“Oh, it’s much cooler! There’s a breeze at the end of the walk.”
“The sea is like oil,” observed Clare. “There isn’t the least breath.”
“Well,” said Brook, “it can’t be really hot, because it’s only the first week in June after all.”
“This isn’t Scotland. It’s positively boiling, and I wish I hadn’t come out. Beware of first impulses — they are always right!”
But she glanced sideways at his face, for she knew that something was in the air. She was not sure what to expect of him just then, but she knew that there was something to expect. Her instinct told her that he meant to speak and to say more than he had yet said. It told her that he was going to ask her to marry him, then and there, in the blazing noon, under the vines, but her modesty scouted the thought as savouring of vanity. At all events she would prevent him from doing it if she could.
“Lady Johnstone seems to like this place,” she said, with a sudden effort at conversation. “She says that she means to make all sorts of expeditions.”
“Of course she will,” answered Brook, in a half-impatient tone. “But, please — I don’t want to talk about my mother or the landscape. I really did want to speak to you, because I can’t stand this sort of thing any longer, you know.”
“What sort of thing?” asked Clare innocently, raising her eyes to his, as they reached the end of the walk.
It was very hot and still. Not a breath stirred the young vine-leaves overhead, and the scent of the last orange-blossoms hung in the motionless air. The heat rose quivering from the sea to southward, and the water lay flat as a mirror under the glory of the first summer’s day.
They stood still. Clare felt nervous, and tried to think of something to say which might keep him from speaking, and destroy the effect of her last question. But it was too late now. He was pale, for him, and his eyes were very bright.
“I can’t live without you — it comes to that. Can’t you see?”
The short plain words shook oddly as they fell from his lips. The two stood quite still, each looking into the other’s face. Brook grew paler still, but the colour rose in Clare’s cheeks. She tried to meet his eyes steadily, without feeling that he could control her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m very sorry.”
“You sha’n’t say that,” he answered, cutting her words with his, and sharply. “I’m tired of hearing it. I’m glad I love you, whatever you do to me; and you must get to like me. You must. I tell you I can’t live without you.”
“But if I can’t—” Clare tried to say.
“You can — you must — you shall!” broke in Brook, hoarsely, his eyes growing brighter and fiercer. “I didn’t know what it was to love anybody, and now that I know, I can’t live without it, and I won’t.”
“But if—”
“There is no ‘if,’” he cried, in his low strong voice, fixing her eyes with his. “There’s no question of my going mad, or dying, or anything half so weak, because I won’t take no. Oh, you may say it a hundred times, but it won’t help you. I tell you I love you. Do you understand what that means? I’m in God’s own earnest. I’ll give you my life, but I won’t give you up. I’ll take you somehow, whether you will or not, and I’ll hide you somewhere, but you sha’n’t get away from me as long as you live.”
“You must be mad!” exclaimed the young girl, scarcely above her breath, half-frightened, and unable to loose her eyes from the fascination of his.
“No, I’m not mad; only you’ve never seen any one in earnest before, and you’ve been condemning me without evidence all along. But it must stop now. You must tell me what it is, for I have a right to know. Tell me what it all is. I will know — I will. Look at me; you can’t look away till you tell me.”
Clare felt his power, and felt that his eyes were dazzling her, and that if she did not escape from them she must yield and tell him. She tried, and her eyelids quivered. Then she raised her hand to cover her own eyes, in a desperate attempt to keep her secret. He caught it and held it, and still looked. She turned pale suddenly. Then her words came mechanically.
“I was out there when you said ‘good-bye’ to Lady Fan. I heard everything, from first to last.”
He started in surprise, and the colour rose suddenly to his face. He did not look away yet, but Clare saw the blush of shame in his face, and felt that his power diminished, while hers grew all at once, to overmaster him in turn.
“It’s scarcely a fortnight since you betrayed her,” she said, slowly and distinctly, “and you expect me to like you and to believe that you are in earnest.”
His shame turned quickly to anger.
