Margaret Pedler - The Moon out of Reach

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At dinner she was astonished to find that the house-party had decreased
by one. Ralph Fenton was absent.

"He left for town this morning, by the early train from St. Wennys
Halt," explained Kitty. "He was--was called away very suddenly," she
added blandly, in answer to Nan's surprised enquiries.

A somewhat awkward pause ensued, then everybody rushed into
conversation at once, so that Nan could only guess that some
contretemps must have occurred between Penelope and the singer of which
she was in ignorance. As soon as dinner was at an end she manoeuvred
Kitty into a corner and demanded an explanation.

"Why has Ralph gone away?" she asked. "And why did you look so
uncomfortable when I asked about him? And why did Penelope blush?"

"Could I have them one at a time?" suggested Kitty mildly.

"You can have them combined into one. Tell me, what's been happening
to-day?"

"Well, I gather that Ralph has been offering his hand and heart to
Penelope."

"It seems to be epidemic," murmured Nan _sotto voce_.

"What did you say?"

"Only that it seems an odd proceeding for a newly-engaged young man to
go careering off to London immediately."

"But he isn't engaged--that's just it. Penelope refused him."

"Refused him? But--but why?" asked Nan in amazement.

"You'd better ask her yourself. Perhaps you can get some sense out of
her--since you appear to be the chief stumbling-block."

"I?"

"Yes. I saw Ralph before he went away. He seemed very down on his
luck, poor dear! He's been trying to persuade Penelope to say yes and
to fix an early date for their wedding, as he's got the offer of a very
good short tour in America--really thumping fees--and he won't accept
it unless she'll marry him first and go with him."

"Well, I don't see how that's my fault."

"In a way it is. The only reason Penelope gave him as to why she
wouldn't consent was that she will never marry as long as you need her."

Nan digested this information in silence. Then she said quietly:

"If that's all, you can take off your sackcloth and ashes and phone
Ralph at his hotel to come back here to-morrow. I'll--I'll talk to
Penelope to-night."

Kitty stared at her in surprise.

"You seem very sure of the effect of your persuasions," she answered
dubiously.

"I am. Quite sure. It won't take me five minutes to convince Penelope
that there is no need for her to remain in a state of single
blessedness on my account. And now, I'm going out of doors to have a
smoke all by myself. You were quite right"--smiling briefly--"when you
said I should feel everything more to-day than yesterday. Do keep
people away from me, there's a good soul."

Kitty gave her a searching glance. But for two spots of feverishly
vivid colour in her cheeks, the girl's face was very pale, and her eyes
over-bright, with heavy shadows underlying them.

"Very well," she said kindly. "Tuck yourself up in one of the lounge
chairs and I'll see that no one bothers you."

But Nan was in no mood for a lounge chair. Lighting a cigarette, she
paced restlessly up and down the flagged path of the quadrangular
court, absorbed in her thoughts.

It seemed to her as though Fate had suddenly given her a gentle push in
the direction of marriage with Roger. She knew now that Penny had
refused Ralph solely on her account--so that she might not be left
alone. If she could go to her and tell her that she herself was about
to marry Trenby, then the only obstacle which stood in the way of
Penelope's happiness would be removed. Last night her thoughts had
swung from side to side in a ceaseless ding-dong struggle of
indecision, but this new factor in the matter weighted the scales
heavily in favour of her marrying Trenby.

At last she made up her mind. There were two chances, two avenues
which might lead away from him. Should both of these be closed against
her, she would yield to the current of affairs which now seemed set to
sweep her into his arms.

She would use her utmost persuasions to induce Penelope to marry Ralph
Fenton, irrespective of whether she herself proposed to enter the
matrimonial state or not. That was the first of her two chances. For
if she succeeded in prevailing upon Penelope to retract her refusal of
Ralph, she would feel that she had dealt at least one blow against the
fate which seemed to be driving her onward. The urgency of that last
push towards Roger would be removed! Then if Penelope remained
obdurate, to-morrow she would tell Trenby frankly that she had no love,
but only liking, to give him, and she would insist upon his facing the
fact that there had been someone else in her life who had first claim
upon her heart. That would be her other chance. And should Roger--as
well he might--refuse to take second best, then willy-nilly she would
be once more thrust forth into the troublous sea of longing and desire.
But if he still wanted her--why, then she would have been quite honest
with him and it would seem to be her destiny to be his wife. She would
leave it at that--leave it for chance, or fate, or whatever it is that
shapes our ends, to settle a matter that, swayed as she was by opposing
forces, she was unable to decide for herself.

