Twilight, Julia Frankau [100 books to read in a lifetime txt] 📗

established a footing. Stevens’ report had been exaggerated, Margaret’s terror excessive and unreasonable. She dismissed the erring cook now with the mildest of rebukes, then set herself to write to Gabriel. The time was limited, since the man was returning by the 5.5. She heard later, by the way, that he quite replaced the stranger in the cook’s facile affections. Stevens again was responsible for the statement that cook was “that light and talked away to any man.” Contrasting with herself, Stevens, who “didn’t hold with making herself cheap.”

Margaret wrote slowly, even if it were only a letter. She had to recall her mood, to analyse the panic. She was quite calm now. His letter seemed exaggerated beyond what the occasion or the telegram demanded.

Dearest:

How good you are, and safe. Your letter calmed and comforted me. Panic! no other word describes my condition at four o’clock this morning after a sleepless night. Servants’ gossip was at the bottom of it. I have always wished for a dumb maid, but Stevens’ tongue is hung on vibrating wires, never still. There was a man, it seems now he was a suitor of cook’s! He did ask questions, but chiefly as to her hours off duty, whether she was already “walking out,” an expression for an engagement on probation, I understand. He was an aspirant. I cannot write you a proper letter, my bad night has turned me into a wreck, a “beautiful ruin “as you would say. No, you wouldn’t, you are too polite. You must take it then that all is well; except that your choice has fallen upon a woman easily unnerved. Was I so foolish after all? James is capable of any blackguardism, he would hate that I should be happy with you. He can no longer excuse his conduct to me, or my resentment of it on the plea that I am unlike other women. I know his mind so well!” Women of genius have no sex,” he said among other things to account for the failure of our married life. He can say so no longer. “Women of genius have no sex!” It isn’t true. Do you see me reddening as I write it? What about that little house in Westminster? Have you written to all the agents? Are you searching? Sunday night I was so happy. One large room there must be. Colour prints on the walls and chintz on the big sofas, my Staffordshire everywhere, a shrine somewhere, central place for the musicians; cushions of all shades of roses, some a pale green. I can’t see the carpets or curtains yet. I incline to dark green for both. No, I am not frivolous, only emotional. I think I shall alter when we are together, begin to develop and grow uniform in the hothouse of your love, under the forcing glass of your great regard. It is into that house, under that glass I want to creep, to be warmed through, to blossom.

Picture me then as no longer unhappy or distressed, although all day I have neither worked nor played. Your letter healed me; take thanks for it therefore and come down Saturday as usual, with a plan of the house that is to be. (By the way, I must have dog stoves.) In a few days now I, or you, will tell my father and stepmother. The days crawl, each one emptier than the other, until the one that brings you. A rivierdici.

She sent it, but not the old ones back. She wanted to read them again, it would be an occupation for the evening. She would place them in order, together with his answers. She saw a story there. “The Love Tale of a Woman of Genius.”

After all, both she and Gabriel were of sufficient interest for the world to wish to read about them. (It was not until a few days later, by the way, that the title was altered, others tried, that the disingenuous diary began, the MS. started.)

She slept well that night and wrote him again in the morning, the most passionate love-letter of any of the series. Then she sent for Peter Kennedy. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday had to be got through. And then another week, and one other. And Safety, safety with Gabriel!

Peter came hot-foot like a starving animal. It was five days since he had seen her, and he looked worn and cadaverous. She gave him an intermittent pulse to count, told him she had had a sleepless night, found herself restless, unnerved, told him no more. He was purely professional at first, brusquely uneasy about her, blaming her for all she had done and left undone, the tonic she had missed, the unrest to which she admitted. After that they found little more to say to each other, though Peter could not tear himself away.

She talked best to Peter through the piano, as he to her. Even in these few weeks his playing had enormously improved. The whole man had altered. She had had more and different effect upon him than would have seemed possible at first. He had never been in love before, only known vulgar intrigue, how to repel the glad-eye attentions of provincial maidens to whom his size was an attraction, and his stupidity no deterrent. This was something altogether different, and in a measure he had grown to meet it, become more ambitious and less demonstrative, perceptibly humbler. She knew he loved her but made light of it. He filled up the hours until Gabriel would come again. That was all. But less amusingly now that she had less difficulty in managing him. This mutual attraction of music slurred over many weak places in their intercourse.

