Lucy Montgomery - A Tangled Web

"Roger, were you ever in love with any one?" groaned Peter. "No, you couldn't have been. You wouldn't be such a cold-blooded fish if you were. Besides, you'd have fallen in love with Donna. I can't understand why every one isn't in love with Donna. Can you?"

"Easily," said Roger coolly.

"Oh, you like them buxom, I suppose," sneered Peter, "like Sally William Y.... or just out of the cradle like Gay Penhallow. Roger, you don't know what it's like to be in love. It's hellish... and heavenly... and terrible... and exquisite. Oh, Roger, why don't you fall in love?"

Roger had never been in any danger of falling in love with Donna Dark. As a matter of fact, he only half liked her and her poses, not realizing that the latter were only a pitiful device for filling an empty life. And he only half liked Peter. But he was sorry for him.

"I'll take a message to Donna for you... "

"A letter... "

"No. She couldn't read it. Her eyes are very bad... "

"Look here, Roger. I've got to see Donna... by the sacred baboon I've got to. Have a heart, Roger... smuggle me in. They'll have to open the door for you, and once I'm inside the devil himself shan't get me out till I've seen Donna... that Thekla is quite capable of murdering her... the whole pack are worrying her... that fiend of a Virginia is with her night and day, I hear, poisoning her mind against me."

"Stop gibbering, Peter. Think what effects a fracas in the house would have on Donna. It would set her back weeks if it didn't kill her. Thekla is a capital nurse whatever else she is... and Donna's mind is too full of you to be poisoned by anybody... through all her delirium she raved about you... you should have seen Drowned John's face."

"Was she delirious... my poor darling? Oh, Roger Penhallow, are you keeping anything back from me? I met the Moon Man coming down. He looked at me strangely. They say the old dud has second sight... he knows when people are going to die. Pneumonia has always been fatal to that family... Donna's mother died of it. For God's sake, tell me the truth... "

"Peter Penhallow, if you don't clear out of this at once I'll kick you twice... once for myself and once for Drowned John. Donna is going to be all right. You act as if you were the only man in the world who was ever in love before."

"I am," said Peter. "YOU don't know a thing about love, Roger. They tell me you were in love with Gay Penhallow. Well, I'd never be a cradle-snatcher, but if I were, Noel Gibson shouldn't have taken her from me... that tailor's mannequin. You're a white-livered hound, Roger, no blood in your veins."

"I've some sense in my noodle," said Roger drily.

"Which proves that you don't know anything about love," said Peter triumphantly. "Nobody's sensible if he's in love. It's a divine madness, Roger. Oh, Roger, I've never liked you over and above but I feel now as if I couldn't part from you. To think that you'll see Donna in a few minutes... oh, tell her... tell her... "

"Heaven grant me patience!" groaned Roger. "Peter, go out and get into my car and count up to five hundred slowly. I'll tell Donna anything you like and I'll bring back her message and then I'll take you home. It's not safe for you to be out alone... you damn' fool," concluded Roger under his breath.

"Roger... have you any idea how a man... "

"Tut... tut, Peter, you're not a man at all just now... you're only a state of mind."

Donna's convalescence was a tedious affair and not a very happy one. As soon as Drowned John suspected that Roger was fetching and carrying messages between Donna and Peter, he showed him to the door and sent for another doctor. Virginia haunted her pillow night and day and various relatives of her clique... a clan within a clan... came and went and "talked things over." Donna listened because she was too weak to argue. And all the talking-over in the world couldn't alter facts.

"You never loved Barry," sobbed Virginia, "It was only his uniform you loved."

"I did love Barry. But now I love Peter," said Donna.

"'The mind has a thousand eyes'," began Virginia... and finished the quotation. The trouble was she had quoted it so often before that it was rather stale to Donna.

"Love isn't done... for me. It's beginning all over again."

"I DON'T understand," said Virginia helplessly, "how you can be so fickle, Donna. It's a complete mystery to me. But MY feelings have always been so very deep. I wonder you still keep poor Barry's picture over your dressing-table. Doesn't he look at you reproachfully?"

"No. Barry seems like a good old pal. He seems to say, 'I'm glad you've found some one to give you the happiness I can't now.' Virginia, we've been foolish and morbid... "

"I won't have you use such a word," sobbed Virginia. "I'm not morbid... I'm TRUE. And you've broken our pact. Oh, Donna, how CAN you desert me? We've been through so many sad... and beau-tiful... and terrible things together. How CAN you break the bond?"

"Virginia, darling, I'm not breaking the bond. We can always be friends... dear friends... "

"Peter will take you away from me," sobbed Virginia. "He'll drag you all over the world... you'll never have any settled home, Donna... or any position in society."

"There'll be some adventure in marrying Peter," conceded Donna in a tone of satisfaction.

"And he'll never allow you to have any interest outside of him. He'll tell you what you are to think. He must possess exclusively."

"I don't want any interest outside of him," said Donna.

"You to say that... you who were Barry's wife... his WIFE. Why, to hear you talk... it might just as well have been some one else who was Barry's wife."

"Well, to be honest, Virginia, that's exactly the way I do feel about it. I'm NOT the girl who was married to Barry... I'm an entirely different creature. Perhaps I've drunk from some fairy pool of change, Virginia. I can't help it... and I don't want to help it. All I want just now is to have Peter come in and kiss me."

An aggravating sentence popped into Donna's head. She uttered it to annoy Virginia, who was annoying her.

"You've no idea how divinely Peter can kiss, Virginia."

"I've no doubt he has had plenty of practice," said Virginia bitterly. "As for me... I have my memories of Ned's kisses."

Donna permitted herself a pale smile. Ned Powell had had a little full red mouth with a little brown moustache above it. The very thought of being kissed by such a mouth had always made Donna shudder. She couldn't understand how Virginia could ever bear it.

"You can laugh," said Virginia coldly. "I suppose you can laugh now at everything we have held sacred. But I happen to know that Peter Penhallow said that you were a nice little thing and he could have you for the asking."

"I don't believe he said it," retorted Donna, "but if he did... why not? It's quite true, you know."

Virginia went away crying. She told Drowned John that it was useless for her to come again; SHE had no longer any influence over Donna.

"I knew that opal would bring me bad luck."

Drowned John banged a table and glared at her. Drowned John went about those days banging tables. Drowned John was in an atrocious humour with everything and everybody, and determined to make them feel it. Had a father no rights at all? This was all it came to... all your years of sacrifice and care. They flouted you... just flouted you. They thought they could marry any fool fellow they pleased. Women were the very dickens. He had tamed his own two but the young ones were beyond him.

"She shall never marry him... never."

"She means to," said Virginia.

"She doesn't mean it... she only thinks she does," shouted Drowned John. Drowned John always thought that if he contradicted loud enough, people would come to believe him.