CHAPTER XVII—IN THE ROSE GARDEN

THE chalcedony of the spring skies had deepened into the glowing sapphire of early June—a deep, pulsating blue, tremulous with heat. On the sundial, the shadow’s finger pointed to twelve o’clock, and the sleepy hush of noontide hung over the rose garden where Jean was gathering roses for the house.

“Can’t I help?”

Burke’s voice broke across the drowsy quiet so unexpectedly that she jumped, almost letting fall the scissors with which she was scientifically snipping the stems of the roses. She bestowed a small frown upon the head and shoulders appearing above the wooden gate on which he leant.

“It’s not very helpful to begin by giving one an electric shock,” she complained. “How long have you been there?” His attitude had a repose about it which suggested that he might have been standing there some time watching her.

“I don’t know. But as I am here, may I come in?” Without waiting for her answer, he unlatched the gate and came striding across the velvet greenness of the lawn.

His visits to Staple had grown of late so much a matter of daily occurrence that they were no longer hedged about by any ceremony, and Jean had come to accept his appearance at any odd moment without surprise.

Since the day when she had lunched at Willow Eerry, and learned, as she believed, to understand and make allowances for the bitterness which had so warped Judith’s nature, her acquaintance with both brother and sister had ripened rapidly into a friendly intimacy. But the fact that Burke’s feeling towards her was something other, and much warmer than mere friendship, had failed to penetrate her consciousness.

It was patent enough to the lookers on, and probably Jean was the only one amongst the little coterie of intimate friends who had not realised what was impending.

It is not very often that a woman remains entirely oblivious of the small, unmistakable signs which go to indicate a man’s attitude towards her. In Jean’s case, however, her thoughts were so engrossed with the one man that, at the moment, all other men occupied but a very shadowy relationship towards the realities of life as far as she was concerned.

So that she scarcely troubled to look up as Burke halted beside her, but went on cutting her roses unconcernedly, merely observing:

“Idlers not allowed. You can make yourself useful by paring the thorns off the stems.” She gestured towards a basket which stood on the ground at her side, already overflowing with its scented burden of pink and white and crimson roses.

He glanced at the russet head bent studiously above a bush rose and there was a gleam, half angry, half amused, in his eyes. His fingers went uncertainly to his pocket, where reposed a serviceable knife, then suddenly he drew his hand sharply away, empty.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t come over to be useful this morning. I came over”—he spoke slowly, as though endeavouring to gain her attention—“on a quite different errand.” There was a vibration in his voice that might have warned her had she been less intent upon her task of wrestling with a refractory branch. As it was, she merely questioned absently:

“And what was the ‘quite different’ errand?”

The next moment she felt his hand close over both hers, gardening scissors and wash-leather gloves notwithstanding.

“Stop cutting those confounded flowers, and I’ll tell you,” he said roughly.

She looked up in astonishment, and, at last, a glimmering of what was coming dawned upon her. Even the blindest of women, the most preoccupied, must have read the expression of his eyes at that moment.

“Oh, no—no,” she began hastily. “I must finish cutting the roses—really, Geoffrey.”

She tried to release her hands, but he held them firmly.

“No,” he said coolly. “You won’t finish cutting your flowers—at least, not now. You’re going to listen to me.” He drew the scissors from her grasp, and they flashed like a fish in the sunshine as he tossed them down on to the rose-basket. Then, quite deliberately, he pulled off the loose gloves she was wearing and his big hands gripped themselves suddenly, closely, about her slight, bared ones.

“Geoffrey——”

Her voice wavered uncertainly. The realisation of his intent had come upon her so unexpectedly, rousing her from her placid unconsciousness, that she felt stunned—nervously unready to deal with the situation. She struggled a little, instinctively, but he only laughed down at her, a ring of masterful triumph in his voice, holding her effortlessly, with all the ease of his immense strength.

“It’s no good, Jean. You’ve got to hear me out. I’ve waited long enough.” He paused, then drew a deep breath. “I love you!” he said slowly. “My God, how I love you!” There was an element of wonder in his tones, and she felt the strong hands gripping hers tremble a little. Then their clasp tightened and he drew her towards him.

“Say you love me,” he demanded. “Say it!”

