Complete Works of Bram Stoker (276 page)

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The day after her return from Heply Regis, Stephen was walking in the wood when she thought she heard a slight rustling of leaves some way behind her.  She looked round, expecting to see some one; but the leafy path was quite clear.  Her suspicion was confirmed; some one was secretly following her.  A short process of exclusions pointed to the personality of the some one.  Tramps and poachers were unknown in Normanstand, and there was no one else whom she could think of who had any motive in following her in such a way; it must be Leonard Everard.  She turned and walked rapidly in the opposite direction.  As this would bring her to the house Leonard had to declare his presence at once or else lose the opportunity of a private interview which he sought.  When she saw him she said at once and without any salutation:

‘What are you doing there; why are you following me?’

‘I wanted to see you alone.  I could not get near you on account of that infernal old woman.’  Stephen’s face grew hard.

‘On account of whom?’ she asked with dangerous politeness.

‘Miss Rowly; your aunt.’

‘Don’t you think, Mr. Everard,’ she said icily, ‘that it is at least an unpardonable rudeness to speak that way, and to me, of the woman I love best in all the world?’

‘Sorry!’ he said in the offhand way of younger days, ‘I apologise.  Fact is, I was angry that she wouldn’t let me see you.’

‘Not let you see me!’ she said as if amazed.  ‘What do mean?’

‘Why, I haven’t been able to see you alone ever since I went to meet you on Caester Hill.’

‘But why should you see me alone?’ she asked as if still in amazement.  ‘Surely you can say anything you have to say before my aunt.’  With an unwisdom for which an instant later he blamed himself he blurted out:

‘Why, old girl, you yourself did not think her presence necessary when you asked me to meet you on the hill.’

‘When was that?’  She saw that he was angry and wanted to test him; to try how far he would venture.  He was getting dangerous; she must know the measure of what she had to fear.

He fell into the trap at once.  His debts being paid, fear was removed, and all the hectoring side of the man was aroused.  His antagonist was a woman; and he had already had in his life so many unpleasant scenes with women that this was no new experience.  This woman had, by her own indiscretion, put a whip into his hand; and, if necessary to secure his own way, by God! he meant to use it!  These last days had made her a more desirable possession in his eyes.  The vastness of her estate had taken hold on him, and his father’s remorseless intention with regard to his will would either keep him with very limited funds, or leave him eventually a pauper if he forestalled his inheritance.  The desire of her wealth had grown daily, and it was now the main force in bringing him here to-day.  And to this was now added the personal desire which her presence evoked.  Stephen, at all times beautiful, had never looked more lovely.  In the days since she had met him on the hilltop, a time that to her seemed so long ago, she had grown to be a woman, and there is some subtle inconceivable charm in completed womanhood.  The reaction from her terrible fear and depression had come, and her strong brilliant youth was manifesting itself.  Her step was springy and her eyes were bright; and the glow of fine health, accentuated by the militant humour of the present moment, seemed to light up her beautiful skin.  In herself she was desirable, very desirable; Leonard felt his pulses quicken and his blood leap as he looked at her.  Even his prejudice against her red hair had changed to something like hungry admiration.  Leonard felt for the first moment since he had known her that she was a woman; and that, with relation to her, he was a man.

And at the moment all the man in him asserted itself.  It was with half love, as he saw it, and half self-assertion that he answered her question:

‘The day you asked me to marry you!  Oh! what a fool I was not to leap at such a chance!  I should have taken you in my arms then and kissed you till I showed you how much I loved you.  But that will all come yet; the kissing is still to come!  Oh!  Stephen, don’t you see that I love you?  Won’t you tell me that you love me still?  Darling!’  He almost sprang at her, his arms extended to clasp her.

‘Stop!’  Her voice rang like a trumpet.  She did not mean to submit to physical violence, and in the present state of her feeling, an embrace from him would be a desecration.  He was now odious to her; she positively loathed him.

