CHAPTER XIII—“WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOUR?”

JEAN, sculling leisurely down the river which ran between Staple and Willow Eerry, looked around her with a little thrill of enjoyment—the sheer, physical thrill of youth unconsciously in harmony with the climbing sap in the trees, with the upward thrust of young green, with all the exquisite recreation of Nature in the spring of the year.

April had been, as it too commonly is in this northern clime of ours, the merest travesty of spring, a bleak, cold month of penetrating wind and sleet, but now May had stolen upon the world almost unawares, opening with tender, insistent fingers the sticky brown buds fast curled against the nipping winds, and misting all the woods with a shimmer of translucent green.

Overhead arched a sky of veiled, opalescent blue, and Jean, staring up at it with dreamy eyes, was reminded of the “great city” of the Book of Revelation whose “third foundation” was of chalcedony. This soft English sky must be the third foundation, she decided whimsically.

But the occupation of sky-gazing did not combine well with that of steering a straight course down a stream whose width hardly entitled it to its local designation of “the river,” and a few minutes later the boat’s nose cannoned abruptly against the bank.

As, however, to tie up somewhere under the trees which edged the water had been Jean’s original intention, this did not trouble her overmuch, and discovering a gnarled stump convenient to her purpose, she looped the painter round it, collected the rug and a couple of cushions which she had brought with her, and established herself comfortably in the stern of the boat.

Everyone else at Staple having engagements of one sort or another, she had promised herself a lazy afternoon in company with the latest novel sent down from Mudie’s. But she was in no immediate hurry to begin its pages. The mellow warmth of the afternoon tempted her to the more restful occupation of mere day-dreaming, and as she lay tucked up snugly amongst her cushions, enjoying the sweet-scented airs that played among the trees and over the surface of the water, she allowed her thoughts to drift idly back across the two months she had spent at Staple.

The time had slipped by so quickly that it was hard to believe that rather more than eight weeks had elapsed since that grey February evening when she had alighted on the little, deserted platform at Coombe Eavie Station. They had been quiet, happy weeks, filled with the pleasant building up of new friendships, and Jean reflected that she had already grown to look upon Staple almost as “home.” She possessed in a large measure the capacity to adapt herself to her surroundings, and realising that Lady Anne had been perfectly sincere in her expressed desire to play at having a daughter, Jean had, at first a little tentatively, but afterwards, encouraged by Lady Anne’s obvious delight, with more assurance, gradually assumed the duties that would naturally fall to the daughter of the house.

Day by day she had discovered an increasing pleasure and significance in their performance. They were like so many tiny links knitting her life into the lives of those around her, and already Lady Anne had begun to turn to her instinctively in the small difficulties and necessities which, one way or another, most days bring in their train. Jean appreciated this as only a girl who had counted for very little in the lives of those nearest her could do. It seemed to make her “belong” in a way in which she had never “belonged” at Beirnfels. There, Glyn and Jacqueline had turned to each other for counsel in the little daily vicissitudes of life equally as in its larger concerns, and Jean had learned to regard herself as more or less outside their lives.

She had had one letter from Peterson since her arrival at Staple, a brief, characteristic note in which he expressed the hope that she liked England “better than her father ever could” but suggested that if she were bored she should return to Beirnfels, and ask some woman friend to stay with her; he warned her not to expect further letters from him for some time to come as, according to his present plans—of which he volunteered no particulars—he expected to spend the next few months “as far from civilisation as the restricted size of this world permits.”

With this letter it seemed to Jean as though the last link with her former life had snapped. She felt no regret. Beirnfels, and the unconventional, rather exotic life she had led there—dictated by her parents’ whims and the practically unlimited wealth to gratify them which Peterson’s flair for successful speculation had achieved—seemed very far away, and Staple, with its peaceful, even-flowing English life, very near and enfolding.

