Margaret Pedler

“ Just the brief monosyllable, spoken as coolly as though she had remarked that she didn't like the colour of his tie. She looked up, bewildered, and met his gaze. His eyes frightened her. They were ablaze, remorseless as the eyes of a bird of prey. A sudden terror of him overwhelmed her.
"Roger!" she cried. "We can't marry! Let me go—release me from my promise! Oh!"—breaking down all at once—"I can't bear it! I can't marry you! Let me go—oh, please let me go!"
There was a pause—a pause during which Nan could feel her heart leaping in her body like some terrified captive thing. ”

“ She looked up swiftly, trying to read what lay behind the harsh repression in his tones. She felt as though he were holding something in leash—something that strained and fought against restraint.
"I'm a man—not a saint!" The memory of his renunciation at King Arthur's Castle swept over her.
"Yet I once thought you—almost that, Peter," she said slowly.
But he brushed her words aside.
"Well, I'm not. When I saw you to-day at the studio . . . God! Did you think I'd keep away? . . . Nan, did you want me to?" ”

“ Nan was conscious of an unspeakably deserted feeling. Maryon had gone completely out of her life; Peter, the man she loved, could never come into it; and the only man who strove for entrance was, as Penelope had said, the last man in the world to make her happy.
Nevertheless, it seemed as though with gentle taps and pushes Fate were urging them together—forcing her towards Roger so that she might escape from forbidden love and the desperate fear and pain of it. ”

“ She must make the uttermost sacrifice—give up the happiness to which the death of Celia Mallory had opened the way—and devote herself to mitigating Roger's lot in so far as it could be mitigated. There was no choice possible to her. Duty, with stern, sad eyes, stood beside her, bidding her follow the hard path of sacrifice which winds upward, through a blurred mist of tears, to the great white Throne of God. The words of the little song which had always seemed a link betwixt Peter and herself came back to her like some dim echo from the past. ”

“ She had not realised how much propinquity adds fuel to love's fire. Unknown, even to himself, Roger's passion had been gradually rising towards flood-tide. Man being by nature a contradictory animal, the attitude assumed by his mother and cousin towards the woman who was to be his wife had seemed to fan rather than smother the flame.
All at once the curb had snapped. He wanted Nan, the same Nan with whom he had fallen in love—the inconsequent feminine thing of elusive frocks and absurd, delicious faults and weaknesses—rather than a Nan moulded into shape by Lady Gertrude's iron hand. ”

“ Then Nan, with an effort, said quietly:
"Do you want to marry a woman who has no love to give you?"
He drew a step nearer.
"I'll teach you how to love," he said unevenly. "I'll make you love me—love me as I love you."
"No, no," she answered. "You can't do that, Roger. You can't."
His face whitened. Then, with his piercing eyes bent on her as though to read her inmost thoughts, he asked:
"What do you mean? Is there—anyone else?" ”

“ Her hands quivered in his clasp. She dared not trust herself to speak, lest she should give way and by her own weakness try his strength too hard.
"Good-bye, dear," he said with infinite tenderness. Then, with a ghost of the old whimsical smile that reminded her sharply, cruelly, of the Peter of happier days: "We seem always to be saying good-bye, don't we? And then Fate steps in and brings us together again. But this time it is really good-bye—good-bye for always. When we meet again—if we do—I shall have Celia to care for, and you will be Roger's wife." ”

“ Their chef is a dream," murmured Nan reminiscently.
"As though you cared!" scoffed Penelope.
Nan lit a cigarette and seated herself on the humpty-dumpty cushion by the fire.
"But I do care—extremely." she averred. "It isn't my little inside which cares. It's a purely external feeling which likes to have everything just right. If it's going to be a dinner, I want it perfect from soup to savoury."
Penelope regarded her with a glint of amusement.
"You're such a demanding person."
"I know I am—about the way things are done. What pleasure is there in anything which offends your sense of fitness?" ”

“ Somewhere in one of the cells of her brain she was conscious of a perfectly clear understanding of the fact that she must be quite mad to fight for escape from the sole thing in life she craved. Celia Mallory didn't really count—nor Roger and her pledge to him. . . . They were only shadows. What counted was Peter's love for her and hers for him. . . . Yet in a curious numbed way she felt she must still defer to those shadows. They stood like sentinels with drawn swords at the gate of happiness, and she would never be able to get past them. So it was no use Peter's staying here. ”

“ She had failed him utterly—failed in that faithfulness of the spirit without which love is no more than a sex instinct. She knew it must appear like this to him, although deep within herself she was conscious that it was not really so. In her heart there was a white flame that would burn only for Peter—an altar flame which nothing could touch or defile. And the men who loved her knew it. It was this, the knowledge that the inmost soul and spirit of her eluded him, which had kept Roger's jealous anger at such a dangerous pitch.
"There is only one thing." ”

