Margaret Pedler - The Moon out of Reach

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"I wish it," she pursued, "because Roger wishes it. I should like my son
to have everything he wants. To be perfectly frank, I don't consider he
has made a very suitable choice, but since he wants you--why, he must
have you. No, don't interrupt me, please"--for Nan, quivering with
indignation, was about to protest. "When--if ever you are a mother you
will understand my point of view. Roger has made his choice--and of
course he hasn't the least idea how unsuitable a one it is. Men rarely
get beyond a pretty face. So it devolves upon me to make you better
fitted to be his wife than you are at present."

The cold, dispassionate speech roused Nan to a fury of exasperation and
revolt. Evidently, in Lady Gertrude's mind, Roger was the only person
who mattered. She herself was of the utmost unimportance except for the
fact that he wanted her for his wife! She felt as though she were a
slave who had been bartered away to a new owner.

"You understand, now?"

Lady Gertrude's clear, unmoved accents dropped like ice into the midst of
her burning resentment.

"Yes, I do understand!" she exclaimed, in a voice that she hardly
recognised as her own. "And I think everything you've said is horrible!
If I thought Roger looked at things like that, I'd break our engagement
to-morrow! But he doesn't--I know he doesn't. It's only you who think
such hateful things. And--and I won't stay here! I--I _can't_!"

"It's foolish to talk of breaking off your engagement," returned Lady
Gertrude composedly. "Roger is not a man to be picked up and put down at
any woman's whim--as you would find out if you tried to do it."

Inwardly Nan felt bitterly conscious that this was true. She didn't
believe for a moment that Roger would release her, however much she might
implore him to. And unless he himself released her, her pledge to him
must stand.

"As to going away"--Lady Gertrude was speaking again. "Where would you
go?"

"To the flat, of course."

"Do you mean to the flat you used to share with Mrs. Fenton?"--on a
glacial note of incredulity.

"Yes."

"Who is living there?"

Nan looked puzzled. What did it matter to Lady Gertrude who lived there?

"No one, just now. The Fentons are going to stay there, when they come
back, while they look for a house."

"But they are not there now?" persisted Lady Gertrude.

Nan shook her head, wondering what was the drift of so much questioning.
She was soon to know.

"Then, my dear child," said Lady Gertrude decidedly, "of course it would
be quite impossible for you to go there."

"Why impossible?"

Lady Gertrude's brows lifted, superciliously.

"I should have thought it was obvious," she replied curtly. "Hasn't it
occurred to you that it would be hardly the thing for a young unmarried
girl to be staying alone in a flat in London?"

"No, it hasn't," returned Nan bluntly. "Penelope and I have each stayed
there alone--heaps of times--when the other was away."

"Very possibly." There was an edge to Lady Gertrude's voice which it was
impossible to misinterpret. "Professional musicians are very lax--I
suppose _you_ would call it Bohemian--in their ideas. That I can quite
believe. But you have someone else to consider now. Roger would hardly
wish his future wife to be stopping alone at a flat in London."

Nan was silent. Ridiculous as it seemed, she had to admit that Lady
Gertrude was speaking no more than the bare truth concerning Roger's
point of view. She felt perfectly sure that he would object--very
strenuously!

Lady Gertrude rose.

"I think there is no more to be said. You can put any idea of rushing
off to London out of your head. Even if Roger were agreeable, I should
not allow it while you are in my charge. Neither is it exactly
complimentary to us that you should even suggest such a thing."

With this parting comment she quitted the room, leaving Nan staring
stonily out of the window.

She felt helpless--helpless to withstand the thin, steel-eyed woman who
was Roger's mother. Nominally free, she was to all intents and purposes
a prisoner at Trenby Hall till Kitty or Penelope came home. Of course
she could write to Lord St. John if she chose. But even if she did, he
most certainly could not ask her to stay with him at his chambers in
London. Besides, she didn't want to appeal to him. She knew he would
think she was running away--playing the coward, and that it would be a
bitter disappointment to him to find her falling short of the high
standard which he had always set before her.

"_No Davenant was ever a coward in the face of difficulties_," he had
told her. And she loved him far too much to hurt him as grievously as
she knew it would hurt him if she ran away from them.