Her first visit to Charnwood had been a disappointment. Under changing ownerships, little now remained to remind her of the generations of Petersons who had lived there long ago. Such of the old pieces of furniture and china as Peterson had not considered worth transferring to Beirnfels at his father’s death had been bought by the next owners of the place, and had been taken away by them when they, in their turn, disposed of the property. Only a great square stone remained, sunk into one of the walls and bearing the Peterson coat of arms and the family motto: Omnia debeo Deo.

Sir Adrian Latimer had translated the words to Jean, with a cynical gleam in his heavy-lidded eyes and accompanying the translation by a caustic reference to her father. The drug had not so far dulled his intellect. On the contrary, it seemed to have had the opposite effect of endowing him with an almost uncanny insight into people’s minds, so that he could prick them on a sensitive spot with unerring accuracy and a diabolical enjoyment of the process.

Jean’s sympathy for his wife was boundless. A great affection had sprung up between the two girls, and bit by bit Claire had drawn aside the veil of reticence, letting the other see into the arid, bitter places of her life.

Jean could understand, now, of what Claire had been thinking on the occasion of their first meeting, when she had spoken of the influences of the people who inhabit a house. The whole atmosphere of Charnwood seemed permeated with the influence of Adrian Latimer—a grey, sinister, unwholesome influence, like the miasma which rises from some poisonous swamp.

The hell upon earth which he contrived to make of life for his young wife had been a revelation to Jean, accustomed as she had been to the exquisite love and tenderness with which her father had surrounded Jacqueline.

Sir Adrian’s chief pleasure in life seemed to be to thwart and humiliate his wife in every possible way, and once, in an access of indignation over some small refinement of cruelty of which he had been guilty, Jean had declared her intention of giving him her frank opinion of his behaviour. She had never forgotten the look of bitter amusement with which Claire had greeted the suggestion.

“Do you know what would happen? He would listen to you with the utmost politeness, and very likely let you think you had impressed him. But afterwards he would make me pay—for a day, or a week, or a month. Till his revenge was satisfied. And he would put an end to our friendship——”

“He couldn’t!” Jean had interrupted impulsively.

“Couldn’t he? You don’t know Adrian.... And I can’t afford to lose you, Jean. You’re one of my few comforts in life. Promise me”—she caught Jean’s hands in hers and held them tightly—“promise me that you will do nothing—that you won’t try to interfere? I can generally manage; him—more or less. And when I can’t, why, I have to put up with the consequences of my own bad management”—with a smile that was more sad than tears.

With an effort of will Jean tried to banish the recollection of Sir Adrian from her thoughts. The picture of his thin, leaden-hued face, with its cruel mouth and furtive, suspicious eyes, was out of harmony with this soft day of spring. She wished she had not let the thought of him intrude upon her pleasant reverie at all. His sinister figure seemed to cast a shadow over the sunlit river, a shadow which grew bigger and bigger, blurring the green of the trees and the sky’s faint blue, and even silencing the comfortable little chirrups of the birds, busy with their spring housekeeping. At least, Jean couldn’t hear them any longer, and she took no notice even when one enterprising young cock-bird hopped near enough to filch a feather that was sticking out invitingly from the corner of the cushion behind her head.

The next thing she was conscious of was of sitting up with great suddenness, under the impression that she had overslept and that the housemaid was calling to her very loudly to waken her.

Someone was calling—shouting lustily, in fact, and collecting her sleep-bemused faculties, she realised that instead of being securely moored against the bank her boat was rocking gently in mid-stream, and that the occupant of another boat, coming from the opposite direction, was doing his indignant best to attract her attention, since just at that point the river was too narrow for them to pass one another unless each pulled well in towards the bank.

Jean reached hastily for her sculls, only to find, to her intense astonishment, that they had vanished as completely as though they had never existed. She cast a rapid glance of dismay around her, scanning the surface of the water in her vicinity for any trace of them. But there was none. She was floating serenely down the middle of the stream, perfectly helpless to pull out of the way of the oncoming boat.

