Greatheart - Ethel May Dell (the lemonade war series TXT) 📗

Eustace's bride must have a suitable outfit, Isabel told her. The question of ways and means was not one which need trouble her.
So Dinah obediently put the matter from her, and entered into the delightful discussion with keen zest. Isabel's ideas were so entrancing. She knew exactly what she would need. Her taste also was so simple, and so unerring. Dinah had never before pictured herself as possessing such things as Isabel calmly proclaimed that she must have.
"We must go up to town to-morrow," Isabel said, "and get things started. It will mean the whole day, I am afraid. Can you bear to be parted from Eustace for so long?"
Dinah laughed merrily at the question. "Of course--of course! What fun it will be! I always knew I should like to be married, but I never dreamt it could be so exciting as this."
Isabel smiled at her with a touch of pity in her eyes. "Marriage isn't only new clothes and wedding presents, Dinah," she said.
"No, no! I know!" Dinah spoke with swift compunction. "It is far more than that. But I've never had such lovely things before. I can't help feeling a little giddy about it. You do understand, don't you? I'm not like that all through--really."
"My darling!" Isabel answered fondly. "Of course I know it. I sometimes think that it would be better for you if you were."
"Isabel, why--why?" Dinah pressed close to her, half-curious, half-frightened.
But Isabel did not answer her. She only kissed the vivid, upturned face with all a mother's tenderness, and turned back in silence, to the fashion-book on her knee.