Before her uplifted hand and those flashing eyes, he stopped as one stricken into stone.  In that instant she knew she was safe; and with a woman’s quickness of apprehension and resolve, made up her mind what course to pursue.  In a calm voice she said quietly:

‘Mr. Everard, you have followed me in secret, and without my permission.  I cannot talk here with you, alone.  I absolutely refuse to do so; now or at any other time.  If you have anything especial to say to me you will find me at home at noon to-morrow.  Remember, I do not ask you to come.  I simply yield to the pressure of your importunity.  And remember also that I do not authorise you in any way to resume this conversation.  In fact, I forbid it.  If you come to my house you must control yourself to my wish!’

Then with a stately bow, whose imperious distance inflamed him more than ever, and without once looking back she took her way home, all agitated inwardly and with fast beating heart.

CHAPTER XXII  —  FIXING THE BOUNDS

Leonard came towards Normanstand next forenoon in considerable mental disturbance.  In the first place he was seriously in love with Stephen, and love is in itself a disturbing influence.

Leonard’s love was all of the flesh; and as such had power at present to disturb him, as it would later have power to torture him.  Again, he was disturbed by the fear of losing Stephen, or rather of not being able to gain her.  At first, ever since she had left him on the path from the hilltop till his interview the next day, he had looked on her possession as an ‘option,’ to the acceptance of which circumstances seemed to be compelling him.  But ever since, that asset seemed to have been dwindling; and now he was almost beginning to despair.  He was altogether cold at heart, and yet highly strung with apprehension, as he was shown into the blue drawing-room.

Stephen came in alone, closing the door behind her.  She shook hands with him, and sat down by a writing-table near the window, pointing to him to sit on an ottoman a little distance away.  The moment he sat down he realised that he was at a disadvantage; he was not close to her, and he could not get closer without manifesting his intention of so doing.  He wanted to be closer, both for the purpose of his suit and for his own pleasure; the proximity of Stephen began to multiply his love for her.  He thought that to-day she looked better than ever, of a warm radiant beauty which touched his senses with unattainable desire.  She could not but notice the passion in his eyes, and instinctively her eyes wandered to a silver gong placed on the table well within reach.  The more he glowed, the more icily calm she sat, till the silence between them began to grow oppressive.  She waited, determined that he should be the first to speak.  Recognising the helplessness of silence, he began huskily:

‘I came here to-day in the hope that you would listen to me.’  Her answer, given with a conventional smile, was not helpful:

‘I am listening.’

‘I cannot tell you how sorry I am that I did not accept your offer.  If I had know when I was coming that day that you loved me . . . ‘  She interrupted him, calm of voice, and with uplifted hand:

‘I never said so, did I?  Surely I could not have said such a thing!  I certainly don’t remember it?’  Leonard was puzzled.

‘You certainly made me think so.  You asked me to marry you, didn’t you?’  Her answer came calmly, though in a low voice:

‘I did.’

‘Then if you didn’t love me, why did you ask me to marry you?’  It was his nature to be more or less satisfied when he had put any one opposed to him proportionally in the wrong; and now his exultation at having put a poser manifested itself in his tone.  This, however, braced up Stephen to cope with a difficult and painful situation.  It was with a calm, seemingly genial frankness, that she answered, smilingly:

‘Do you know, that is what has been puzzling me from that moment to this!’  Her words appeared to almost stupefy Leonard.  This view of the matter had not occurred to him, and now the puzzle of it made him angry.

‘Do you mean to say,’ he asked hotly, ‘that you asked a man to marry you when you didn’t even love him?’

‘That is exactly what I do mean!  Why I did it is, I assure you, as much a puzzle to me as it is to you.  I have come to the conclusion that it must have been from my vanity.  I suppose I wanted to dominate somebody; and you were the weakest within range!’

‘Thank you!’  He was genuinely angry by this time, and, but for a wholesome fear of the consequences, would have used strong language.

‘I don’t see that I was the weakest about.’  Somehow this set her on her guard.  She wanted to know more, so she asked:

‘Who else?’

‘Harold An Wolf!  You had him on a string already!’  The name came like a sword through her heart, but the bitter comment braced her to further caution.  Her voice seemed to her to sound as though far away:

‘Indeed!  And may I ask you how you came to know that?’  Her voice seemed so cold and sneering to him that he lost his temper still further.

