"Haven't you ever felt that he might care, Lygia?" Mrs. Chase murmured. "Haven't there been moments when he might have seemed to be reaching out after you, trying to push down the barriers between you? The barriers he erected himself when he hurt you in the beginning? The barriers he feels were erected for him, by Adam Chase—and his own father? Haven't you ever felt how tender a lover he could be if only the right girl would walk halfway to meet him, with no fear, no prejudice, no anything in her heart but her love for him? For you do love him, don't you? You loved him at the cottage. You loved him when you agreed to go to London with him. You loved him when you turned your back on Avery… now didn't you?"
"Yes." The word came softly, hardly audible, but as it reached Avery his hands found the rail at the foot of the bed and closed about it with a hurting, painful hardness.
"Then go to him—tell him—don't let happiness slip out of both of your lives for the sake of pride," Mrs. Chase pleaded. "Go to him, tell him! You will have to, my dear, for he doesn't feel he has the right to speak to you of love."
"Did he say that?"
"Yes."
Lygia rose from her knees and now her heart and her mind were winging their way out of the room. Her love was released as she had always wanted it to be and like a bird it was flying towards the place where she knew he would be. "Thank you for telling me!" she said breathlessly. "Thank you—both of you!"
And then she was gone, out of the room, across the hall, grabbing a raincoat and flying from the confines of Chase.
Mrs. Chase sank back against her pillows and though her eyes were weary, they were happy. "It had to be— there was no holding it back, Avery," she said. "I could not have died in peace until I knew Robert's peace was secure."
"And what of mine?" Avery asked.
"You will always have your work, my boy. For you that will always be the first consideration. Doubtless you would have made the child a good, steady husband, but her heart would always have been with Robert and there would never have been any true happiness for her, or any peace on earth for him, while they remained apart. She's what he must have to find completion. She's the ease of spirit I have prayed for him." The old, restless fingers plucked at the bedcovers. "I think I know now that the Good Lord sent her."
Avery stood gazing at the door. "She ran out as though she knew exactly where to go to find him," he mused.
"Yes, she knows. She'll follow her heart, straight to the place where he waits."
The rowan tree glowed bright with berries in the fading afternoon light. Robert stood smoking there, gazing out across the moorland, and all the loneliness of moorland and darkening sky seemed gathered into his tall figure. And then Lygia trod upon some dry bracken, and as the fronds cracked Robert swung round. He stared at her. He seemed hardly able to believe in the reality of her—until she smiled.
"Hullo!" she said. "I've come to cast spells under my rowan tree."
"It isn't Gran?" he said sharply. "She's all right?"
"She's fine, Robert. I've been talking to her." She came and stood beside him under the tree and his cigarette smoke drifted against her cheek. "How peaceful it is here," she said.
"Yes." He watched the wind ruffle her hair and a tiny dark nerve began to flicker at the side of his mouth. He drew a little away from her.
"Robert, do you think it's necessary for a girl to have pride?" she asked.
He glanced sideways at her and a slight, perplexed smile wrinkled the skin at the sides of his eyes. "What are you talking about, you black-haired witch?" he murmured.
"Pride."
"What sort of pride? In your appearance, or in the things you can do?"
"No." She shook her head and her heart was beating so hard, she just knew it would come to a dead stop in a moment. "Robert, if I said that I love you with all my heart—which is very nearly choking me at this moment—would you care that I had thrown my pride to the four winds?"
He was very still, not smiling now, but staring before him like a blind man.
"Robert—" She touched his arm and he drew sharply away from her.
"You damn little fool," he said, "you don't know what you're talking about. I suppose Gran has been letting a few cats out of the bag and now you've come here to offer me a bit of charity."
"Oh, don't!" She caught at his arms. "Don't say that to me! Don't hurt me with words like charity—I can't bear it!"
"That's all I could ever do, hurt you," he retorted. "Go back to Chase. Go back to Avery. He's worth fifty of my sort, and you know it in your heart. You wanted him on the train, on Saturday. His name was on your lips as you slept."
"Because I had to hurt him," she said. "Because he's always been so good to me and I had to say no to him when he asked me to marry him."
"He asked you—and you said no?" Robert faced her, very tall, very grave. "When did he ask you?"
"On Friday morning, just after I'd agreed to go to London with you."
"And you turned him down?"
"How could I accept him," she asked simply, "when it was you I wanted?"
