The Reason Why by Elinor Glyn

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"Isn't she mysterious, Crow? I am sure she has some tragic history. Have
you heard anything?"

"Husband murdered by another man in a row at Monte Carlo."

"Over her?"

"I don't know for a fact, but I gather--not. You may be certain, Queen
Anne, that when a woman is as quiet and haughty as Lady Tancred looks,
and her manners are as cold and perfectly sure of herself as hers are,
she has not done anything she is ashamed of, or regrets."

"Then what can be the cause of the coolness between them? Look at
Tristram now! I think it is horrid of him--sitting like that talking to
Laura, don't you?"

"A viper, Laura," growled the Crow. "She's trying to get him again in
the rebound."

"I cannot imagine why women cannot leave other women's husbands alone.
They are hateful creatures, most of them."

"Natural instinct of the chase," said Colonel Lowerby.

But Lady Anningford flashed.

"You are a cynic, Crow."

* * * * *

"And you will really show me your favorite haunts to-morrow, Lady
Ethelrida?" Francis Markrute was saying to his hostess. He had contrived
insidiously to detach her conversation from a group to himself, and drew
her unconsciously towards a seat where they would be uninterrupted. "One
judges so of people by their tastes in haunts."

Lady Ethelrida never spoke of herself as a rule. She was not in the
habit of getting into those--abstract to begin with, and personal to go
on with--thrilling conversations with men, which most of the modern
young women delight in, and which were the peculiar joy of Lily Opie.

It was because for some unacknowledged reason the financier personally
pleased her that she now drifted where he wished.

"Mine are very simple, I fear, nothing for you to investigate," she said
gently.

"So I should have thought--" and he again as he had done at dinner
permitted himself to look into her eyes, and going on after an
imperceptible pause he said softly, "simple, and pure, and sweet ...I
always think of you, Lady Ethelrida, as the embodiment of sane things,
balanced things--perfection." And his last word was almost a caress.

"I am most ordinary," she said; and she wondered why she was not angry
with him, which she quite well could have been.

"It is only perfect balance in all things, if we but know it, which
appeals to the sane eye," he went on, pulling himself up. "All weariness
and satiety are caused in emotion; in pleasure in persons, places, or
things; by the want of proportion in them somewhere which, like all
simple things, is the hardest to find."

"Do you make theories about everything, Mr. Markrute?" she asked, and
there was a smile in her eye.

"It is a wise thing to do sometimes; it keeps one from losing one's
head."

Lady Ethelrida did not answer. She felt deliciously moved. She had often
said to her friend, Anne Anningford, when they had been talking, that
she did not like elderly men; she disliked to see their hair getting
thin, and their chins getting fat, and their little habits and
mannerisms growing pronounced. But here she found herself tremendously
interested in one who, from all accounts, must be quite forty-five if
not older, though it was true his brown colorless hair was excessively
thick, and he was slight of build everywhere.

Now she felt she must turn the conversation to less personal things, so:

"Zara looks very lovely to-night," she said.

"Yes," replied the financier, with an air of detaching himself
unwillingly from a thrilling topic, which was, indeed, what he felt.
"Yes, and I hope some day they will be exceedingly happy."

"Why do you say some day?" Lady Ethelrida asked quickly. "I hoped they
were happy now."

"Not very, I am afraid," he said. "But you remember our compact at
dinner? They will be ideally so if they are left alone," and he glanced
casually at Tristram and Laura.

Ethelrida looked, too, following his eyes.

"Yes," she said. "I wish I had not asked her--" and then she stopped
abruptly, and grew a deep pink. She realized what the inference in her
speech was, and if Mr. Markrute had never heard anything about the silly
affair between her cousin and Lady Highford what would he think! What
might she not have done!

"That won't matter," he said, with his fine smile. "It will be good for
my niece. I meant something quite different."

But what he meant, he would not say.

And so the evening passed smoothly. The girls, and all the young men and
the Crow, and Young Billy, and giddy, irresponsible people like that,
had gathered at one end of the room; they were arranging some especial
picnic for the morrow, as only some of them were going to shoot. And
into their picnic plans they drew Zara, and barred Tristram out, with
chaff.

"You are only an old, married man now, Tristram," they teased him with.
"But Lady Tancred is young and comes with us!"

"And I will take care of her," announced Lord Elterton, looking
sentimental--much to Tristram's disgust.

