The Sleeping Fury (14 page)

The country blazed in the full splendour of autumn as Charlotte and Alfred, side by side in the back of their open car, drove through the warm afternoon. When they arrived, tea was in progress in the hall. Entering from the bright sunlight, Charlotte was vaguely aware of half a dozen people sitting about in the wide, shadowy room. Old Mr. Pennington and his wife came to the door to greet them, and then Charlotte identified the Crofts, Roger Pennington and his wife, and a Miss Relton—Elizabeth Relton, whom she had met two or three times before at the Penningtons' and liked. She shook hands, and then Mrs. Pennington introduced a Mr. Maurice Wainwright to her, who had risen from his chair and stood in a broad shaft of sunlight which fell across the room from the tall mullioned window. When Charlotte turned her eyes to this unknown man she had a sudden, extraordinarily vivid impression of the bright gold of his head against a murrey-coloured curtain which hung over the dining-room door. They shook hands, and it seemed to Charlotte that her whole being was enveloped in a sheet of flame, an ecstasy that thrilled her to the soul and swept stormlike through her body, so that she actually felt it tingle in the roots of her hair. She never discovered the cause of that strange experience. It was not merely the touch of his hand, the sound of his voice, which had set some string vibrating in her, nor his hair, bright gold in the shaft of sunlight, nor the clear blue of his eyes, that looked straight into her heart. It was not these things, though each had a share in the soul-shaking impact of his presence on her. For one brief moment
she was speechless, breathless, dazed. Then she had taken a chair which Mr. Pennington had drawn forward for her and was sitting near Mrs. Pennington, talking while the old lady poured out tea for her and Alfred. How bewildering that experience had been! She felt now as if she were recovering from a violent blow on the head. Where she sat now, she was half turned away from him, but though she could not see him, and though she deliberately refrained from turning her head, she was acutely aware of his presence, and sometimes through the general murmur of talk she caught the deep, low tone of his voice, and thrilled in answer to it. How strange, she thought to herself as she sat there, calm now and listening to her hostess's talk, that this tremendous thing should have happened to her there in the middle of them all, and no one except herself should have the slightest intimation of it. Except him, perhaps! Had he, she wondered tremulously, felt anything like what she had felt; and, if so, had he felt her response? She raised her eyes and saw Alfred sitting on the other side of the tea-table near Mrs. Croft, and it seemed that she suddenly returned after a long absence in another world.

Old Mrs. Pennington rose from her chair, and everyone else with her. Mr. Pennington was opening the door into the garden, and there was a general movement in that direction.

“Mr. Wainwright is a great friend of Roger's,” Mrs. Pennington was saying to her. “They were at Oxford together.” Then she found herself outside the garden door. Mrs. Pennington had disappeared
and Maurice Wainwright was standing looking at her, as if he expected her to accompany him. Perhaps Mrs. Pennington had said something about showing him the garden. Then her courage returned. “Have you seen the garden yet? “she asked.

“No, Lady Mardale. I arrived only about half an hour before you did.”

How it chilled her to hear him call her Lady Mardale. Alfred had strolled away across the lawn with the Crofts, and old Mr. Pennington, with Miss Relton and the young Penningtons, was slowly receding down the broad walk. Charlotte and Maurice Wainwright followed, pausing from time to time to admire the flowers in the long border that edged the walk. Between the great dahlia-shrubs, thick with scarlet, orange, white, mauve, or sulphur-yellow blooms, stood masses of Michaelmas daisies of every shade from pale lavender to deep purple. The tall spikes of hollyhocks, still bright with flowers, towered behind them, and tangles of thick-flowering clematis hung from tree-stumps set up at intervals along the border. The foliage of many of the plants, already touched with the brief splendour of the autumn, was as gorgeous as their flowers. Charlotte had regained her self-possession. She felt, now, nothing but a perfect happiness in being beside him and hearing his voice. They talked of flowers and gardens, and she told him of the gardens at Haughton, feeling, as she did so, that she was pouring out her very soul to him. She did not ask what could be the significance of the thing that had happened to her—whether it arose from some profound sympathy between them or from no more than the feverish
madness of a woman long starved for love who, seeing her youth slipping from her, clutched desperately at a straw. What was the use of questions in the presence of this glowing certainty? She took the happiness which had so miraculously become hers and drank of it deeply and unquestioningly. If he had flung his arms about her as they stood together looking at the flowers, she would have given herself up to him without hesitation and without surprise. For her there would have been nothing strange in it.

