Chapter Four.Grizel at Home.It was the afternoon of Grizel Beverley’s first “At Home” celebration. The drawing-room had been made ready for the occasion with the aid of what seemed to Martin a very army of workmen, and, as Grizel pointed out triumphantly, it looked as if it had been lived in for generations. Not a single new object marred the mellowed perfection of the whole. Old cabinets stood outlined against white walls, the floor was bare of the superfluity of little tables and flower-stands which characterise so many bride’s apartments; with one striking exception the general effect was austere in tone. The exception was found in a deep recess, on one side of the fire-place, the walls of which were hung with a gorgeous Chinese embroidery which made a feast of colour against the surrounding white and brown, and proclaimed to an understanding eye that the mistress of the house had appropriated the favoured niche for her own use.Against the wall stood a huge old sofa, showing delicate touches of brass on the carved woodwork, and piled with a profusion of cushions to match the tapestries in tone. There was a table also of carved Chinese wood, littered with books, and a surprising number of odds and ends considering the very short period in which it had been in use; a bureau of dull red lacquer, littered to match, and a great blue enamel bowl containing a few, but only a few, spring flowers.When Grizel did a thing at all she did it thoroughly, and when the drawing-room was finished to a thread, she herself dressed to match it in a cream lace robe of fallacious simplicity, caught together with a clasp of turquoise and diamonds, and a blue snood tied about her head. When the crucial moment arrived, she intended to seat herself sultana-like on her couch and burst in full splendour upon the admiring throngs. Martin was convinced that no living thing could fail to be subjugated by that gown, but he was equally convinced that Chumley would disapprove of the snood, which it would call a bandage, and consider theatrical and out of place. He knew his business better than to say so, however, and was at the moment abundantly occupied in trying to lure his wife from the window, where she had taken up her position, field-glasses in hand, to watch the approach of the first group of visitors up the lane leading to the gate.“The Campbells are coming. Hurrah! Hurrah! Three of ’em. One stout person in green, one thin person in black, one girl with large feet. Girl with feet has fair hair. Who do you know, Martin, with fair hair and large feet?”“Dozens of ’em.” Martin threw a quick look over his wife’s shoulder and recognised the group at a glance. “Mrs Mallison, wife of Major Mallison, retired Army man—the Seaforths. Eldest daughter Mary, dull and domestic. Second daughter Teresa, sporting. They are quite near the gate now, dearest. Don’t, please, let them see...”Grizel put down the field-glasses, crossed to the couch, and seated herself thereon in an attitude of prunes and prisms propriety. The bell rang, and the three ladies were shown into the room. There was an air of diffidence, almost of shyness in their demeanour, for this was not an ordinary afternoon call, upon an ordinary bride. This bride had been a well-known personage in society, her marriage had been a subject of almost international interest, and the fleeting glimpses which Chumley had had of her, on previous visits to Martin’s sister Katrine, had confirmed all that rumour had to say touching the puzzling variability of her nature. It was impossible for these first callers to restrain a thrill of nervousness as to the nature of the reception before them. When the door opened to give a momentary glimpse of a white figure sitting outlined against a background of Oriental splendour, the nervousness deepened still more. They advanced tentatively, cautious of the polished floor, so tentatively that Grizel met them more than half-way, sailing gracefully forward with an infinity of assurance which had the unexpected result of daunting them still further. They were requested to sit down; they sat down, and stared...“So good of you to come to see me! You are my very first callers.”“I trust—nottooearly.” Mrs Mallison felt a pang of disquietude. “We were so anxious to meet you. You are feeling quite settled down, I hope. How do you like Chumley?”