It was then Jean found her voice. The imperious demand, infringing on that secret, inner claim of which she alone knew, stung her into quick denial.

“But I don’t! I don’t love you!” Then, as she saw the blank look in his eyes, she went on hastily: “Oh, Geoffrey, I am so sorry. I never guessed—I never thought of your caring.”

“You never guessed! Good God!”—with a harsh laugh—“I should have thought I’d made it plain enough. Why, even that first day, on the river—I wanted you then. What do you suppose has brought me to Staple every day? Affection for Blaise Tormarin?”—cynically.

“I thought—I thought——” She cast about in her mind for an answer, then presented him with the simple truth. “I’m afraid I never thought about it at all. I just took your coming over for granted. I knew you and Judith were old friends and neighbours, so it seemed quite natural for you to be here often—just as Claire Latimer is.”

Burke searched her face for a moment. He was thinking of the other women he had known—women who would never have remained blind to his meaning, who had, indeed, shown their willingness to come half-way—more than half-way—to meet him.

“I really believe that’s true,” he said at last, grudgingly. “But if it is, you’re the most unselfconscious woman I’ve ever come across.”

“Of course it’s true,” she replied simply. “I’m—I’m so sorry, Geoffrey. I like you far too much to have wished to hurt you.”

“I don’t want liking. I want your love. And I mean to have it. You may not have understood before, Jean, but you do now.”

She drew herself away from him a little.

“That doesn’t make any difference, Geoffrey. I have no love to give you,” she said quietly.

He shook his head.

“I won’t take no,” he said doggedly. “You’re the woman I want. And I mean to have you.... Don’t you understand? It’s no use fighting against me. You may say no, now; you may say no fifty times. But one day you’ll say—yes.”

Jean’s slight frame tautened.

“You are mistaken,” she said, in a chill, clear voice calculated to set immeasurable spaces between them. “I’m not a cave woman to be forced into marriage. Oh!”—the ludicrous side of this imperious kind of wooing striking her suddenly—“don’t be so absurd, Geoffrey! You can’t seize me by the hair and carry me off to your own particular hole in the rocks, you know.” She began to laugh a little. “Let’s just go on being good friends—and forget that this has ever happened.”

She held out her hand, but he took no notice of the little friendly gesture. There was a red gleam in his eyes, a smouldering glow that needed but a breath to fan it into flame.

“You speak as if it were something that was over and done with,” he said in a low, tense voice. “But it isn’t; it never will be. I love you and want you, and I shall go on loving you and wanting you as long as I live. Jean—sweetest”—his voice suddenly softened incredibly—“I’ll try to be more gentle. But when a man loves as I do, he doesn’t stop to choose his words.” He stepped closer to her. “Oh! You little, little thing! Why, I could pick you up and carry you off to my cave with two fingers. Jean, when will you marry me?”

His big frame towered beside her. He paid no more attention to her dismissal of him than if she had not spoken, and she was conscious of an odd feeling of impotence.

“You don’t seem to have understood me,” she said forcing herself to speak composedly. “If I loved you, you’d have no need to ‘carry me off’ to your cave. I’d come—gladly. But I don’t love you, Geoffrey. And I shall never marry a man I don’t love.”

“You’ll marry me,” he returned stubbornly. “Do you think I’m going to give you up so easily? If you do, you mistaken. I love you, and I’ll teach you to love me—when you’re my wife.”

The two pairs of eyes met, a challenging defiance flashing between them. Jean shrugged her shoulders.

“I think you must be mad,” she said contemptuously, and turned to leave him.

In the same instant his hands gripped her shoulders and he swung her round facing him again.

“Mad!” he exclaimed hoarsely. “Yes, I am mad—mad for you. You little cold thing! Do you know what love is—man’s love?”

She felt his arms close round her like a vice of steel, lifting her off her feet, so that she hung helpless in his embrace. For a moment his eyes burned down into hers—the hot flame of desire that blazed in them seeming almost to scorch her—the next, he had hidden his face against the warm white curve of her throat, where a little affrighted pulse throbbed tempestuously. Then, as though the touch of her snapped the last link of his self-control, his mouth sought hers, and he was kissing her savagely, crushing her soft, wincing lips beneath his own. Her slender body swayed helpless as a reed in his strong grip, while the tide of his passion, like some fierce, untamable flood, swept over her resistlessly.