Meanwhile its occupant was calling out instructions—tempering his wrath with an irritable kind of politeness as he perceived that the fool whose craft blocked the way was of the feminine persuasion.

“Pull in a bit, please. We can’t pass here if you don’t.... Pull in!” he yelled rather more irately as Jean’s boat still remained in the middle of the river, drifting placidly towards him.

She flung up her hand.

“ I cant!” she shouted back. “I’ve lost my sculls!”

“Lost your sculls?” The man’s tones sufficiently implied what he thought of the proceeding.

A couple of strokes, and, gripping the gunwale of her boat as he drew level, he steadied it to a standstill alongside his own.

Jean’s eyes travelled swiftly from the squarish, muscular-looking hand that gripped the boat’s side to the face of its owner. He was decidedly an ugly man as far as features were concerned, with a dogged-looking chin and a conquering beak of a nose that jutted out arrogantly from his hatchet face. The sunlight glinted on a crop of reddish-brown hair, springing crisply from the scalp in a way that suggested immense vitality; Jean had an idea that it would give out tiny crackling sounds if it were brushed hard. His eyebrows, frowning in defence against the sun, were of the same warm hue as his hair and very thick; in later life they would probably develop into the bristling, pent-house variety. The eyes themselves, as Jean described them on a later occasion, were “too red to be brown”; an artist would have had to make extensive use of burnt sienna pigment in portraying them. Altogether, he was not a particularly attractive-looking individual—and just now the red-brown eyes were fixed on Jean in a rather uncompromising glare.

“How on earth did you lose your oars?” he demanded—as indignantly as though she had done it on purpose, she commented inwardly.

Her lips twitched in the endeavour to suppress a smile.

“I haven’t the least idea,” she confessed. “I tied up under some trees further up and—and I suppose I must have fallen asleep. But still that doesn’t explain how I came to be adrift like this.”

“A woman’s knot, I expect,” he vouchsafed rather scornfully. “A woman never ties up properly. Probably you just looped the painter round any old thing and trusted to Providence that it would stay looped.”

She gave vent to a low laugh.

“I believe you’ve described the process quite accurately,” she admitted. “But I’ve done the same thing before without any evil consequences. There’s hardly any current here, you know. I don’t believe”—with conviction—“that my loop could have unlooped itself. And anyway”—triumphantly—“the sculls couldn’t have jumped out of the boat without assistance.”

The man smiled, revealing strong white teeth.

“No, I suppose not. I fancy”—the smile broadening—“some small boy must have spotted you asleep in the boat and, finding the opportunity too good to be resisted, removed your tackle and set you adrift.”

There was a sympathetic twinkle in his eyes, and Jean, suddenly sensing the “little boy” in him which lurks in every grown-up man, flashed back:

“I believe that’s exactly what you would have done yourself in your urchin days!”

“I believe it is,” he acknowledged, laughing outright. “Well, the only thing to do now is for me to tow you back. Where do you want to go—up or down the river?”

“Up, please. I want to get back to Staple.”

He threw a quick glance at her.

“Surely you must be Miss Peterson?”

She nodded.

“Yes. How did you guess?”

“My sister, Mrs. Craig, told me a Miss Peterson was staying at Staple. It wasn’t very difficult, after that, to put two and two together.”

“Then you must be Geoffrey Burke?” returned Jean.

He nodded.

“That’s right. So now that we know each other, will you come into my parlour?”—smiling. “If I’m going to take you back, there seems no reason why we shouldn’t accomplish the journey together and tow your boat behind.”

He held out his hand to steady her as she stepped lightly from one boat to the other, and soon they were gliding smoothly upstream, the empty craft tailing along in their wake.