She heaved a sigh of relief. After those wretched, interminable hours
of irresolution, when love, and fear of that same love, had tortured
her almost beyond bearing, it was an odd kind of comfort to feel that
she had given herself two chances, and, if both failed, to know that
she must abide by the result.

The turmoil of her mind drove her at last almost insensibly towards the
low, wide wall facing the unquiet sea. Here she sat down, still
absorbed in her thoughts, her gaze resting absently on the incoming
tide below. She was conscious of a strange feeling of communion with
the shifting, changeful waters.

As far as eye could see the great billows of the Atlantic,
silver-crested in the brilliant moonlight, came tumbling shoreward,
breaking at last against the inviolate cliffs with a dull, booming
noise like the sound of distant guns. Then came the suction of
retreat, as the beaten waves were hurled backwards from the fierce
headlands in a grey tumult of surging waters, while the big stones and
pebbles over which they swirled clashed and ground together, roaring
under the pull of the outgoing current--that "drag" of which any
Cornish seaman will warn a stranger in the grave tones of one who knows
its peril.

To right and left, at the foot of savage cliffs black against the
silver moonlight, Nan could see the long combers roll in and break into
a cloud of upflung spray, girdling the wild coast with a zone of misty,
moonlit spray that must surely have been fashioned in some dim world of
faery.

She sat very still, watching the eternal battle between sea and shore,
and the sheer splendour of it laid hold of her, so that for a little
while everything that troubled her was swept away. For the moment she
felt absolutely happy.

Always the vision, of anything overwhelmingly beautiful seemed to fill
her soul, drawing with it the memories of all that had been beautiful
in life. And watching this glory of moon and sea and shore, Nan felt
strangely comforted. Maryon Rooke had no part in it, nor Roger Trenby.
But her love for Peter and his for her seemed one and indivisible with
it. That, and music--the two most beautiful things which had entered
into her life.

. . . A bank of cloud, slowly spreading upward from the horizon,
suddenly clothed the moon in darkness, wiping out the whole landscape.
Only the ominous boom of the waves and the roar of the struggling beach
still beat against Nan's ears.

The vision had fled, and the grim realities of life closed round her
once again.

Late that evening she slipped into a loose wrapper--a very
characteristic little garment of lace and ribbons and clinging
silk--and marched down the corridor to Penelope's room. The latter was
diligently brushing her hair, but at Nan's abrupt entrance she laid
down the brush resignedly. She had small doubt as to the primary cause
of this late visit.

"Well?" she said, a faintly humorous twinkle gleaming in the depths of
her brown eyes, although there were tired shadows underneath them.
"Well?"

"Yes, you dear silly woman, of course you know what I've come about,"
responded Nan, ensconcing herself on the cushioned window seat.

"I'd know better if you were to explain."

"Then--in his words--why have you refused Ralph Fenton?"

"Oh, is that it?"--indifferently. "Because I don't want to marry--at
present." And Penelope picked up her brush and resumed the brushing of
her hair as though the matter were at an end.

"So that's why you told him--as your reason for refusing him--that you
wouldn't marry him as long as I needed you?"

The hair-brush clattered to the floor.

"The idiot!--I suppose he told Kitty?" exclaimed Penelope, making a
dive after her brush.

"Yes, he did. And Kitty told me. And now I've come to tell you that I
entirely decline to be a reason for your refusing to marry a nice young
man like Ralph."

Penelope was silent, and Nan, coming over to her side, slipped an arm
about her shoulders.

"Dear old Penny! It was just like you, but if you think I'm going to
let you make a burnt-offering of yourself in that way, you're mistaken.
Do you suppose"--indignantly--"that I can't look after myself?"

"I'm quite sure of it."

"Rubbish! Why, I've got Kitty and Uncle David and oh! dozens of people
to look after me!"

Penelope's mouth set itself in an obstinate line.

"I shall never marry till you do, Nan . . . because not one of the
'dozens' understand your--your general craziness as well as I do."

Nan laughed.

"That's rude--though a fairly accurate statement. But still, Penny
dear, just to please me, will you marry Ralph?"

"No"--with promptitude--"I certainly won't. If I married him at all,
it would be to please myself."

"Well," wheedled Nan, "wouldn't it please you--really?"

"We can't always do as we please in this world."

Nan grimaced.

"Hoots, lassie! Now you're talking like Aunt Eliza."

Penelope continued brushing her hair serenely and vouchsafed no answer.