"Me?" He put his slender hands against her temples and he tilted her face towards him. "You crazy child, I'd mess up your life the way my father messed up my mother's. I'd sooner put an ocean between us than make hell for you. I—I'll do just that! I'll forget all about Storm My Heritage and go to New York!"
"And leave me all alone, travelling round with some rep company, sleeping in beds that seem full of lumps of coal?" She was half laughing, half crying.
"You won't have to do any of that," he said roughly. "I'll find you a decent job before I leave London."
"I—I don't want it." Now there was no laughter in her eyes, there was only the wetness of tears. "I only want you. To bring you comfort and ease of spirit. I'm not afraid of your ghosts. I think you've allowed them to grow out of all proportion. You're not only Stephen Chase's son—you're Carmelita's son. Haven't you ever looked beyond your resemblance to Adam Chase? Haven't you ever seen that your mother's in you? In your eyes? In your bones? In your theatrical temperament, which you once talked to me about? I'm not afraid of Carmelita's son—I love him!"
The afternoon had so darkened now, that they seemed like wraiths, there beneath the rowan tree.
Rooks were flying towards their nests in Chase Park and the wind was flattening the heather.
"What makes you love me, when I've sat in judgment on you and hurt you?" Robert whispered. "What makes you such a crazy, sweet, mixed-up little fool?"
"Perhaps it's my theatrical temperament," she whispered back, and the cigarette that had died in his hand went flying back over his shoulder, and the next moment he had her hungrily close against his heart. "If I take you, you'll never escape," he said. "I'm self-willed, high-handed, and quite a few other unmentionable things, and I want you with a desperation that will make a prisoner of you. I could let you go now, but I could never let you go once you become mine. So make up your mind, Lygia. Choose now."
"If you love me," she said, "you make the choice for me. It's all I ask—the security of being your prisoner." She laughed a little and her arms clung round his neck. "I need a keeper. I'm not much good at looking after myself. Look at the way I ran away from George Downham."
"Don't say his damned name!" Robert's lips travelled her cheek. "There'll be no more of that, I can assure you. Oh, Lygia, I'm selfish to want you, but I can't help myself. I'll try with all my heart to make you happy."
"You're making me happy right this very moment," she said. "Oh, Robert, I've so longed to say all this to you, but I thought it was Gerda you wanted."
"There have been too many Gerdas," he retorted. "None of them ever meant a thing, beyond that they pleased the eye and amused me as toys amuse a petulant boy who wants something else and can't quite put a name to it. Then you came and you seemed not to be meant for me but for Avery, and like a petulant boy again I tried to break the other boy's possession. Lygia," he buried his face in her hair, "I want to find graciousness and humilit
y—I want to deserve you. I want you to feel that Gran was right to send you to me."
"She wouldn't have sent me if she had thought you'd ever hurt me. She knows you better than I do, even though I love you until I feel dizzy with it."
He laughed in a shaken way. "How long have I been making you dizzy, my witch?"
"Since the night I came back with poor Banker and you looked so hurt yourself. I fell head over heels in love with you and I just couldn't stop it, and then in Toby's Parlour you talked about weddings to Avery— remember?—and I tried not to ache as though someone had taken me and beaten me."
"And I said it because jealousy was eating into me at the way Avery had his arm around you!"
"Oh, Robert!"
"I played the piano and told you to go and marry him—because, Lygia, he's a far nicer person than I am." Then he drew back a little from her and she saw that he was biting his lip. "I've almost got the courage in this moment to let you go," he said.
"No!" In sudden fear that he would do this, she crept, close to him and he felt her tremble. "Don't put me out in the cold! Don't condemn both of us to any more loneliness—please!"
The whispered, pleading words broke him and the giving in to her was wild and sweet and complete. He held her in silence, against his heart, and the rowan tree waved its feathery foliage in the fresh clean wind off the moors.
"It was meant to be, wasn't it, Lygia?" Robert said at last. "We could never have forgotten one another if I had found the courage to walk away from you. Your funny little face would always have haunted me, and I'd have died each night, wanting your arms and your eyes—for I'm not a solitary man at heart." He watched her face against his arm, and then he gently kissed her and they walked away from the little tree, across the heather, her hand held in his.
They would go back to Chase and Robert would face his grief… but he wouldn't face it alone, not now, Lygia thought, and her fingers clung to his as the curlews swooped in the sky and evening came down over the moors.
The Strange Waif Page 17