CHAPTER II
Thelittle station looked innocent enough, with its solitary platform and single line, its flower-borders and toy buildings;—innocent and sleepy, awaiting a tardy train, but to Deborah it was a veritable pillory as she stood by herself at its farthest extremity, looking westward to the sea.
Market-day in Witham was drawing its usual votaries in their various degrees, and for all Deborah was an object of interest as she turned an obstinate blue-serge shoulder upon whisper and stare alike.
She knew quite well that they were talking about her. Each little knot of folk had something to say on the subject of her late engagement. It had been such an unexpected triumph, followed by an equally unexpected downfall. The peripety had been so abrupt, so recent, that the district was still gasping. Barely had it learned to look upon Deborah with a new respect when it found her dumped back into her old obscurity, though reflecting, perhaps, a more subtle interest, lent by the atmosphere of scandal surrounding the whole affair.
There had been a Saturday, not so very long ago, when her progress along the platform had been apainful pageant of success. She scarcely knew which had hurt her most, the ill-concealed surprise or the terrible obsequiousness. Well, to-day, at least, no one troubled her. They left her alone, avoided her eyes, gathered in little groups and talked of her in whispers.
She could guess what they were saying—hear the pity and the blame so subtly intermingled. Stanley’s death alone might have earned her commiseration; his marriage along with it had branded her. It was all so “queer!” The dead man might have earned the intangible stigma of the foolish word, but the living girl was left to carry it.
Dixon of Dockerneuk drove up slowly, and sauntered on to the platform. There was interest in his reception, also, for it was well known that he had never married because of a certain horse-dealer’s daughter in Witham. He looked much the same, thought the curious—the big, slow-moving man with the quiet voice and the cloak of patient and pathetic dignity which is the hallmark of the true-bred dalesman. He could not have taken it much to heart, after all. It was only when he reached the railing overlooking the sea that he allowed the new hurt look to creep back into his eyes.
He exchanged a brief good-day with Deborah, and the spectators looked curiously at the two who had suffered so similarly under the same upheaval, whose lives had been altered by the same act of deliberate deceit. Deborah was acutely consciousof the isolation in which they stood, yet she drew a little comfort from the presence of a fellow-sufferer. She made some remark about the crops, and he answered cheerfully; and presently the leisurely train drifted in, almost as if washed up accidentally by the tide. Dixon opened a door, touched his hat, and moved on to another carriage; and her heart warmed to him, recognising his tact.
There were strangers with her by some happy accident, unaware of her personal tragedy; but in the next carriage, and all up the train, Deborah Lyndesay’s name had plenty of play.
A silver-haired, dapper little man, being rather sad at heart on the subject, had of course several sharp things to say about it.
“So tiresome!” he observed to the compartment at large. “So reallytiresomeof people to do these things! It placed their friends in such an awkward position. Did one bow or did onenotbow? Was it kinder to pretend that they were not there? Or did one walk up, smiling, and talk about the Insurance Act?”
A mackintosh in the corner submitted that there could be no reason why one should not bow—always supposing that onewished. Most people, under similar circumstances, obliterated themselves for a long time, went away and lost themselves for their own sake and everybody else’s, till the affair was forgotten. But in this case the lady under discussion seemed to have no self-obliterating tendencies—almostappeared, one might say, to be proud of the situation.
Silver-hair seemed a little shocked by this statement. There are canons of good taste even in back-biting.
Hardlyproud, surely? Of course, it was all distinctly tiresome, but, for his own part, he had gathered from—say, the droop of her left shoulder—that she was rather miserable.
Miserable? Of course she was miserable! This was smartness in blue voile and a cornflower hat, somewhat damaged by a string bag. Hadn’t she lost Crump, and gained nothing but the clinging odour of a scandal? Such luck as hers had been quite unlikely to last. And of course she would never have such another chance. Those weeks of triumph would have to last her all the rest of her life.
“So stupid!” Silver-hair murmured worriedly. “So upsetting to do these startling things! Of course she was a Lyndesay and a lady, and she played the organ quite nicely, but after all one of the professions would have been more suitable—say, a nice, quiet country solicitor. It was all very awkward for her friends. And she wasn’t even wearing mourning for him! Whathewanted to know, was—what was one todo?”
“Give her time,” said Mackintosh in the corner. “We haven’t seen the end of things yet. She’s a pretty girl, and she must have had a way with her, or Stanley would never have looked at her. Weall know that!” (Mackintosh’s forbears having washed for Crump, she was naturally in a position to speak familiarly.) “Give her time! There’s still a Lyndesay of Crump!”
Cornflower admired her perspicacity with a meaning smile.
“Oh, of course,thatwill be the next thing! She is certain to make the attempt. But Christian will not easily be caught. Christian, I have reason to know, has a fancy inquiteanother direction!”
Cornflower had a daughter of her own, who had had the felicity of being yanked through a hedge by Christian, out basset-hunting. What more was needed?
Silver-hair looked uncomfortable. Cornflower and Mackintosh did not appear to him to be keeping to the rules of the game.
“Of course one did not wish to beunkind,” he murmured, “but how much nicer it would be for everybody if these things didn’thappen! One felt one would like to show a little sympathy, only it was soawkward! Surely she ought to have known that he was married? It was her duty to know that sort of thing, seeing that she hadn’t a mother to make inquiries.”
A quiet little girl sitting beside him dropped a library book firmly on his feet, and he picked it up with inward reproach. After all, it wasn’t quite the thing to talk scandal in front of anybody so innocent and demure as Verity Cantacute contrivedto look, in spite of her twenty-three years. He was fond of Verity, too, and valued her opinion highly in a strictly unconfessed fashion. He knew quite well why she had dropped the book, though he would not have admitted it for worlds.
