Margaret Pedler

“ A man cannot doubt a woman, as he had doubted Ann, and then, when she is proved transcendently innocent, go back and tell her that he believes in her. If he did, she would be quite justified in flinging his tardy assurances of faith back in his face and thanking him for something of very trifling value. Even if out of the limitless tenderness of her woman’s heart Ann forgave him—as, God knows, women are forgiving men every day that dawns!—still their love would be robbed of something infinitely precious—tarnished by an ugly and abiding memory. What was it Ann herself had said about love? ”

“ It was then that Ann Lovell, who was a godchild of Sir Philip’s, had learned to know and love Tony’s mother. Motherless herself, she had soon discovered that the frailly beautiful, sad-faced woman who had come to live with her somewhat irascible godparent, filled a gap in her small life of which, hitherto, she had been only dimly conscious. With the passing of the years came a clearer understanding of how much Virginia’s advent had meant to her, and ultimately no bond between actual mother and daughter could have been stronger than the bond which had subsisted between these two. ”

“ With every puff a big cluster of roses, which had climbed to the sill, swayed forward and peeped inside, sending a whiff of delicate perfume across to where Ann was kneeling, surrounded by trunks and suitcases, unpacking her belongings. Pleasant little sounds of life floated up from outdoors—the clucking of a hen, the stamping of the bay cob as Billy Brewster groomed him, whistling softly through his teeth while he brushed and curry-combed, the occasional honk of a motor-horn as a car sped by in the distance. Then came the beat of a horse’s hoofs, stopping abruptly outside the cottage gate. ”

“ Ann laughed mirthlessly. “How should I understand? Tony and I were trapped up there—at the Dents de Loup. It was a pure accident. Hasn’t Lady Susan told you? Oh!”—with a quick, tortured movement. “What have I ever done that you could think of me like that?”
“I know—” Once again a fleeting look of shame clouded the blue eyes. “It seems mad—now. Now that it’s all explained. But any man might have thought the same. And do me this justice—I loved you well enough to forgive you that, or anything else.”
“You loved me!” The contempt in her voice was like a lash across the face. ”

“ She was wearing a charming frock the colour of a pool of deep green sea-water, with a handful of orange-golden poppies clustered at the waist, and as the lights flickered over her, from the swathed gold-brown of her hair to the tips of her small gold shoes, she was as detail-perfect as a woman who hadn’t a single care in life. The simple, appealing black frock generally adopted by the heroine in fiction who has been crossed in love did not allure Ann in the very least. Whatever happened to her, she would always confront the world with a brave face. ”

“ Somehow, Ann felt as though he were not thinking only of his losses at the tables. That note of bitterness in his voice sprang from some deeper undercurrent.
“I’m so sorry,” she said simply.
“I never expect to win,” he returned curtly. “If you expect nothing, you’re never disappointed. Pray don’t waste your sympathy.”
The rudeness of the speech took her aback. Yet, sensing in its very churlishness the sting of some old hurt, she answered him quietly, though with heightened colour:
“If you expect nothing, you’ll get nothing. That’s one of the rules of the road.” ”

“ Ann laid the letter down on her knee and sat looking out across the lake with eyes which held a curious mixture of pleasure and regret. The idea of sharing life once more with Robin filled her with undiluted joy, but she was conscious that the thought of leaving Lady Susan and dear, gunny Switzerland created an actual little ache in her heart. She could quite imagine feeling rather homesick for Lady Susan’s kindly presence, and for the Swiss mountains and the blue lake which lay smiling and dimpling at her now in the brilliant sunlight. ”

“ It’s the very essence of love—possession, A man asks everything of the woman he loves—past, present, and future. He will he satisfied with nothing less.”
The words, uttered with an undercurrent of deep passion, struck a familiar chord in Ann’s mind. They were like, and yet unlike, something she had heard before. For a moment she puzzled over it, the connection eluding her. Then, all at once, it flashed over her, and she remembered how Brett Forrester had said: “The past doesn’t matter to me. It’s the future that counts.” These two men, Eliot and Brett, loved very differently, she thought! ”

