The Obstacle Race by Ethel May Dell (chromebook ebook reader TXT) 📖

anything that--matters?" he asked.
She felt his arms drawing her and quivered again like a trapped bird. "Yes," she whispered.
"Very much?"
"Yes," she said again.
"Then you are angry with me," he said.
She was silent.
He pressed her suddenly very close. "Juliet, you don't hate me, do you?"
She caught her breath with a sob that sounded painfully hard and dry. "I--couldn't have married you--if I had known," she said.
He started a little and lifted his head. "As bad as that!" he said.
For a space there was silence between them while his eyes dwelt sombrely upon the litter of books upon the table, and still his arms enfolded her though he did not hold her close. When at last she made as if she would release herself, he still would not let her go.
"Will you listen to me?" he said. "Give me a hearing--just for a minute? You have forgiven so much in me that is really bad that I can't feel this last to be--quite unpardonable. Juliet, I haven't really wronged you. You have got a false impression of the man who wrote those books. It's a prejudice which I have promised myself to overcome. But I must have time. Will you defer judgment--for my sake--till you have read this latest book, written when you first came into my life? Will you--Juliet, will you have patience till I have proved myself?"
She shivered as she stood. "You don't know--what you have done," she said.
He made a quick gesture of protest. "Yes, I do know. I know quite well. I have hurt you, deceived you. But hear my defence anyway! I never meant to marry you in the first place without telling you, but I always wanted you to read this book of mine first. It's different from the others. I wanted you to see the difference. But then I got carried away as you know. I loved you so tremendously. I couldn't hold myself in. Then--when you came to me in my misery--it was all up with me, and I fell. I couldn't tell you then, Juliet, I wasn't ready for you to know. So I waited--till the book could be published and you could read it. I am infernally sorry you found out like this. I wanted you--so badly--to read it with an open mind. And now--whichever way you look at it--you certainly won't do that."
There was a whimsical note in his voice despite its obvious sincerity as he ended, and Juliet winced as she heard it, and in a moment with resolution freed herself from his hold.
She did it in silence, but there was that in the action that deeply wounded him. He stood motionless, looking at her, a glitter of sternness in his eyes.
"Juliet," he said after a moment, "you are not treating this matter reasonably. I admit I tricked you; but my love for you was my excuse. And those books of mine--especially the one I didn't want you to read--were never intended for such as you."
She looked back at him with a kind of frozen wonder. "Then who were they meant for?" she said.
He made a slight movement of impatience. "You know. You know very well. They were meant for the people whom you yourself despise--the crowd you broke away from--men and women like the Farringmores who live for nothing but their own beastly pleasures and don't care the toss of a halfpenny for anyone else under the sun."
She went back against the table and stood there, supporting herself while she still faced him. "You forget--" she said, her voice very low,--"I think you forget--that they are my people--I belong to them!"
"No, you don't!" he flung back almost fiercely. "You belong to me!"
A great shiver went through her. She clenched her hands to repress it. "I don't see," she said, "how I can--possibly--stay with you--after this."
"What?" He strode forward and caught her by the shoulders. She was aware of a sudden hot blaze of anger in him that made her think of the squire. He held her in a grip that was merciless. "Do you know what you are saying?" he asked.
She tried to hold him from her, but he pressed her to him with a dominance that would not brook resistance.
"Do you?" he said. "Do you?"
His face was terrible. She felt the hard hammer of his heart against her own, and a sense of struggling against overwhelming odds came upon her.
She bowed her head against his shoulder. "Oh, Dick!" she said. "It is you--who--don't--know!"
His hold did not relax, and for a space he said no word, but stood breathing deeply as a man who faces some deadly peril.
He spoke at length, and in his voice was something she had never heard before--something from which she shrank uncontrollably, as the victim shrinks from the branding-iron.
"And so you think you can leave me--as lightly as Lady Joanna Farringmore left that man I went to see today?"
She lifted her head with a gasp. "No!" she said. "Oh, no! Not--like that!"
His eyes pierced her with their appalling brightness. "No, not quite like that," he said, with awful grimness. "There is a difference. An engaged woman can cut the cable and be free without assistance. A married woman needs a lover to help her!"
She shrank afresh from the scorching cynicism of his words. "Dick!" she said. "Have I asked for--freedom?"
"You had better not ask!" he flashed back. "You have gone too far already. I tell you, Juliet, when you gave yourself to me it was irrevocable. There's no going back now. You have got to put up with me--whatever the cost."
"Ah!" she whispered.
"Listen!" he said. "This thing is going to make no difference between us--no difference whatever. You cared for me enough to marry me, and I am the same man now that I was then. The man you have conjured up in your own mind as the writer of those books is nothing to me--or to you now. I am the man who wrote them--and you belong to me. And if you leave me--well, I shall follow you--and bring you back."
His lips closed implacably upon the words; he held her as though challenging her to free herself. But Juliet neither moved nor spoke. She stood absolutely passive in his hold, waiting in utter silence.
He waited also, trying to read her face in the dimness, but seeing only a pale still mask.
At last: "You understand me?" he said.
She bent her head. "Yes--I understand."
He stood for a moment longer, then abruptly his hold tightened upon her. She lifted her face then sharply, resisting him almost instinctively, and in that instant his passion burst its bonds. He crushed her to him with sudden mastery, and, so compelling, he kissed her hotly, possessively, dominatingly, holding her lips with his own, till she strained against him no longer, but hung, burning and quivering, at his mercy.
Then at length very slowly he put her down into the chair from which she had risen at his entrance, and released her. She leaned upon the table, trembling, her hands covering her face. And he stood behind her, breathing heavily, saying no word.
So for a space they remained in darkness and silence, till the brisk opening of the kitchen-door brought them back to the small things of life.
Dick moved. "Go upstairs!" he said, under his breath.
She stirred and rose unsteadily. He put out a hand to help her. She did not take it, did not seem even to see it.
Gropingly, she turned to the door, went out slowly, still as if feeling her way, reached the narrow stairs and went up them, clutching at the rail.
He followed her to the foot and stood there watching her. As she reached the top he heard her sob.
An impulse caught him to follow her, to take her again--but how differently!--into his arms,--to soothe her, to comfort her, to win her back to him. But sternly he put it from him. She had got to learn her lesson, to realize her obligations,--she who talked so readily of leaving him! And for what?
A wave of hot blood rose to his forehead, and he clenched his hands. He went back into the room, knowing that he could not trust himself.
When Mrs. Rickett entered with a lamp a few moments later, he was gathering up the litter of books and paper from the table, his face white and sternly set. He gave her a brief word of greeting, and went across to the school with his burden.