‘Simply because he told me so himself.’  It pleased him to do in ill turn to Harold.  He did not forget that savage clutch at his throat; and he never would.  Stephen’s senses were all alert.  She saw an opportunity of learning something, and went on with the same cold voice:

‘And I suppose it was that pleasing confidence which was the cause of your refusal of my offer of marriage; of which circumstance you have so thoughtfully and so courteously reminded me.’  This, somehow, seemed of good import to Leonard.  If he could show her that his intention to marry her was antecedent to Harold’s confidence, she might still go back to her old affection for him.  He could not believe that it did not still exist; his experience of other women showed him that their love outlived their anger, whether the same had been hot or cold.

‘It had nothing in the world to do with it.  He never said a word about it till he threatened to kill me  —  the great brute!’  This was learning something indeed!  She went on in the same voice:

‘And may I ask you what was the cause of such sanguinary intention?’

‘Because he knew that I was going to marry you!’  As he spoke he felt that he had betrayed himself; he went on hastily, hoping that it might escape notice:

‘Because he knew that I loved you.  Oh! Stephen, don’t you know it now!  Can’t you see that I love you; and that I want you for my wife!’

‘But did he threaten to kill you out of mere jealousy?  Do you still go in fear of your life?  Will it be necessary to arrest him?’  Leonard was chagrined at her ignoring of his love-suit, and in his self-engrossment answered sulkily:

‘I’m not afraid of him!  And, besides, I believe he has bolted.  I called at his house yesterday, and his servant said they hadn’t heard a word from him.’  Stephen’s heart sank lower and lower.  This was what she had dreaded.  She said in as steady a voice as she could muster:

‘Bolted!  Has he gone altogether?’

‘Oh, he’ll come back all right, in time.  He’s not going to give up the jolly good living he has here!’

‘But why has he bolted?  When he threatened to kill you did he give any reason?’  There was too much talk about Harold.  It made him angry; so he answered in an offhand way:

‘Oh, I don’t know.  And, moreover, I don’t care!’

‘And now,’ said Stephen, having ascertained what she wanted to know, ‘what is it that you want to speak to me about?’

Her words fell on Leonard like a cold douche.  Here had he been talking about his love for her, and yet she ignored the whole thing, and asked him what he wanted to talk about.

‘What a queer girl you are.  You don’t seem to attend to what a fellow is saying.  Here have I been telling you that I love you, and asking you to marry me; and yet you don’t seem to have even heard me!’  She answered at once, quite sweetly, and with a smile of superiority which maddened him:

‘But that subject is barred!’

‘How do you mean?  Barred!’

‘Yes.  I told you yesterday!’

‘But, Stephen,’ he cried out quickly, all the alarm in him and all the earnestness of which he was capable uniting to his strengthening, ‘can’t you understand that I love you, with all my heart?  You are so beautiful; so beautiful!’  He felt now in reality what he was saying.

The torrent of his words left no opening for her objection; it swept all merely verbal obstacles before it.  She listened, content in a measure.  So long as he sat at the distance which she had arranged before his coming she did not fear any personal violence.  Moreover, it was a satisfaction to her now to hear him, who had refused her, pleading in vain.  The more sincere his eloquence, the larger her satisfaction; she had no pity for him now.

‘I know I was a fool, Stephen!  I had my chance that day on the hilltop; and if I had felt then as I feel now, as I have felt every moment since, I would not have been so cold.  I would have taken you in my arms and held you close and kissed you, again, and again, and again.  Oh, darling!  I love you!  I love you!  I love you!’  He held out his arms imploringly.  ‘Won’t you love me?  Won’t  —  ’

He stopped, paralysed with angry amazement.  She was laughing.

He grew purple in the face; his hands were still outstretched.  The few seconds seemed like hours.

‘Forgive me!’ she said in a polite tone, suddenly growing grave.  ‘But really you looked so funny, sitting there so quietly, and speaking in such a way, that I couldn’t help it.  You really must forgive me!  But remember, I told you the subject was barred; and as, knowing that, you went on, you really have no one but yourself to blame!’  Leonard was furious, but managed to say as he dropped his arms:

‘But I love you!’