“ She turned to the sheaf of bills still lying on the table. Yes, it was there, hidden beneath the bill which she had picked up to examine, afterwards replacing it on the top of the pile.
She unfolded the note and read it in silence, and, as she read, the grey shadow which had dimmed even the radiance of love itself unfurled its wings and fled away.
There could never be any more questioning or doubt. She knew now that Eliot’s faith in her was perfected. He had written this—these words of utter trust—in circumstances which might have shaken the belief of almost any man. ”

“ Cara sprang up, her eyes blazing. In the torrent of scorn and anger which swept over her at his duplicity—at the nonchalant recital of it all—the embarrassment of her own situation was temporarily lost sight of.
“Brett, I think you must be absolutely devoid of any sense of right or wrong! I never heard of anything more utterly fiendish and heartless in the whole of my life. Have you no conscience, no decent feeling, that you could plot and plan to ruin a woman’s happiness as you would have ruined Ann’s? Oh! It’s unbelievable! I think you must be a devil incarnate!” ”

“ If Eliot were to hear of it, to learn that she had had supper with Brett on board his yacht—alone, what would he think—suspect? His faith in her had not stood testing once before, when a pure accident had forced her into a false position. Would it stand now, if she did this thing? If, being Eliot’s promised wife, she deliberately spent the evening on board the Sphinx with Brett? She knew it would not. The faith of very few men would remain proof against circumstances such as those—least of all, Eliot’s. The grey, relentless shadow had suddenly swung forward, completely enveloping her path. ”

“ The pleasantest spot in the vicinity of Oldstone Cottage was undoubtedly a certain corner of the garden where stood a venerable oak whose interlacing branches spread themselves into a cool green canopy, and here, in a hammock slung from one great limb of the tree to another, Ann had taken refuge. A book lay open on her knee, but, yielding to the languor induced by the oppressive heat, she had ceased to make even a pretence at reading and leaned back in the hammock, hands clasped behind her head, idly reviewing the happenings of the last few weeks. ”

“ Such, luck as we had that night at Montricheux. Do you remember?”
Ann’s heart contracted suddenly. Was she ever likely to forget—to forget that day when, for the first time, Eliot Coventry’s grey, compelling eyes had met and held her own? Since then she had touched heights and depths of happiness and despair which had changed her whole outlook on life. Love had come to her—and gone again, and only through sheer pluck and a pride that refused to break had she been able to face the fact and hide her hurt from the world at large. ”

“ She had thought Brett purely brutal when she had watched him force the frightened, flagging horse anew into a gallop, but no man could be all brute to whom an animal would turn with such mute confidence as the mare had shown when the struggle between them was over.
Behind Brett’s careless courage, Ann recognised an insistent force and dominance that frightened her. If he could be so invincibly determined to subdue the will of a horse, how would it fare with any woman whom he had made up his mind to conquer? Would his persistency at last beat down her opposition? ”

“ Mellow declared that she could, as she phrased it, “picture it all as plain as if she’d seen it herself.” Then, when the good woman’s kindly interest was satisfied, Ann embarked on the quest which had been uppermost in her mind when she sought the housekeeper’s room.
“Mellow, I’m worried about Tony,” she announced at last.
The smile died out of Mrs. Mellow’s face like the flame of a suddenly snuffed candle.
“You’ve noticed it, then, miss?” she parried uneasily.
“Of course I’ve noticed it. He isn’t in the least like himself, and he’s almost always out.” ”

“ Turning aside, he leaned his arms on the chimneypiece and hid his face. A hard, stifled sob tore its way through his throat and his shoulders shook. Ann remained silent, giving him time in which to recover his self-command. Her heart was full almost to breaking-point with that eager, mothering tenderness which a woman instinctively feels for a man in trouble. She is the eternal mother, then—he the eternal child.
When at last Tony lifted his head from his arms he was very pale, but his eyes held a look of resolution. ”

