The Knave of Diamonds - Ethel May Dell (best novels for students txt) 📗

the spring sweetness.
It was drawing towards midnight, and all but herself had retired. She knew she ought to bolt the window and go to rest also; only she knew, too, that no rest awaited her. The silver peace into which she gazed was like balm to her tired spirit, but yet she could only stand, as it were, upon the edge.
A great longing was upon her, a voiceless, indescribable desire, that made within her so deep a restlessness that no outside influence seemed able to touch it. She leaned her head against the window-frame, conscious of suffering but scarcely aware of thought.
With no effort of hers the events of that afternoon passed before her. She heard again the ardent voice of the friend who had become the lover. He had loved her from the first, it seemed, and she had not known it. Could it be that she had loved him also, all unknowing?
There came again to her the memory of those fierce, compelling eyes, the dogged mastery with which he had fought her resolution, the sudden magic softening of the harsh face when he smiled. There came again the passionate thrilling of his voice; again her hands tingled in that close grip; again she thought she felt the beating of the savage heart.
She raised her arms above her head with the gesture of one who wards off something immense, but they fell almost immediately. She was so tired--so tired. She had fought so hard and so long. Oh, why was there no peace for her? What had she done to be thus tortured? Why had love come to her at all? In all her barren life she had never asked for love.
And now that it had come it was only to be ruthlessly dashed against the stones. What had she to do with love--love, moreover, for a man who could offer her but the fiery passion of a savage, a man from whom her every instinct shrank, who mocked at holy things and overthrew all barriers of convention with a cynicism that silenced all protest. What--ah, what indeed!--had she to do with love?
She had lived a pure life. She had put out the fires of youth long ago, with no hesitating hand. She had dwelt in the desert, and made of it her home. Was it her fault that those fires had been kindled afresh? Was she to blame because the desert had suddenly blossomed? Could she be held responsible for these things, she who had walked in blindness till the transforming miracle had touched her also and opened her eyes?
She shivered a little. Oh, for a helping hand! Oh, for a deliverer from this maze of misery!
She saw again the quiet garden lying sleeping before her in the moonlight, and felt as if God must be very far away. She was very terribly alone that night.
The impulse came to her to pass out into the dewy stillness, and she obeyed it, scarcely knowing what she did. Over the silver grass, ghost-like, she moved. It was as if a voice had called her. On to the lilac trees with their burden of fragrant blossoms, where the thrush had raised his song of rapture, where she had faced that first fiery ordeal of love.
She reached the bench where she had sat that afternoon. There was not a leaf that stirred. The nightingale's song sounded away in the distance. The midnight peace lay like a shroud upon all things. But suddenly fear stabbed her, piercing every nerve to quivering activity. She knew--how, she could not have said--that she was no longer alone.
She stood quite still, but the beating of her heart rose quick and insistent in her ears, like the beat of a drum. Swift came the conviction that it was no inner impulse that had brought her hither. She had obeyed a voice that called.
For many seconds she stood motionless, not breathing, not daring to turn her head. Then, as her strength partially returned, she took two steps forward to the seat under the lilac tree, and, her hand upon the back of it, she spoke.
"Nap!"
He came, gliding like a shadow behind her. Slowly she turned and faced him.
He was still in riding-dress. She heard again the faint jingle of his spurs. Yet the moonlight shone strangely down upon him, revealing in him something foreign, something incongruous, that she marvelled that she had never before noticed. The fierce, dusky face with its glittering eyes and savage mouth was oddly unfamiliar to her, though she knew it all by heart. In imagination she clothed him with the blanket and moccasins of Capper's uncouth speech; and she was afraid.
She did not know how to break the silence. The heart within her was leaping like a wild thing in captivity.
"Why are you here?" she said at last, and she knew that her voice shook.
He answered her instantly, with a certain doggedness. "I want to know what Capper has been saying to you."
She started almost guiltily. Her nerves were on edge that night.
"You may as well tell me," he said coolly. "Sooner or later I am bound to know."
With an effort she quieted her agitation. "Then it must be later," she said. "I cannot stay to talk with you now."
"Why not?" he said.
Desperately she faced him, for her heart still quaked within her. The shock of Capper's revelation was still upon her. He had come to her too soon. "Nap," she said, "I ask you to leave me, and I mean it. Please go!"
But he only drew nearer to her, and she saw that his face was stern. He thrust it forward, and regarded her closely.
"So," he said slowly, "he has told you all about me, has he?"
She bent her head. It was useless to attempt to evade the matter now.