She stood there for a long time, staring dumbly out at the falling rain
and dripping trees. She was thinking along the lines which St. John had
laid down for her. "_Don't make Roger pay for your own blunder_." Was
she doing that? Remembering all that had passed between them last night
she began to realise that this was just what she had been doing.

She had no love to give him, but she had been keeping him out of
everything else as well. She had not even tried to make a comrade of
him, to let him into her interests and to try and share his own.
Instead, she had shut herself away in the West Parlour with her music and
her memories, and in his own blundering fashion Roger had realised it.
Probably he had even guessed that that other man who had loved her had
been able to go with her into the temple of music, comprehending it all
and loving it even as she did.

She understood Roger's strange and sudden jealousy now. Although she was
to be his wife, he was jealous of those invisible bonds of mutual
understanding which had linked her to Peter Mallory--bonds which, had
they two been free to marry, would have made of their marriage a perfect
thing--the beautiful mating of spirit, soul, and body.

The doors of her soul--that innermost sanctuary of all--would never be
opened for any other to enter in. But surely there was something more
that she might give Roger than she had yet done. She could stretch out a
friendly hand and try to link their interests together, however slight
the link must be.

All at once, a plan to accomplish this formulated itself in her mind. He
had wanted to "smash the piano." Well, he should never want that again.
She would show him that her music was not going to stand between
them--that she was willing to share it with him. She would talk to him
about it, get him to understand something of what it meant to her, and
when the concerto was quite finished, she would invite him into the West
Parlour to listen to it. It was nearing completion--another week's work
and what Sandy laughingly termed her "magnum opus" would be finished. Of
course Roger wouldn't be able to give her a musician's understanding of
it, but he would certainly appreciate the fact that she had played it to
him first of anyone.

It would go far to heal that resentful jealousy if she "shared" the
concerto with him. He would never again feel that she was keeping him
outside the real interests of her life. Probably, later on, when it was
performed by a big London orchestra, under the auspices of one of the
best-known conductors of the day--who happened to be a particular friend
of Nan's and a staunch believer in her capacity to do good work--Roger
would even begin to take a quaint kind of pride in her musical
achievements.

What she purposed would involve a good deal of pluck and sacrifice. For
it takes both of these to reveal yourself, as any true musician must, to
an audience of one with whom you are not utterly in sympathy. But if by
this road she and Roger took one step towards a better understanding,
towards that comradeship which was all that she could ever give him, then
it would have been worth the sacrifice.

Gradually the stony look of despair lifted from her face, and a new
spirit of resolution took possession of her. She was not the only person
in the world who had to suffer. There were others, Peter amongst them,
who were debarred by circumstances from finding happiness, and who went
on doing their duty unflinchingly. It was only she who had
failed--letting Roger bear the cost of her mistake. She had promised to
marry him when it seemed the only way out of the difficulties which beset
her, and now she was not honouring that promise. While Peter Mallory was
still waiting quietly for the wife he no longer loved to come back to
him--keeping the door of his house open to her whenever she should choose
to claim fulfilment of the pledges he had given the day he married her.

Nan leaned her head against the window-pane, realising that, whatever
Roger's faults might he, she, too, had fallen short.

"Our troth, Nan. Hang on to it--_hard_, when life seems a bit more
uphill than usual."

She could hear Peter's voice, steady and clear and reassuring, almost as
she had heard it that night on the headland at Tintagel. She felt her
throat contract and a burning mist of tears blurred her vision. For a
moment she fought desperately against her weakness. Then, with a little
strangled cry, she buried her face against her arm and broke into a
passion of tears.

CHAPTER XXII

THE OFFERING OF FIRST-FRUITS

The concerto was finished! Finished, at least, as far as it was
possible without rehearsing the effect with orchestra, and as Nan
turned over the sheets of manuscript, thickly dotted with their medley
of notes and rests and slurs, she was conscious of that glorious thrill
of accomplishment which is the creative artist's recompense for long
hours of work and sacrifice,--and for those black moments of
discouragement and self-distrust which no true artist can escape.

She sat very quietly in the West Parlour, thinking of the concerto and
of what she meant to do with it. She was longing to show it to Sandy
McBain, who would have a musician's comprehension of every bar, and she
knew he would rejoice with her whole-heartedly over it. But that would
have to wait until after Roger had heard it. The first-fruits, as it
were, were to be offered to him.