“ Ann had regarded her as hardly more than a child. But she knew that a year can effect an enormous alteration in a girl in her late teens—sometimes seeming to transform her all at once from immature girlhood into gracious and charming womanhood. Lady Doreen had “come out” since Ann had met her, made her curtsy at Court and taken part in her first London season, and it was not difficult to imagine her, delicate though she might be, as extremely attractive and invested with a certain ethereal grace and charm peculiarly her own. ”

“ That Tony and Doreen Neville were rapidly drifting towards the condition known as being in love was unmistakable, and Eliot envied the pliant facility of youth which can put the past behind and embark so soon upon a new adventure. Surely a man who had once believed himself in love with Ann—Ann, with her warm vitality and pluck and humour—could never be satisfied with the frail beauty and helpless, clinging sweetness which was all that Lady Doreen had to offer! Ann was not an easy person to forget, as Eliot knew to his own most bitter cost. ”

“ But now, as the inevitable day of departure drew nearer, Ann found herself face to face with the fact that, although she might leave Silverquay itself behind, memories both sweet and bitter would forever hold out their hands to her from the little sea-girt village. Sometimes she would not be able to evade them. However fast she might hurry through life, they would reach out and touch her, and she would feel those straining hands against her heart. ”

“ She had never thought it possible that Eliot would learn to care for her again. She knew the man too well to believe that he would have any love left to give the woman who had despoiled him of all a man values—broken his faith, destroyed the ideals that had once been his. Moreover, she had seen clear down into his soul that day at Berrier Cove, when Ann had come within an ace of death, and she knew that on the ruins of the old love a new love was building. ”

“ Tony helped her out on to the small platform.
“Which is it to be?” he asked, glancing towards where a solitary hotel stood like a lonely outpost of civilisation. “Tea first, or a walk?”
Ann declared in favour of the walk.
“Let’s go straight up to the Roche d’Or. I always feel as if I’d reached the top of the world there. It’s certainly as near the top as I shall ever get!” she added laughing. “I don’t feel drawn towards mountaineering, so I shall probably never ascend beyond the limits of the rack-and-pinion.” ”

“ With Brett, love meant a passionate determination to possess the woman he desired whether she surrendered willingly or with every fibre of her spirit in revolt. But to Eliot, love signified something deeper and more enduring. He wanted all of the woman he would make his wife—soul as well as body, past as well as future, the supreme gift which only a woman who loves perfectly can give and which only a man whose love is on the same high plane should dare to ask. ”

“ Lady Susan apparently enjoyed the fun as much as any one, and was perfectly charmed when, as the two-seater glided past Sir Philip’s Rolls-Royce, he flung an exquisite spray of crimson roses into her lap, with a sprig of rosemary nestling amongst them.
“Romantic old dear!” she commented, laughing, as she retaliated with a tiny nosegay which Sir Philip caught neatly as it went sailing over his head. But her eyes were very soft as she turned to Ann. “The beauty of not being married is that you never lose your illusions. ”

“ Tony looked, not at the hills, but at the young, eager face just level with his shoulder.
“It’s probably as near heaven as I shall ever get,” he answered. “Anyway, just for the moment, I don’t feel I’ve anything particular to complain of.”
“I suppose I’m to take that as a compliment,” replied Ann. “Anyway”—mimicking him—“I don’t really think you have very much to complain of at any time. You’re one of the idle rich, you know. How would you like it if you were obliged to keep your nose to the grindstone—like Robin and me?” ”

“ She recognised that she had forfeited her own claim to love when she had married Dene Hilyard because he had more of this world’s goods than the man to whom she had given her heart, and she felt no actual jealousy of Ann—only a wistful envy of the girl for whom the love of Eliot Coventry might yet create the heaven on earth which she herself had thrown away. ”

“ Ann and Eliot were strolling along a little behind the rest, and she paused a moment to rifle a pot of heliotrope of a spray of clustered blossom.
“Heavenly stuff!” she exclaimed, sniffing it rapturously. “Smell it!” And she held it out just under Eliot’s nose, obviously expecting him to share her enthusiasm.
Nothing in the world brings back the past so poignantly as remembered scents—neither sight nor sound. ”