At the end of the long walk they turned on to the grass and followed the avenue of elms which swung back towards the house. The great boughs that towered above them were already yellowing, and here and there a pale leaf twirled slowly to earth through the still air of the late afternoon.

“How is it,” she asked, “that we have never met before, if you have known Roger so long?”

“We were friends at Oxford,” he said, “but for the last eight years I have been in Egypt, and when I came home on leave we always met in London. I am only on leave now.”

“And when do you go back?”

“On the eighteenth. Three days hence.”

Charlotte felt a sudden chill at the heart. But he was speaking again. “I once rode over with Roger to Haughton—eleven years ago, it must have been; in old Lord Mardale's time.”

“Before my marriage, my mother and sister and I always spent July at Haughton. You never came when we were there.” It was almost as if she were reproaching him.

“No, it was winter when I went there. I remember
especially the beautiful Renaissance front. How strange if we had met! I was twenty then.”

“I should have been nineteen.”

So they talked, quietly, intimately, with a depth of meaning in their talk which was not in the words.

At dinner they found themselves opposite each other—Mr. Pennington had taken in Charlotte and Wainwright Miss Relton—and Charlotte was content. She had no wish to talk to him when others were present. It was enough, and more than enough, for her to rest her eyes on him from time to time, and sometimes to meet his.

Old Mrs. Pennington had Alfred on her left at the other end of the table.

“How well that pale green satin suits Charlotte,” she said to him. “I have never seen her look so beautiful.”

Alfred glanced down the table. It was true: Charlotte had never been so beautiful. Her pallor and the cold restraint which was her usual expression were gone. It was as if her beauty had blossomed for the first time.

Old Mr. Pennington liked late hours. When the ladies had retired he made for the smoking-room, taking the men of the party with him.

Charlotte, having undressed and dismissed her maid, sat in her dressing-gown, her heavy dark hair hanging in a plait down her back, her ringless hands clasped in her violet silk lap. She was still incapable of anything but feeling. She could not yet descend to practical thought, nor did she yet envisage the fact that to-morrow she and Alfred were returning to Haughton and she would never, perhaps, see Maurice Wainwright again. Her heart was immersed in sunshine; for the moment Wainwright was her all, and, if he had asked her to go away with him to Egypt that night she would have gone with hardly a thought of Alfred and Haughton and all they stood for. It was not that her nature had changed and she had grown callous. She was the same as she had always been; but love, coming to her so suddenly and so late, had for the moment so flooded her heart and mind that there was no room in them for any thought or feeling apart from Maurice.

After sitting motionless for an hour, she took off her dressing-gown and got into bed. There she recalled her old dreams of love and the imaginary lover Christopher. What an absurdity! And he was not
in the least like Maurice. Long before Alfred came to bed she was asleep.

• • • • • • • •

She awoke early next morning. It was still the morning twilight; the birds were beginning to wake. The immense new fact of her life rushed in upon her waking senses, and with it the realisation that to-day was the end of it. A despair that was almost a panic seized her. She must go to him now, throw off the foolish restraint which they had so carefully observed yesterday, and talk honestly and openly of their love. They must fight together against the unendurable separation which life, with all its laws and conventions, was about to inflict on them within a few hours. But, despite the furious activity of her mind, she actually did nothing. Her body lay motionless beside her sleeping husband while the light slowly grew from grey to the full flower of daylight. She was wide awake, and, under that press of thought and feeling, inaction became unbearable. She turned to look at the little clock on the table beside her. It was a quarter to seven. Alfred was sleeping soundly; he had not once stirred since she awoke. No doubt old Mr. Pennington had kept him up talking till the small hours. Charlotte slid quietly out of bed, put on her dressing-gown, and crept away to the bathroom. When she returned, Alfred was still asleep. She dressed quickly and stole downstairs.