Nan renewed the attack.

"It amounts to this, then--that I've got to get married in order to let
Ralph marry you!"

"Of course it doesn't!"

"Well, answer me this: If I were going to be married, would you give
Ralph a different answer?"

"I might"--non-committally.

"Then you may as well go and do it. As I _am_ going to be married--to
Roger Trenby."

"To Roger! Nan, you don't mean it? It isn't true?"

"It is--perfectly true. Have you anything to say against
it?"--defiantly.

"Everything. He's the last man in the world to make you happy."

"Time will decide that. In any case he's coming on Monday for my
answer. And that will be 'yes.' So you and Ralph can have your banns
put up with a clear conscience--as the only just cause and impediment
is now removed."

Penelope was silent.

"You ought to be rather pleased with me than otherwise," insisted Nan.

When at length Penelope replied, it was with a certain gravity.

"My dear, matrimony is one of the affairs of life in which it is fatal
to accept second best. You can do it in hats and frocks--it's merely a
matter of appearances--although you'll never get quite the same
satisfaction out of them. But you can't do it in boots and shoes. You
have to walk in those--and the second best wear out at once. Matrimony
is the boots and shoes of life."

"Well, at least it's better to have the second quality--than to go
barefoot."

"I don't think so. Nan, do wait a little. Don't, in a fit of angry
pique over Maryon Rooke, go and bind yourself irrevocably to someone
else."

"Penny, the bluntness of your methods is deplorable. Instead of
insinuating that I am accepting Roger as a _pis-aller_, it would be
more seemly if you would congratulate me and--wish me luck."

"I do--oh, I do, Nan. But, my dear--"

"No buts, please. Surely I know my own business best? I assure you,
Roger and I will be a model couple--an example, probably, to you and
Ralph! You'll--you'll say 'yes' to him to-morrow when he comes back
again, won't you, Penny?"

"He isn't coming back to-morrow."

"I think he is." Nan smiled. "You'll say 'yes' then?"

Penelope looked at her very straightly.

"Would you marry Roger in any case--whether I accepted Ralph or not?"
she asked.

Nan lied courageously.

"I should marry Roger in any case," she answered quietly.

A long silence ensued. Presently Nan broke it, her voice a little
sharpened by the tension of the moment.

"So when Ralph comes back you'll be--kind to him, Penny? You'll give
him the answer he wants?"

Penelope's face was hidden by a curtain of dark hair. After a moment
an affirmative came softly from behind the curtain.

With a sudden impulse Nan threw her arms round her and kissed her.

"Oh, Penny! Penny! I do hope you'll be _very_ happy!" she exclaimed
in a stifled voice. Then slipped from the room like a shadow--very
noiselessly and swiftly--to lie on her bed hour after hour staring up
into the blackness with wide, tearless eyes until sheer bodily
exhaustion conquered the tortured spirit which could find neither rest
nor comfort, and at last she slept.

CHAPTER XII

THE DOUBLED BARRIER

Except for one of Trenby's frequent telephone calls, enquiring as to
Nan's progress, Saturday passed uneventfully enough until the evening.
Then, through the clear summer dusk Kitty discerned the Mallow car
returning from the station whither it had been sent to meet Ralph's
train.

Hurrying down the drive, she saw Ralph lean forward and speak to the
chauffeur who slowed down to a standstill, while he himself sprang out
and came eagerly to her side.

"You angelic woman!" he exclaimed fervently. "How did you manage it?
Will she--will she really--"

"I think she will," answered Kitty, smiling. "So you needn't worry.
But I'm not the _dea ex machina_ to whom you owe the 'happy ending.'
Nan managed it--in some incomprehensible way of her own."

"Then blessed be Nan!" said Ralph piously, as he opened the door of the
car for her to enter. Two minutes' further driving brought them to the
house.

Following his hostess's instructions, Ralph remained outside, and as
Kitty entered the great hall, alone, a white-clad figure suddenly made
as though to escape by a further door.

"Come back, Penny," called Kitty, a hint of kindly mischief in her
voice. "You'll just get half an hour to yourselves before the
dressing-bell rings. Afterwards we shall expect to see you both,
clothed and in your right minds, at dinner."

The still look of happiness that had dwelt all day in Penelope's eyes
woke suddenly into radiance, just as you may watch the calm surface of
the sea, when the tide is at its full, break into a hundred sparkling
ripples at the vivifying touch of a wandering breeze.