Ethelrida seemed to have collected a lot of rotters, he thought to
himself, although it was the same party he had so enjoyed last year!

"Lady Thornby and Lady Melton and Lily Opie and her sister are going out
to the shooters' lunch," Laura said sweetly. "As you are going to be
deprived of your lovely wife, Tristram, I will come, too."

And so, finally good nights were said and the ladies retired to their
rooms; and Zara could not think why she no longer found the atmosphere
of hers peaceful and delightful, as she had done before she went down.

For the first time in her life she felt she hated a woman.

And Tristram, her husband, when he came up an hour or so later, wondered
if she were asleep. Laura had been perfectly sweet, and he felt greatly
soothed. Poor old Laura! He supposed she had really cared for him
rather, and perhaps he had behaved casually, even though she had been
impossible, in the past. But how had he ever even for five minutes
fancied himself in love with her? Why, she looked quite old to-night!
and he had never remarked before how thin and fluffed out her hair was.
Women ought certainly to have beautifully thick hair.

And then all the pretenses of any healing of his aches fell from him,
and he went and stood by the door that separated him from his loved one,
and he stretched out his arms and said aloud, "Darling, if only you
could understand how happy I would make you--if you would let me! But I
can't even break down this hateful door as I want to, because of my
vow."

And then for most of the rest of the night he tossed restlessly in his
bed.

CHAPTER XXIV

The next day did not look at all promising as regards the weather, but
still the shooters, Tristram among them, started early for their sport.
And after the merriest breakfast at little tables in the great
dining-room the intending picnickers met in conclave to decide as to
what they should do.

"It is perfectly sure to rain," Jimmy Danvers said. "There is no use
attempting to go to Lynton Heights. Why don't we take the lunch to
Montfitchet Tower and eat it in the big hall? There we wouldn't get
wet."

"Quite right, Jimmy," agreed the Crow, who, with Lady Anningford, was to
chaperon the young folk. "I'm all for not getting wet, with my rheumatic
shoulder, and I hear you and Young Billy are a couple of firstclass
cooks."

"Then," interrupted Lady Betty enthusiastically, "we can cook our own
lunch! Oh, how delightful! We will make a fire in the big chimney. Uncle
Crow, you are a pet!"

"I will go and give orders for everything at once," Lady Ethelrida
agreed delightedly. "Jimmy, what a bright boy to have thought of the
plan!"

And by twelve o'clock all was arranged. Now, it had been settled the
night before that Mr. Markrute should shoot with the Duke and the rest
of the more serious men; but early in the morning that astute financier
had sent a note to His Grace's room, saying, if it were not putting out
the guns dreadfully, he would crave to be excused as he was expecting a
telegram of the gravest importance concerning the new Turkish loan,
which he would be obliged to answer by a special letter, and he was
uncertain at what time the wire would come. He was extremely sorry, but,
he added whimsically, the Duke must remember he was only a poor,
business-man!

At which His Grace had smiled, as he thought of his guest's vast
millions, in comparison to his own.

Thus it was that just before twelve o'clock when the young party were
ready to start for their picnic. Mr. Markrute, having written his letter
and despatched it by express to London, chanced upon Lady Ethelrida in a
place where he felt sure he should find her, and, expressing his
surprise that they were not already gone, he begged to be allowed to
come with them. He, too, was an excellent cook, he assured her, and
would be really of use. And they all laughingly started.

And if she could have seen the important letter concerning the new
Turkish loan, she would have found it contained a pressing reminder to
Bumpus to send down that night certain exquisitely bound books!

* * * * *

Above all, the young ladies had demanded they should have no servants at
their picnic--everything, even the fire, was to be made by themselves.
Jimmy was to drive the donkey-cart, with Lady Betty, to take all the
food. The only thing they permitted was that the pots and pans and the
wood for the fire might be sent on.

And they were all so gay and looked so charming and suitably clad, in
their rough, short, tweed frocks.

Zara, who walked demurely by Lord Elterton, had never seen anything of
the sort. She felt like a strange, little child at its first party.

Before he had started in the morning Tristram had sent her a note (he
could not stand the maid and valet as verbal messengers--it made him
laugh too bitterly), it was just a few lines:

"You asked me to tell you anything special about our customs, so this is
to say, just put on some thick, short, ordinary suit, and mind you have
a pair of thick boots."