“Oh, thank you,somuch! I adore everything. You do, don’t you, when you are newly married?”Mrs Mallison and her eldest daughter looked indulgent, but shocked. It was quite natural, quite desirable indeed that a bride should entertain such sentiments, but to express them so openly and to absolute strangers, savoured almost of indelicacy. Teresa was occupied in taking in the details of Grizel’s costume, in condemning the blue snood, and determining to try the effect on her own hair immediately on her return home. She found time, however, to give a quick glance at Martin as Grizel made her pronouncement, and noted the quiver of feeling which passed over his face. The understanding which comes of fellow-feeling revealed the meaning of that quiver. She understood why the man lowered his eyes and gave no glance of response. He was afraid that he might reveal too much!After that, other visitors arrived quick and fast. Bells rang, doors were opened, and in twos and threes the representatives of Chumley society were announced, and made their bow. They had come together for the sake of companionships or the sake also of being able to compare notes on the way home. They all wore their new spring costumes, and looked—the majority at least—personable enough, yet Martin realised with mingled pain and pride the gulf of difference which yawned between them and his wife. They were practical, commonplace women, leading practical, commonplace lives; to call them ill-bred or uncultivated would have been untrue. They came of good stock, had cultivated their brains and turned them to account, but there was one side of their nature which had not been developed, and that was the side which, in Grizel’s set, had been considered all-important. They had been brought up to discount appearances, and to view with suspicion any person of marked personal charm. They worshipped the god of convention, and its priestess Mrs Grundy. Grizel considered that a woman’s first duty was to charm, and her second,—if a second remained, worth speaking about,—to defy convention, and be a law unto oneself.Seated in her niche of glowing colour, she looked as much out of place as an orchid in a field of wild flowers, and Martin watching the face of each new-comer, saw reflected upon it the same surprise, the same disapproval, the same unease. He realised that Chumley was a little shocked by the unconventionality of the drawing-room, and still more by the unconventionality of the bride herself. In the last ten years of his life he had remained supremely indifferent of what his neighbours might say or think, but—these good women would be Grizel’s neighbours, out of love for himself she had cast her lot among them; he was almost painfully anxious that she should have such small compensations as would result from liking, and being liked in return. Surely among them all must be found some congenial spirit!“And are you happily settled with your maids, Mrs Beverley?” enquired Mrs Ritchards, wife of a City lawyer, who might almost be called retired, since he went up to town only two or three times a week. Mrs Ritchards had two subjects of conversation—her garden, and her servants, and had already unsuccessfully tackled the bride on the former topic. To her relief the second venture proved a decided draw, for Grizel leant her elbows on the table, cupped her chin in her hands, and puckered her face into a network of lines.“Oh, yes, do let’s talk about servants! I’m so interested. I’m making all sorts of horrible discoveries. My cook wants to go out! A night out every week. She told me so to-day. She said she’d always been used to it. I said if it came to that, I’d always been used to having my dinner. I never knew that cooksexpectedto go out! Who is to cook one’s dinner if the cook goes out? She said she was accustomed to prepare a stew, and cold shapes. ‘Cold Shapes’!” Grizel’s voice dropped to a thrilling note, she lifted her chin, her outstretched fingers curved and wriggled in expressive distaste. “Cold Shapes! Gruesome sound! It makes one think of the Morgue!”A shudder passed through the room, followed by a diffident laugh. Teresa Mallison and a few of the younger women giggled, the elders forbore on principle to smile at such an allusion, and the Vicar’s wife entered on a forbearing explanation.“They are human creatures like ourselves, Mrs Beverley, and the fire is so trying! I encourage my cook to go out, as a matter of health. You are not limited to shapes, of course. There are so many nice cold sweets.”Grizel shook her head. “Grace has not been given to me to eat cold sweets. Not onthosenights! I should have a carnal craving for omelettes. We must keep two cooks!” Her little nod waved aside the subject as settled and done with, and the matrons of Chumley exchanged stealthy glances of condemnation. Mrs Ritchards, however, warmed to the attack.“Why not a kitchen-maid, who could make herself useful upstairs in the morning? There is a young girl in my daughter’s Sunday School Class who might suit you. Very respectable, but short. Of course, if she were expected to wait when the housemaid is out, that might be an objection.”She paused enquiringly, and Grizel’s face fell.