She had it all planned out in her mind. Roger was out hunting to-day,
so that she had been able to add certain final touches to the concerto
uninterrupted, and after dinner she proposed to carry him off to the
West Parlour and play it to him. There would be only their two selves,
alone together--for she had no intention of inviting Lady Gertrude and
Isobel to attend this first performance.

She was nervously excited at the prospect, and when she heard the
distant sound of a horseman trotting up the drive she jumped up and ran
to the window, peering out into the dusk. It was Roger, and as horse
and rider swung past the window she drew back suddenly into the
fire-lit shadows of the room, letting the short window-curtains fall
together.

Five minutes later she heard his footsteps as he came striding along
the corridor on to which the West Parlour opened. Then the door-handle
was turned with imperious eagerness, someone switched on the light, and
he came in--splashed with mud, his face red from the lash of the wind,
his hair beaded with moisture from the misty air. He looked just what
he was--a typical big sporting Englishman--as he tramped into the room
and made his way to the warmth of the blazing log fire.

Nan looked up and threw him a little smile of greeting.

"Hullo, darling, there you are!" He stooped and kissed her, and she
forced herself to sit quiet and unshrinking while his lips sought and
found her own.

"Have you had a good day?" she asked.

"Topping. Best run of the season. We found at once and went right
away." And he launched out into an enthusiastic description of the
day's sport.

Nan listened patiently. She wasn't in the least interested, really,
but she had been trying very hard latterly not to let Roger pay for
what had been her own blunder--not to let him pay even in the small
things of daily life. So she feigned an interest she was far from
feeling and discussed the day's hunting with snatches of melody from
the concerto running through her mind all the time.

The man and woman offered a curious contrast as they talked; he, big,
virile, muddied with his day in the saddle, an aroma of mingled damp
and leather exuding from his clothes as they steamed in front of the
fire--she, slim, silken-clad, delicately wrought by nature and
over-finely strung by reason of the high-pitched artist's life she had
led.

Roger himself seemed suddenly struck by the contrast.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, surveying her rather ruefully. "We're a
pretty fair example of beauty and the beast, aren't we?"

Nan looked back at him composedly--at the strong, ugly face and
far-visioned eyes.

"Not in the least," she replied judicially. "We're--different, that's
all. And"--smiling faintly--"you're rather grubby just at present."

"I suppose I am." He glanced ruefully down at his mud-bespattered
coat. "I oughtn't to have come in here like this," he added with an
awkward attempt at apology. "Only I couldn't wait to see you."

"Well, go and have your tub and a change," she said, with a small,
indulgent laugh. "And by dinner time you'll have a better opinion of
your outward man."

It was not until after dinner that she mentioned the concerto to him,
snatching an opportunity when they chanced to find themselves alone for
a few minutes. Some distracted young married woman from the village
had called to ask Lady Gertrude's advice as to how she should deal with
a husband who seemed to find his chief entertainment in life in beating
her with a broomstick and in threatening to "do her in" altogether if
the application of the broomstick proved barren of wifely improvement.
Accordingly, Lady Gertrude, accompanied by her aide-de-camp, Isobel,
were interviewing the poor, terrified creature with a view to
ameliorating her lot.

"It's good, Roger," said Nan, when she had told him that the concerto
was finished. "It's really good. And I want you to hear it first of
anyone."

Roger smiled down at her. He was obviously pleased.

"Of course I must hear it first," he answered. "I'm your lawful lord
and master, remember."

"Not yet?" she objected hastily.

He threw his arm round her and pulled her into his embrace.

"No. But very soon," he said.

"You won't beat me, I suppose--like Mrs. Pike's husband?" she suggested
teasingly, with a gesture towards the room where Lady Gertrude and
Isobel were closeted with the woman from the village.

His arm tightened round her possessively.

"I don't know," he said slowly. "I might--if I couldn't manage you any
other way."

"Roger!"

There was almost a note of fear in her quick, astonished exclamation.
With his arm gripped round her she recognised how utterly powerless she
would be against his immense strength, and something flint-like and
merciless in the expression of those piercing eyes which were blazing
down at her made her feel, with a sudden catch at her heart, as though
he might actually do the thing he said.

