Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean - Страница 40

Everard said: “I have been trying to get to you the whole evening. There were so many things I had to do. My mother said that, since this is Margaret’s dance and the squire suggested I should open it with her in his place, I must dance quite a number of dances with Margaret. And,” he added severely, ‘when I did come to you, you were very busily engaged elsewhere.”

The flattery of this to one who, such a short time ago, was but a child in a nursery, bullied by Charles, tormented by Jennifer, whipped and made to realize that she was of no importance whatever, was intoxicating.

“Well,” she said, ‘could I sit waiting for you all the evening?”

“No,” said Everard.

“Let us dance.”

They danced, and all arrogance dropped from her shoulders then; she adored Everard, and this was the great moment of her evening.

“How pretty you are, Carolan! I did not know how pretty until tonight.”

Little waves of pleasure ran all over her. She tossed her head.

“Then it is my gown you find so pretty!” she challenged.

“Your gown! My dear Carolan, I have not looked at it.”

“Ah.” she cried.

“Shut your eyes, Everard, and tell me what ” it is.”

He closed his eyes; she looked up at him. Oh, he was wonderful beautiful and wonderful! And she had never been as happy in her life as now.

“Blue,” he said.

“You are thinking of Margaret!” she told him.

“No,” he said, with a seriousness that made her heart beat very fast.

“I am thinking of no one but you. Carolan, when I saw you flirting so outrageously with that young man…”

“Everard! I… flirting!”

“Exactly!” said Everard.

“Flirting! Inviting compliments -perhaps demanding them! Oh, Carolan, what has happened to you? You are different tonight.”

“I am a young woman at her first ball, Everard. Yesterday I was a child in a nursery.”

“Carolan, you alarm me. You are being a little silly tonight.

Carolan.”

“Let me be silly, Everard. I am so happy! I have never had a ball dress before. I have never before been to a ball. Is not a little silliness pardonable?”

“Perhaps,” said Everard, ‘but it grieves me.”

“Then I will be silly no longer, because I hate to grieve you, Everard.”

“Carolan… you say such things!”

“Everard, you too are different tonight.”

“No,” he said, “I am not or if I am it is entirely due to the difference in you. I have been very, very fond of you for a long time.”

“And I of you, Everard.”

“You are not very old, Carolan.”

“You forget… I grew up overnight!”

“Ah! How I wish you had!”

“But you said you were fond of me as I was.”

“Carolan, there are times when you frighten me. You are so impulsive.”

“And you, Everard, are far from impulsive; that is why you do not like that in me.”

“Who said I did not like it? Perhaps it is that I like. Carolan, I had not meant to speak to you tonight__but I am going to, because I must. I am afraid, Carolan.”

“Afraid? Of what?” She looked over her shoulder as though she expected to see something fearful there.

He laughed.

“You baby!” he said.

“I do not like being called a baby,” she said with dignity.

“But you are one. And such I will call you if I wish to.”

“Everard, you look most unlike yourself.”

“I have learned something, Carolan. I cannot talk about it in here; let us go outside. Let us go to the summerhouse; there we can be alone and talk. Will you come?”

Would she come? She would have followed him to the end of the earth if he asked.

Daintily she picked her way across the grass, lifting the green brocade, feeling not Carolan the child, but a lady who found life intriguing and full of adventure.

Everard shut the door of the summerhouse, and when he spoke his gentle voice was hoarse.

“Carolan, I told you that, seeing you tonight, I was afraid.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Carolan, dear little Carolan, do you remember when Charles locked you in the vault?”

“Yes, Everard.”

“And I came and found you there, and you lay across my knees and were so frightened? Oh, Carolan, that was when it began… That was when I began to love you.”

“Did you, Everard?”

“Yes. Just as a child then, as a little sister. You were so frightened and I was angry, more angry than I had ever been in my life.”

“You gave him a black eye, and he had such difficulty in explaining!”

He caught her hands, and they laughed.

“What do you feel for me, Carolan?” he asked.

“Would I not love the person who rescued me from that horror?”

“But love is more than that…”

“But that was the beginning. I loved and loved and loved you, Everard. You did not show any sign of loving me.”

“Did I not?” he asked in surprise, and she laughed with pleasure, thinking of those days; and it was all part of the pleasure of this evening that Margaret had ceased to love him.

“Not a bit!” she said, and laughing, moving nearer to him, she murmured: “And do you now, Everard ? I am not so sure.”

It was invitation, and Everard took it; he put his arms about her. He would have kissed her gently on the mouth, but there was no gentleness in Carolan. Everard was a little shocked, and because it was exciting to be shocked, he was enchanted with her. He had meant to explain, as one would to a child, that he loved her, that one day he would marry her perhaps in one year, perhaps in two; he had meant to be gentle; but it was Carolan who was leading the way and she sixteen, while he had lived twenty-four years. Carolan was no child; she was a woman because she had been born a woman.

She said: “For so long I have wanted you to kiss me, darling!”

And he drew back, still shocked, but mightily intrigued. This was so different from what he had imagined; he had rehearsed little speeches … “Do not be frightened, Carolan. You are too young to understand … You will be safe with me. I will wait until you are ready …” And she put her lips to his, and there was a quiver of passion in her as she said: “For so long I have wanted you to kiss me!”

He said rather hesitantly: “Carolan, let us sit down.” They sat, and he put his arms about her; she caught his fingers and held them fast against her breast. He thought, she is so innocent, this little Carolan I And he made up his mind to marry her soon and look after her. Wayward she might be, as her mother evidently was, but she was sweet and impulsive and loving and passionate, She needed a curbing hand; and it should be his gentle hand “You know I shall be leaving here soon, Carolan. I shall have a ( living and … and … I shall want you to come with me as my wife.”

Through half-closed eyes she saw the moonlit garden, the outline of trees and hedges. There was a scent of lime trees in the summerhouse, and this was the happiest moment of her life.

“Everard,” she said, I will come. Any time you wish, I will come. I will come tomorrow.”

He laughed gently and put his lips to her mouth, because he longed to feel the eagerness rising in her. It delighted him, alarmed him a little.

“My darling,” he said, “I shall not ask you to come tomorrow. These things need a good deal of arranging, you know.”

She lay back in the seat, and he saw her wide eyes, her parted lips.

“Ah, but I meant if you wanted me to come tomorrow, I would.”

“My sweet Carolan! But think, there is your family and mine!”

“But, Everard, what do we care for them? It is you and I… is it not?”

She was like a wild bird, he thought. She was enchanting; she was delightful. He wanted to fall on her and kiss her, and blot out the rest of the world as surely she was inviting him to. He remembered his sober years. I am a man; she is but a child, for all her exciting ways, her ball dress and her passionate love. The exciting things were so often forbidden, were they not? The things that appealed to the senses must be eschewed. Oh, yes, that was what he had always thought. In the days of his boyhood he had thought of entering a monastery; suffering hardship for his faith; he used to think up forms of self-torment as other boys invent new games. In those days he had told himself he would never marry, and he had meant it too, until Carolan came, with that particular quality in her which turned his thoughts from his religion to sensual love. He had compromised then; a priest may take a wife, may he not? He was no Catholic no monk! He shivered to think of the predicament he might have been in, had his mother granted his wish to enter a monastery.