“ Always the vision, of anything overwhelmingly beautiful seemed to fill her soul, drawing with it the memories of all that had been beautiful in life. And watching this glory of moon and sea and shore, Nan felt strangely comforted. Maryon Rooke had no part in it, nor Roger Trenby. But her love for Peter and his for her seemed one and indivisible with it. ”

“ I believed in you as I believed in God. . . . And then you run away with Maryon Rooke! One man or another—apparently it's all the same to you."
She rose and drew rather timidly towards him.
"Has it—hurt you—like that?" she said whisperingly. "You didn't mind—about Roger. Not in the same way."
"Mind?"
The word came hoarsely, and his hands, hanging loosely at his sides, slowly clenched. All the anguish of thwarting, the torture of a man who knows that the woman he loves will be another man's wife, found utterance in that one short word. Nan shivered at the stark agony in his tone. ”

“ Nan leaned her head against the window-pane, realising that, whatever
Roger's faults might he, she, too, had fallen short.
"Our troth, Nan. Hang on to it—hard, when life seems a bit more uphill than usual."
She could hear Peter's voice, steady and clear and reassuring, almost as she had heard it that night on the headland at Tintagel. She felt her throat contract and a burning mist of tears blurred her vision. For a moment she fought desperately against her weakness. Then, with a little strangled cry, she buried her face against her arm and broke into a passion of tears. ”

“ And then there was Penelope—and Ralph. . . .
Oh, it was a ghastly mistake. I know now. But—but there's
Roger . . . he cares . . ."
"Yes. There's Roger," he said gravely. "And you've given him your word. You can't draw back now." There was a note of sternness in the old man's voice—the sternness of a man who has a high creed of honour and who has always lived up to it, no matter what it cost.
"Remember, Nan, no Davenant was ever a coward in the face of difficulties. They always pulled through somehow."
"Or ran away—like Angèle de Varincourt." ”

“ Why, I've got Kitty and Uncle David and oh! dozens of people to look after me!"
Penelope's mouth set itself in an obstinate line.
"I shall never marry till you do, Nan . . . because not one of the 'dozens' understand your—your general craziness as well as I do."
Nan laughed.
"That's rude—though a fairly accurate statement. But still, Penny dear, just to please me, will you marry Ralph?"
"No"—with promptitude—"I certainly won't. If I married him at all, it would be to please myself."
"Well," wheedled Nan, "wouldn't it please you—really?"
"We can't always do as we please in this world." ”

“ He was too fastidious, too critical, altogether too much master of himself. Few women caused him a single quickened heart-beat. But it is to such men as this that when at last love grips them, binding them slowly and secretly with its clinging tendrils, it comes as an irresistible force to be reckoned with throughout the remainder of their lives.
So it came about that as the weeks grew into months, Mallory perceived—dimly and with a quaint resignation to the inevitable—that Nan and Love were coming to him hand in hand. ”

“ Roger swung round upon him furiously, his hands clenched, his forehead suddenly gnarled with knotted veins.
"By God, Rooke!" he exclaimed. "You go too far! You will exhibit
Nan's portrait . . . you will hang it in your house! . . . And you
think I'll stand by and tolerate such impertinence? Understand . . .
Nan's portrait hangs at Trenby Hall—or nowhere!"
Rooke regarded him apparently unmoved.
"I've yet to learn the law which compels a man to part with his work," he remarked indifferently.
Roger took an impetuous step towards him, his clenched hand raised as though to strike. ”

“ In her hand she held an open telegram.
"Listen, Nan! Oh"—seeing the other's startled, apprehensive face—"it's good news this time!"
Good news! Nan stared at her with an expression of impassive incredulity. There was no good news that could come to her.
"It seems horrible to feel glad over anyone's death, but I simply can't help it," went on Kitty. "Peter has just telegraphed me that Celia died yesterday. . . . Oh, Nan, dearest! I'm so glad for you—so glad for you and Peter!"
Nan, who had risen at Kitty's entrance, swayed suddenly and caught at the bed-post to steady herself. ”

“ We've been comrades, Nan, which is a far better thing than most relatives achieve. And if sometimes you feel sad and miss the old friendship—as I know you will—just remember that I'm only in the next room. People are apt to make a great to-do about death. But, after all, it's merely stepping from one of God's rooms into the next.
"I don't want to talk much about money matters, but I must just say this—that all I have will be yours, just as all my heart was yours.
"I hope life will be kind to you, my dear—kinder than you hope or expect." ”

“ Marriage is 'for better, for worse,' and I can't be coward enough to shirk if it turns out 'for worse.' If I did, anything might happen—anything! Celia's a woman of no will-power—driven like a bit of fluff by every breeze that blows. So you see, beloved, I must be waiting to help her when she comes back."
Nan lifted her eyes to his face.
"I see that you're just the best and bravest man I know—preux chevalier, as I once called you. . . . Oh, Peter! She's the luckiest woman in the world to be your wife! ”