For a while Burke sculled in silence, and Jean leant back, idly watching the effortless, rhythmic swing of his body as he bent to his oars. His shirt was open at the throat, revealing the strong, broad-based neck, and she noticed in a detached fashion that small, fine hairs covered his bared arms with a golden down, even encroaching on to the backs of the brown, muscular hands.

She found herself femininely conscious that the most dominant quality about the man was his sheer virility. Nor was it just a matter of appearances. It lay in something more fundamental than merely externals. She had known men of great physical strength to be not infrequently gifted with an almost feminine gentleness of nature, yet she was sure this latter element played but a small part in the make-up of Geoffrey Burke.

The absolute ease with which he sent the boat shearing through the water seemed to her in some way typical. It conveyed a sense of mastery that was unquestionable, even a little overpowering.

She felt certain that he was, above and before all other things, primeval male, forceful and conquering, of the type who in a different age would have cheerfully bludgeoned his way through any and every obstacle that stood between him and the woman he had chosen as his mate—and, afterwards, if necessary, bludgeoned the lady herself into submission.

“Here’s where you tied up, then?”

Burke’s voice broke suddenly across her thoughts, and she looked round, recognising the place where she had moored her boat earlier in the afternoon.

“How did you divine that?” she asked.

“It didn’t require much divination! There are your sculls”—pointing—“stuck up against the trunk of a tree—and looking as though they might topple over at any moment. I fancy”—with a smile—“that my ‘small boy’ theory was correct. I believe I could even put a name to the particular limb of Satan responsible,” he went on. “You moored your boat on the Willow Perry side of the stream, and our lodge-keeper’s kids are a troop of young demons. They want a thorough good thrashing, and I’ll see that they get it before they are much older.”

He pulled in to the shore and rescuing the sculls from their precarious position, restored them to the empty boat.

“All the same,” he added, as, a few minutes later, he helped Jean out on to the little wooden landing-place at Staple, “I think I’m rather grateful to the small boy—whoever he may be!”

She laughed and retorted impertinently:

“I’m sure I’m very grateful to the bigger boy who came to the rescue.”

There was something quite unconsciously provocative about her as she stood there with one foot poised on the planking, her head thrown back a trifle to meet his glance, and a hint of gentle raillery tilting the corners of her mouth.

The cave-man woke suddenly in him. He was conscious of an almost irresistible impulse to take her in his arms and kiss her. But the conventions of the centuries held, and all Jean knew of that swift flare-up of desire in the man beside her was that the grip of his hand on hers suddenly tightened so that the pain of it almost made her cry out.

And because she was not given to regarding every unmarried man she met in the light of a potential lover—as some women are prone to do—and because, perhaps, her thoughts were subconsciously preoccupied by a lean, dark face, rather stern and weary-looking as though from some past discipline of pain, Jean never ascribed that fierce pressure of the hand to its rightful origin, but merely rubbed her bruised fingers surreptitously and wished ruefully that men were not quite so muscular.

“I’ll go with you up to the house,” remarked Burke, without any elaboration of “by your leave.”

She was privately of the opinion that her leave would have little or nothing to do with the matter. If this exceedingly autocratic and masculine individual had decided to accompany her through the park, accompany her he would, and she might as well make the best of it.

He was extraordinarily unlike his sister, she thought. Where Judith Craig would probably seek to attain her ends in a somewhat stealthy, cat-like fashion, Burke would employ the methods of the club and battering-ram. Of the two, perhaps these last were preferable, since they at least left you knowing what you were up against.

“Will you come in?” asked Jean, pausing as they reached the house. “Though I’m afraid everyone is out.”

“So much the better,” he replied promptly. “I’d much rather have tea alone with you.”

“That’s not very polite to the others”—smiling a little. “I thought the Staple people were old friends of yours?”

“So they are. That’s exactly it. I feel the mood of the explorer on me this afternoon.”

“You’re one of the people with a penchant for new acquaintances, then?” she said indifferently, leading the way into the hall, where, in place of the great log fire of chillier days, a hank of growing tulips made a glory of gold and orange and red in the wide hearth.

