She stole another glance at him. He remained very still, leaning forward, apparently quite oblivious of her. Then he came to himself with a quick smile, which she recognised as characteristic of all that disturbed her about this man — a smile in which there was humour, a little malice and self-sufficiency and — many, many things she did not try to analyse.
“Don’t you really want an unreliable servant?” he asked.
His perverse humour perplexed her, but she smiled.
“Don’t you remember that I once asked you if you needed an able-bodied man?” he insisted.
She nodded.
“Well, I’m that man.”
She assented, smiling conventionally, not at all understanding. He laughed, too, thoroughly enjoying something.
“It isn’t really very funny,” he said, “Ask your brother-in-law. I had an interview with him before I came here. And I think there’s a chance that he may give me a desk and a small salary in his office.”
“How absurd!” she said.
“It is rather absurd. I’m so absolutely useless. It’s only because of the relationship that Mr. Craig is doing this.”
She said uneasily: “You are not really serious, are you?”
“Grimly serious.”
“About a — a desk and a salary — in my brother-in-law’s office?”
“Unless you’ll hire me as a useful man. Otherwise, I hope for a big desk and a small salary. I went to Mr. Craig this morning, and the minute I saw him I knew he was fine enough to be your brother-in-law. And I said, ‘I am Philip Ormond Berkley; how do you do!’ And he said, ‘How do you do!’ And I said, ‘I’m a relation,’ and he said, ‘I believe so.’ And I said, ‘I was educated at Harvard and in Leipsic; I am full of useless accomplishments, harmless erudition, and insolvent amiability, and I am otherwise perfectly worthless. Can you give me a position?’”
“And he said: ‘What else is the matter?’ And I said, ‘The stock market.’ And that is how it remains, I am to call on him to-morrow.”
She said in consternation: “Forgive me. I did not think you meant it. I did not know that you were — were — —”
“Ruined!” he nodded laughingly. “I am, practically. I have a little left — badly invested — which I’m trying to get at. Otherwise matters are gay enough.”
She said wonderingly: “Had this happened when — I saw you that first time?”
“It had just happened. I looked the part, didn’t I?”
“No. How could you be so — interesting and — and be — what you were — knowing this all the while?”
“I went to that party absolutely stunned. I saw you in a corner of the box — I had just been hearing about you — and — I don’t know now what I said to you. Afterward” — he glanced at her— “the world was spinning, Mrs. Paige. You only remained real—” His face altered subtly. “And when I touched you — —”
“I gave you a waltz, I believe,” she said, striving to speak naturally; but her pulses had begun to stir again; the same inexplicable sense of exhilaration and insecurity was creeping over her.
With a movement partly nervous she turned toward the door, but there sounded no rustle of her sister’s skirts from the stairs, and her reluctant eyes slowly reverted to him, then fell in silence, out of which she presently strove to extract them both with some casual commonplace.
He said in a low voice, almost to himself:
“I want you to think well of me.”
She gathered all her composure, steadied her senses to choose a reply, and made a blunder:
“Do you really care what I think?” she asked lightly, and bit her lip too late.
“Do you believe I care about anything else in the world — now?”
She went on bravely, blindly:
“And do you expect me to believe in — in such an exaggerated and romantic expression to a staid and matter-of-fact widow whom you never saw more than once in your life?”
“You do believe it.”
Confused, scarcely knowing what she was saying, she still attempted to make light of his words, holding her own against herself for the moment, making even some headway. And all the while she was aware of mounting emotion — a swift inexplicable charm falling over them both.
He had become silent again, and she was saying she knew not what — fortifying her common-sense with gay inconsequences, when he looked up straight into her eyes.
“I have distressed you. I should not have spoken as I did.”
“No, you should not — —”
“Have I offended you?”
“I — don’t know.”
Matters were running too swiftly for her; she strove to remain cool, collected, but confusion was steadily threatening her, and neither resentment nor indifference appeared as allies.
“Mrs. Paige, can you account for — that night? The moment I touched you — —”
She half rose, sank back into her seat, her startled eyes meeting his.
“I — don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes — you know.”
Flushed, voices unsteady, they no longer recognised themselves.
“You have never seen me but once,” she said. “You cannot believe — —”
“I have not known a moment’s peace since I first saw you.”
She caught her breath. “It is your business worries that torment you — —”
“It is desire to be near you.”
“I don’t think you had better say such a thing — —”
“I know I had better not. But it is said, and it is true. I’m not trying to explain it to you or to myself. It’s just true. There has not been one moment, since I saw you, which has been free from memory of you — —”
“Please — —”
“I scarcely know what I am saying — but it’s true!” He checked himself. “I’m losing my head now, which isn’t like me!” He choked and stood up; she could not move; every nerve in her had become tense with emotions so bewildering that mind and body remained fettered.
He was walking to and fro, silent and white under his self-control. She, seated, gazed at him as though stunned, but every pulse was riotously unsteady.
“I suppose you think me crazy,” he said hoarsely, “but I’ve not known a moment’s peace of mind since that night — not one! I couldn’t keep away any longer. I can’t even hold my tongue now, though I suppose it’s ruining me every time I move it. It’s a crazy thing to come here and say what I’m saying.”
