The Safety Curten by Ethel May Dell (ebook e reader .txt) 📖

Doris, when you're in trouble--I want you more than ever. Even if you can't love me as I love you--"
He stopped, for she had flung out her hands with an almost agonized gesture, and her eyes implored him though she spoke no word.
"Won't you listen to me just this once--just this once?" he pleaded. "My dear, I love you so. I love you enough for both if you'll only marry me, and give me the chance of making you happy."
An unwonted note of feeling sounded in his voice. He stretched out his hand to her.
"Doris, darling, won't you change your mind? I'm miserable without you."
And then very suddenly Doris found her voice. She spoke with breathless entreaty. "Hugh, don't--don't! I can't listen to you. I married Jeff Ironside this morning."
His hand fell. He stared at her as if he thought her mad. "You--married--Jeff Ironside! I don't believe it!"
She clenched her hands tightly to still her agitation. "But it's true," she said.
"Doris!" he said.
She nodded vehemently, keeping her eyes on his. "It's true," she said again.
He straightened himself up with the instinctive movement of a man bracing himself to meet a sudden strain. "But why? How? I didn't even know you knew the man."
She nodded again. "He helped me once when I was out cubbing, and I went to his house. After that--when he heard that I had nothing to live on--he came and asked me if I would marry him. And I was very miserable because nobody wanted me. So I said 'Yes.'"
Her voice sank. Her lips were quivering.
"I wanted you," Hugh said.
She was silent.
He bent slowly towards her, looking into her eyes. "My dear, didn't you really know--didn't you understand?"
She shook her head; her eyes were suddenly full of tears. "No, Hugh."
He held out his hand again and took hers. "Don't cry, Doris! You haven't lost much. I shall get over it somehow. I know you never cared for me."
She bent her head with some murmured words he could not catch.
He leaned nearer. "What, dear, what? You never did, did you?"
He waited for her answer, and at last through tears it came. "I've been struggling so hard, so hard, to keep myself from caring."
He was silent a moment, and again it was as if he were collecting his strength for that which had to be endured. Then slowly: "You thought I wasn't in earnest?" he said. "You thought I didn't care enough?"
She did not answer him in words; her silence was enough.
"God forgive me!" whispered Hugh....
There came the thud of horses' hoofs upon the grass, and his hand relinquished hers. He turned to see Jeff Ironside barely ten paces away, leading the two animals. Very pale but wholly collected, Hugh moved to meet him.
"I have just been hearing about your marriage, Ironside," he said. "May I congratulate you?"
Jeff's eyes, with the red sunlight turning them to a ruddy brown, met his with absolute directness as he made brief response. "You are very kind."
"Doris and I are old friends," said Hugh.
"Yes, I know," said Jeff.
Spasmodically Doris turned and joined the two men. "We hope Mr. Chesyl will come and see us sometimes, don't we, Jeff?" she said.
"Certainly," said Jeff, "when he has nothing better to do."
She turned to Hugh with a bright little smile. Her tears were wholly gone, and he marvelled. "I hope that will be often, Hugh," she said.
"Thank you," Hugh said gravely. "Thank you very much." He added, after a moment, to Jeff: "I shall probably be down here a good deal now. The squire is beginning to feel his age. In fact, he wants me to make my home with him. I don't propose to do that entirely, but I can't leave him alone for long at a time."
"I see," said Jeff. He glanced towards Doris. "Shall we start back?" he said.
Hugh propped his gun against a tree, and stepped forward to mount her. "So you still have Hector," he said.
"Jeff's wedding present," she answered, still smiling.
Lightly she mounted, and for a single moment he felt her passing touch upon his shoulder. Then Hector moved away, stepping proudly. Jeff was already in the saddle.
"Good-bye!" said Doris, looking back to him. "Don't forget to come and see us!"
She was gone.
Hugh Chesyl turned with the sun-rays dazzling him, and groped for his gun.
He found it, shouldered it, and strode away down the woodland path. His face as he went was the face of a man suddenly awakened to the stress and the turmoil of life.