“No, I’m not,” he returned bluntly. “But I’ve every intention of making your acquaintance right now.”

Jean rang the bell and ordered tea.

“I think perhaps I might be consulted in the matter,” she returned lightly when Baines had left the room. “The settling of questions of that kind is usually considered a woman’s prerogative. Supposing”—smiling—“I don’t ask you to tea, after all?”

There was a smouldering fire in the glance he bestowed upon her vivid face.

“It wouldn’t make a bit of difference—in the long run,” he replied deliberately. “If a man makes up his mind he can usually get his own way—over most things.”

“You can’t force friendship,” she said quickly. It was as though she were defying something that threatened.

Again that queer gleam showed for a moment in his eyes.

“Friendship? No, perhaps not,” he conceded.

He said no more and an uncomfortable silence fell between them. Jean was suddenly conscious that it might be possible to be a little afraid of this man. She did not like that side of him—the self-willed, masterful side—of which, almost deliberately, he had just given her a glimpse.

With the appearance of tea the slight sense of tension vanished, and the conversation dropped into more ordinary channels. She discovered that he had travelled considerably and was familiar with many of the places to which, at different times, she had accompanied her father and mother, and over the interchange of recollections the little hint of discord—of challenge, almost—was forgotten.

They were still chatting amicably together half an hour later when Blaise returned. The latter’s face darkened as he entered the hall and found them together, nor did it lighten when Jean recounted the afternoon’s adventure.

“I suppose Miss Peterson has your lodge-keeper’s boys to thank for this?” he demanded stormily of Burke.

“I’m afraid that’s so,” admitted the other.

“If you had any consideration for your neighbours, you’d sack the lot of them,” returned Blaise sharply. “Or else see that they’re kept under proper control. They’ve given trouble before, but it is a little too much of a good thing when they dare to play practical jokes of that description on a guest of ours.”

Jean stared at him in astonishment. She had told the story as rather a good joke and in explanation of Burke’s presence, and, instead of laughing at her dilemma, Tormarin appeared to be thoroughly angry over the matter.

Burke remained coolly unprovoked.

“I can’t say I’ve any quarrel with the young ruffians,” he said. “They afforded me a charming afternoon.”

“Doubtless,” retorted Blaise. “But that’s hardly the point. Anyway”—heatedly—“I’ll thank you to see that those lads are kept in hand for the future.”

Jean glanced across at Burke with some apprehension, half fearing a responsive explosion of wrath on his part, but to her relief he was smiling—a twinkling, mirthful smile that redeemed the ugliness of his features.

“’Fraid I can’t truthfully declare I’m sorry, Tormarin,” he said good-humouredly. “You wouldn’t, in my place.”

The man was keeping his temper in the face of considerable provocation, and Jean liked him better at that moment than she had done throughout the entire afternoon. Tormarin’s own attitude she quite failed to understand, and after Burke’s departure she took him to task for his churlishness.

“It was really absurd of you, Blaise,” she scolded, half-smiling, half in genuine vexation. “As if Mr. Burke could possibly be held responsible for the actions of a mischievous schoolboy! At least he did all he could to repair the damage; he brought me back, and recovered the missing pair of oars for me. You hadn’t the least reason to flare up like that.”

Blaise listened to her quietly. The anger had died out of his face and his eyes were somewhat sad.

“You’re right,” he said at last, “absolutely right. But there rarely is any reason for a Tormarin’s temper. Do you know—it sounds ridiculous, but it’s perfectly true—it was all I could do not to knock Burke down.”

“My dear Blaise, you fill me with alarm! I’d no idea you were such a bloodthirsty individual! But seriously, what had the poor man done to incur your wrath? He’s been most helpful.”

There was an element of self-mockery in the brief smile which crossed his face.

“Perhaps that was just it. I’ve rather grown to look upon it as my own particular prerogative to help you out of difficulties.”