"I hope it won't come to beating you," he resumed in a lighter tone of
voice. "But"--grimly--"not even you, when you're my wife, shall defy
me with impunity."

Nan drew herself out of his arms.

"Well, I'm not your wife yet," she said, trying to laugh away the
queer, unexpected tensity of the moment. "Only a very hard-working
young woman, who has a concerto to play to you."

He frowned a little.

"There's no need for you to work hard. I'd rather you didn't. I want
you just to enjoy life--have a good time--and keep your music as a
relaxation."

Her face clouded over.

"Oh, Roger, you don't understand! I _must_ do it. I couldn't live
without it. It fills my life."

His expression softened. He reached out his arm again and drew her
back to his side, but this time with a strange, unwonted tenderness.

"I suppose it does," he conceded. "But some day, darling, after we're
married, I hope there'll be something--someone--else to fill your life.
And when that time comes,--why, the music will take second place."

Nan flushed scarlet and wriggled irritably in his embrace.

"Oh, Roger, do try to understand! As if . . . having a child . . .
would make any difference. A baby's a baby, and music's music--the one
can't take the place of the other."

Roger looked a trifle taken aback. He held old-fashioned views and
rather thought that all women regarded motherhood as a duty and
privilege of existence. And, inside himself, he had never doubted that
if this great happiness were ever granted to Nan, she would lose all
those funny, unaccountable ways of hers--which alternately bewildered
and annoyed him--and turn into a nice, normal woman like ninety-nine
per cent. of the other women of his somewhat limited acquaintance.

Man has an odd trick of falling in love with the last kind of woman you
would expect him to, the very antithesis of the ideal he has previously
formulated to himself, and then of expecting her, after matrimony,
suddenly to change her whole individuality--the very individuality
which attracted him in the first instance--and conform to his
preconceived notions of what a wife ought to he.

It is illogical, of course, with that gloriously pig-headed
illogicalness not infrequently to be found in the supposedly logical
sex, and it would be laughable were it not that it so often ends in
tragedy.

So that Roger was quite genuinely dumbfounded at Nan's heterodox
pronouncement on the relative values of music and babies.

A baby was not in the least an object of absorbing interest to her. It
cried out of tune and made ear-piercing noises that were not included
in even the most modern of compositions. Moreover, she was not by
nature of the maternal type of woman, to whom marriage is but the
beautiful path which leads to motherhood. She was essentially one of
the lovers of the world. Had she married her mate, she would have
demanded nothing more of life, though, if a child had been born of such
mating, it would have seemed to her so beautiful and sure a link, so
blent with love itself, that her arms would have opened to receive it.

But of all these intricacies of the feminine heart and mind Roger was
sublimely ignorant. So he chided her, still with that same unwonted
gentleness which the thought of fatherhood sometimes brings to men of
strong and violent temper.

"That's all nonsense, you know, sweetheart. And some day . . . when
there's a small son to be thought about and planned for and loved,
you'll find that what I say is true."

"It might chance to be a small daughter," suggested Nan snubbily, and
Roger's face fell a little. "So, meanwhile, as I haven't a baby and I
_have_ a concerto, come along and listen to it."

He nodded and followed her into the West Parlour. A cheerful fire was
blazing on the hearth, a big lounge chair drawn up invitingly beside
it, while close at hand stood a small table with pipe, tobacco pouch,
and matches lying on it in readiness.

Roger smiled at the careful arrangement.

"What a thoughtful child it's becoming!" he commented, taking up his
pipe.

"Well, you can listen to music much better if you're really comfy,"
said Nan. "Sit down and light your pipe--there, I'll light it for you
when you've finished squashing the 'baccy down into it."

Roger dropped leisurely into the big chair, filled and lit his pipe,
and when it was drawing well, stretched out his legs to the logs' warm
glow with a sigh of contentment.

"Now, fire away, sweetheart," he said. "I'm all attention."

She looked across at him, feeling for the first time a little anxious
and uncertain of the success of her plan.

"Of course, it'll sound very bald--just played on the piano," she
explained carefully. "You'll have to try and imagine the difference
the orchestral part makes."

Switching off the lights, so that nothing but the flickering glow of
the fire illumined the room, she began to play.