“So you listened!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, I listened,” she answered, and her words came easily, then, in self-defence — for she had thought of it all very often. “I didn’t know who you were. My mother and I had been sitting beside the cross in the shadow of the cave, and she went in to finish a letter, leaving me there. Then you two came out talking. Before I knew what was happening you had said too much. I felt that if I had been in Lady Fan’s place I would far rather never know that a stranger was listening. So I sat still, and I could not help hearing. How was I to know that you meant to stay here until I heard you say so to her? And I heard everything. You are ashamed now that you know that I know. Do you wonder that I disliked you from the first?”
“I don’t see why you should,” answered Brook stubbornly. “If you do — you do. That doesn’t change matters—”
“You betrayed her!” cried Clare indignantly. “You forgot that I heard all you said — how you promised to marry her if she could get a divorce. It was horrible, and I never dreamt of such things, but I heard it. And then you were tired of her, I suppose, and you changed your mind, and calmly told her that it was all a mistake. Do you expect any woman, who has seen another treated in that way, to forget? Oh, I saw her face, and I heard her sob. You broke her heart for your amusement. And it was only a fortnight ago!”
She had the upper hand now, and she turned from him with a last scornful glance, and looked over the low wall at the sea, wondering how he could have held her with his eyes a moment earlier. Brook stood motionless beside her, and there was silence. He might have found much in self-defence, but there was not one word of it which he could tell her. Perhaps she might find out some day what sort of person Lady Fan was, but his own lips were closed. That was his view of what honour meant.
Clare felt that her breath came quickly, and that the colour was deep in her cheeks as she gazed at the flat, hot sea. For a moment she felt a woman’s enormous satisfaction in being absolutely unanswerable. Then, all at once, she had a strong sensation of sickness, and a quick pain shot sharply through her just below the heart. She steadied herself by the wall with her hands, and shut her lips tightly.
She had refused him as well as accused him. He would go away in a few moments, and never try to be alone with her again. Perhaps he would leave Amalfi that very day. It was impossible that she should really care for him, and yet, if she did not care, she would not ask the next question. Then he spoke to her. His voice was changed and very quiet now.
“I’m sorry you heard all that,” he said. “I don’t wonder that you’ve got a bad opinion of me, and I suppose I can’t say anything just now to make you change it. You heard, and you think you have a right to judge. Perhaps I shouldn’t even say this — you heard me then, and you have heard me now. There’s a difference, you’ll admit. But all that you heard then, and all that you have told me now, can’t change the truth, and you can’t make me love you less, whatever you do. I don’t believe I’m that sort of man.”
“I should have thought you were,” said Clare bitterly, and regretting the words as soon as they were spoken.
“It’s natural that you should think so. At the same time, it doesn’t follow that because a man doesn’t love one woman he can’t possibly love another.”
“That’s simply brutal!” exclaimed the youn
g girl, angry with him unreasonably because the argument was good.
“It’s true, at all events. I didn’t love Mrs. Crosby, and I told her so. You may think me a brute if you like, but you heard me say it, if you heard anything, so I suppose I may quote myself. I do love you, and I have told you so — the fact that I can’t say it in choice language doesn’t make it a lie. I’m not a man in a book, and I’m in earnest. “
“Please stop,” said Clare, as she heard the hoarse strength coming back in his voice.
“Yes — I know. I’ve said it before, and you don’t care to hear it again. You can’t kill it by making me hold my tongue, you know. It only makes it worse. You’ll see that I’m in earnest in time — then you’ll change your mind. But I can’t change mine. I can’t live without you, whatever you may think of me now.”
It was a strange wooing, very unlike anything she had ever dreamt of, if she had allowed herself to dream of such things. She asked herself whether this could be the same man who had calmly and cynically told Lady Fan that he did not love her and could not think of marrying her. He had been cool and quiet enough then. That gave strength to the argument he used now. She had seen him with another woman, and now she saw him with herself and heard him. She was surprised and almost taken from her feet by his rough vehemence. He surely did not speak as a man choosing his words, certainly not as one trying to produce an effect. But then, on that evening at the Acropolis — the thought of that scene pursued her — he had doubtless spoken just as roughly and vehemently to Lady Fan, and had seemed just as much in earnest. And suddenly Lady Fan was hateful to her, and she almost ceased to pity her at all. But for Lady Fan — well, it might have been different. She should not have blamed herself for liking him, for loving him perhaps, and his words would have had another ring.