CHAPTER VI
COALS OF FIRE

It was nearly half-an-hour later that Mrs. Rickett ascended the stairs and knocked at Juliet's door.
"Supper's been in this long time," she called. "And Mr. Green's still over at the school."
There was a brief pause, then Juliet's quiet movement in the room. She opened the door and met her on the threshold.
"Why, you haven't got a light!" said Mrs. Rickett. "Is there anything the matter, ma'am? Aren't you well?"
"Yes, quite, thank you," Juliet said in her slow gentle voice. "I am afraid I forgot the time. I will put on my hat before I come down."
Mrs. Rickett's eyes regarded her shrewdly for a moment or two, then looked away. "Shall I fetch you a candle?" she said.
Juliet turned back into the room. "I have one, thank you. Perhaps you wouldn't mind going to find Mr. Green while I dress."
Mrs. Rickett hastened away, and Juliet lighted her candle and surveyed herself for a second, standing motionless before the glass.
Several minutes later she descended the stairs and went quietly into the dining-room. She was wearing a large-brimmed hat that shadowed her face.
Dick, standing by the mantelpiece, waiting for her, gave her a hard and piercing look as she entered.
"I am sorry I am late," she said.
He moved abruptly as if somehow the conventional words had an edge. He drew out a chair for her. "I am afraid there isn't a great deal of time," he said.
She sat down with a murmured word of thanks. He took his place, facing her, very pale, but absolutely his own master. He served her silently, and she made some pretence of eating, keeping her head bent, feeding Columbus surreptitiously as he sat by her side.
Her plate was empty when at length very resolutely she looked up and spoke. "Dick, I want you to understand one thing. I did not open that parcel of yours. It was open when it came."
Instantly his eyes were upon her with merciless directness. "I gathered that," he said.
She met his look unflinchingly, but her next words came with an effort. "Then you can't--with justice--blame me for surprising your secret."
"I don't," he said.
"And yet--" She made a slight gesture of remonstrance, as if the piercing brightness of his eyes were more than she could bear.
He pushed back his chair and rose. He came to her as she sat, bent over her, his hand on her shoulder, and looked at her intently.
"Juliet," he said, "I don't like you with that stuff on your face. It isn't--you."
She kept her face steadily upturned, enduring his look with no sign of shrinking. "You are meeting--the real me--for the first time--to-night," she said.
His mouth curved cynically. "I think not. I have never worshipped at the shrine of a painted goddess."
Something rose in her throat and she put up a hand to hide it. "I doubt if--Dene Strange--was ever capable of worshipping anything," she said.
His hand closed upon her. "Does that mean that you hate him more than you love me?" he said.
A faint quiver crossed her face. She passed the question by. "Do you remember--Cynthia Paramount--your heroine?" she said.