He went over and sat down again, and bent his dark gaze on the floor. Then:
“Can you forgive what I have done to you?”
She tried to answer, and only made a sign of faint assent. She no longer comprehended herself or the emotions menacing her. A curious tranquillity quieted her at moments — intervals in which she seemed to sit apart watching the development of another woman, listening to her own speech, patient with her own silences. There was a droop to her shoulders now; his own were sagging as he leaned slightly forward in his chair, arms resting on his knees, while around them the magic ebbed, eddied, ebbed; and lassitude succeeded tension; and she stirred, looked up at him with eyes that seemed dazed at first, then widened slowly into waking; and he saw in them the first clear dawn of alarm. Suddenly she flushed and sprang to her feet, the bright colour surging to her hair.
“Don’t!” he said. “Don’t reason! There will be nothing left of me if you do — or of, these moments. You will hate them — and me, if you reason. Don’t think — until we see each other again!”
She dropped her eyes slowly, and slowly shook her head.
“You ask too much,” she said. “You should not have said that.” All the glamour was fading. Her senses were seeking their balance after the incredible storm that had whirled them into chaos.
Fear stirred sharply, then consternation — flashes of panic pierced her with darts of shame, as though she had been in physical contact with this man.
All her outraged soul leaped
to arms, quivering now under the reaction; the man’s mere presence was becoming unendurable; the room stifled her. She turned, scarce knowing what she was doing; and at the same moment her sister-in-law entered.
Berkley, already on his feet, turned short: and when she offered him a hand as slim and white as Ailsa’s, he glanced inquiringly at the latter, not at all certain who this charming woman might be.
“Mrs. Craig,” said Ailsa.
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “You haven’t grown-up children!”
“Don’t you really believe it, Mr. Berkley? Or is it just the flattering Irish in you that natters us poor women to our destruction?”
He had sense and wit enough to pay her a quick and really graceful compliment; to which she responded, still laughing:
“Oh, it is the Ormond in you! I am truly ve’y glad you came. You are Constance Berkley’s son — Connie Berkley! The sweetest girl that ever lived.”
There was a silence. Then Mrs. Craig said gently:
“I was her maid of honour, Mr. Berkley.”
Ailsa raised her eyes to his altered face, startled at the change in it. He looked at her absently, then his gaze reverted to Ailsa Paige.
“I loved her dearly,” said Mrs. Craig, dropping a light, impulsive hand on his. “I want her son to know it.”
Her eyes were soft and compassionate; her hand still lingered lightly on his, and she let it rest so.
“Mrs. Craig,” he said, “you are the most real person I have known in many years among the phantoms. I thought your sister-in-law was. But you are still more real.”
“Am I?” she laid her other hand over his, considering him earnestly. Ailsa looking on, astonished, noticed a singular radiance on his face — the pale transfiguration from some quick inward illumination.
Then Celia Craig’s voice sounded almost caressingly:
“I think you should have come to see us long ago.” A pause. “You are as welcome in this house as your mother would be if she were living. I love and honour her memory.”
“I have honoured little else in the world,” he said. They looked at one another for a moment; then her quick smile broke out. “I have an album. There are some Paiges, Ormonds, and Berkleys in it — —”
Ailsa came forward slowly.
“Shall I look for it, Celia?”
“No, Honey-bell.” She turned lightly and went into the back parlour, smiling mysteriously to herself, her vast, pale-blue crinoline rustling against the furniture.
“My sister-in-law,” said Ailsa, after an interval of silent constraint, “is very Southern. Any sort of kinship means a great deal to her. I, of course, am Northern, and regard such matters as unimportant.”
“It is very gracious of Mrs. Craig to remember it,” he said. “I know nothing finer than confidence in one’s own kin.”
She flushed angrily. “I have not that confidence — in kinsman.”
For a moment their eyes met. Hers were hard as purple steel.
“Is that final?”
“Yes.”
The muscles in his cheeks grew tense, then into his eyes came that reckless glimmer which in the beginning she had distrusted — a gay, irresponsible radiance which seemed to mock at all things worthy.
He said: “No, it is not final. I shall come back to you.”
She answered him in an even, passionless voice:
“A moment ago I was uncertain; now I know you. You are what they say you are. I never wish to see you again.”
Celia Craig came back with the album. Berkley sprang to relieve her of the big book and a box full of silhouettes, miniatures, and daguerreotypes. They placed the family depository upon the table and then bent over it together.
Ailsa remained standing by the window, looking steadily at nothing, a burning sensation in both cheeks.
At intervals, through the intensity of her silence, she heard Celia’s fresh, sweet laughter, and Berkley’s humorous and engaging voice. She glanced sideways at the back of his dark curly head where it bent beside Celia’s over the album. What an insolently reckless head it was! She thought that she had never before seen the back of any man’s head so significant of character — or the want of it. And the same quality — or the lack of it — now seemed to her to pervade his supple body, his well-set shoulders, his voice, every movement, every feature — something everywhere about him that warned and troubled.