He still stood beside her, watching her, and she was afraid to turn to him lest he should see something in her face which she meant to hide. But she could speak quietly enough, resting her hands on the wall and looking out to sea. It would be best to be a little formal, she thought. The sound of his own name spoken distinctly and coldly would perhaps warn him not to go too far.
“Mr. Johnstone,” she said, steadying her voice, “this can’t go on. I never meant to tell you what I knew, but you have forced me to it. I don’t love you — I don’t like a man who can do such things, and I never could. And I can’t let you talk to me in this way any more. If we must meet, you must behave just as usual. If you can’t, I shall persuade my mother to go away at once.”
“I shall follow you,” said Brook. “I told you so the other day. You can’t possibly go to any place where I can’t go too.”
“Do you mean to persecute me, Mr. Johnstone?” she asked.
“I love you. “
“I hate you!”
“Yes, but you won’t always. Even if you do, I shall always love you just as much.”
Her eyes fell before his.
“Do you mean to say that you can really love a woman who hates you?” she asked, looking at one of her hands as it rested on the wall.
“Of course. Why not? What has that to do with it?”
The question was asked so simply and with such honest surprise that Clare looked up again. He was smiling a little sadly.
“But — I don’t understand—” she hesitated.
“Do you think it’s like a bargain?” he asked quietly. “Do you think it’s a matter of exchange— ‘I will love you if you’ll love me’? Oh no! It’s not that. I can’t help it. I’m not my own master. I’ve got to love you, whether I like it or not. But since I do — well, I’ve said the rest, and I won’t repeat it. I’ve told you that I’m in earnest, and you haven’t believed me. I’ve told you that I love you, and you won’t even believe that—”
“No — I can believe that, well enough, now. You do to-day, perhaps. At least you think you do.”
“Well — you don’t believe it, then. What’s the use of repeating it? If I could talk well, it would be different, but I’m not much of a talker, at best, and just now I can’t put two words together. But I — I mean lots of things that I can’t say, and perhaps wouldn’t say, you know. At least, not just now.”
He turned from her and began to walk up and down across the narrow terrace, towards her and away from her, his hands in his pockets, and his head a little bent. She watched him in silence for some time. Perhaps if she had hated him as much as she said that she did, she would have left him then and gone into the house. Something, good or evil, tempted her to speak.
“What do you mean, that you wouldn’t say now?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered gruffly, still walking up and down, ten steps each way. “Don’t ask me — I told you one thing. I shall follow you wherever you go.”
“And then?” asked Clare, still prompted by some genius, good or bad.
“And then?” Brook stopped and stared at her rather wildly. “And then? If I can’t get you in any other way — well, I’ll take you, that’s all! It’s not a very pretty thing to say, is it?”
“It doesn’t sound a very probable thing to do, either,” answered Clare. “I’m afraid you are out of your mind, Mr. Johnstone.”
“You’ve driven most things out of it since I loved you,” answered Brook, beginning to walk again. “You’ve made me say things that I shouldn’t have dreamed of saying to any woman, much less to you. And you’ve made me think of doing things that looked perfectly mad a week ago.” He stopped before her. “Can’t you see? Can’t you understand? Can’t you feel how I love you?”
“Don’t — please don’t!” she said, beginning to be frightened at his manner again.
“Don’t what? Don’t love you? Don’t live, then — don’t exist — don’t anything! What would it all matter, if I didn’t love you? Meanwhile, I do, and by the — no! What’s the use of talking? You might laugh. You’d make a fool of me, if you hadn’t killed the fool out of me with too much earnest — and what’s left can’t talk, though it can do something better worth while than a lot of talking.”