For half an hour she played on, lost to all thoughts of the world
around her, wrapped in the melody and meaning of the music. Then, as
the _finale_ rushed in a torrent of golden chords to its climax and the
last note was struck, her hands fell away from the piano and she sank
back on her seat with a little sigh of exhaustion and happiness.

A pause followed. How well she remembered listening for that pause
when she played, in public!--The brief, pulsating silence which falls
while the thought of the audience steal back from the fairyland whither
they have wandered and readjust themselves reluctantly to the things of
daily life. And then, the outburst of applause.

In silence she awaited Roger's approval, her lips just parted, her face
still alight with the joy of the creator who knows that his work is
good.

But the words for which she was listening did not come. . . .
Instead--utter silence! . . . Wondering, half apprehensive of she knew
not what, Nan twisted round on the music-seat and looked across to
where Roger was sitting. The sharp, quick intake of her breath broke
the silence as might a cry. Weary after his long day in the saddle,
soothed by the warmth of the fire and the rhythm of the music, Roger
was sleeping peacefully, his head thrown back against a cushion!

Nan rose slowly and, coming forward into the circle of the firelight,
stared down at him incredulously. It was unbelievable! She had been
giving him all the best that was in her--the work of her brain, the
interpretation of her hands--baring her very heart to him during the
last half-hour. And he had slept through it all!

In any other circumstances, probably, the humorous side of the matter
would have struck her, and the sting and smart of it been washed away
in laughter.

But just now it was impossible for her to feel anything but bitterness
and hopeless disappointment. For weeks she had been working hard,
without the fillip of congenial atmosphere, doggedly sticking to it in
spite of depression and discouragement, and now that the results of her
labour were ready to be given to the world, she was strung up to a high
pitch and ill-prepared to receive a sudden check.

She had counted so intensely on winning Roger's sympathy and
understanding--on putting an end to that blundering, terrible jealousy
of his by playing the game to the limit of her ability. It had been
like making a burnt-offering for her to share the thing she loved best
with Roger--to let him into some of the secret places where dwelt her
inmost dreams and emotions. And she had nerved herself to do it, made
her sacrifice--in vain! Roger was even unconscious that it was a
sacrifice!

She looked down at him as he lay with the firelight flickering across
his strong-featured face, and a storm of fury and indignation swept
over her. She could have struck him!

Presently he stirred uneasily. Perhaps he felt the cessation of the
music, the sense of someone moving in the room. A moment later he
opened his eyes and saw her standing beside him.

"You, darling?" he murmured drowsily. He stretched his arms. "I
think . . . I've been to sleep." Then, recollection returning to him:
"By Jove! And you were playing to me--"

"Yes," she answered slowly. Her lips felt dry. "And I'll never play
to you again as long as I live!"

He smiled indulgently.

"That's putting it rather strong, isn't it?" he said, making a long arm
and pulling her down on to his knee.

She sprang up again instantly and stood a little away from him, her
hands clenched, her breast heaving tumultuously.

"Come back, small firebrand!" he commanded laughingly.

A fresh gust of indignation, swept over her. Even now he didn't
comprehend, didn't realise in the very least how he had wounded her.
Her nails dug into the flesh of her palms as she took a fresh grip of
herself and answered him--very slowly and distinctly so that he might
not miss her meaning.

"It's not putting it one bit too strong. It's what I feel--that I
can't ever play to you again." She paused, then burst out impetuously:
"You've always disliked my love of music! You were jealous of it. And
to-night I wanted to show you--to--to share it with you. You hated the
piano--you wanted to smash it, because you thought it came between us.
And so I tried to make you understand!" Her words came rushing out
headlong now, bitter, sobbing words, holding all the agony of mind
which she had been enduring for so long.

"You've no idea what music means to me--and you've not tried to find
out. Instead, you've laughed indulgently about it, been impatient over
it, and behaved as though it were some child's toy of which you didn't
quite approve." Her voice shook. "And it isn't! It's _part_ of
me--part of the woman you want to marry . . ."

She broke off, a little breathlessly.

Roger was on his feet now and there was a deep, smouldering anger in
his eyes as he regarded her.

"And is all this outburst because I fell asleep while you were
playing?" he asked curtly.

She was silent, battling with the emotion that was shaking her.

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