“Surely you don’t find anyone as interesting as yourself?”
“At the moment—much as it may surprise you—I do.” He turned to me suddenly and went on: “Let’s drop the banter. Let us talk seriously.”
“Please begin.”
“We have something in common you and I. You realize that.”
“I cannot think what.”
“Then you are not seriously thinking. Our pasts, of course. That’s what we both have to put behind us. You tonight…” He put his hand up suddenly and with astonishing tenderness touched my cheek. “You are grieving for your genius. It’s no use. He’s dead. You have to forget him. You have to begin again. When will you learn that?”
“And you?”
“I too have much to forget.”
“You make no attempt to forget.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Those pieces I played.”
“I know, I chose them deliberately.”
“You knew.”
“I read it in one of the papers. The last he played.”
“How like you to remind me!”
“But you have taken a step away from your grief tonight. Did you know? You faced up to life. I’ll swear you had never played those pieces since he died.”
“No, not till tonight.”
“Now you will play them often. It’s a sign that you’ve moved on a bit.”
“And you chose them for my good?”
“You won’t believe me if I say yes. If I say I chose them to discountenance you, you will I suppose.”
“I believe,” I said, “that I should believe what you told me tonight.”
He turned to me suddenly. I wanted to hold him off yet to draw him on. I could not understand what had happened to him…or to myself. He was different. I was different. I was unsure of myself. I felt I should not stay here with him. There was something evil about this night…this moon…this garden…and about him.
“Why…tonight?” he asked me.
“I think you will tell the truth…tonight.”
He lifted his hands; I thought he was going to touch me. But he refrained from doing so. Then he said: “I chose those pieces deliberately. I wanted you to play them because it’s better to face up to life and not turn away from it.”
“And you are doing that?”
He nodded.
“That is why you remind everyone that you shot your brother?”
“You see,” he said, “it’s true that we have something in common. We have to escape from the past.”
“Why should I want to escape?”
“Because you will go on grieving until you do. Because you have built up an ideal which grows rosier with every year and quite unlike what it was in reality.”
“How do you know what it was in reality?”
“I know a great deal about you.”
“What?”
“What you have told me.”
“You seem to be very interested in me.”
“I am. Didn’t you realize that?”
“I thought I was beneath your notice.”
Then he laughed and it was the old laugh—mocking, taunting.
He said suddenly: “You are fascinated by this place.”
I admitted it.
“And the people in it?”
“I always find people interesting.”
“But we are a little…unusual, aren’t we?”
“It’s usual for people to be unusual.”
“Have you ever known anyone else who killed his brother?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t that make me unique?”
“Accidents can happen to anyone.”
“You’re determined to dismiss the general view that it was not an accident?”
“I’m sure it was.”
“I should now take your hand…so…and raise it to my lips.” He did so. “I should kiss it in gratitude…” His lips scorched my skin; the kiss was fervent, frightening. I withdrew my hand as casually as I could.
“Should I?” he asked.
“Certainly not. There is nothing for which to be grateful. It seemed to me a perfectly logical explanation. An accident.”
“And you are always so logical, Mrs. Verlaine?”
“I try to be.”
“Dispensing sympathy where it is deserved.”
“Isn’t that where it should be dispensed?”
“You knew of course that I was sent to Australia…to a cousin of my father’s. He couldn’t bear the sight of me…my father I mean…after the accident. My mother killed herself. They said it was because of my brother’s death. Two deaths at my door. Well, you can understand it, can’t you? I was such a reminder. So off I went to my father’s cousin who was a grazier some eighty miles north of Melbourne. I thought I should stay there until the end of my life.”
“And you were content to do that?”
“Never. This was where I belonged, and when the opportunity came, I did not hesitate. I accepted my father’s bargain.”
“Well, now you are back and all is well.”
“Is it, Mrs. Verlaine?” He moved nearer to me. “How strange it seems to be sitting in this moonlit garden and talking seriously to Mrs. Verlaine. I know your name is Caroline. Caro, your genius called you.”
“How could you know that?”
“I read it. It was in the paper, you know. It said he spoke to you when you came into the dressing room. All he could say was: ‘It’s all right, Caro…’”
I felt my lips quiver. I burst out: “You are deliberately trying to—”
“To hurt you? I want you to face it…Caro. I want you to face it and then you can turn your back on it. That’s what we both have to do.”
There was a strange tremor in his voice and I turned to him. He put out his hands and it was as though he said: Help me. And I wanted to say: We’ll help each other. Because oddly enough I believed him then. And I was glad…glad to be there with him in that moonlit garden which had a kind of magic which had driven away the evil.
He took my hands in his suddenly. And I did not withdraw them. We sat on the seat looking at each other and I knew that something had grown up between us which neither of us could deny.
And suddenly I was afraid, afraid of my emotions—and his.
I stood up.
I said: “It’s a little chilly. I think I should return to the house.”
He had changed; the arrogance had dropped from him. Or did I deceive myself? Was the moonlight playing tricks?
I was unsure of all but one thing: I only knew I had to get away from him.
5
I had dined with Alice and her mother and had come to my room to prepare the next day’s lesson. I had not seen Napier since the night of my performance and it was very hard for me to believe that I had not exaggerated in some way the scene in the moonlit garden. I had been overwrought on that night: and he, of course, had been aware of this. I must not forget that he was Edith’s husband, and that he might well be a philanderer for there was Allegra to bear that out. And how foolish had I been on that night? It was true I had not lingered in the garden but looking back I was sure I had been ready to delude myself. I wondered whether he remembered that scene with amusement.
I really must get the man out of my thoughts and concentrate on work.
There was a knock at my door. Alice stood there; she looked excited or frightened out of her usual gravity.
“You asked me to tell you, Mrs. Verlaine. I—I’ve seen the light in the chapel. You said to tell you…”
“Where?” I said, moving toward the window.
“You can see it better from my room,” she said. “Please come.”
She led the way to the schoolroom which was close to her mother’s rooms and her own. We climbed a short spiral staircase and she took me into a neat little room with dainty curtains and a small bed covered with a chintz counterpane—a dainty room reflecting Alice’s personality. She led me to the window and we stood side by side looking out across the grounds to the darkness of the copse.