Demon Lover Page 14

  Lucas she felt: sure she would meet again in another life, but would they meet again in this life? He had gone out prematurely, in the prime of his strength, his work unfinished, and all his desires focussed upon this earth ; it was a very different death to that of an old man who had worked out his allotted span, whose hold on life had been steadily loosening, and whose friends were awaiting him beyond the veil ; such a one might be held to be finding his freedom when he shed his body, but Lucas was a frustrated soul, and she knew he would return if it were within his power. A sudden thought struck her, was it Lucas that the dog had seen, and at whom it had howled? Had he really come back and was he in the neighbourhood? And if so, how could she get in touch with him? She sat up erect in her chair as the thought took hold of her. Forgotten was her terror of Lucas in the Bloomsbury days, she only remembered the man of the final forty-eight hours, she only felt the strange bond that existed between them, a bond that death had but served to strengthen.

  As she pondered, a sound upon the gravel outside drew her attention to the window, something was moving in the darkness ; her heart stood still, for such stealthy movements are little liked in a lonely country house that contains only two women. A shadow came up to the uncurtained window and stood looking in, and she saw that it was the old mastiff who had got loose from his kennel and now stood gazing into the lighted room, his eyes gleaming green with the reflection of the lamp. These strange, incandescent eyes put her in mind of Lucas when he hypnotized her, his eyes seemed to shine with an inner light in just the same way ; in fact, Lucas seemed very close to her to-night.

  She had no fear of the dog ; dogs were her passion, and she was in two minds about inviting him in to share the warmth of the hearth when he settled the matter for himself by rearing up on his hind legs and setting his fore-paws against the window ; the crazy fastenings gave way for a second time that evening, and in he came, a great brindled beast, the black of his muzzle touched with white, for he was an old dog.

  Veronica crossed the room and closed the window behind him, for the night was cold. The dog walked over to the fire and stood upon the hearth rug looking round the room ; he did not wander about sniffing, after the custom of dogs in a strange place, but, using his eyes rather than his nose, he turned his head from side to side, surveying his surroundings, and especially Veronica.

  She returned to her seat by the fire, and he came and stood before her, gazing into her face with his brown dog's eyes. She leant forward and returned his gaze. “What was it you howled at last night ?” she said. The dog blew out his nostrils and woofed heavily, and a clumsy paw scrabbled at her skirt. He came nearer and laid his heavy black jowl on her knee and looked up at her with the worried expression that the facial wrinkles give to a mastiff. She bent down, and, looking straight into his eyes, spoke : “If you meet Mr. Lucas again, tell him I want to see him.”

  The dog gave a great woof, as if of relief, and sat down on his haunches. His mouth opened, his red tongue came out, and he grinned as only a dog can grin. Veronica did not quite like that grin ; there was something sinister in the way this dumb animal was laughing at her. “Lie down,” she said, indicating the hearth rug, and obediently he disposed himself as she had directed. She herself took up some fancy-work, and the dog lay at her feet, motionless but watching every movement, till bedtime came and she rose.

  “Come along,” she said to her companion, “I must fasten you up for the night.” He followed her to the window, and laying a hand on his massive neck, she guided him back to the yard, the great creature padding beside her upon silent feet. There she discovered that he had escaped from his chain by slipping his head out of his collar, so she discreetly drew the strap one hole tighter, for she did not like the idea of this great: dog being at liberty ; true, he had shown himself a friendly enough creature, but his silent appearance at the window had had in it something of the sinister ; this looming up out of the darkness had seemed to let the night in upon her, as if a rush of the invisible denizens of the underworld had entered with him. She returned to the lamp-lit sitting-room through the window that she had left open behind her ; but even here she did not find refuge, it seemed as if a darkness had entered during her absence that the light of the lamp failed to dispel ; the flickering flames of the wood fire, now rising, now falling as the logs stirred in their burning, cast fitful gleams into the darkness till it seemed as if the eyes of the great goggling fish in the glass cases were alight with life. Veronica lit her candle and hastened upstairs away from those ill-omened shadows.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  IN THE MORNING HER NERVOUSNESS SEEMED ridiculous. True, she still shrank from the idea of the mastiff being free to roam about the house, but then he was a large and powerful dog and would be a very ugly customer should his present good-will be changed to resentment, and a dog who has been a chained watch-dog all his life is not apt to have the sweetest of tempers. Something about him, however, attracted while it repelled ; he was a dog that gave a curious impression of personality, as some dogs do who are deep in the confidence of their masters and who seem to have acquired a human view-point from their constant association with human beings.