She turned back hesitatingly, looking all at once absurdly young and a
little frightened--this tall and stately Penelope--while a faint
blush-rose colour ran swiftly up beneath the pallor of her skin, and
her eyes--those nice, humorous brown eyes of hers that always looked
the world so kindly and honestly in the face--held the troubled shyness
of a little child.

Kitty laid a gentle hand on her arm.

"Run along, my chicken," she said, suddenly feeling a thousand years
old as she saw Penelope standing, virginal and sweet, at the threshold
of the gate through which she herself had passed with happy footsteps
years ago--that gate which opens to the wondering fingers of girlhood,
laid so tremulously upon love's latch, and which closes behind the
woman, shutting her into paradise or hell.

"Run along, my chicken. . . . And give Ralph my blessing!"

* * * * * *

It was not until the next day, towards the end of lunch, that Ralph
shot his bolt from the blue. Other matters--which seemed almost too
good to be true in the light of Penelope's unqualified refusal of him
three days ago--had occupied his mind to the exclusion of everything
else. Nor, to give him his due, was he in the least aware that he was
administering any kind of shock, since he was quite ignorant as to the
actual state of affairs betwixt Nan and Maryon Rooke.

It was Kitty herself who inadvertently touched the spring which let
loose the bolt.

"What's the news in town, Ralph?" she asked. "Surely you gleaned
_something_, even though you were only there for a single night?"

Fenton laughed.

"Would I dare to come back to you without the latest?" he returned,
smiling. "The very latest is that Maryon Rooke is to be married."

A silence followed, as though a bombshell had descended in their midst
and scattered the whole party to the four winds of heaven.

Then Kitty, making a desperate clutch at her self-possession, remarked
rather superficially:

"Surely that's not true? I thought Maryon was far too confirmed a
bachelor to be beguiled into the holy bonds."

"It's perfectly true," returned Fenton. "First-hand source. I ran
across Rooke himself and it was he who told me. They're to be married
very shortly, I believe."

Fell another awkward silence. Then:

"So old Rooke will be in the cart with the rest of us poor married
men," observed Barry, whose lazy blue eyes had yet contrived to notice
that Nan's slim fingers were nervously occupied in crumbling her bread
into small pieces.

"In the car, rather," responded Ralph, "The lady is fabulously wealthy,
I believe. Former husband, a steel magnate or something of the sort."

"Well, that will help Maryon in his profession," said Nan, "with a
quiet composure that was rather astonishing. But, as usual, in a
social crisis of this nature, she seemed able to control her voice,
though her restless fingers betrayed her.

"Yes, presumably that's why he's marrying her," replied Ralph. "It
can't be a case of love at first sight"--grimly.

"Isn't she pretty, then?" asked Penelope.

"Plain as a pikestaff"--with emphasis. "I've met her once or
twice--Lady Beverley."

It appeared from the chorus which followed that everyone present knew
her more or less.

"I should think she is plain!" exclaimed Kitty heartily.

"Yes, she'd need to be very well gilded," commented her husband.

"You're all rather severe, aren't you?" suggested Lord St. John.
"After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

"Not with an artist," asserted Nan promptly. "He can't see beauty
where there isn't any."

To the depths of her soul she felt that this was true, and inwardly she
recoiled violently from the idea of Maryon's marriage. She had been
bitterly hurt by his treatment of her, but to a certain extent she had
been able to envisage the whole affair from his point of view and to
understand it.

A rising young artist, if he wishes to succeed, cannot afford to hamper
himself with a wife and contend with the endless sordid details of
housekeeping conducted on a necessarily economical scale. It slowly
but surely deadens the artist in him--the delicate creative inspiration
that is so easily smothered by material cares and worries. Nan refused
to blame Maryon simply because he had not married her then and there.
But she could not forgive him for deliberately seeking her out and
laying on her that strange fascination of his when, in his own heart,
he must have known that he would always ultimately place his art before
love.

And that he should marry Lady Beverley, a thoroughly commonplace woman
hung round with the money her late husband had bequeathed her, Maryon's
very antithesis in all that pertained to the beautiful--this sickened
her. It seemed to her as though he were yielding his birthright in
exchange for a mess of pottage.

Where was his self-respect that he could do this thing? The high
courage of the artist to conquer single-handed? Not only had he
trampled on the love which he professed to have borne her--and which,
in her innermost heart, she knew he _had_ borne her--but he was
trampling on everything else in life that mattered. She felt that his
projected marriage with Lady Beverley was like the sale of a soul.

