“What else?”
“You talked of being my father.”
That was in the beginning. Bat it changed, didn’t it? I’ll be everything to you, Nora. You’ll lack nothing. “
“I’m bewildered.”
“Not you, Nora. You knew it, really. I was aware of it. You knew it and were glad.”
But . “
“There are no buts. I have planned it all.”
“Without consulting me?”
He laughed.
“A touch of the old Nora. Yes, without consulting you in so many words, but it was clear to us both, wasn’t it? When we sat there playing our chess, when I let you win the set. You didn’t think you could have done that if I hadn’t allowed you to, do you?”
I said slowly: “And Jagger?”
His eyes narrowed. His emotions frightened and yet in some strange way thrilled me. There was a violent hatred on his face.
“Jagger!” he cried.
“Yes, by God, Jagger!”
“You killed him. You killed a man.”
“My love, he had to die. I could never have looked at him again without wanting to murder him. I would have killed him with my own hands some time. At least I let him die quickly.”
“Oh, Lynx,” I said weakly, ‘you frighten me. “
“I frighten you} When I love you! And I’ve never loved anyone as I love you. Arabella! What a fantasy! It was my pride that suffered there. I wanted Whiteladies. I wanted to live in that house with my wife and children. And I’m going to, Nora.”
“You go too fast,” I said.
“My imperious Nora!” he retorted with a smile.
“Would you have me go slowly? We are going to Whiteladies, you and I; and you shall sit at the table on the dais where kings and queens have sat; and the nursery at the top of the house where poor simple Arabella learned her ABC will be for our children. “
“I have not yet said that I agree.”
“My darling, you will not be allowed to do anything else.”
“If I refuse.”
“You won’t.”
“What does … Stirling say? Have you told him?”
“He knows something of my plans.”
“He knows that you are asking me to marry you?”
“He knows. Adelaide knows. They have guessed at my feelings for you for some time past.”
“And Stirling … he thinks it is a good idea?”
“Of course. He realizes the strength of my feelings for you.”
“And that means that he will wish it too.”
“He has been a good son. He has always been eager for my happiness.”
“I see.”
“So it is only for my imperious Nora to say that she loves me, which I know she does.”
“You are adopting that irritating habit of speaking of me as though I’m not here as you did when you tried to demoralize me on my arrival.”
He laughed delightedly.
“Cruel of me. And foolish really because it never succeeded for a moment, did it? We’ll announce to the family that the ceremony is to take place. You know I’m not a man for wasting time.”
“I will not be hurried into anything. I like to make my own decisions.”
“So you shall, for I see that you are as eager for this ceremony to take place as I am.”
“You take too much for-granted. I was not prepared for this, I do assure you. I thought of you as my father …”
“I will make a better husband than a father, you see.”
I held him off. I said: “I want time … time. I shall say nothing until I have thought about this.”
“Tonight I am going to announce to them our imminent marriage.”
“Not yet,” I protested and then wondered why I had put it that way, as though it would come in due course. Marry Lynx! It was a bewildering and exciting project. What had y feelings for him been—something beyond that of an adopted daughter towards a father—and yet there was Stirling.
Stirling! He knew of this and accepted it. I would live ‘s an incongruous situation, but it was what Lynx had been planning.
I turned away but he was at the door before me, barring my way. His eyes were brilliant with a passion which alarmed me as I had been alarmed when I stood face to face with Jagger, and yet at the same time I had no desire to run away from him.
He took my chin in his hands and lifted my face to his.
“You are afraid,” he said, ‘afraid of what you have not yet experienced. You have discoveries to make, Nora. We’ll make them together. You have nothing to fear, my darling. “
His face was close to me, those gleaming jungle eyes alight with a passion of which I could only guess.
I held him off.
“No,” I said.
“Not yet. I must go away. I must think.
I insist. If you announce anything I should deny it. I will not be forced. “
He dropped his hands.
“You are afraid of me. Oh God, Nora, is that true?”
“Why will you harp on fear? It is not fear. I object to being told whom I shall marry and when the ceremony will take place before I have been consulted. If this marriage took place it would have to be understood that I am not a puppet to be moved this way and that, nor should I be expected to bow down and worship my husband as though he were one of the gods stepped down from Olympus.”
“Oh Nora, you delight me. So my darling wants time to think. She wants to make her own decisions. My only wish is to give her everything in the world she asks for. This is a small thing compared with the gifts I shall shower on her.”
“The first thing I ask is that you stop that ridiculous habit. It infuriates me.”
We were laughing again—back for a moment to the old relationship.
“Now,” I said, “I will leave you. I will go to my room and when I have decided I will tell you.”
He dropped the hands which had imprisoned me. As I turned he caught me and I felt his lips on my neck. I wanted both to stay and to escape; and as ever, I did not understand my feelings.
I went to my room and closed the door. I stood against it pressing my cool palms to my burning cheeks.
You knew it, I accused myself, and you refused to see it.
You had made up your mind that you would marry Stirling. tt had all seemed so right and natural. But I love Stirling, ( protested.
Yes, you love Stirling. And Lynx.
I could think of no one but Lynx. He filled my mind as he seemed to dominate every room in which he stood. He was exciting; he was magnificent; he was more than human.
I tried to be calm. Marry Lynx! Be with him day and night! I was so inexperienced of life. I had so much to learn of men and marriage; and Lynx would be my instructor. I was aghast at the thought and yet completely obsessed by it. I love Stirling, I kept telling myself. It was always Stirling, ever since we stood on the deck of the Carron Star together. Yes, but at that time I had not met Lynx.
Yet having met Lynx my feelings towards Stirling had not changed. I remembered that terrible night when we had lain in the cave together and had known that we might never come out alive; and when we had emerged and had known that after all we had a future, it had been like an unspoken declaration of love.
Yet even in the cave Lynx had been constantly in my thoughts—in both our thoughts.
If I married Lynx I should be Stirling’s stepmother. Stepmother to the man I had thought of marrying! It was incongruous. Suppose I talked to Stirling? Suppose he told me he loved me? We should have to go away.
We could not marry and live under the same roof as Lynx, now that he had declared his passionate need of me.
But when I thought of life without Lynx I was filled with dismay. It would be flat and dull. With Stirling? Yes, perhaps even with him. But Lynx would never allow us to go away. That thought comforted me. I remembered vividly the sight of him on his white horse, the gun in his hands. A murderer! He said he would do the same to any man who laid hands on roe. And Stirling?