It was a dreary afternoon, and he wished that something would happen. The fight on the preceding day had stirred his blood — and other things perhaps had contributed to his restless state of mind. He thought of Clare’s torn frock, and he wished he had killed the carter outright. He reflected that, as the man was attacking him with a knife, he himself would have been acquitted.
Late in the afternoon the sky cleared and the red light of the lowering sun struck the crests of the higher hills to eastward. Brook went out and smelled the earth-scented air, and the damp odour of the orange-blossoms. But that did not please him either, so he turned back and went through the long corridor to the platform at the back of the hotel. To his surprise he came face to face with Clare, who was walking briskly backwards and forwards, and saw him just as he emerged from the door. They both stood still and looked at each other with an odd little constraint, almost like anxiety, in their faces. There was a short, awkward silence.
“Well?” said Clare, interrogatively, and raising her eyebrows a very little, as though wondering why he did not speak.
“Nothing,” Johnstone answered, turning his face seaward. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Oh! — you looked as though you were.”
“No,” he said. “I came out to get a breath of air, that’s all.”
“So did I. I — I think I’ve been out long enough. I’ll go in.” And she made a step towards the door.
“Oh, please, don’t!” he cried suddenly. “Can’t we walk together a little bit? That is, if you are not tired.”
“Oh no! I’m not tired,” answered the young girl with a cold little laugh. “I’ll stay if you like — just a few minutes.”
“Thanks, awfully,” said Brook in a shy, jerky way.
They began to walk up and down, much less quickly than Clare had been walking when alone. They seemed to have nothing to say to each other. Johnstone remarked that he thought it would not rain again just then, and after some minutes of reflection Clare said that she remembered having seen two thunderstorms within an hour, with a clear sky between, not long ago. Johnstone also thought the matter over for some time before he answered, and then said that he supposed the clouds must have been somewhere in the meantime — an observation which did not strike either Clare or even himself as particularly intelligent.
“I don’t think you know much about thunderstorms,” said Clare, after another silence.
“I? No — why should I?”
“I don’t know. It’s supposed to be just as well to know about things, isn’t it?”
“I dare say,” answered Brook, indifferently. “But science isn’t exactly in my line, if I have any line.”
They recrossed the platform in silence.
“What is your line — if you have any?” Clare asked, looking at the ground as she walked, and perfectly indifferent as to his answer.
“It ought to be beer,” answered Brook, gravely. “But then, you know how it is — one has all sorts of experts, and one ends by taking their word for granted about it. I don’t believe I have any line — unless it’s in the way of out-of-door things. I’m fond of shooting, and I can ride fairly, you know, like anybody else.”
“Yes,” said Clare, “you were telling me so the other day, you know.”
“Yes,” Johnstone murmured thoughtfully, “that’s true. Please excuse me. I’m always repeating myself.”
“I didn’t mean that.” Her tone changed a little. “You can be very amusing when you like, you know.”
“Thanks, awfully. I should like to be amusing now, for instance, but I can’t.”
“Now? Why now?”
“Because I’m boring you to madness, little by little, and I’m awfully sorry too, for I want you to like me — though you say you never will — and of course you can’t like a bore, can you? I say, Miss Bowring, don’t you think we could strike some sort of friendly agreement — to be friends without ‘liking,’ somehow? I’m beginning to hate the word. I believe it’s the colour of my hair or my coat — or something — that you dislike so. I wish you’d tell me. It would be much kinder. I’d go to work and change it—”
“Dye your hair?” Clare laughed, glad that the ice was broken again.
“Oh yes — if you like,” he answered, laughing too. “Anything to please you.”
“Anything ‘in reason’ — as you proposed yesterday.”
“No — anything in reason or out of it. I’m getting desperate!” He laughed again, but in his laughter there was a little note of something new to the young girl, a sort of understreak of earnestness.
“It isn’t anything you can change,” said Clare, after a moment’s hesitation. “And it certainly has nothing to do with your appearance, or your manners, or your tailor,” she added.
“Oh well, then, it’s evidently something I’ve done, or said,” Brook murmured, looking at her.
But she did not return his glance, as they walked side by side; indeed, she turned her face from him a little, and she said nothing, for she was far too truthful to deny his assertion.
“Then I’m right,” he said, with an interrogation, after a long pause.
“Don’t ask me, please! It’s of no importance after all. Talk of something else.”
“I don’t agree with you,” Brook answered. “It is very important to me.”
“Oh, nonsense!” Clare tried to laugh. “What difference can it make to you, whether I like you or not?”
“Don’t say that. It makes a great difference — more than I thought it could, in fact. One — one doesn’t like to be misjudged by one’s friends, you know.”
“But I’m not your friend.”
“I want you to be.”
“I can’t.”