"I am mightily obliged to him," said Nap. "I wanted you to know."
Anne was silent.
After a moment he went on. "I meant to have told you myself. I even began to tell you once, but somehow you put me off. It was that night at Baronmead--you remember?--the night you wanted to help me."
Well she remembered that night--the man's scarcely veiled despair, his bitter railing against the ironies of life. So this had been the meaning of it all. A thrill of pity went through her.
"Yes," he said. "I knew you'd be sorry for me. I guess pity is about the cheapest commodity on the market. But--you'll hardly believe it--I don't want your pity. After all, a man is himself, and it can't be of much importance where he springs from--anyway, to the woman who loves him."
He spoke recklessly, and yet she seemed to detect a vein of entreaty in his words. She steeled her heart against it, but it affected her none the less.
"Nap," she said firmly, "there must be no more talk of love between us. I told you this afternoon that I would not listen, and I will not. Do you understand me? It must end here and now. I am in earnest."
"You don't say!" said Nap.
He was standing close to her, and again fear stabbed her--fear that was almost abhorrence. There was something about him that was horribly suggestive of a menacing animal.
"I am in earnest," she said again. But she could not meet his eyes any longer. She dared not let him read her soul just then.
"I am in earnest too," said Nap. "But you needn't be afraid of me on that account. I may be a savage, but I'm not despicable. If I take more than you are prepared to offer it's only because I know it to be my own." He bent towards her, trying to see her face. "My own, Anne!" he said again very softly. "My own!"
But at his movement she drew back sharply, with a gesture of such instinctive, such involuntary recoil, that in an instant she knew that she had betrayed that which she had sought to hide.
He stiffened as if at a blow, and she saw his hands clench. In the silence that followed she stood waiting for the storm to burst, waiting for his savagery to tear asunder all restraining bonds and leap forth in devilish fury. But--by what means she knew not--he held it back.
"So," he said at last, his voice very low, "the Queen has no further use for her jester!"
Her heart smote her. What had she done? She felt as if she had cruelly wounded a friend. But because he demanded of her more than friendship, she dared not attempt to allay the hurt. She stood silent.
"Can't you find another _role_ for me?" he said. "You will find it difficult to exclude me altogether from the cast."
Something in his tone pierced her, compelled her. She glanced up swiftly, met his eyes, and was suddenly caught, as it were, in fiery chains, so that she could not look away. And there before her the gates of hell opened, and she saw a man's soul in torment. She saw the flames mount higher and higher, scorching and shrivelling and destroying, till at last she could bear the sight no longer. She covered her face with her hands and blotted it out.
"Oh, Nap," she moaned, "if you love me--if you love me--"
"If I love you--" he said.
He put his hand on her shoulder and she trembled from head to foot.
"Prove your love!" she whispered, her face still hidden.
He stood awhile motionless, still with his hand upon her. But at last it fell away.
"You doubt my love then?" he said, and his voice sounded strange to her, almost cold. "You think my love is unworthy of you? You have--lost faith in me?"
She was silent.
"Is it so?" he persisted. "Tell me the truth. I may as well know it. You think--because I am not what Capper would, term a thoroughbred--that I am incapable of love. Isn't that so?"
But still she did not answer him. Only, being free, she turned to the garden-seat and sank down upon it, her arms stretched along the back, her head bowed low.
He began to pace up and down like a caged animal, pausing each time he passed her, and each time moving on again as if invisibly urged. At last very suddenly he stopped with his back to her, and stood like a statue in the moonlight.
She did not look at him. She was too near the end of her strength. Her heart was beating very slowly, like a run-down watch. She felt like an old, old woman, utterly tired of life. And she was cold--cold from head to foot.
Minutes passed. Somewhere away in the night an owl hooted, and Nap turned his head sharply, as one accustomed to take note of every sound. A while longer he stood, seeming to listen, every limb alert and tense, then swiftly he wheeled and gazed full at the drooping woman's figure on the bench.
Slowly his attitude changed. Something that was bestial went out of it; something that was human took its place. Quietly at length he crossed the moonlit space that intervened between them, reached her, knelt beside her.
"Anne," he said, and all her life she remembered the deep melancholy of his voice, "I am a savage--a brute--a devil. But I swear that I have it in me to love you--as you deserve to be loved. Won't you have patience with me? Won't you give me a chance--the only chance I've ever had--of getting above myself, of learning what love can be? Won't you trust me with your friendship once more? Believe me, I'm not all brute."
She thrilled like a dead thing waked to life. Her dread of the man passed away