CHAPTER VII
DOUBTING CASTLE

When Sir Eustace returned, he found his bride-elect awaiting him with a radiant face. She sprang to greet him with an eagerness that outwent all shyness.
"Oh, Eustace, I have had such a lovely time!" she told him. "It has been a perfect day."
She offered him her lips with a child's simplicity, but blushed deeply when she felt the hot pressure of his, turning her face aside the moment he released her.
He laughed a little, keeping his arm about her shoulders. "You haven't missed me then?" he said.
"Oh, not a bit," said Dinah truthfully; and then quickly, "but what a horrid thing to say! Why did you put it like that?"
"I wanted to know," said Sir Eustace.
She turned back to him. "I should have missed you if I hadn't been so busy. Isabel is going to help me with my trousseau. And oh, Eustace, I am to have such a crowd of lovely things."
He pinched her cheek. "What should a brown elf need beyond a shift of thistle-down? Where is Isabel?"
"She is resting now. She got so tired. Biddy said she must lie down, and we mustn't disturb her for tea. I do hope it wasn't too much for her, Eustace."
"Too much for her! Nonsense! It does her good to think of someone else besides herself," said Eustace. "If Biddy didn't coddle her so in the day time, she would sleep better at night. Well, where is tea? In the drawing-room? Come along and have it!"
Dinah clung to his arm. "It--it's in a place called my lady's boudoir," she told him shyly.
He looked at her. "Where? Oh, I know. That inner sanctuary with the west window. You've taken a fancy to it, have you? Then we will call it Daphne's Bower."
Dinah's laugh was not without a hint of restraint. "I haven't been in any other room. Scott said you would show me everything. But I just wandered in there, and he found me and showed me the dear little boudoir. He said you were going to have it done up."
"So I am," said Eustace. "Everything that belongs to you must be new. Have you decided what colour will suit you best?"
They were passing through the long drawing-room towards the curtained doorway that led into the little boudoir. The drawing-room was a palatial apartment with stately French furniture that Dinah surveyed with awe. She could not picture herself as hostess in so magnificent a setting. She could only think of Rose de Vigne. It would have suited her flawless beauty perfectly, and she knew that Rose's self-contained heart would have revelled in such an atmosphere.
But it made her feel a stranger, and she hastened through it to the cosier nest beyond.
This was a far more homely spot. The furniture here was French also, and exquisitely delicate; but it was designed for comfort, and the gilded state of the outer room was wholly absent.
A tea-table stood near a deeply-cushioned settee, and the kettle sang merrily over a spirit-lamp.
Eustace dropped on to the settee and drew her suddenly and wholly unexpectedly down upon his knee.
"Oh, Eustace!" she gasped, turning crimson.
He wound his arms about her, holding her two hands imprisoned. "Oh, Daphne!" he mocked softly. "I've caught you--I've caught you! Here in your own bower with no one to look on! No, you can't even flutter your wings now. You've got to stay still and be worshipped."
He spoke with his face against her neck. She felt the burning of his breath, and something;--an urgent, inner prompting--warned her to submit. She sat there in his grasp in quivering silence.
His arms drew her nearer, nearer. It was as if he were gradually merging her whole being into his. In a moment, with a little gasp, she gave him her trembling lips.
He uttered a low laugh of mastery and gave his passion the rein, overwhelming her with those devouring kisses that from the very outset had always filled her with an indefinable sense of shame. She was quite powerless to frustrate him. The delicate barrier of her reserve was rudely torn away. The burning blush on face and neck served but to feed the flame. He kissed the panting throat as if he would draw the very life out of it. There was fierce possession in the holding of his arms. She thought she would never be free again.
The first fiery wave spent itself at last, but even then he did not let her go. He held her pressed to him, and she lay against his breast trembling but wholly passive, overcome by an inexplicable longing to hide, to hide.
After a few seconds he spoke to her, his voice oddly unsteady, very deep. "You're driving me mad, Daphne. Do you know that?"
"I--I'm sorry," she faltered, trying to shelter her tingling face in his coat.
His arms were tense about her. "I want you more and more every day," he said. "I don't know how to wait for you. How long is it to our wedding?"
"Three weeks and four days," she told him faintly.
He gave his low, quivering laugh, "What! You are counting the days too! Daphne! My Daphne! Need we wait--all that time?"
Dinah's thumping heart gave a great start and seemed to stop. "Oh yes," she gasped desperately. "Yes, I couldn't possibly--be ready sooner."
He put his face down to hers, as one who breathes the essence of a flower. "You are ready now," he said. "You will never be lovelier than you are to-night."
She tried to laugh, but his lips were too near. Her voice quavered piteously.
"Why do I wait for you?" he said, and in his words there beat a fierce unrest. "Why am I such a fool? I lie awake night after night consumed with the want of you. When I sleep, I am always chasing you, you will-o'-the-wisp; and you always manage to keep just out of reach." His arms tightened. His voice suddenly sank to a deep whisper. "Daphne! Shall I tell you what I am going to do?"
"What?" panted Dinah.
"I am going to take you right away over the hills to-morrow to a place I know of where it is as lonely as the Sahara, and we will have a picnic there all to ourselves--all to ourselves, and make up for to-day."
His lips pressed hers again, but she withdrew herself with a sharp effort. There was nameless terror in her heart.
"Oh, I can't, Eustace! I can't indeed!" she said, and now she was striving, striving impotently, for freedom. "I'm going up to town with Isabel."
"Isabel can wait," he said.
"No! No! I must go. You don't understand. There are no end of things to be done." Dinah was as one encircled by fire, searching wildly round for a means of escape. "I must go!" she said again. "I must go!"
"You can go the next day," he said with arrogance. "I want you to-morrow and I mean to have you. Look at me, Dinah!"
She glanced at him, compelled by the command of his tone, met the fiery intensity of his look, and sank helpless, conquered.
He kissed her again. "There! That's settled. You silly little thing! Why do you always beat your wings against the inevitable? Do you think you are going to get away from me now?"
She hid her face against his shoulder. She was almost in tears. "You--you hurt me! You frighten me!" she whispered.
"Do I?" he said, and still in his voice she heard that deep note that made her whole being quiver. "It's your own fault, my Daphne. You shouldn't run away."
"I--I can't help it," she said tremulously. "I sometimes think--I'm not big enough for you."
"You'll grow," he said.
"I don't know," she answered in distress. "I may not. And if I do, I feel--I feel as if I shan't be myself any longer, but just--but just--a bit of you!"
He laughed. "Daphne,--you oddity! Don't you want to be a bit of me?"
"I'd rather be myself," she murmured shyly.
His hold was not so close, and she longed, but did not dare, to get off his knee and breathe. But in that moment there came the sound of a halting step in the drawing-room beyond, and swiftly she raised her head.
"Oh, Eustace, let me go! Here is Scott!"
He did not release her instantly. Scott was already in the doorway before, like a frightened fawn, she leapt from his grasp. She heard Eustace laugh again, and somehow his laugh had a note of insolence.
"Come in, my good brother!" he said. "My lady is just about to make tea. I presume that is what you have come for."
"The presumption is correct," said Scott.
He came forward in his quiet, unhurried fashion, and paused at the table to open the tea-caddy for Dinah.
She thanked him with trembling lips, her eyes cast down, her face on fire.
Eustace lounged back on the settee and watched her. He frowned momentarily when Scott sat down beside him, leaving her a low chair by the tea-tray.
Dinah's hands fluttered among the cups. She was painfully ill at ease. But in a second or two Scott's placid voice came into the silence, and at once her distress began to subside.
"Have you decided about the decoration of this room yet?" he asked. "I always thought this dead-white rather cold."
"Dinah is to have her own choice," said Sir Eustace.
"I would like shell-pink," said Dinah, without looking up. "Don't you think that would be nice with those pretty water-colour sketches?"
She spoke diffidently. No one had ever deferred to her taste before.
Sir Eustace laughed in his slightly supercilious way. "Do you know who is responsible for those pretty sketches, my red, red rose?"
She glanced up nervously. "Not--not--are they yours, Scott?"
"They are," said Scott, with a smile.
She met his eyes for an instant, and was surprised by their gravity. "Oh, I do like them," she said. "I wonder I didn't guess. They are so beautifully finished, so--complete."
"I am glad you like them," said Scott. "I thought you might want to turn them out as