“The parlourmaid too! Do theyallgo out? Then how can one possibly be fed? There will be nothing for it, Martin, but to go up to town two nights a week.” The suggestion would appear to have had a cheering effect, for she flashed once more into smiles, looking round the circle of watching faces with eyes a-sparkle with mischief. “It’s such fun trying to keep house when one knows nothing whatever about it! Like starting out on a voyage of adventure! I have the most thrilling experiences...”Mrs Ritchards smiled with friendly encouragement.“You will find it much more interesting when youdounderstand! I always say that to run a household, economically and well, is as satisfactory work as a woman need ask. It’s like everything else, Mrs Beverley, the more you study it, the more interesting it becomes. I have been at it for years, and I pride myself that there is very little that I do not know.”“Ah!” cried Grizel deeply. She leant her elbow on her knee and bent forward, her expression one of breathless eagerness. “Then you are the very person I’ve been looking for! You can tell me something I’ve been dying to know... What is your opinion about Lard?”Mrs Ritchards gasped, the other listeners gasped also. Martin choked, turned the choke into a cough, and became suddenly engrossed in the china on the mantelpiece.“Lard! Lard!” Mrs Ritchards struggled with the inevitable disability to define a well-known article. “But surely... surely... In what respect did you want my opinion?”“About allowing it, of course, and if one should. Cook asked if I did, and it seemed such a complex question, and there was an implication about dripping—and the colour of something,—dark versus light. I got hopelessly confused!”Mrs Ritchards did not allow lard. “It’s a question of sufficient heat,” she maintained. “If they get the dripping hot enough, it does perfectly well. It must boil till you see a blue smoke...”Grizel seized an ivory tablet, and made a hurried note. “Till you see a blue smoke...! I’ll bring that in to-morrow, and confound her with my knowledge. Thank you so much. That’s quite a relief.” She pushed aside the tablet, straightened her back and looked around with a bright, challenging glance. The subject of lard was exhausted, and she was ready to pass on to pastures new.“Are you fond of games, Mrs Beverley?” Teresa asked, eager to secure another member for her various clubs, and feeling that the moment was a convenient one for introducing the subject. “We have a good tennis club, and ladies can play golf every day but Saturday, on the Links. It would be so nice if you would join. We have tea every afternoon. The members take it in turns to provide the cakes.”“How nice!” cried Grizel with a gush. “I adore cakes. I’ll join certainly, if you’ll promise I need never play. It bores me so to run about after balls. I never can catch them, and I don’t want to, so why should I try? Really”—she dropped her chin sententiously—“it’s a waste of time!”The Vicar’s wife sawheropportunity, and grasped it.“I agree with you, Mrs Beverley. The tendency of the age is to spend far too much time over games. My husband considers that it is a national danger. There are so many other things better worth doing!”“Oh, yes,” cried Grizel promptly. “There’s bridge.” The strain of the conversation was beginning to tell, and she told herself impatiently that she wouldnotbe “preached.”“Bridge is so comfy; you can sit still, and have a cushion to your back, and smoke, and talk between the deals. It’s quite a good way of getting through the afternoon. What stakes do you play for here?”The women in the company who played for money looked at the Vicar’s wife and were silent. Those who did not, felt virtuous, and looked it.“At our house we make a point of playing for love,” Mrs Ritchards announced. “My husband disapproves of anything in the nature of gambling. Of course, when one has young people coming in and out, thereisa responsibility. Personally I should object very strongly to taking another person’s money. Don’t you feel an awkwardness, Mrs Beverley—from your own guests?”“Not a bit. I love it!” declared Grizel naughtily. “But I hate to lose. I hope someone will be wicked enough to play for money with me. I suppose therearesome wicked people in the neighbourhood?”“They do at the Court. I go up there sometimes. Lady Cassandra loves bridge,” Teresa said with a pride which overcame shyness. Was she not the only girl in Chumley who could boast of anything like intimacy with the big house? She watched her hostess’ face for a brightening of interest, and felt aggrieved when it failed to appear.