“You won’t,” said Brook, in a lower tone, and almost angrily. “You’ve made up your mind against me, on account of something you’ve guessed at, and you won’t tell me what it is, so I can’t possibly defend myself. I haven’t the least idea what it can be. I never did anything particularly bad, I believe, and I never did anything I should be ashamed of owning. I don’t like to say that sort of thing, you know, about myself, but you drive me to it. It isn’t fair. Upon my word, it’s not fair play. You tell a man he’s a bad lot, like that, in the air, and then you refuse to say why you think so. Or else the whole thing is a sort of joke you’ve invented — if it is, it’s awfully one-sided, it seems to me.”
“Do you really think me capable of anything so silly?” asked Clare.
“No, I don’t. That makes it all the worse, because it proves that you have — or think you have — something against me. I don’t know much about law, but it strikes me as something tremendously like libel. Don’t you think so yourself?”
“Oh no! Indeed I don’t. Libel means saying things against people, doesn’t it? I haven’t done that—”
“Indeed you have! I mean, I beg your pardon for contradicting you like that—”
“Rather flatly,” observed Clare, as they turned in their walk, and their eyes met.
“Well, I’m sorry, but since we are talking about it, I’ve got to say what I think. After all, I’m the person attacked. I have a right to defend myself.”
“I haven’t attacked you,” answered the young girl, gravely.
“I won’t be rude, if I can help it,” said Brook, half roughly. “But I asked you if you disliked me for something I had done or said, and you couldn’t deny it. That means that I have done or said something bad enough to make you say that you will never be my friend — and that must be something very bad indeed.”
“Then you think I’m not squeamish? It would have to be something very, very bad.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. Well, I thought it very bad. Anybody would, I should fancy.”
“I never did anything very, very bad, so you must be mistaken,” answered Johnstone, exasperated.
Clare said nothing, but walked along with her head rather high, looking straight before her. It had
all happened before her eyes, on the very ground under her feet, on that platform. Johnstone knew that he had spoken roughly.
“I say,” he began, “was I rude? I’m awfully sorry.” Clare stopped and stood still.
“Mr. Johnstone, we sha’n’t agree. I will never tell you, and you will never be satisfied unless I do. So it’s a dead-lock.”
“You are horribly unjust,” answered Brook, very much in earnest, and fixing his bright eyes on hers. “You seem to take a delight in tormenting me with this imaginary secret. After all, if it’s something you saw me do, or heard me say, I must know of it and remember it, so there’s no earthly reason why we shouldn’t discuss it.”
There was again that fascination in his eyes, and she felt herself yielding.
“I’ll say one thing,” she said. “I wish you hadn’t done it!”
She felt that she could not look away from him, and that he was getting her into his power. The colour rose in her face.
“Please don’t look at me!” she said suddenly, gazing helplessly into his eyes, but his steady look did not change.
“Please — oh, please look away!” she cried, half-frightened and growing pale again.
He turned from her, surprised at her manner.
“I’m afraid you’re not in earnest about this, after all,” he said, thoughtfully. “If you meant what you said, why shouldn’t you look at me?”
She blushed scarlet again.
“It’s very rude to stare like that!” she said, in an offended tone. “You know that you’ve got something — I don’t know what to call it — one can’t look away when you look at one. Of course you know it, and you ought not to do it. It isn’t nice.”
“I didn’t know there was anything peculiar about my eyes,” said Brook. “Indeed I didn’t! Nobody ever told me so, I’m sure. By Jove!” he exclaimed, “I believe it’s that! I’ve probably done it before — and that’s why you—” he stopped.
“Please don’t think me so silly,” answered Clare, recovering her composure. “It’s nothing of the sort. As for that — that way you have of looking — I dare say I’m nervous since my illness. Besides—” she hesitated, and then smiled. “Besides, do you know? If you had looked at me a moment longer I should have told you the whole thing, and then we should both have been sorry.”
“I should not, I’m sure,” said Brook, with conviction. “But I don’t understand about my looking at you. I never tried to mesmerise any one—”
“There is no such thing as mesmerism. It’s all hypnotism, you know.”
“I don’t know what they call it. You know what I mean. But I’m sure it’s your imagination. “
“Oh yes, I dare say,” answered the young girl with affected carelessness. “It’s merely because I’m nervous.”
“Well, so far as I’m concerned, it’s quite unconscious. I don’t know — I suppose I wanted to see in your eyes what you were thinking about. Besides, when one likes a person, one doesn’t think it so dreadfully rude to look at them — at him — I mean, at you — when one is in earnest about something — does one?”
“I don’t know,” said Clare. “But please don’t do it to me. It makes me feel awfully uncomfortable somehow. You won’t, will you?” she asked, with a sort of appeal. “You would make me tell you everything — and then I should hate myself.”
“But I shouldn’t hate you.”
“Oh yes, you would! You would hate me for knowing.”
“By Jove! It’s too bad!” cried Brook. “But as for that,” he added humbly, “nothing would make me hate you.”
