Twilight by Julia Frankau (ready to read books txt) 📕

She forced herself to a pretence at lunch. Then went slowly upstairs to complete her interrupted toilette. Looking in the glass now she saw a pale and distraught face that ill-fitted the pansy toque. She changed into something darker, more suitable, with a cock’s feather. All her desire was that Gabriel should be pleased with her appearance, to give Gabriel pleasure.

“I haven’t any rouge, have I, Stevens?”

“I should ‘ope not.”

“I don’t want Mr. Stanton to find me looking ill.”

“You look well enough, considering. He won’t notice nothing. The carriage is here.” Stevens gave her gloves and a handkerchief.

Now she was bowling along the quiet country road, on the way to meet him. The sky was as blue, the air as sweet as she had anticipated. On the surface she was all throbbing expectation. She was going to meet her lover, nothing had come between them, could come between them.

But in her subconsciousness she was suffering acutely. It seemed she must faint again when the train drew in and she saw him on the platform, but the feeling passed. Never had she seen him look so completely happy. There was no hint or suggestion of austerity about him, or asceticism. The porter swung his bag to the coachman. Gabriel took his place beside her in the carriage. A greeting passed between them, only a smile of mutual understanding, content. Nothing had happened since they parted, she told herself passionately, else he had not looked so happy, so content.

“We’ll drop the bag at the hotel, if you don’t mind.”

“Like we did the first time you came,” Margaret answered. His hand lay near hers and he pressed it, keeping it in his.

“We might have tea there, on that iron table, as we did that day,” he said.

“And hear the sea, watch the waves,” she murmured in response.

“You like me better than you did that day.”

“I know you better.” She found it difficult to talk.

“Everything is better now,” he said with a sigh of satisfaction. It was twenty minutes’ drive from the station to the hotel. He was telling her of an old oak bureau he had seen, of the way the workmen were progressing, of a Spode dinner service George was going to give them. Once when they were between green hedges in a green solitude, he raised the hand he held to his lips and said:

“Only three days more.”

She was in a dream from which she had no wish to wake.

“You don’t usually wear a veil, do you?” he asked. “There is something different about you today…”

“It is my new trousseau,” she answered, not without inward agitation, but lightly withal. “The latest fashion. Don’t you like it?” Now they had left the sheltering hedges and were within sight of the white painted hostelry.

“The hat and dress and everything are lovely. But your own loveliness is obscured by the veil. It makes you look ethereal; I cannot see you so clearly through it. Beloved, you are quite well, are you not?” There was a note of sudden anxiety in his voice. “It is the veil, isn’t it? You are not pale?” She shook her head.

“No, it is the veil.” They pulled up at the door of the hotel. There was another fly there, but empty, the horse with a nose-bag, feeding, the coachman not on the box.

“The carriage is to wait. You can take the bag up to my room,” he said to the porter. Then turned to help Margaret.

“Send out tea for two as quickly as you can. The table is not occupied, is it?”

“There is a lady walking about,” the man said. “I don’t know as she ‘as ordered tea. She’s been here some time, seems to be waiting for some one.”

“Oh! we don’t want any one but ourselves,” Margaret exclaimed, still with that breathless strange agitation.

“I’ll see to that, milady.” He touched his cap.

When they walked down the path to where, on the terrace overlooking the sea, the iron table and two chairs awaited them, Margaret said reminiscently:

“I sat and waited for you here whilst you saw your room, washed your hands…”

“And today I cannot leave you even to wash my hands.”

The deep tenderness in his voice penetrated, shook her heart. He remembered what they had for tea last time, and ordered it again when the waiter came to them: Strawberry jam in a little glass dish, clotted cream, brown and white bread and butter. “The sea is calmer than it was on that day,” he said when the waiter went to execute the order.

“The sky is not less blue,” Margaret answered, and it seemed as if they were talking in symbols.

“How wonderful it all is!” That was his exclamation, not hers. She was unusually silent, but was glad of the tea when it came, ministering to him and spreading the jam on the bread and butter.

“Let me do it.”

“No,” she answered. When she drew her veil up a little way to drink her tea one could see that her lips were a little tremulous, not as pink as usual. Gabriel, however, was too supremely happy and content to notice anything. He poured out all his news, all that had happened since she left, little things, chiefly details of paper and paint and the protection of their property from her father and stepmother’s destructive generosity.

“It will be all right. I had a chat with Travers.” Travers was the foreman of the painters. “He will do nothing but with direct orders from us. The concrete in the basement won’t affect the general appearance, we can put back the old boards over it. But I think that might be a mistake although the boards are very interesting, about four times as thick as the modern ones, worm or rat eaten through. They will make the pipes for the bath as little obtrusive as possible. The electric wire casings will go behind the ceiling mouldings. They are not really mouldings, but carved wood, fallen to pieces in many places. But I am having them replaced. Margaret, are you listening?”