When lunch was over, the whole party adjourned to the terrace for
coffee, and as soon as she decently could after the performance of this
sacred rite, Nan escaped into the rose-garden by herself, there to
wrestle with the thoughts to which Ralph's carelessly uttered news had
given rise.

They were rather bitter thoughts. She was aware of an odd sense of
loss, for whatever may have come between them, no woman ever quite
believes that the man who has once loved her will eventually marry some
other woman. Whether it happens early or late, it is always somewhat
of a shock. These marriages deal such a blow at faith in the
deathlessness of love, and whether the woman herself is married or not,
there remains always a secret and very tender corner in her heart for
the man who, having loved her unavailingly, has still found no other to
take her place even twenty or thirty years later.

Nan was conscious of an unspeakably deserted feeling. Maryon had gone
completely out of her life; Peter, the man she loved, could never come
into it; and the only man who strove for entrance was, as Penelope had
said, the last man in the world to make her happy.

Nevertheless, it seemed as though with gentle taps and pushes Fate were
urging them together--forcing her towards Roger so that she might
escape from forbidden love and the desperate fear and pain of it.

And then she saw him coming--it seemed almost as though her thought had
drawn him--coming with swift feet over the grassy slopes of the park,
too eager to follow the winding carriage-way, while the fallow-deer
bounded lightly aside at the sound of his footsteps, halting at a safe
distance to regard the intruder with big, timorous, velvety eyes.

Nan paused in the middle of the rose-garden, where a stone sundial
stood--grey and weather-beaten, its warning motto half obliterated by
the tender touches of the years:

"Time flies. Remember that each breath
But wafts thy erring spirit nearer death."

Rather nervously, while she waited for Trenby to join her, she traced
the ancient lettering with a slim forefinger. He crossed the lawn
rapidly, pausing beside her, and without looking up she read aloud the
grim couplet graven round the dial.

"That's a nice cheery motto," commented Trenby lightly. "They must
have been a lugubrious lot in the good old days!"

"They weren't so afraid of facing the truth as we are," Nan made answer
musingly. "I wonder why we always try to shut our eyes against the
fact of death? . . . It's there waiting for us round the corner all
the time."

"But there's life and love to come first," flashed out Roger.

Nan looked at him thoughtfully.

"Not for everyone," she said. Then suddenly: "Why are you here to-day,
Roger? I told you to come on Monday."

"I know you did. But I couldn't wait. It was horrible, Nan, just
getting a few words over the 'phone twice a day to say how you were. I
had to see for myself."

His eyes sought her throat where the lash of the hunting-crop had
wealed it. The mark had almost disappeared. With a sudden, passionate
movement he caught her in his arms and pressed his lips against the
faint scar.

"Nan!" he said hoarsely. "Nan, say 'yes'! Say it quickly!"

She drew away from him, freeing herself from the clasp of his arms.

"I'm not sure it is 'yes.' You must hear what I have to say first.
You wouldn't listen the other day. But to-day, Roger, you must--you
_must_."

"You're not going to take back your promise?" he demanded jealously.

"It wasn't quite a promise, was it?" she said gently. "But it's for
you to decide--when you know everything."

"Then I'll decide now," he answered quickly. "I want you--Nan, how I
want you! I don't care anything at all about the past--I don't want to
know anything--"

"But you must know"--steadily. "Perhaps when you know--you won't want
me."

"I shall always want you."

Followed a pause. Then Nan, with an effort, said quietly:

"Do you want to marry a woman who has no love to give you?"

He drew a step nearer.

"I'll teach you how to love," he said unevenly. "I'll make you love
me--love me as I love you."

"No, no," she answered. "You can't do that, Roger. You can't."

His face whitened. Then, with his piercing eyes bent on her as though
to read her inmost thoughts, he asked:

"What do you mean? Is there--anyone else?"

"Yes." The answer came very low.

"And you care for him?"

She nodded.

"But we can never be anything to each other," she said, still in that
same low, emotionless voice.

"Then--then--you'd grow to care--"

"No. I shall never care for anyone else again. That love has burnt up
everything--like a fire." She paused. "You don't want to marry--an
empty grate, do you?" she asked, with a sudden desperate little laugh.

Roger's arm drew her closer.

"Yes, I do. And I'll light another fire there and by its warmth we'll
make our home together. I won't ask much, Nan dear--only to be allowed
to love you and make you happy. And in time--in time, I'll teach you
to love me in return and to forget the past. Only say yes, sweetheart!
I'll keep you so safe--so safe!"

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