Wednesday he sat through the afternoon, stayed on to dinner playing to her and listening. Thursday he paid her a professional visit in the morning, would have sounded her heart but that his stethoscope was unsteady, and he heard his own heartbeats louder and more definitely than hers. Thursday evening he ran up on his bicycle to see if she was all right. There was more music, and for all his newly found selfrestraint a scene at parting, a scene that troubled her because she could not hold herself guiltless in bringing it about, and Gabriel was in her mind now to the exclusion of any other man. Gabriel had won solidly that which at first was little more than an incitement, an inclination.

Gabriel Stanton would not have made love to another man’s fiancee. His standard was higher than her own, just as his scholarship was deeper and more profound. She was proud that he loved her, simpler and more sincere than she had ever been before.

Tonight, when Peter Kennedy broke down, and cried at her feet and told her that his days were hell and all his nights sleepless, she was ashamed and distressed, much more repelled than attracted. She told him she would refuse to see him, that she would not have him at the house at all if he could not learn to behave himself.

“You are a disgrace to your profession,” she said crossly, knowing she was not blameless.

“You do not really think so, do you?” he asked. “I can’t help being in love with you.”

“Yes, I do. You have given me a pain.”

When she said that and pressed both hands over her heart his whole attitude changed. It was true that under the influence of his love his skill had developed. Her lips grew pale and her eyes frightened. He made her lie down, loosened her dress, gave her restoratives. The pain had been but slight, and she recovered rapidly.

“It was entirely your fault,” she said when she was able to speak. “You know I can’t bear any agitation or excitement.”

“The last you’ll have through me, I swear it. You can trust me.”

“Until the first time the spirit moves you.” She never had considered his feelings and did not pause to do so now. “You’ve no self-control. You dump your ungainly love upon me…”

“And you throw it back in my face with both hands, as if it were mud. But you’ll never have another chance, never…”

She was a little sorry for him, and to show it reproached him more.

“Why do you do it, then? You know that, as far as I can be, I am engaged to Gabriel Stanton, that the moment the decree is made absolute we shall be married. Perhaps I ought not to have let you come so often…”

“I fell in love with you the very first moment I saw you. If I’d never seen you again it would have been the same thing. And you’ve nothing to reproach yourself with. You’ve made a different man of me. I play better.”

“And your taste in music has improved.” He looked so forlorn standing up and saying he played the piano better since he had known her, that she regretted the cruelty of her words. He had relieved her pain not once but many times. Instead of sending him away, as she had intended, she kept him with her until quite late. She let him tell her about himself; and what a change his love for her had brought into his life, and there was nothing he would not do, nor sacrifice for her. He said, humbly enough, that he knew she could never, never have cared for such a man as himself.

“Stanton has been to a public school and university, is no end of a swell at classics. I got what little education I have at St. Paul’s and the London University, walked the hospitals and thought well of myself for doing it, that I was coming up in the world. My father was a country dentist. I’ve studied more, learnt more since you’ve been here than in all my student days. You’ve opened a new world to me. I didn’t know there were women like you. After the girls I’ve met! You were such a… lady, and all that. You are so clever too, and satirical, I don’t mind you being down on me. It isn’t as if you were strong.”

She smiled and asked him whether her delicacy was an additional charm.

“Well, yes, in a way it is. I can always bring you round. I want you to go on letting me be your doctor. You hardly had that pain a minute tonight. It is angina, you know, genuine angina pectoris, and I can do no end of things for it.”

“You don’t mean I must always have these pains, that they will grow worse?” She grew pale and he saw he had made a mistake, hastening to reassure her.

“You’ve only got to live quietly, take things easily.”

“Oh, that will be all right. When I am married everything will be easy,” she said almost placently. And then in plaintive explanation or apology added, “I bear pain so badly.”

“And I may go on doctoring you?”

“I don’t suppose I shall send to Pineland if I should feel not quite well,” she answered seriously. “We are going to live in London.”

“I’ll come up to London. There is no difficulty about that. I’ve started reading for my M.D. I can get back to my old hospital.” She rallied him a little and then sent him away.

“I shall expect to hear you are house physician when I return from my honeymoon!”

“May I come up in the morning? I want to hear that attack has not recurred.”

“The morning is a long way off, the night has to be got through first.” Suddenly she remembered her panic and had a faint recrudescence of fear. “I’ve so many things on my mind. I wish you could ensure me a good night.”

“But I can,” he said eagerly. “I can easily.”

“And without after-effects?”

“Without