“Well, naturally I’d rather it had been you,” she allowed, twinkling.

“Do you mean that?”—swiftly.

“Of course I do”—lightly. She had failed to notice the eagerness of demand in his quick question. “I’m more used to it! Besides, I believe Mr. Burke rather frightens me. He’s a trifle—overwhelming. Still”—shaking her head reprovingly—“I don’t think that excuses you. You must have a shocking temper.”

He laughed shortly.

“Most of the Tormarins have ruined their lives by their temper. I’m no exception to the rule.”

Jean’s thought flew back to the description she had overheard when in London: “A Tormarin in a temper is like a devil with the bit between his teeth.”

“Then it’s true, escaped her lips.

“What’s true?”—with some surprise. “That the Tormarins are a vile-tempered lot? Quite. If you want to know more about it, ask my mother. She’ll tell you how I came by this white lock of hair—the mark of the beast.”

Jean was trying to make the comments of the woman at the hotel and Blaise’s own confession tally with her recollection of the latter’s complete self-control on several occasions when he, or any other man, might have been pardoned for yielding to momentary anger.

“I believe you’re exaggerating absurdly,” she said at last. “As a matter of fact, I’ve often been surprised at your self-control, seeing that I know you have a temper concealed about you somewhere. I think that is why your anger this afternoon took me so aback. It seemed unlike you to be so fearfully annoyed over practically nothing at all. I don’t believe”—half smiling—“that really you’re anything like bad-tempered as a Tormarin ought to be—to support the family tradition!”

He was looking, not at her but beyond her, as she spoke, as though his thoughts dwelt with some past memory. His expression was inscrutable; she could not interpret it. Presently he turned back to her, and though he smiled there was a deep, unfathomable sadness in his eyes.

“I’ve had one unforgettable lesson,” he said quietly. “The Tormarin temper—the cursed inheritance of every one of us—has ruined my life just as it has ruined others before me.”

The words seemed to fall on Jean’s ears with a numbing sense of calamity, not alone in that past to which they primarily had reference, but as though thrusting forward in some mysterious way into the future—her future.

She was conscious of a vague foreboding that that “cursed inheritance” of the Tormarins was destined, sooner or later, to impinge upon her own life.

At night, when she went to bed, her mind was still groping blindly in the dark places of dim premonition. Single sentences from the afternoon’s conversation kept flitting through her brain, and when at last she slept it was to dream that she had lost her way and was wandering alone in a wild and desolate region. Presently she came to a solitary dwelling, set lonely in the midst of the interminable plain. Three wretched-looking scrubby little fir trees grew to one side of the house, all three of them bent in the same direction as though beaten and bowed forward by ceaseless winds. While she stood wondering whether she should venture to knock at the door of the house and ask her way, it opened and Geoffrey Burke came out.

“Ah! There you are!” he exclaimed, as though he had been expecting her. “I’ve been waiting for you. Will you come into my parlour?”

He smiled at her as he spoke—she could see the even flash of his white teeth—but there was something in the quality of the smile which terrified her, and without answering a word she turned to escape.

But he overtook her in a couple of strides, catching her by the hand in a grip so fierce that it seemed as though the bones of her fingers must crack under it.

“Come into my parlour,” he repeated. “If you don’t, you’ll be stamped forever with the mark of the beast. It’s too late to try and run away.”

Jean woke in a cold perspiration of terror. The dream had been of such vividness that it was a full minute before she could realise that, actually, she was safely tucked up in her own bed at Staple. When she did, the relief was so immeasurable that she almost cried.

The next morning, with the May sunshine streaming in through the open window, it was easier to laugh at her nocturnal fears, and to trace the odd phrases which, snatched from the previous day’s conversation with Burke and Tormarin and jumbled up together, had supplied the nightmare horror of her dream.

But, even so, it was many days before she could altogether shake off the disagreeable impression it had made on her.