  After breakfast Veronica went to pay him a visit and see if he suffered any after-effects from his curious indisposition of the night before. He did not come out to greet her, as she had half expected he would after his previous friendliness, and it was not until she knelt down at the entrance to his barrel that a head was thrust out in response to her summons. A pair of misty eyes blinked dazedly at the sunlight, then the head was withdrawn again and no appeals of hers could induce it to reappear, though the eyes glowed with a strange green animal fire out of the darkness ; it seemed to Veronica as if the saliva of the jaws were faintly phosphorescent, and the whole “feel” of dog, kennel, and surroundings was so repellent that she drew hastily back and hurried away from the yard and its sinister occupant.

  By the time she had reached the lawn in front of the terrace she was half minded to return ; it was ridiculous to feel like this about the dog ; the previous evening she had quite liked the friendly old thing, and anyway, the animal was obviously ailing. Seeing the gardener among the shrubs, she went over and spoke to him concerning the dog's condition, and he told her that the animal had refused its food that morning, but that he did not care for the task of examining it single-handed ; there was a very good vet. in the village, however, and if Miss Mainwaring liked, he would ask him to come round and have a look at it, and Veronica agreed that this should be done if the creature did not seem alright by the following morning.

  Wrapping herself in Lucas's coat, which had become her regular wear now that the weather had turned colder, Veronica went for a walk down by the river-side, trying to blot out from her memory the image of the glowing eyes and faintly luminous muzzle that she had seen in the darkness of the kennel. Her walk took her past the row of labourers’ cottages that stood a little way down the lane ; several children were playing outside who regarded her with an awed curiosity, and of the glances she received through the open doors from their elders, some were pitying and some were hostile. Veronica passed on ; their opinions did not trouble her, she belonged to another world, whose denizens, hostile or friendly, were not of this plane of existence, and only such human beings could be her fellows as also had the freedom of that world. The hard-faced man, though he had been hostile, was nearer to her, in some subtle way, than Alec Butler, well as she had got to know the latter ; and as for old Dr. Winthrop, he seemed to be almost a blood-relation ; she made up her mind that she would take counsel with him should Alec ask her to marry him, as she felt convinced he was going to.

  She could not make up her mind concerning Alec. Her old self would have been well enough content with his easy, pleasant surfaces, but her present self had known Lucas, and the heights and depths. She was torn between her two selves, she felt that, according as she willed, she might be either one or the other, but she could not be both, there was no possibility of b
lending them. Should she wish to become again the Veronica of the Surrey hills, then her way of return lay by the path that Butler was opening before her. She was powerless to return alone ; so far had she penetrated into the hidden kingdom that the riven veil had closed behind her ; only a close union with a dweller in the outer world could draw her back. All this she knew by means of an inner intuition that day by day was becoming more acute ; almost like a voice, it seemed at times, so that Veronica was sometimes tempted to personalize it ; her Friend of the Shadows, she called it, and visualized it as a bright, radiant Being that moved upon feet of flame, of the same order of creation as the Presence to which she had become accustomed during those strange flights of the soul upon which Lucas had sent her in the far-off days at the old house in the Bloomsbury square. She remembered the great Hand that had closed behind her the gates of the invisible world, sealing them with the Sign of the Cross ; she had been forbidden to seek that world again, but now in a strange, subtle way it seemed to be approaching her ; impalpably, imperceptibly, as objects loom into sight as a dawn advances, her gradually quickening senses were perceiving dim outlines in another state of existence ; sometimes she would perceive intangible presences, and sometimes the intangible factor in living beings that seemed in an impalpable way to image forth their inmost, hidden thoughts and the secret essence of their souls. Fair words or a pleasant face no longer counted with Veronica, it was by this subtle emanation she judged, as a dog is said to identify its master, and she experienced comfort or discomfort according to the quality of this subtle aroma. It: was the faintness of this spiritual flavour that rendered Butler distasteful to her ; in her own mind she likened him to a lemon squash made by someone who had been mean with the lemon ; the faint tang of a negative presence spoiled the pure water of solitude, and there was not enough of the flavour of personality for companionship ; his voice had no feeling behind it, his physical presence no force. Looking at his clear-cut, handsome face and big powerful form, Veronica wondered whether it was she who was to blame ; had her taste in these intangible spiritual flavours been vitiated by her association with Lucas ? Could she, if she no longer received unhealthful stimuli, grow accustomed to a wholesome but insipid diet ? All Veronica's early training, the influence of her home-life, her religious teaching, bade her forget the macabre dream of the past months and return to the healthy normal life symbolized by Butler.

  It seemed as if her guardian angel stood at the cross-roads, and said to her : “This way lies peace and a simple happiness. That way lie battle and storm, and a soul to be snatched from the burning. We would not have you driven to such a destiny, therefore we have placed before you an alternative that your choice may be free.”

  But she had known Lucas, and she could not forget. He had opened up to her soul wide vistas down which go the paths that lead over the horizon ; he had taught her the need of spaciousness ; could she ever settle down within the small circle of protecting walls that would be drawn around her should she cast in her lot with Alec ? Would the friendship of the village respectables compensate her for the closing of the veil ?

  It would not ! Veronica knew that it would not, and it was only because she had glimpsed the sinister side of the Unseen that she could even contemplate such a thing. The little cold wind that died down as suddenly as it sprang up—the strange glow of the mastiff's eyes seen in the darkness of his kennel—if it had not been for these things she would not have looked at Butler, but they seemed to presage a strange world of unknown horrors that might at any moment close in upon her, and from which he, and he alone, could save her ; should she remain by herself, then, step by step, she would be drawn deeper into the unseen world of whose heights and depths she had hitherto had but fugitive glimpses.

  It was this dread that made her try to see all the best that was in Butler and what he had to offer her, and to esteem a tranquil though humdrum life at a high value as an alternative to the heights and horrors that Lucas, even though dead, seemed still to be able to open up to her, and to value the simple, kindly, conventionally good character of Alec, even though she could not help contrasting it with the strange fire that had burnt in Lucas.

  It was these thoughts that made her bestow upon the former her rare, slow, Monna Lisa smile as she opened the window to admit him when he came to see her that evening, and this smile, following upon the removal of material obstructions, swung the keystone of his resolution into place. Without waiting to enter the room, half in and half out of the window as he was, he caught her in his arms.

  “Veronica,” he said, “do you know what I have come for ?” He looked down into her big, grey-blue eyes, and for the first time a twinge of doubt assailed him, the eyes were veiled, remote, something lay behind them that was hidden from him ; there were depths in this girl that he could not comprehend, that were so far outside his understanding that he could not even frame a question as to their nature. Veronica, however, though she remained passive, did not repulse him, but allowed herself to be led to the fireside in his embrace, where she gently disengaged herself and sank into her usual chair.

  He stood before her. “Veronica,” he said, “I want you to be my wife.”

  Veronica did not answer. Chin on hand, she sat motionless, gazing into the fire. Among the coals her imagination pictured the face of Lucas, and her mind asked him : “How will it affect you if I do this thing ? Do you still need me in your new state ? Will you feel that I have been disloyal to you if I take this means of escape from the things with which I cannot cope ? I gave myself to you when I kissed you, here, on the very spot where he is standing, that last night of your life ; and now that I know that you died for me, the pledge is doubly binding. If you need me, I will remain, but if you do not need me, then I will take this way of escape that is offered me.”

  A faint sound from the other side of the room roused her ; a dead leaf, borne by some wandering current of air, had drifted across the window-sill and fallen upon the polished wood within.

  “Damn that: window,” exclaimed Butler, upon whom the interruption seemed to have an irritating effect, and, crossing the room in his heavy shooting boots, he shut it noisily. Returning to the hearth, he took his stand before the girl once more. “Well, Veronica,” he said. “What is it to be ?”

  To Veronica, a cold, invisible darkness seemed to have flowed into the room while the window was open. Her old terror of the Unseen returned to her with renewed force, and, turning to Butler as a tower of refuge, she held out both her hands ; he caught them in his strong, warm grasp, and, dropping on one knee before her, brought his eager face on a level with hers. But as she looked into his eyes, a sudden knowledge came to her that she had nothing to give him, for her soul had followed another man out into the darkness ; then, looking over his head, she saw that the flame of the lamp was burning with diminished luminosity, the shadows from the corners of the room were closing in about the hearth, and her grip suddenly tightened upon the hands that held hers. And yet she could not give him her promise ; could not, in spite of the horrors it contained, cut herself off from the unseen world.

  She rose unsteadily to her feet. “I must have time to think,” she said. “It means so much, I must have time to think it out. Go, now, please, Alec. Come back to-morrow morning, and I will give you your answer.”

  He straightened himself beside her. “Any way,” he said, “I am going to kiss you before I go,” and catching her in his arms, he kissed her full on the lips. For an instant a vision of Lucas's face, distorted with rage, gnashing its teeth at them, appeared before Veronica's eyes. Butler released her. “Bye-bye,” he said. “I'll be round bright and early ; or if anything should happen to prevent my coming, I will see that you get word.”

  A sudden thought leapt to Veronica's mind that, had she been the lover, there was nothing that would have prevented her from coming to learn her fate, and securing the window behind him, she stood listening to his departing footsteps, heavy upon the gravel. He reached the edge of the wood, and th
e sounds ceased as he set foot upon the soft earth path. Suddenly Veronica's heart stood still ; silent and swift-moving as a shadow, the mastiff passed the window, nose to ground, hot upon the scent of the retreating man.