Clare began to think that the heat had hurt his head. And all the time, in a secret, shame-faced way, she was listening to his incoherent sentences and rough exclamations, and remembering them one by one, and every one. And she looked at his pale face, and saw the queer light in his blue eyes, and the squaring of his jaw — and then and long afterwards the whole picture, with its memory of words, hot, broken, and confused, meant earnest love in her thoughts. No man in his senses, wishing to play a part and produce an impression upon a woman, would have acted as he did, and she knew it. It was the rough, real thing — the raw strength of an honest man’s uncontrolled passion that she saw — and it told her more of love in a few minutes than all she had heard or read in her whole life. But while it was before her, alive and throbbing and incoherent of speech, it frightened her.
“Come,” she said nervously, “we mustn’t stay out here any longer, talking in this way.”
He stopped again, close before her, and his eyes looked dangerous for an instant. Then he straightened himself, and seemed to swallow something with an effort.
“All right,” he answered. “I don’t want to keep you out here in the heat.”
He faced about, and they walked slowly towards the house. When they reached the door he stood aside. She saw that he did not mean to go in, and she paused an instant on the threshold, looked at him gravely, and nodded before she entered. Again he bent his head, and said nothing. She left him standing there, and went straight to her room.
Then she sat down before a little table on which she wrote her letters, near the window, and she tried to think. But it was not easy, and everything was terribly confused. She rested her elbows upon the small desk and pressed her fingers to her eyes, as though to drive away the sight that would come back. Then she dropped her hands suddenly and opened her eyes wide, and stared at the wall-paper before her. And it came back very vividly between her and the white plaster, and she heard his v
oice again — but she was smiling now.
She started violently, for she felt two hands laid unexpectedly upon her shoulders, and some one kissed her hair. She had not heard her mother’s footstep, nor the opening and shutting of the door, nor anything but Brook Johnstone’s voice.
“What is it, my darling?” asked the elder woman, bending down over her daughter’s shoulder. “Has anything happened?”
Clare hesitated a moment, and then spoke, for the habit of her confidence was strong. “He has asked me to marry him, mother—”
In her turn Mrs. Bowring started, and then rested one hand on the table.
“You? You?” she repeated, in a low and troubled voice. “You marry Adam Johnstone’s son?”
“No, mother — never,” answered the young girl.
“Thank God!”
And Mrs. Bowring sank into a chair, shivering as though she were cold.
CHAPTER XII
BROOK FELT IN his pocket mechanically for his pipe, as a man who smokes generally takes to something of the sort at great moments in his life, from sheer habit. He went through the operation of filling and lighting with great precision, almost unconscious of what he was doing, and presently he found himself smoking and sitting on the wall just where Clare had leaned against it during their interview. In three minutes his pipe had gone out, but he was not aware of the fact, and sat quite still in his place, staring into the shrubbery which grew at the back of the terrace.
He was conscious that he had talked and acted wildly, and quite unlike the self with which he had been long acquainted; and the consciousness was anything but pleasant. He wondered where Clare was, and what she might be thinking of him at that moment. But as he thought of her his former mood returned, and he felt that he was not ashamed of what he had done and said. Then he realised, all at once, for the second time, that Clare had been on the platform on that first night, and he tried to recall everything that Lady Fan and he had said to each other.
No such thing had ever happened to him before, and he had a sensation of shame and distress and anger, as he went over the scene, and thought of the innocent young girl who had sat in the shadow and heard it all. She had accidentally crossed the broad, clear line of demarcation which he drew between her kind and all the tribe of Lady Fans and Mrs. Cairngorms whom he had known. He felt somehow as though it were his fault, and as though he were responsible to Clare for what she had heard and seen. The sensation of shame deepened, and he swore bitterly under his breath. It was one of those things which could not be undone, and for which there was no reparation possible. Yet it was like an insult to Clare. For a man who had lately been rough to the girl, almost to brutality, he was singularly sensitive perhaps. But that did not strike him. When he had told her that he loved her, he had been too much in earnest to pick and choose his expressions. But when he had spoken to Lady Fan, he might have chosen and selected and polished his phrases so that Clare should have understood nothing — if he had only known that she had been sitting up there by the cross in the dark. And again he cursed himself bitterly.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 815