When at last he released her, she stood back from him, staggering a little. Instinctively he stretched out his hand to steady her.

“Don’t... touch me!” she panted.

The words came driven between clenched teeth, chokingly. Her face was milk-white and her eyes blazed at him out of its pallor. She felt as if her heart were beating in her throat, stifling her, and for a little space sheer physical stress held her silent But she fought it back, asserting her will against her weakness.

“How dare you?” There was bitter anger in her still tones. “How dare you touch me—like that?”

With a swift movement she passed her handkerchief across her lips and then let it fall on the ground as though it were something unclean. He winced at the gesture; for a moment the passion died out of his face and a rueful look, almost of schoolboy shame, took its place.

“Do you—feel like that about it?” he said, nodding towards the handkerchief.

“Just like that,” she returned. “Do you think—if I had known—I would ever have risked being alone with you? But I thought we were friends—I never dreamed I couldn’t trust you.”

“Well, you can’t,” he said unsteadily. The sight of her slender, defiant figure and lovely, tilted face, with the scornful lips he had just kissed showing like a scarlet stain against its whiteness, sent the blood rioting through his veins once more. “You’ll... you’ll never be able to trust any man who loves you, Jean.”

Her thoughts flew to Blaise. She would trust herself with him—now, at any time, always. But then, perhaps—the after thought came like a knife-thrust—perhaps he did not care!

“A man who—loved me,” she said dully, “would not do what you’ve just done.”

“He would—sooner or later. Unless his veins ran milk and water!” He drew a step nearer and stood staring down at her sombrely. “Do you know what you’re like, I wonder? With your great golden eyes and your maddening mouth and that little cleft in your white chin.... You’re angry because I kissed you. I wonder I didn’t do it before! I’ve wanted to, dozens of times. But I wanted your love more than a passing kiss. I’ve waited for that—waited all these weeks. And now you refuse it—you’ve not even understood that you’re all earth and heaven to me. God! How blind you must have been!”

She was silent. Her anger was waning, giving place to a certain distressful comprehension of the mighty force which had suddenly broken bondage in the man beside her. Dimly, from her own knowledge of the yearning bred of the loved one’s nearness, she envisaged what these last weeks must have meant to a man of Burke’s temperament. Was it any wonder, when suddenly made to realise that the woman he loved not only did not love him in return, but had failed even to sense his love for her, that his stormy spirit had rebelled—flung off its shackles? An element of self-reproach tinctured her thoughts. In a measure the fault had been hers; her self-absorption was to blame.

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “I’m afraid I have been blind, Geoffrey. Indeed—indeed I would have prevented all this if I had known, if I had guessed. But, honestly, I just thought of you—you and Judith—as friends.”

“I believe you really did,” he said slowly, almost incredulously. Then, as though in swift corollary: “Jean, is there anyone else?”

The question drove at her with its sudden grasp of the truth. Her face grew slowly drawn and pinched-looking beneath his merciless gaze and her lips moved speechlessly.

“So it is that, is it? And does he—has he——”

“Geoffrey, you are insufferable!” The words came wrung from her in quick, low protest. “You have no right—no right——”

“No, I suppose I haven’t,” he admitted, touched by the stricken look in her eyes. “I’d no business to ask that. For the moment, it’s enough that you don’t love me.... But I shall never give you up, Jean. You’re mine—my woman!” The light of possession flared up once more in his eyes. “Do you remember I told you once that, if a man makes up his mind, he can get his own way over most things? Well, it’s true.”

He paused a moment, then abruptly swung round on his heel and without a word of farwell, strode away across the garden towards the gate by which he had entered.

As the latch clicked into its place behind him, Jean was conscious of a sudden tremor, of a curious, uncontrollable fear, as though his words held something of prophecy. The man’s dominating personality seemed to swamp her, overwhelming her by its sheer physical force.

The remembrance of her sinister dream, and of the dream Burke’s threat: “It’s too late to try and run away. If you don’t come into my parlour, you’ll be stamped with the mark of the beast forever,” returned to her with a disagreeable sense of menace. She shivered a little and, picking up her basket, almost ran back to the house, as though seeking safety.