laugh. As he passed her he flicked her cheek with the envelope he held in his hand.
"You are a dutiful wife, my dear," he said.
She winced sharply, and bent her head over her own letters.
"I do my best," she said, after a moment.
"I am sure of it," he responded dryly.
He paused at the door as if he expected her to say more. More came, somewhat breathlessly, and not upon the same subject.
Nina glanced up with sudden resolution.
"Hereford," she said, "can you let me have some money?"
She spoke with the rapidity of nervousness. She saw his hand leave the door. His face remained quite unmoved.
"For yourself?" he asked.
Considering the amount of the settlement he had made upon her, the question was absurd. Nina smiled faintly.
"No," she said, "not for myself."
He took a cheque-book from his pocket and walked to a writing-table.
"How much do you want?" he asked.
She hesitated, and he looked round at her.
"I--I only want to borrow it," she said haltingly. "It is rather a big sum."
"How much?" he repeated.
"Five thousand pounds," she answered, in a low voice.
He continued to look at her for several seconds. Finally he turned and shut up his cheque-book with a snap.
"The money will be placed to your credit to-morrow," he said. "But though a financier, I am not a money-lender. Please understand that! And let your family understand it, too."
And, rising, he walked straight from the room.
No further reference was made to the matter on either side. Nina's pride or her courage shrank from any expression of gratitude.
In the afternoon with intense thankfulness she travelled southward. Never were London smoke and dust more welcome.
They went straight to Wingarde's great house in Crofton Square. Dinner was served immediately upon their arrival.
"I must ask you to excuse me," Wingarde said, directly dessert was placed upon the table. "I have to go out--on business. In case I don't see you again, good-night!"
He was on his feet as he spoke. In her surprise Nina started up also.
"At this hour!" she exclaimed. "Why, it is nearly eleven!"
"At this hour," he grimly responded, "you will be able to dispense with my society no doubt."
His tone silenced her. Yet, as he turned to go, she looked after him with mute questioning in her eyes. She had a feeling that he was keeping something from her, and--perhaps it was merely the natural result of womanly curiosity baffled--she was vaguely hurt that he did not see fit to tell her whither his business was taking him.
A few words would have sufficed; but he had not chosen to utter them, and her pride was sufficient to suppress any display of interest in his affairs. She would not court the snub that she felt convinced he would not hesitate to administer.
So he left her without explanation, and Nina went drearily to bed. On the following morning, however, the sun shone upon her, and she went downstairs in better spirits.
The first person she encountered was her husband. He was sauntering about the morning-room in his overcoat, a cup of strong tea in his hand.
He greeted her perfunctorily, as his fashion was.
"Oh, good-morning!" he said. "I have only just got back. I was detained unavoidably. I am going upstairs for an hour's rest, and then I shall be off to the City. I don't know if you would care to drive in with me. I shall use the car, but it will then be at your service for the rest of the