[Illustration: “What an insolently reckless head it was!”]
Suddenly the blood burnt her cheeks with a perfectly incomprehensible desire to see his face again. She heard her sister-in-law saying:
“We Paiges and Berkleys are kin to the Ormonds and the Earls of
Ossory. The Estcourts, the Paiges, the Craigs, the Lents, the
Berkleys, intermarried a hundred years ago. . . . My grandmother
knew yours, but the North is very strange in such matters. . . .
Why did you never before come?”
He said: “It’s one of those things a man is always expecting to do, and is always astonished that he hasn’t done. Am I unpardonable?”
“I did not mean it in that way.”
He turned his dark, comely head and looked at her as they bent together above the album.
“I know you didn’t. My answer was not frank. The reason I never came to you before was that — I did not know I would be welcomed.”
Their voices dropped. Ailsa standing by the window, watching the orioles in the maple, could no longer distinguish what they were saying.
He said: “You were bridesmaid to my mother. You are the Celia
Paige of her letters.”
“She is always Connie Berkley to me. I loved no woman better. I love her still.”
“I found that out yesterday. That is why I dared come. I found, among the English letters, one from you to her, written — after.”
“I wrote her again and again. She never replied. Thank God, she knew I loved her to the last.”
He rested on the tabletop and stood leaning over and looking down.
“Dear Mr. Berkley,” she murmured gently.
He straightened himself, passed a hesitating hand across his forehead, ruffling the short curly hair. Then his preoccupied gaze wandered. Ailsa turned toward him at the same moment, and instantly a flicker of malice transformed the nobility of his set features:
“It seems,” he said, “that you and I are irrevocably related in all kinds of delightful ways, Mrs. Paige. Your sister-in-law very charmingly admits it, graciously overlooks and pardons my many delinquencies, and has asked me to come again. Will you ask me, too?”
Ailsa merely looked at him.
Mrs. Craig said, laughing: “I knew you were all Ormond and entirely Irish as soon as I came in the do’ — befo’ I became aware of your racial fluency. I speak fo’ my husband and myse’f when I say, please remember that our do’ is ve’y wide open to our own kin — and that you are of them — —”
“Oh, I’m all sorts of things beside—” He paused for a second— “Cousin Celia,” he added so lightly that the grace with which he said it covered the impudence, and she laughed in semi-critical approval and turned to Ailsa, whose smile in response was chilly — chillier still when Berkley did what few men have done convincingly since powdered hair and knee-breeches became unfashionable — bent to salute Celia Craig’s fingertips. Then he turned to her and took his leave of her in a conventional manner entirely worthy of the name his mother bore, — and her mother before her, and many a handsome man and many a beautiful woman back to times when a great duke stood unjustly attainted, and the Ormonds served their king with steel sword and golden ewer; and served him faithfully and well.
Camilla Lent called a little later. Ailsa was in the backyard garden, a trowel in her hand, industriously loosening the earth around the prairie roses.
“Camilla,” she said, looking up from where she was kneeling among the shrubs, “what was it you said this morning about Mr. Berkley being some unpleasant kind of man?�
��
“How funny,” laughed Camilla. “You asked me that twice before.”
“Did I? I forgot,” said Mrs. Paige with a shrug; and, bending over again, became exceedingly busy with her trowel until the fire in her cheeks had cooled.
“Every woman that ever saw him becomes infatuated with Phil Berkley,” said Camilla cheerfully. “I was. You will be. And the worst of it is he’s simply not worth it.”
“I — thought not.”
“Why did you think not?”
“I don’t know why.”
“He can be fascinating,” said Camilla reflectively, “but he doesn’t always trouble himself to be.”
“Doesn’t he?” said Ailsa with a strange sense of relief.
Camilla hesitated, lowered her voice.
“They say he is fast,” she whispered. Ailsa, on her knees, turned and looked up.
“Whatever that means,” added Camilla, shuddering. “But all the same, every girl who sees him begins to adore him immediately until her parents make her stop.”
“How silly,” said Ailsa in a leisurely level voice. But her heart was beating furiously, and she turned to her roses with a blind energy that threatened them root and runner.
“How did you happen to think of him at all?” continued Camilla mischievously.
“He called on — Mrs. Craig this afternoon.”
“I didn’t know she knew him.”
“They are related — distantly — I believe — —”
“Oh,” exclaimed Camilla. “I’m terribly sorry I spoke that way about him, dear — —”
“I don’t care what you say about him,” returned Ailsa Paige fiercely, emptying some grains of sand out of one of her gloves; resolutely emptying her mind, too, of Philip Berkley.
“Dear,” she added gaily to Camilla, “come in and we’ll have tea and gossip, English fashion. And I’ll tell you about my new duties at the Home for Destitute Children — every morning from ten to twelve, my dear, in their horrid old infirmary — the poor little darlings! — and I would be there all day if I wasn’t a selfish, indolent, pleasure-loving creature without an ounce of womanly feeling — Yes I am! I must be, to go about to galleries and dances and Philharmonics when there are motherless children in that infirmary, as sick for lack of love as for the hundred and one ailments distressing their tender little bodies.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 482