The hall was empty, but as she passed the open door of the dining-room she heard the flap of a duster, and from another room came twice the
light, metallic crash of the drawing of a curtain. She hurried to a small side-door—it was already unlocked—and went out into the garden. The garden was glittering with dew and sunshine, and so miraculously still that it seemed enchanted. In the shadow of the house the air was sharp, but in the sunshine it was already growing warm—delicious blend of sting and caress. After pausing for a moment and looking about her, she took a narrow path which led to the entrance of an old, formal garden surrounded by high yew-hedges. She entered, and followed the passage which turned and doubled between the high, dark-green walls. Here and there, like the creatures of a giant Noah's Ark, peacocks and pheasants and dragons, cut out of yew, rose above the walls. In the little square garden in the centre, she knew, there was a fountain, and stone seats in recesses of the hedge, where she could sit undisturbed. She hurried on, as if on some secret errand, between the dark hedges, till she reached the arched opening that led into the garden. There she paused. In the keen morning silence the glassy chime of the little fountain, audible where she stood, brought a sense of intimacy and security. The sound of her foot on the gravel frightened a bathing bird as she turned into the garden. There she paused again, with a suddenly palpitating heart, for there, on the stone seat nearest to the arch by which she had entered, sat Maurice Wainwright. A delicious fear thrilled her from head to foot. She could not move nor speak. Feeling that her legs were going to fail her, she put out a hand and touched the compact yew-hedge. He rose and came towards her, and
next moment she was in his arms. She resigned herself to his supporting strength, and, leaning her cheek against his shoulder, broke into sobs.

“What is it? What's the matter?” His voice soothed her as if she had been a child. She felt the firm pressure of his hands upon her. He led her to the stone seat, and, with his arms still round her, they sat down. She found a handkerchief, and, raising her head, she dried her eyes.

“What is it?” he asked again. “Did I upset you?”

She shook her head.

“Then why are you crying? Tell me.”

“Only from happiness,” she said. She raised her eyes, and found that his were devouring her face, and it seemed to her that in the fire of that blue gaze her identity was dissolved. He lowered his face to hers, and their lips met. She drew a shuddering breath and closed her eyes, and for a moment was lost in ecstasy. For a moment she was a creature without past or future, without thought or hope, lost and found in the rapture of an eternal present.

When she opened her eyes, she had a brief sense of surprise at finding him there, still individual and separate from herself. She too had returned to herself. She raised her hand and stroked his head won-deringly. “Where did you get such golden hair from,” she said, “and such blue eyes?”

“From you,” he said, smiling down at her.

The world and the world's share in her life had returned to her now. “Oh, why didn't you come to Haughton years ago,” she sighed remorsefully, “when we were staying there? If we had met then,
it would have been the same as now, wouldn't it? We should have
known
at once.”

“Yes, at first sight. Love at first sight: I never believed in such a thing before.”

She began to tell him of her early hopes of love, and of how she had married Alfred, though not in love with him. “You are the first man I have loved, and the only one I shall ever love,” she said, with low-voiced, passionate intensity, grasping one of his hands in both her own. “I want you to know that. Think of it sometimes, won't you, when you're away, over there in Egypt? And I wanted you to know, too, about Alfred … my husband; for fear you should think I had given to you what was already his. I didn't want you to think I could have done that.”

Maurice raised her hands to his lips and kissed them. “If ever you tell your husband of this,” he said, “tell him that I didn't try to draw you away, that it was something stronger than either of us; that it happened like … like a whirlwind.”

“What time is it?” she asked, with sudden anxiety.

“Five minutes past eight. We still have three-quarters of an hour.” He kissed her again, and then took in his breath in a deep, long-drawn sigh.