“Nothing? You don’t know!”
“Yes, I do! You couldn’t make me change my mind about you. I’ve grown to — to like you a great deal too much for that in this short time — a great deal more than is good for me, I believe,” he added, with a sort of rough impulsiveness. “Not that I’m at all surprised, you know,” he continued with an attempt at a laugh. “One can’t see a person like you, most of the day, for ten days or a fortnight, without — well, you know, admiring you most tremendously — can one? I dare say you think that might be put into better English. But it’s true all the same.”
A silence followed. The warm blood mantled softly in the girl’s fair cheeks. She was taken by surprise with an odd little breath of happiness, as it were, suddenly blowing upon her, whence she knew not. It was so utterly new that she wondered at it, and was not conscious of the faint blush that answered it.
“One gets awfully intimate in a few days,” observed Brook, as though he had discovered something quite new.
She nodded, but said nothing, and they still walked up and down. Then his words made her think of that sudden intimacy which had probably sprung up between him and Lady Fan on board the yacht, and her heart was hardened again.
“It isn’t worth while to be intimate, as you call it,” she said at last, with a little sudden sharpness. “People ought never to be intimate, unless they have to live together — in the same place, you know. Then they can’t exactly help it, I suppose.”
“Why should they? One can’t exactly intrench oneself behind a wall with pistols and say ‘Be my friend if you dare.’ Life would be very uncomfortable, I should think.”
“Oh, you know what I mean! Don’t be so awfully literal.”
“I was trying to understand,” said Johnstone, with unusual meekness. “I won’t, if you don’t want me to. But I don’t agree with you a bit. I think it’s very jolly to be intimate — in this sort of way — or perhaps a little more so.”
“Intimate enemies? Enemies can be just as intimate as friends, you know.”
“I’d rather have you for my intimate enemy than not know you at all,” said Brook.
“That’s saying a great deal, Mr. Johnstone.”
Again she was pleased in a new way by what he said. And a temptation came upon her unawares. It was perfectly clear that he was beginning to make love to her. She thought of her reflections after she had seen him alone with Lady Fan, and of how she had wished that she could break his heart, and pay him back with suffering for the pain he had given another woman. The possibility seemed nearer now than then. At least, she could easily let him believe that she believed him, and then laugh at him and his acting. For of course it was acting. How could such a man be earnest? All at once the thought that he should respect her so little as to pretend to make love to her incensed her.
“What an extraordinary idea!” she exclaimed rather scornfully. “You would rather be hated, than not known!”
“I wasn’t talking generalities — I was speaking of you. Please don’t misunderstand me on purpose. It isn’t kind.”
“Are you in need of kindness just now? You don’t exactly strike one in that way, you know. But your people will be coming in a day or two, I suppose. I’ve no doubt they’ll be kind to you, as you call it — whatever that may mean. One speaks of being kind to animals and servants, you know — that sort of thing.”
Nothing can outdo the brutality of a perfectly unaffected young girl under certain circumstances.
“I don’t class myself with either, thank you,” said Brook, justly offended. “You certainly manage to put things in a new light sometimes. I feel rather like that mule we saw yesterday.”
“Oh — I thought you didn’t class yourself with animals!” she laughed.
“Have you any particular reason for saying horridly disagreeable things?” asked Brook coldly.
There was a pause.
“I didn’t mean to be disagreeable — at least not so disagreeable as all that,” said Clare at last. “I don’t know why it is, but you have a talent for making me seem rude.”
“Force of example,” suggested Johnstone.
“No, I’ll say that for you — you have very good manners.”
“Thanks, awfully. Considering the provocation, you know, that’s an immense compliment.”
“I thought I would be ‘kind’ for a change. By the bye, what are we quarrelling about?” She laughe
d. “You began by saying something very nice to me, and then I told you that you were like the mule, didn’t I? It’s very odd! I believe you hypnotise me, after all.”
“At all events, if we were not intimate, you couldn’t possibly say the things you do,” observed Brook, already pacified.
“And I suppose you would not take the things I say, so meekly, would you?”
“I told you I was a very mild person,” said Johnstone. “We were talking about it yesterday, do you remember?”
“Oh yes! And then you illustrated your idea of meekness by knocking down the first man we met.”
“It was your fault,” retorted Brook. “You told me to stop his beating the mule. So I did. Fortunately you stopped him from sticking a knife into me. Do you know? You have awfully good nerves. Most women would have screamed and run up a tree — or something. They would have got out of the way, at all events.”
“I think most women would have done precisely what I did,” said Clare. “Why should you say that most women are cowards?”
“I didn’t,” answered Brook. “But I refuse to quarrel about it. I meant to say that I admired you — I mean, what you did — well, more than anything.”
“That’s a sweeping sort of compliment. Am I to return it?” She glanced at him and smiled.
“You couldn’t, with truth.”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 810