And it was signed "Tancred"--not "Tristram."

She gave a little quiver as she read it, and then asked and found his
lordship had already gone down. She was to breakfast later with the
non-shooters. She would not see him, then, for the entire day. And that
odious woman with whom he was so friendly would have him all to herself!

These thoughts flashed into her mind before she was aware of it, and
then she crushed them out--furious with herself. For of what possible
matter could her husband's doings be to her? And yet, as she started,
she found herself hoping it would rain, so that the five ladies who
intended joining the guns in the farmhouse, for luncheon at two, would
be unable to go. For just as she had come into the saloon where some of
the party were writing letters that morning she had heard Lady Highford
say to Mrs. Harcourt, in her high voice, "Yes, indeed, we mean to finish
the discussion this afternoon after luncheon.--Dear Tristram! There is a
long wait at the Fulton beat; we shall have plenty of time alone." And
then she had turned round, and seemed confused at seeing her--Zara--and
gushed more than the night before.

But she did not get the satisfaction of perceiving the bride turn a
hair, though as Zara walked on to the end of the room she angrily found
herself wondering who was this woman, and what had she been to Tristram?
What was she _now_?

Lord Elterton had already fallen in love. He was a true _cavalier_
servant; he knew, like the financier, as a fine art, how to manipulate
the temperaments of most women. He prided himself upon it. Indeed, he
spent the greater part of his life doing nothing else. Exquisite
gentleness and sympathy was his method. There were such heaps of rough,
rude brutes about that one would always have a chance by being the
contrast; and husbands, he reasoned, were nearly always brutes--after a
while--in the opinion of their wives! He had hardly ever known this plan
to fail with the most devoted wife. So although Lady Tancred had only
been married a week he hoped to render her not quite indifferent to
himself in some way. He had seen at once that she and Tristram were not
on terms of passionate love, and there was something so piquant about
flirting with a bride! He divided women as a band into about four
divisions. The quite impossible, the recalcitrant, the timid, and the
bold. For the impossible he did not waste powder and shot. For the
recalcitrant he used insidious methods of tickling their fancies, as he
would tickle a trout. For the timid he was tender and protective; and
for the bold subtly indifferent: but always gentle and nice!

He was not sure yet in which of the four divisions he should have to
place his new attraction--probably the second--but he frankly admitted
he had never before had any experience with one of her type. Her strange
eyes thrilled him: he felt, when she turned the deep slate, melting
disks upon him, his heart went "down into his bloomin' boots," as Jimmy
Danvers would have described the sensation. So he began with extreme
gentleness and care.

"You have not been long in this country, Lady Tancred, have you? One can
see it--you are so exquisitely _chic_. And how perfectly you speak
English! Not the slightest accent. It is delicious. Did you learn it
when very young?"

"My father was an Englishman," said Zara, disarmed from her usual
chilling reserve by the sympathy in his voice. "I always spoke it until
I was thirteen, and since then, too. It is a nice, honest language, I
think."

"You speak numbers of others, probably?" Lord Elterton went on,
admiringly.

"Yes, about four or five. It is very easy when one is moving in the
countries, and certain languages are very much alike. Russian is the
most difficult."

"How clever you are!"

"No, I am not a bit. But I have had time to read a good deal--" and then
Zara stopped. It was so against her habit to give personal information
to any one like this.

Lord Elterton saw the little check, and went on another tack. "I have
been an idle fellow and am not at all learned," he said. "Tristram and I
were at Eton together in the same house, and we were both dunces; but he
did rather well at Oxford, and I went straight into the Guards."

Zara longed to ask about Tristram. She had not even heard before that he
had been to Oxford! And it struck her suddenly how ridiculous the whole
thing was. She had sold herself for a bargain; she had asked no
questions of any one; she had intended to despise the whole family and
remain entirely aloof; and now she found every one of her intentions
being gradually upset. But as yet she did not admit for a second to
herself that she was falling in love. It would be such a perfectly
impossible thing to do in any case, when now he was absolutely
indifferent to her and showed it in every way. It made the whole thing
all the more revolting--to have pretended he loved her on that first
night! Yes, with certain modifications of classes and races men were all
perfectly untrustworthy, if not brutes, and a woman, if she could relax
her vigilance, as regards the defense of her person and virtue, could
not afford to unbend a fraction as to her emotions!

And all the time she was thinking this out she was silent, and Lord
Elterton watched her, thrilled with the attraction of the unobtainable.
He saw plainly she had forgotten his very presence, and, though piqued,
he grew the more eager.

"I would love to know what you were thinking of," he said softly; and
then with great care he pulled a bramble aside so that it should not
touch her. They had turned into a lane beyond the kitchen garden and the
park.

Zara started. She had, indeed, been far away!

"I was thinking--" she said, and then she paused for a suitable lie but
none came, so she grew confused, and stopped, and hesitated, and then
she blurted out, "I was thinking was it possible there could ever be any
one whom one could believe?"

Lord Elterton looked at her. What a strange woman!

"Yes," he said simply, "you can believe me when I tell you I have never
been so attracted by any one in my life."

"Oh! for that!" she answered contemptuously. _"Mon Dieu!_ how often I
have heard of that!"

This was not what he had expected. There was no empty boast about the
speech, as there would have been if Laura Highford had uttered it--she
was fond of demonstrating her conquests and power in words. There was
only a weariness as of something banal and tiring. He must be more
careful.

"Yes, I quite understand," he said sympathetically. "You must be bored
with the love of men."

"I have never seen any love of men. Do men know love?" she asked, not
with any bitterness--only as a question of fact. What had Tristram been
about? Lord Elterton thought. Here he had been married to this divine
creature for a whole week, and she was plainly asking the question from
her heart. And Tristram was no fool in a general way, he knew. There was
some mystery here, but whatever it was there was the more chance for
him! So he went on very tactfully, trying insidiously to soothe her, so
that at last when they had arrived Zara had enjoyed her walk.

Montfitchet Tower was all that remained of the old castle destroyed by
Cromwell's Ironsides. It was just one large, square room, a sort of
great hall. It had stood roofless for many years and then been covered
in by the old Duke's father, and contained a splendid stone chimney
piece of colossal proportions. It had also been floored, and had the
raised place still, where the family had eaten "above the salt." The
rest of the old castle was a complete ruin, and at the Restoration the
new one had been rebuilt about a mile further up the park.

Lady Ethelrida had collected several pieces of rough oak furniture to
put into this great room which in height reached three stories up, and
the supports of the mantelpieces of the upper floors could be seen on
the blackened stone walls. It was here she gave her school treats and
tenants' summer dances, because there was a great stretch of green,
turfy lawn beyond, down to the river, where they could play their games.

And on a wet day it was an ideal picnic place.

A bright wood fire was already blazing on top of the ashes that for many
years had never been cleared out, and a big jack swung in front of
it--for appearance sake! What fun every one seemed to be having, Zara
thought, as from an oak bench she watched them all busy as bees over
their preparations for the repast. She had helped to make a salad, and
now sat with the Crow, and surveyed the rest.

Jimmy Danvers had turned up his sleeves and was thoroughly in earnest
over his part; and he and Young Billy had gathered some brown bracken,
and put it sprouting from a ham, to represent, they said, the peacock.
For, they explained, a banquet in a baronial hall had to have a peacock,
as well as a boar's head, and an ox roasted whole!

And suddenly Zara thought of her last picnic, with Mimo and Mirko in the
Neville Street attic, when the poor little one had worn the paper cap,
and had taken such pleasure in the new rosy cups. And the Crow who was
watching her closely, wondered why this gay scene should make the lovely
bride look so pitifully sad. "How _Maman_ would have loved all this!"
she was thinking, "with her gay, tender soul, and her delight in
make-believe and joyous picnics." And her father--he had known all these
sorts of people; they were his own class, and yet he had come to live in
the great, gloomy castle, out of his own land, and expected his
exquisite, young wife to stay there alone, most of the time. The hideous
cruelty of men!

And there was her Uncle Francis, in quite a new character!--helping Lady
Ethelrida to lay the table, as happily as a boy. Would she herself ever
be happy, she wondered, ever have a time free from some agonizing strain
or care? And then, from sorrow her expression changed to one of strange
slumberous resentment at fate.

"Queen Anne," said the Crow, as they sat down to luncheon, "there is
some tragedy hanging over that young woman. She has been suffering like
the devil for at least ten minutes, and forgot I was even beside her and
pretending to talk. You and Lady Ethelrida have two not altogether
unkind hearts. Can't you find out what it is, and comfort her?"

CHAPTER XXV

After luncheon, which had been carried through with all the proper
ceremonies of the olden time according to Jimmy Danvers and Young
Billy's interpretation of them, it came on to pour with rain; so these
masters of the revels said that now the medieval dances should begin,
and accordingly they turned on the gramophone that stood in the corner
to amuse the children at the school treats. And Mary and her admirer,
Lord Henry Burns, and Emily and a Captain Hume, and Lady Betty and Jimmy
Danvers, gayly took the floor, while Young Billy offered himself to the
bride, as he said he as the representative of the Lord of the Castle had
a right to the loveliest lady; and, with his young, stolid
self-confidence, he pushed Lord Elterton aside.

Zara had not danced for a very long time--four years at least--and she
had not an idea of the two-steps and barn-dances and other sorts of
whirling capers that they invented; but she did her best, and gradually
something of the excitement of the gay young spirits spread to her, and
she forgot her sorrows and began to enjoy herself.

"You don't ever dance, I suppose, Mr. Markrute?" Lady Ethelrida asked,
as she stopped, with the gallant old Crow, flushed and smiling by the
dais, where the financier and Lady Anningford sat. "If you ever do, I,
as the Lady of the Castle, ask you to 'tread a measure' with me!"

"No one could resist such, an invitation," he answered, and put his arm
around her for a valse.

"I do love dancing," she said, as they went along very well. She was so
surprised that this "grave and reverend signor," as she called him,
should be able to valse!

"So do I," said Francis Markrute--"under certain circumstances. This is
one of them." And then he suddenly held her rather tight, and laughed.
"Think of it all!" he went on. "Here we are, in thick boots and country
clothes capering about like savages round their fire, and, for all sorts
of reasons, we all love it!"

"It is just the delicious exercise with me," said Lady Ethelrida.

"And it has nothing at all to do with that reason with me," returned her
partner.

And Lady Ethelrida quivered with some sort of pleasure and did not ask
him what his reason was. She thought she knew, and her eyes sparkled.
They were the same height, and he saw her look; and as they went on, he
whispered:

"I have brought you down the book we spoke of, you know, and you will
take it from me, won't you? Just as a remembrance of this day and how
you made me young for an hour!"

They stopped by one of the benches at the side and sat down, and Lady
Ethelrida answered softly,

"Yes, if--you wish me to--"

Lord Elterton had now dislodged Young Billy and was waltzing with Zara
himself: his whole bearing was one of intense devotion, and she was
actually laughing and looking up in his face, still affected by the
general hilarity, when the door of the wooden porch that had been built
on as an entrance opened noiselessly, and some of the shooters peeped
into the room. It had been too impossibly wet to go on, and they had
sent the ladies back in the motors and had come across the park on their
way home, and, hearing the sound of music, had glanced in. Tristram was
in front of the intruders and just chanced to catch his bride's look at
her partner, before either of them saw they were observed.

He felt frightfully jealous. He had never before seen her so smiling, to
begin with, and never at all at himself. He longed to kick Arthur
Elterton! Confounded impertinence!--And what tommyrot--dancing like
this, in the afternoon with boots on! And when they all stopped and
greeted the shooters, and crowded round the fire, he said, in a tone of
rasping sarcasm--in reply to Jimmy Danvers' announcement that they were
back in the real life of a castle in the Middle Ages:

"Any one can see that! You have even got My Lady's fool. Look at
Arthur--with mud on his boots--jumping about!"

And Lord Elterton felt very flattered. He knew his old friend was
jealous, and if he were jealous then the charming, cold lady must have
been unbelievingly nice to him, and that meant he was getting on!

"You are jealous because your lovely bride prefers me, Young Lochinvar,"
and he laughed as he quoted:

"'For so faithful in love and so dauntless in war--
There ne'er was a gallant like Young Lochinvar!'"

And Zara saw that Tristram's eyes flashed blue steel, and that he did
not like the chaff at all. So, just out of some contrariness--he had
been with Lady Highford all day so why should she not amuse herself,
too; indeed, why should either of them care what the other did--so just
out of contrariness she smiled again at Lord Elterton and said:

"'Then tread we a measure, my Lord Lochinvar.'"

And off they went.

And Tristram, with his face more set than the Crusader ancestor's in
Wrayth Church, said to his uncle, Lord Charles, "We are all wet through:
let us come along."

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