She had been. But some one had come out of the hotel. Far off as they were she heard that turkey gobble and impedimented speech.

“You can tell Dr. Kennedy that I would not wait any longer. Tell him I have gone straight up to Carbies. I shall see Mrs. Capel.”

“The lady from Carbies is here, ma’am; having tea on the terrace, that’s her carriage.”

Gabriel had not heard, he was so intent on Margaret and his news. The sea was breaking on the shingle, and to that sound, so agreeable to him, he was also listening idly, in the intervals of his talk. The strange voice in the distance escaped him. The familiar impediment was not familiar to him. Margaret was cold in the innermost centre of her unevenly beating heart.

“Are you listening?” he asked her, and the face she turned on him was white through the obscuring veil.

“I am listening, Gabriel.”

“I will go down and speak to her,” Mrs. Roope was saying to the waiter. “No, you need not go in advance,”

Margaret’s heart stood still, the space of a second, and then thundered on, irregularly. She had no plan ready, her quick brain was numbed.

“Mrs. Capel!”

Gabriel looked up and saw a tall woman conspicuously dressed as nun or nursing sister, in blue flowing cloak and bonnet. A woman with irregular features, large nose and coarse complexion. When she had said “Mrs. Capel “Margaret cringed, a shiver went through her, she seemed to shrink into the corner of the chair. “You know me. I wrote to Dr. Kennedy Wednesday and the letter required an immediate answer. Now I’ve come for it.”

“He went up to London to see you,” she got out.

“I shall have to be sure you are telling me the truth.”

“You can ask at the station.”

Gabriel looked from one to the other perplexedly. But his perplexity was of short duration, the turkey gobble and St. Vitus twist it was impossible to mistake. He intervened sharply:

“You are Mrs. Roope, my sister’s socalled ‘healer.’ When Mrs. Capel assures you of anything you have not to doubt it.” He spoke haughtily.

“Why are you here?”

“You know that well enough, Gabriel Stanton.”

“This is the woman who blackmailed you?” The “yes” seemed wrung from her unwillingly.

His voice was low and tender when he questioned Margaret, quite a different voice to the one in which he spoke again to the Christian Scientist.

“How dare you present yourself again? You ought to have been given in charge the first time. Are you aware that blackmailing is a criminal offence?”

“I am aware of everything I wish. If you care for publicity my motive can stand the light of day.”

“You ought to be in gaol.”

“It would not harm me. There is no sensation in matter.”

“You would be able to test your faith.”

“Are you sure of yours?”

Margaret caught hold of his sleeve:

“Don’t bandy words with her, Gabriel. She says things without meaning. Let her go. I will send her away.” She got up and spoke quickly. “Dr. Kennedy has gone up to town to see you. To… take you what you asked. When he does not find you in London he will come straight back here. They will have told him, I suppose, where you have gone? He has the money with him.”

“What are you saying, Margaret?” Gabriel rose too, stood beside her.

“Wait a minute. Leave me alone, I have to make her understand.”

Margaret was in an agony of anxiety that the woman should know her claims had been met, that she should say nothing more before Gabriel. She did not realise what she was admitting, did not see the change in his face, the petrifaction.

“Why don’t you go up to his house, wait for him there?” Then she said to Gabriel quickly and unconvincingly:

“This is Dr. Kennedy’s affair. It was Dr. Kennedy for whom you were asking, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Roope’s cunning was equal to the occasion.

“It is Dr. Kennedy I have got to see,” she said slowly.

“If he misses you in London he will get back as quickly as possible.” Margaret’s strained anxiety was easy to read. Afterwards Gabriel followed her, as she moved quickly toward the hotel.

“What has she got to do with Dr. Kennedy or he with her?” he asked then. Margaret spoke hastily:

“She sent back the post-dated cheque. It is all settled only they missed each other. Peter went up to town to find her and she misunderstood and came after him. He has the other cheque with him.”

She was purposely incoherent, meaning him to misunderstand, hoping against hope that he would show no curiosity. Mrs. Roope came after them, planted herself heavily in their path.

“I’ll give him until the last train.”

“Telephone to your own house and you will find he has been there,” Margaret said desperately. “Let me pass.”

“You may go.”

“Insolence!” But Margaret hurried on and he could not let her go alone.

“I will go into the drawingroom. Get the carriage up. We mustn’t stay here…” She spoke breathlessly.

“You are not frightened of her?” He hardly knew what to think, that Margaret was concealing anything from him was unbelievable, unbearable.

“Frightened? No. But I want to be away from her presence, vicinity. She