“ His eyes held only a grave tenderness, and the sternly sweet expression of his mouth recalled to Nan the man as she had first known him, before love, terrible and beautiful, had come into their lives to destroy them.
"I should never take you, dear," he said at last. "A man doesn't hurt the thing he loves—not in his right senses. What he'll do when the madness is on him—only his own soul knows."
She caught his arm impetuously.
"Peter, let me come! I'm not afraid of being hurt—not if we're together. It's only the hurt of being without you that I can't bear. ”

“ Nan played softly, humming the melody in the wistful little pipe of a voice which was all that Mature had endowed her with. But it had an appealing quality—the heart-touching quality of the mezzo-soprano—while through the music ran the same unsatisfied cry as in her setting of the old Tentmaker's passionate words—a terrible demand for those things that life sometimes withholds.
As she ceased playing Maryon Rooke spoke musingly.
"It's a queer world," he said. "What a man wants he can't have. He sees the good gifts and may not take them. ”

“ When lunch was over, the whole party adjourned to the terrace for coffee, and as soon as she decently could after the performance of this sacred rite, Nan escaped into the rose-garden by herself, there to wrestle with the thoughts to which Ralph's carelessly uttered news had given rise.
They were rather bitter thoughts. She was aware of an odd sense of loss, for whatever may have come between them, no woman ever quite believes that the man who has once loved her will eventually marry some other woman. Whether it happens early or late, it is always somewhat of a shock. ”

“ And even a love that can never be satisfied is better than life without love. It may bring its moments of unbearable agony, but it is still love—the most beautiful and glorious thing in the world. And the pain of knowing that a great gulf is for ever set between two who love is a penalty that real love can face and triumph over.
But now the whole situation was altered. Unmistakably Maryon Rooke still meant a good deal to Nan, although Peter felt a certain consciousness that if he were to pit himself against Rooke he could probably make the latter's position very insecure. ”

“ Beyond lay dim sweet alleys, over-arched by trees, and below, where a sudden dip in the configuration of the land admitted of it, were grassy terraces, gay with beds of flowers, linked together by short flights of grass-grown steps.
"I can't understand why you spend so much time in stuffy old London,
Kitty, when you have this heavenly place to come to."
Nan spoke from a nest of half-a-dozen cushions heaped together beneath the shade of a tree. Here she was lounging luxuriously, smoking innumerable Turkish cigarettes, while Kitty swung tranquilly in a hammock close by. ”

“ At last, with the May warmth and sunshine, she had begun to pick up strength, and now she was actually on the high road to recovery and demanding for the third or fourth time when they might go to Mallow.
Inwardly she was conscious of an intense craving for the sea, with its salt, invigorating breath, for the towering cliffs of the Cornish coast, and the wide expanse of downland that stretched away to landward till it met and mingled with the tender blue of the sky.
"Strong enough to stand the journey?" she exclaimed in answer to Kitty's remark. "I should think I am strong enough! ”

“ Perhaps the magic of old Merlin's enchantments still lingered there, for as Nan stood silently absorbing the mysterious glamour of the place, the petty annoyances of the day, the fret of Lady Gertrude's unwelcoming reception of her, seemed to dwindle into insignificance. They were only external things, after all. They could not mar the loveliness of this mystic, legend-haunted corner of the world. ”

“ Roger's arm drew her closer.
"Yes, I do. And I'll light another fire there and by its warmth we'll make our home together. I won't ask much, Nan dear—only to be allowed to love you and make you happy. And in time—in time, I'll teach you to love me in return and to forget the past. Only say yes, sweetheart! I'll keep you so safe—so safe!"
What magic is it teaches men how to answer the women they love—endows them with a quickness of perception denied them till the flame of love flares up within them, and doubly denied them should that flame burn low behind the bars of matrimony? ”

“ Though I loved her, I couldn't make her happy."
"I should have thought you would have made her happy if any man could," said Penelope gently.
"My dear, it's given to very few men to make a woman of temperament happy. And Nan is so like my dear, dead Annabel that, if for no other reason, I should always wish to give her what happiness I can." He paused, then went on thoughtfully: "Unfortunately money won't buy happiness. I can't do very much for her—only give her what money can buy. ”

“ Presently Peter swung round and came to her side. But he did not touch her. His face looked drawn, and his eyes burned smoulderingly—like fire half-quenched.
"Nan, if I didn't care so much, I'd ask you to go away with me. I—don't quite know what life will be like without you—hell, probably. But at least it's going to be my own little hell and I'm not going to drag you down into it. I'm bound irrevocably. And you—you're bound, too. You can't play fast and loose with the promise you've given Trenby. So we've just got to face it out." ”