Evelyn Everett-Green - Monica, Volume 2 (of 3)

She spoke not a word, but turned haughtily away and sought for solitude in the loneliest part of the park. She was terribly humiliated. She knew nothing of the inevitable chatter and gossip, half good-humoured, half mischievous, with which idle people indulge themselves about their neighbours, especially if that neighbour happens to be a beautiful woman, with an unknown past and an apparent trouble upon her. She did not know that spite on Conrad’s part, and flighty foolishness on that of his sister, had started rumours concerning her. She only felt that she had by her ingratitude and coolness towards the husband who had sacrificed so much for her, and whom she sincerely respected, and almost loved, had been the means of bringing his name and hers within the reach of malicious tongues, had given rise to cruel false rumours she hated ever to think of. If only her husband were with her! – at least he would soon be with her, and if for very shame she could not repeat the cruel words she had heard, at least she could show to all the world how false and base they were.

Monica woke up at last to the fact that it was getting late, and that she was in a totally strange place, far away from the rest of the party. She turned quickly and retraced her steps. She seldom lost her bearings, and was able to find her way back without difficulty, but she had strayed farther than she knew; it took her some time to reach the glade in which they had lunched, and when she arrived there she found it quite deserted. There was nothing for it but to go back to the hotel, whither she supposed the others had preceded her, but when she reached the courtyard no one was to be seen but Conrad, who held her horse and his own.

“Ah, Monica! here you are. We missed you just at starting. Did you lose yourself in the park? Nobody seemed to know what had become of you.”

“I suppose I walked rather too far. Where are the rest?”

“Just started five minutes ago. We only missed you then. I said I’d wait. We shall catch them up in two minutes.”

As this was Mrs. Bellamy’s party, and Conrad was her brother, this mark of courtesy could not be called excessive, yet somehow it displeased Monica a good deal.

“Where is my groom?”

Conrad looked round innocently enough. “I suppose he joined the cavalcade, stupid fellow! Stablemen are so very gregarious. Never mind; we shall be up with them directly.”

And Monica was forced to mount and ride after the party with Conrad.

But they did not come up with the others, despite his assurances, and the fact that they rode very fast for a considerable time. He professed himself very much astonished, and declared that they must have made a stupid blunder, and have gone by some other road.

“In that case, Sir Conrad,” said Monica, “I will dispense with your escort. I am perfectly well able to take care of myself alone.”

He read her displeasure in her face and voice. She had an instinct that she had been tricked, but it was not a suspicion she could put into words.

“ Sir Conrad!” he repeated, with gentle reproach. “Have I offended you, Monica?”

“Sir Conrad, it is time we should understand one another,” said Monica, turning her head towards him. “I made you a sort of promise once – a promise of friendship I believe it was. I am not certain that I ever ought to have given it; but after my marriage with a man you hold as an enemy, it is impossible that I can look upon you as a true friend. I do not judge or condemn you, but I do say that we had better meet as infrequently as possible, and then as mere acquaintances. You have strained your right of friendship, as it is, by the unwarrantable and persistent use of my Christian name, which you must have known was not for you to employ now. We were playfellows in childhood, I know, but circumstances alter cases, and our circumstances have greatly changed. It must be Sir Conrad and Lady Monica now between you and me, if ever we meet in future.”

His eyes gleamed with that wild beast ferocity that lay latent in his nature, but his voice was well under command.

“Your will is law, Lady Monica. It is hard on me, but you know best. I will accept any place that you assign me.”

She was not disarmed by his humility.

“I assign you no place; and you know that what I say is not hard. We are not at Trevlyn now. You know your own world well; I am only just beginning to know it. You had no right ever to take liberties that could give occasion for criticism or remark.”

He looked keenly at her, but she was evidently quite unconscious of the game he had tried to play for the amusement of his little circle. She only spoke in general terms.

“There was a time, Monica,” he said gently, “when you cared less what the world would say.”

“There was a time, Sir Conrad,” she answered, with quiet dignity, “when I knew less what the world might say.”

Had Monica had the least suspicion of what her companion had tried to make it say, she would not now have been riding with him along the darkening streets, just as carriages were rolling by carrying people to dinner or to the theatres.

Twice she had imperatively dismissed him, but he had absolutely declined to leave her.

“I will not address another word to you if my presence is distasteful to you,” he said; “but you are my sister’s guest, and in the absence of her husband I stand in the place of your host. I will not leave you to ride home at this late hour alone. At the risk of incurring your displeasure I attend you to your own door.”

Monica did not protest after that, but she hardly addressed a single word to her silent companion.

As she rode up to her own house she saw that the door stood open. The groom was there, with his horse. He was in earnest converse with a tall, broad-shouldered man, who held a hunting-whip in his hand, and appeared about to spring into the saddle.

Monica’s heart gave a sudden leap. Who was that other man standing with his back to her on the pavement? He turned quickly at the sound of her approach – it was her husband.

He looked at her and her companion in perfect silence. Conrad took off his hat, murmured a few incoherent words, and rode quickly away. Randolph’s hand closed like a vice upon his whip, but he only gave one glance at the retreating figure, and then turned quietly to his wife and helped her to dismount. The groom took the horse, and without a word from anyone, husband and wife passed together into the house. And this was the meeting to which Monica had looked forward with so much trembling joy.

Randolph led his wife upstairs to the drawing-room, and closed the door behind them. It was nine o’clock, and the room was brightly illuminated. Randolph was in dinner dress, as though he had been some time at home. His face was pale, and wore an expression of stern repression more intense than anything Monica had ever seen there before. She was profoundly agitated – agitated most of all by the feeling that he was near her again; the husband that she had pined for without knowing that she pined. Her agitation was due to a kind of tumultuous joy more than to any other feeling, but she hardly knew this herself, and no one else would have credited it, from the whiteness of her face, and the strained look it wore. As a matter of fact, she was physically and mentally exhausted. She had gone through a great deal that day; she had eaten little, and that many hours ago; she was a good deal prostrated, though hardly aware of it – a state in which nervous tension made her unusually susceptible of impression; and she trembled and shrank before the displeasure in her husband’s proud face. Would he look like that if he really loved her? Ah, no! no! She shrank a little more into herself.