“Ah!” Cornflower said meaningly. “A mother’s interference is not always particularly welcome! Occasionally, a mother can be counted a positive nuisance; and, inthiscase——”
Verity dropped an umbrella, this time, a sharp-pronged thing that caught Cornflower on the ankle, and hurt her horribly. An umbrella is an excellently subtle weapon of offence, if you know how to use it artistically. Silver-hair, while applauding mentally, was nevertheless of opinion that Verity had interfered somewhat arbitrarily. After all, Cornflower ought to have known, if anybody did, exactly how much of a nuisance a mothercouldbe!
Deborah was just in front of him as they left the station in the swirl of the Saturday stream, and something about her—probably her left shoulder—smote his ridiculously soft heart a second time. He attached himself to her to observe how tiresome it was of the weather to look like drawing to thunder when he had a tennis-party at stake. Deb smiled unwillingly. She had always liked him, but she had her prickles out for the whole world, this morning.
“And the dust!” Silver-hair loved a grievance as cats love cream. “Personally, he expected an attack of appendicitis, any day, from swallowing somuch ground limestone! Might he carry her basket for her, by any chance?”
Deborah gave him a real smile this time.
“You can just go and talk to somebody else,” she said. “I’m not going to have any St. Georges convoyingmeup the town. This is my treadmill, and I mean to keep it to myself.” She nodded at Smith’s as they passed. “You ordered a book there, last week, if you remember. Go in and ask about it.”
She stepped adroitly in front of a passing lorry, and was lost to him, and he drifted meekly into Smith’s, wondering vaguely if he could have done anything different. He had meant to be kind, and she had not really been rude—he was not sure that she hadn’t meant to be grateful. How tiresome these situations were!
It seemed to Deb that the whole of Westmorland was shopping that morning, for almost every busy car and sleek carriage held somebody she knew. Slinker had given a reception in her honour, a short time before, and an envious County had shaken her warmly by the hand. To-day, it was remarkable how many motor-folk seemed interested in the fit of their chauffeur’s coat, how many traps carried people hunting for something on the floor. Lady Metcalfe, stopping outside the fish-shop as Deb came up, discovered instantaneously that what she really wanted was stockings. The Bracewell girls, hunting hats in Miss Clayton’s, remembered in a flurry thatthey had been instructed to purchase tooth-powder; while the Hon. Mrs. Stalker made no bones about the matter at all, but, having walked straight into Deb’s arms, merely remarked to the sky that she desired sausages, and glided over her. Deborah, reflecting, was not sure that hers wasn’t the kindest method, after all.
Coming out into the main street, the Crump stanhope passed her, with Christian on the box, but she was very busy doing sums inside her purse, and people who didn’t know her thought she must be either blind or stupid to ignore the compliment of so gallant a salute. Apparently she had seen nothing; yet she knew that at Christian’s side had sat a dark girl in trim black, and a wave of fierce feeling swept over her—for the woman in question was Slinker’s wife.
She was at Crump, now—Deb knew that. Mrs. Lyndesay had sent for her, acknowledged her—more, insisted on keeping her! As Slinker’s wife she had taken her place in the County; as Slinker’s wife she drove at his brother’s side; while the girl he had wooed in such arrant deceit walked stubbornly alone, with a high head and eyes that looked singularly straight in front of her.
When they came back again, Slinker’s wife had the reins, and pulled up cleverly in the crowded street close to where Deb’s passage was obstructed by a wood-cart. Christian, swinging quickly down, caught her as she looked round for means of escape.
“You cut me!” he said reproachfully, taking her hand in spite of her. “I don’t deserve it, and you know I don’t. You might at least have had the decency to stop and ask after the puppy.”
“I’ll wire for the latest bulletin,” she responded, moving away instantly in a distinctly uncomplimentary fashion. “You’ll excuse me, won’t you? I’m chasing a scrubbing-brush.” But Christian detained her.
“I want you to do something for me,” he said hurriedly,—“oh, please! It’s just this”—his voice was uneven and embarrassed—“Nettie—Miss Stone—er—that is—Slinker’s wife, you know—wants to know if you’ll be kind enough to know her. He—she—I give you my word, she’s an awfully good sort—that is to say—you won’t regret it!”
Deb stopped short enough now, regarding him incredulously.
“You wish to introduce me to—to that woman?” she asked, her voice very low. “You ask me to speak to her—in this crowd——?”
Christian cast a glance of easy indifference round him. “These don’t count, dear old things! She’s my horse-dealer, as I thought. I’ve known her all my life. I wish you would—don’t you think——?” He saw Deb’s face, then, and stopped.
“Oh, howdareyou!” she exclaimed, her voice shaking in spite of her. “How dare you even think of it? You must know that you insult me by the very suggestion!”
She swept a glance of outrage and pain from Christian’s troubled face to the figure on the box; caught the earnest gaze of a pair of bright brown eyes, then plunged into the traffic and was gone. Christian watched her disappear before he climbed back miserably, and Slinker’s wife shook the reins lightly, and proceeded down the full thoroughfare.
“That was a mistake!” she said, nodding cheerfully here and there to a well-known face. “You can’t have been very tactful, Christian, my child. But anyway it was a mistake, and I’d no business to suggest it. Still, we’ll do it yet, see if we don’t! Trust Nettie Stone for that!”
She drove on gently, smiling, very sure of herself; but at the corner of Redman Street the horses swerved without just cause, as if the hand on the reins had tightened unawares. Dixon of Dockerneuk was standing on the pavement, and he raised his eyes as she passed above him—Stanley Lyndesay’s widow. She laid her hand on Christian’s arm as he stared worriedly at his boots, and he looked up quickly, wondering at the shake in her voice.
“Laker dear,” she was saying with a smile, “I rather think Slinker was a mistake, too!”