CHAPTER VIII
THE NEW LIFE

There was no doubt about it. Granny Grimshaw was not satisfied. Deeper furrows were beginning to appear in her already deeply furrowed face. She shook her head very often with pursed lips when she was alone. And this despite the fact that she and the young mistress of the Mill House were always upon excellent terms. No difficulties ever arose between them. Doris showed not the smallest disposition to usurp the old housekeeper's authority. Possibly Granny Grimshaw would have been better pleased if she had. She spent much of her time out-of-doors, and when in the house she was generally to be found in the little sitting-room that Jeff had fitted up for her.
She had her meals in the parlour with Jeff, and these were the sole occasions on which they were alone together. If Doris could have had her way, Granny Grimshaw would have been present at these also, but on this point the old woman showed herself determined, not to say obstinate. She maintained that her place was the kitchen, and that her presence was absolutely necessary there, a point of view which no argument of Doris's could persuade her to relinquish.
So she and Jeff breakfasted, dined, and supped in solitude, and though Doris became gradually accustomed to these somewhat silent meals, she never enjoyed them. Of difficult moments there were actually very few. They mutually avoided any but the most general subjects for conversation. But of intimacy between them there was none. Jeff had apparently drawn a very distinct boundary-line which he never permitted himself to cross. He never intruded upon her. He never encroached upon the friendship she shyly proffered. Once when she somewhat hesitatingly suggested that he should come to her sitting-room for a little after supper he refused, not churlishly, but very decidedly.
"I like to have my pipe and go to bed," he said.
"But you can bring your pipe, too," she said.
"No, thanks," said Jeff. "I always smoke in the kitchen or on the step."
She said no more, but went up to her room, and presently Jeff, moodily puffing at his briar in the porch, heard the notes of her piano overhead. She played softly for some little time, and Jeff's pipe went out before it was finished--a most rare occurrence with him.
Only when the piano ceased did he awake to the fact, and then half-savagely he knocked out its half-consumed contents and turned inwards.
He found Granny Grimshaw standing in the passage in a listening attitude, and paused to bid her good-night.
"Be you going to bed, Master Jeff?" she said. "My dear, did you ever hear the like? She plays like an angel."
He smiled somewhat grimly, without replying.
The old woman came very close to him. "Master Jeff, why don't you go and make love to her? Don't you know she's waiting for you?"
"Is she?" said Jeff, but he said it in the tone of one who does not require an answer, and with the words very abruptly he passed her by.
Granny Grimshaw shook her head and sighed, "Ah, dear!" after his retreating form.
It was a few days after this that a letter came for Doris, one morning, bearing the Squire's crest. Her husband handed it to her at the breakfast-table, and she received it with a flush. After a moment, seeing him occupied with a newspaper, she opened it.

"Dear Doris," it said. "You asked me to come and see you, but I
have not done so as I was not sure if, after all, you meant me
to take the invitation literally. We have been friends for so
long that I feel constrained to speak openly. For myself, I only
ask to go on being your friend, and to serve you in any way
possible. But perhaps I can serve you best by keeping away from
you. If so, then I will do even that.--Yours ever,
"Hugh."

Something within moved Doris to raise her eyes suddenly, and instantly she encountered Jeff's fixed upon her. The flush in her cheeks deepened burningly. With an effort she spoke:
"Hugh Chesyl wants to know if he may come to see us."
"I thought you asked him," said Jeff.
A little quiver of resentment went through her; she could not have said wherefore. "He was not sure if I meant it," she said.
There was an instant's silence; then Jeff did an extraordinary thing. He stretched out his hand across the table, keeping his eyes on hers.
"Let me have his letter to answer!" he said.
She made a sharp instinctive movement of withdrawal. "Oh, no!" she said. "No!"
Jeff said nothing; but his face hardened somewhat, and his hand remained outstretched.
Doris's grey eyes gleamed. "No, Jeff!" she repeated, more calmly, and with the words she slipped Hugh's envelope into the bosom of her dress. "I can't give you my letters to answer indeed."
Jeff withdrew his hand, and began to eat his breakfast in utter silence.
Doris played with hers until the silence became intolerable, and then, very suddenly and very winningly, she leaned towards him.
"Dear Jeff, surely you are not vexed!" she said.
He looked at her again, and in spite of herself she felt her heart quicken.
"Are you, Jeff?" she said, and held out her hand to him.
For a moment he sat motionless, then abruptly he grasped the hand.
"May I say what I think?" he asked her bluntly.
"Of course," she said.
"Then I think from all points of view that you had better leave Chesyl alone," he said.
"What do you mean?" Quickly she asked the question; the colour flamed in her face once more. "Tell my why you think that!" she said.
"I would rather not," said Jeff.
"But that is not fair of you, Jeff," she protested.
He released her hand slowly. "I am sorry," he said. "If I were more to you, I would say more. As it is--well, I would rather not."
She rose impetuously. "You are very--difficult," she said.
To which he made answer with that silence which was to her more difficult than speech.
Yet later, when she was alone, her sense of justice made her admit that he had not been altogether unreasonable. She recalled the fact that he had overheard that leisurely proposal of marriage that Hugh had made her in the cornfield on the occasion of their first meeting, and her face burned afresh as she remembered certain other items of that same conversation that he must also have overheard. No, on the whole it was not surprising that he did not greatly care for Hugh--poor Hugh, who loved her and had so narrowly missed winning her for himself. She wondered if Hugh were really very miserable. She herself had passed through so many stages of misery since her wedding-day. But she had sufficient knowledge of herself to realize that it was the loneliness and lack of sympathy that weighed upon her most.
Her feeling for Hugh was still an undeveloped quantity, though the certainty of his love for her had quickened it to