Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean (бесплатные онлайн книги читаем полные .TXT) 📗

“Listen,” he said. He led her to the bed and they sat there side by side, his arm round her.

“You cannot stay here any longer. I will make immediate arrangements. I know a family who will be the soul of discretion. There is nothing to fear. You shall go to them; they will look after you. You shall be denied nothing, my darling… you and the child. I shall come to see you often.”

She touched his face with her fingers, but she was trembling with rage.

“It sounds very simple, Gunnar, but it cannot be.”

“You must be reasonable, Carolan. We must both be reasonable and practical.”

“I am being practical. I think I am being reasonable. I can see I must marry Tom. Cruel things happen to me; this is just another, but one grows accustomed to cruel things and able to meet them. My heart will be broken; my life will be finished.” She put her hands against her body.

“My baby is there. To me it is wonderful and precious. I would not alter anything … I am ready. And of one thing I am certain my child shall be born in wedlock.”

“But it is my child too, Carolan,” he said gently.

“No, no, Gunnar! It is mine, entirely mine. And it will be Tom’s too. If I married Tom I should never see you again. I would be faithful to the man I married. I will go now. There is nothing more to be said.”

“Carolan! Carolan! What can I do?”

She took his face between her hands and kissed him tenderly. Tears were running down her face.

“There is nothing you can dot my darling, but say goodbye. Life has been cruel to us, but we have to be brave, my dearest. It is not only ourselves that we must think of now. It is the child. Say goodbye to it, Gunnar. Say goodbye to me. Tomorrow I will go to Tom and tell him, and you will give your consent to out immediate marriage. It is the only way.”

He protested. She saw the anguish in his face, and came very near to loving him.

“Carolan, I cannot. I cannot.”

He turned his face away. There were tears in his eyes, she knew, tears of rage and sorrow.

She stood up and walked over to the door.

“Do not make it harder for me, Gunnar. I cannot bear it. It makes me afraid. Wicked thoughts come into my mind. I think … if only she would take an overdose … if only … You see how much I love you, how I care and plan for my child. I must go now.. I must go quickly. Goodbye, Gunnar. Perhaps we had better not see each other alone … again.”

He stood up, and she ran to him; she kissed him wildly.

“Goodbye, Gunnar. Goodbye!”

He was trembling; he. the strong man, the master.

In the toilet-room Carolan took off the black dress and put on a green one. Her eyes blazed in her pale face. She surveyed herself. Oh, yes! Margery had noticed all right. In the green dress it was obvious. She knocked.

“Come in,” said Lucille.

She was sitting up in bed, a wrap round her. She always retired early these days. She had grown from a delicate woman to a semi-invalid since Carolan had been ministering to her.

“I have come to draw the curtains and light the candles,” said Carolan. She stood, the taper in her hand, willing the woman to look at her.

“Carolan,” said Lucille, ‘you look strange. Have you been crying?”

“The shawl is slipping from your shoulders,” said Carolan.

“It would not do to catch cold.”

“You are very good to me, Carolan.”

“No, no, it is you who are good to me.”

“I? Good? No, Carolan. Sometimes, particularly lately, I think of what a wicked woman I am.”

“You must not take it to heart, you know. There must have been many women who have done__that.”

“What, Carolan?”

“I am sorry. It is nothing. You must not worry. You know Doctor Martin says the last thing you must do is worry.”

“It has occurred to me, Carolan, that in a way… it is murder. It is only a matter of months … and then it would have been murder. The baby was alive …”

“Please do not let us discuss it it worries you so.”

“No, do not let us talk of it. I have dreams about it. Carolan.”

“It is worrying by day that makes you dream at night. No! You must forget it. He will never have his children, but what is to be, will be, and so many of us have to go without what we desire most in this world. It is time you had your pills. Did you have another dose this morning?”

“Oh, Carolan …”

“But in the morning!”

“I had such dreadful dreams, Carolan. I dreamed that it was alive… a real baby … and that I had killed it, and they found out and took me to the gallows. And he was there. He looked terrible. He kept saying … Murder! I could not sleep after that, and I was so tired in the morning. I longed to sleep … it is such a deep, dreamless sleep, Carolan … soothing and caressing.”

“But,” said Carolan slowly, ‘it makes you feel that you want to stay like that for ever, and that is dangerous.”

“It is just like that, Carolan.”

“Sometimes I think you may not resist the temptation to stay there forever …”

Lucille laughed.

“Is it not strange that that comfort should be there in a bottle?”

“Very strange.”

“You look different tonight, Carolan. Is it because you have changed into the green dress? It looks gayer on you than it did on me. But it is too tight for you, my dear. I must find something else for you; you have been so good to me.”

Carolan laid her hands across her breasts. She looked wide-eyed at Lucille.

“What is it, Carolan?”

“Nothing … oh, nothing.”

“I thought for the moment that something was wrong. I… I have had that feeling for some time. I thought you seemed absent-minded, and … you were always so reliable. If there is anything I could do to help you … But perhaps it is my imagination, for I thought the master seemed strange lately.”

“Strange ?” said Carolan.

“The master strange ?”

“He looks at me strangely. It is nothing. I have such a vivid imagination; I am so sensitive. He asks after my health more than he did. Perhaps he wants children again.”

Carolan leaned over the bed.

“And if he did …?”

Lucille shivered.

“I should die. I know I should. I could not bear it. Perhaps I could arrange to go home; but the journey! I should die, Carolan. Sometimes I get the idea that my end is not far off, that I deserve to die …”

“Because you killed your baby? You must get such ridiculous nonsense out of your head. To have a baby is a wonderful experience … for a woman in your position.”

Surely she must see now. But she was utterly selfish; she saw life from one angle only—life as lived by Lucille Masterman.

Carolan turned away, her lips trembling. Had Lucille sufficient insight to grasp the situation? An ailing wife, a beautiful girl, a man who wanted children it was an old enough story. But Lucille was wrapped about with her own selfish needs her pills, her comforts, her pains.

Lucille’s eyes were glassy; the drug robbed her of strong emotions; strength was slowly seeping out of her body. Sleep she wanted … sleep, eternal sleep. She wanted it for herself, and Carolan and Gunnar wanted it for her.

“Read to me, Carolan,” said Lucille.

Carolan opened the Bible. Her eyes were burning, her hands trembling.

‘ “Now Sarah Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar…”

There was no sound in the room but that of Carolan’s voice, very clear, high-pitched with emotion.

Suddenly Lucille cried out: “Stop! Stop! No more! I wish to hear no more.”

Carolan put down the book and went to her. Lucille looked into her face and their eyes held each other’s, Carolan’s commanding, Lucille’s submissive.

Carolan said softly: “You must not blame yourself. You were ill, and illness weakens the spirit. You did him a great wrong, but it is done with. Live… and bear him more children.”

“I could not, Carolan. You do not know how weak I have become. If I was weak before, I am doubly so now.”