When she was once more in the garden, she hurried away; but instead of crossing the fields again, turned past the side of the cottage into the coppice behind. And, sitting down on a log, her hands pressed to her cheeks and her elbows to her breast, she stared at the sunlit bracken and the flies chasing each other over it. Love!
Was it always something hateful and tragic that spoiled lives?
Criss-cross! One darting on another, taking her almost before she knew she was seized, then darting away and leaving her wanting to be seized again. Or darting on her, who, when seized, was fatal to the darter, yet had never wanted to be seized. Or darting one on the other for a moment, then both breaking away too soon. Did never two dart at each other, seize, and cling, and ever after be one? Love! It had spoiled her father's life, and Daphne Wing's;never came when it was wanted; always came when it was not.
Malevolent wanderer, alighting here, there; tiring of the spirit before it tired of the body; or of the body before it tired of the spirit. Better to have nothing to do with it--far better! If one never loved, one would never feel lonely--like that poor girl. And yet! No--there was no "and yet." Who that was free would wish to become a slave? A slave--like Daphne Wing! A slave--like her own husband to his want of a wife who did not love him. A slave like her father had been--still was, to a memory. And watching the sunlight on the bracken, Gyp thought: 'Love! Keep far from me. Idon't want you. I shall never want you!'
Every morning that week she made her way to the cottage, and every morning had to pass through the hands of Mrs. Wagge. The good lady had got over the upsetting fact that Gyp was the wife of that villain, and had taken a fancy to her, confiding to the economic agent, who confided it to Gyp, that she was "very distangey--and such pretty eyes, quite Italian." She was one of those numberless persons whose passion for distinction was just a little too much for their passionate propriety. It was that worship of distinction which had caused her to have her young daughter's talent for dancing fostered. Who knew to what it might lead in these days?
At great length she explained to Gyp the infinite care with which she had always "brought Daisy up like a lady--and now this is the result." And she would look piercingly at Gyp's hair or ears, at her hands or her instep, to see how it was done. The burial worried her dreadfully. "I'm using the name of Daisy Wing; she was christened 'Daisy' and the Wing's professional, so that takes them both in, and it's quite the truth. But I don't think anyone would connect it, would they? About the father's name, do you think Imight say the late Mr. Joseph Wing, this once? You see, it never was alive, and I must put something if they're not to guess the truth, and that I couldn't bear; Mr. Wagge would be so distressed.
It's in his own line, you see. Oh, it is upsetting!"Gyp murmured desperately:
"Oh! yes, anything."
Though the girl was so deathly white and spiritless, it soon became clear that she was going to pull through. With each day, a little more colour and a little more commonness came back to her. And Gyp felt instinctively that she would, in the end, return to Fulham purged of her infatuation, a little harder, perhaps a little deeper.
Late one afternoon toward the end of her week at Mildenham, Gyp wandered again into the coppice, and sat down on that same log. An hour before sunset, the light shone level on the yellowing leaves all round her; a startled rabbit pelted out of the bracken and pelted back again, and, from the far edge of the little wood, a jay cackled harshly, shifting its perch from tree to tree. Gyp thought of her baby, and of that which would have been its half-brother;and now that she was so near having to go back to Fiorsen, she knew that she had not been wise to come here. To have been in contact with the girl, to have touched, as it were, that trouble, had made the thought of life with him less tolerable even than it was before. Only the longing to see her baby made return seem possible. Ah, well--she would get used to it all again! But the anticipation of his eyes fixed on her, then sliding away from the meeting with her eyes, of all--of all that would begin again, suddenly made her shiver. She was very near to loathing at that moment. He, the father of her baby! The thought seemed ridiculous and strange. That little creature seemed to bind him to her no more than if it were the offspring of some chance encounter, some pursuit of nymph by faun. No! It was hers alone. And a sudden feverish longing to get back to it overpowered all other thought.
This longing grew in her so all night that at breakfast she told her father. Swallowing down whatever his feeling may have been, he said:
"Very well, my child; I'll come up with you."Putting her into the cab in London, he asked:
"Have you still got your key of Bury Street? Good! Remember, Gyp--any time day or night--there it is for you."
She had wired to Fiorsen from Mildenham that she was coming, and she reached home soon after three. He was not in, and what was evidently her telegram lay unopened in the hall. Tremulous with expectation, she ran up to the nursery. The pathetic sound of some small creature that cannot tell what is hurting it, or why, met her ears. She went in, disturbed, yet with the half-triumphant thought: 'Perhaps that's for me!'
Betty, very flushed, was rocking the cradle, and examining the baby's face with a perplexed frown. Seeing Gyp, she put her hand to her side, and gasped:
"Oh, be joyful! Oh, my dear! I AM glad. I can't do anything with baby since the morning. Whenever she wakes up, she cries like that. And till to-day she's been a little model. Hasn't she!
There, there!"
Gyp took up the baby, whose black eyes fixed themselves on her mother in a momentary contentment; but, at the first movement, she began again her fretful plaint. Betty went on:
