The Marriage of Celia

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20285, 20 April 1934, Page 12

The Marriage of Celia

—Author of “Joan Falriie's Cross-roads,** “The Black Bretrayal,” “Love's Tangle,” etc.

By

MADGE BARLOW.

CHAPTER XV. Tlio honeymoon month passed, a month of gloom, a black moon. Humbly affronted at the travesty of marriage they could not hide from her, Mrs. Lachlan said it was a scandal in a Christian country. Neither Effie nor Mac were aware that under the smooth masks of a pair keeping up appearances were Robert’s unspeakable wretchedness and Celia’s seething rages. Domestic storm, a succession of storms, would lufve pleased her better than Robert's unfailing courtesy and his resolute avoidance of the topic of their rupture. She would have relished tearing the subject to tatters in daily disputes, sprinkling fresh vitriol on his raw wound; for, somehow, the sweets of accomplished revenge had turned all too soon to ashes in her mouth. Finding him reserved, maddeningly slow to wrath, and still kind, she concluded that he had dismissed the matter of their separation from his mind as an incident which affected him little. Where was her victory if he did not suffer? Celia's own emotions panted for swift outlet, for the relief of speech gushing like a swollen torrent. Robert’s was the opposite temperament, sternly selfcontrolled, silent when most poignantly moved, having a Spartan capacity for concealing suffering. Not understanding him, she thought his silence a sign of utter indifference, and it added fuel to resentment. She said and did things to provoke him, but he refused to be provoked, and his temperament served him ill. Much might have been spared them both had he talked till he raved, till she raved and bared to him the secret canker which destroyed their peace, which a single one of the scenes she strove to foment would have compelled her to disclose. The second month of their unhappy relations brought callers, staid folks in the main, inclined to pronounce Celia too young and frivolous for Robert, and to look askance at Feodora’s creations in which Mrs. Lennox seemed brazenly unclothed. She had not told him she was in debt to Feodora for the costliest contents of the packing-case, flimsy wisps of silk and chiffon daringly cut, and so revealing that they offended his taste while attracting his gaze. “I’m entitled to get everything I can out of this unlucky marriage of mine,” she said to herself. “Clothes and pleasures, and luxuries are my due after the way I’ve been wronged and insulted. Why shouldn’t he pay my bills, pay to the last farthing for the expensive figure-head he bought to adorn his house ?” Dining alone with him in the evening, «he was sometimes embarrassingly conscious of his eyes fastened on her ultrasmart undress, of a strange expression in his eyes, the pupils contracted slits of dull lire beneath half-lowered lids; and her pulses tingled, because in a way —though not the nicest of ways—she still had power to stir him. Bizarre styles increased the lure of her beauty, she knew, consulting her mirror and gloating over the satiny whiteness of her skin, the soft rose-blush tinting her cheeks, the gracious curves of her slender body. Twisting and turning before the glass, she thought that if she could captivate him again and wean him from his attachment to Effie it would put into her hands a weapon of attack he was bound to feel. Thwarted spite yearned to rout his indifference, make him feel and cringe for her. Just to see him cringe would be balm to her. She began to dress for him, and the excitement of the venture keyed her spirits to high tension, and cured her for the time being of sullen fits of temper. One summer evening they were going to a dinner party given in her honour by a local laird and his austere lady. Robert stood off from her in the hall, holding her wrap and biting his lip. “Why do you wear those things?” he asked, scanning her disapprovingly, his tone edged. “There’s nothing wrong with them, is there?” she inquired, inspecting her brief and billowy frock of spice-coloured tulle, with a very scanty corsage, velvet shoulder straps held together. “They are unsuitable, and not quite decent.” “They are fashionable, at any rate.” “And provocative.” _ “What’s that?” demanded dove-voiced simplicity. _ “They are a direct appeal to the primitive instincts of men.” “Don’t be nasty-minded. I dress according to the mode, not to beguile men.” Robert bundled her wrap about her, gripping the collar under her chin as if his big hand were chilling her. “You don’t care how you play with hell-fire,” he exclaimed, fierce-faced. “The wanton is strong in the youngest of you. You like doing it, like rousing the slumbering demon that some day . . .” “Shall we sing a psalm to exorcise the demon?” she drawled with nasal intonation, dragging down the corners of her mouth. Suddenly he let go the coliar, imperilling her balance, and stamped out to the waiting car. Celia pace 1 delicately m his wake, much amused, and giggling to herself, “Didn’t think he had "it in him. ’Fraid there’s a dasfi of the cave-man in Robert.” He did not assist her to her seat. He sat hunched over the wheel, and on the avenue Ma; joined them and sat beside him. They took up Effie at the hospital. To the surprise of Celia, accustomed to snobbishly-graded Irish class distinctions, Effie was intimate with the Highland lairds and their families, who never forgot that she was a Ramage and an equal. Effie's frock boasted elbow sleeves and a modest V-neck, and Celia was conscious of the glaring contrast she presented as she confronted a roomful of people whose wide-eyed wonder at the parade of her charms caused Robert to blench. The laird’s lady happened to be an awe-inspiring person of mid-Victorian views, attired to her chin, and in the first constrained moments following Celia’s entrance she felt a horrid weakening of the knees. Quick wits came to her aid. With a trusting smile and • child-like timidity of manner she lifted a face which had the innocently wistful appeal of a baby’s, and the ice thawed. Her I hostess summoned a show of cordiality, and proceeded to introduce her to strangers. Celia’s ari r ul wheedling did the rest. She rose superior to H'r clothes, no light task, for the spice col an rod tulle was easily the outrageous it .nit; “Robeit’s a fool to allow her to make an exhibition of herself,” groaned Mac. But even he had to admit Celia’s saving good sense which led her to recognise that Robert's friends wcie worthy people whom sue .mis: bind to her. She gained loot ground, fcibo was deferential

to her elders, ready to listen, to ask intelligent questions a hen dinner-table conversation turned on prosy topics of which she was ig: ora lit, and not once did a hint of boredom dull her subdued brightness. A reference to the revived interest in folk songs started a discussion she could take part in eagerly. Her mother, she said, had been an ardent lover of their own folk songs, and had dug many out cf the dust of oblivion. In the drawing room she sang some old ballad* for them, accompanying herself on the piano, directing their attention to one which she thought was of common Celtic origin, the plaintive minor melody, “Oehone-a-ree, my heart is lonely.” Her voice was of small compass, but sweetly suited to “Oehone-a-ree,” and while she sang a warmth of tenderness gushed in Robert’s breast. She would not let him down. She was doing her utmost to please and seem pleased. He wished lie had not blazed at her about her taste in clothes. “Can you give us the ‘Londonderry Air?” he asked. She flashed him a smile, and assented. Great of her! “I’ll win you yet, in spite of the other fellow,” he vowed. “I will, by all that’s wonderful.” Noticing his shining, intent gaze, and the smile she had turned on him, onlookers said the Lennoxes were a devoted couple. They said, towards the close of the evening, as Robert and Celia stood side by side in the centre of a group, that husband and wife were —everything considered —rather a wellmated pair, she girlishly and radiantly pretty, he of such fine presence and dignified bearing, his gravity a foil to her mirth. An example of the attraction of opposites. “You have afforded us real pleasure, my dear,” their hostess was saying to Celia. And Robert rejoiced, knowing the heart-value of an endearmen on stiff Scots lips. “The cream of the pleasure is mine,” said Celia, beaming on the group, a little gesture of her fluttering hands drawing them to her bosom, as it were. “I like being here, you are so beautifully homey and sincere.” Perhaps she herself was not entirely sincere, hut our social insincerities are the oil that helps the wheels to run smoothly, and she desired smooth running. The bit of blarney won her golden opinions. Back at Red Craigs Robert said to her, “You were a huge success.” And she pouted, “I didn't wish them to think me a wicked vamp. They wouldn’t believe you now if you swore I way “Celia,” he cried, “I did not intend— ’* “You did,” she interrupted, flying from him upstairs. “My vulgar outburst has offended her,” he thought ruefully. “I’ll guard against a repetition of it.” “I’m glad you did intend,” thought she. “It proved you are not ice-cold to me. I’d sooner rouse you to a daily dose of abuse than not be able to rouse you at all.” Men of to-day never will fathom women as their forbears of the Stone Age used to. On the whole, it is not to the advantage of the former that their civilisation goee deeper than women’s. Robert had endless revolts and yearnings, and he repressed them through fear of offending her. As time went on, and he maintained his calm level, Celia was cruelly mortified at the apparent failure of her efforts to repeat her conquest, and thus strike him in the vulnerable spot of a renewed and hopeless infatuation for her. A suspicion that he had seen through her designs dismayed and abased her. She threw the alluring toilettes aside and wore her plainest dresses, doffing with her war paint tne sprigntuness which had given him glimpses of the witching girl of the Beverley. Robert, with his defences erected, was not to be caught napping, she meditated, stolidly resigned to the tame jog-trot of life bereft even of that excitement. But often she, too, had her secret revolts, when she asked inwardly and passionately why he had not burnt the letter instead of leaving it in the blotter for her to find. If lie had destroyed it, she should have known nothing, and might have been content as his wife, maybe happy to a certain extent. He had no right to keep that letter. It was criminal negligence paid for in spoiled lives. They entertained, and to their guests Celia was blithe as a bird. To Robert in their solitary hours she was a peeved and unresponsive companion, engrossed in books or needlework, seldom speaking unless spoken to, conveying the impression that she had tried for a brief period to make the best of a bad bargain, and had been worsted in the attempt. A disgruntled man was Robert, perplexed by her volte-faces, arriving painfully and unprotestingly at the conclusion that his very presence was repugnant to her. They could not go on like this, lie realised. They were drifting towards a crisis of some sort. (To be continued daily.)