“That’s good. I’m glad there’s someone. I must ask her about it,” said Grizel nonchalantly, taking a future acquaintance for granted with a calmness which at once irritated and impressed her hearer. At the bottom of her heart Teresa felt the birth of a jealous dread; and found herself hoping that Cassandra would not call, would at any rate delay doing so for months to come, as was her custom with Chumley acquaintances. And then once again the door was thrown open, and with an accent of satisfaction the parlourmaid announced—Lady Cassandra Raynor.She had come already! On the very first day on which Mrs Beverley was at home,—as quickly, as eagerly, as the humblest among them! Every woman in the room felt the same sense of amaze, the same rankling remembrance of the different manner in which she herself had been treated. Their eyes turned as on one pivot towards the door.Cassandra entered, a vision of delight in grey velvet and chinchilla furs, her face with its delicately vivid bloom half hidden by the latest eccentricity in hats. Her dress was very tight, her hat was very large; from an artistic point of view the lines of both were abominable, but Cassandra considered them ravishing, and, being one of the happy people who look well despite their clothes, succeeded in mesmerising her audience into a like belief. She advanced, walking with short, mincing footsteps, while her eyes swept the room. Grizel rose from the sofa to greet her, and a glance was exchanged between them, a swift, appraising glance. The lookers-on heard the exchange of a few society phrases, pronounced, it appeared to them, with an unnecessary amount of “gush,” but in the moment in which the two hands clasped, and the hazel eyes looked into the blue, the two women realised that for them there need be no intermediate stage; they were not strangers, they were already friends.Martin came forward and shook hands in his turn, and Cassandra seated herself, bending her head in a smiling greeting, intended to embrace the whole room. She had timed her visit in the hope that most of the guests would be ready to depart, and noticed with satisfaction the empty teacups, but every woman in the room with one exception, was at that moment forming a mental resolution to stay and listen to what passed between this interesting pair.“Your house looks so beautifully settled, Mrs Beverley. I hope you haven’t been bored over the upset. It’s so impossible to get things done in the country!”“Oh, thanks. I’m not on speaking terms with a workman in the neighbourhood, but Ididget things done as I wished! I always do. We parted on the worst of terms, and I gave them a heart-to-heart talk, and told them I hoped the Germans would come soon, and drill them into something like intelligence. It would really be an admirable thing for the country!”The Vicar’s wife arose with heavy dignity. With a whole parish waiting on her ministrations she had no time to waste listening to such nonsense. Unpatriotic into the bargain. Yet despite her disapproval, there was an indefinable something in the bride’s personality which touched her heart. Perhaps it was the radiant happiness of her mien, perhaps it was that deep musical note which at times softened her voice, suggesting depths below the surface; perhaps it was simply her fragility and charm. Hannah Evans did not trouble to analyse her feelings, she merely held out a plump gloved hand, and smiled kindly into Grizel’s face.“I must be running away, Mrs Beverley. My husband is hoping to call upon you very soon. This afternoon he has a class for confirmation. I must hurry home to give him tea. He comes in so tired. Good afternoon. So pleased to welcome you among us! I hope we may often meet.”Her voice rang true, there was a kindliness written on the large, plain face to which Grizel’s heart made instant response. She brought her own left hand to join the right, clasping the grey glove with an affectionate pressure, and smiled back the while with a winsome friendliness. There was silence in the room while the onlookers looked with critical eyes at the two figures, so typical of youth and age. The bulky woman, with her jet bonnet and capacious black silk coat, the nymph-like form of the bride. Every ear listened for the response.“Oh, you will; indeed you will! I shall often be running over to the Vicarage to see you.”“That will be very nice.” Mrs Evans smiled complacently. “I hope you will. And I must not forget—I made a note to ask you before I left.—It would give us great pleasure if you could see your way to take up a little work. We are sadly in need of helpers. I was going to ask if you would join our Mothers’ Meeting?”“Oh, give me time!” cried Grizel reproachfully. “Give me time!”In answer to after reprisals she justified herself by the assertion that she had spoken on the impulse of the moment, and in absolute good faith. Besides, what else could the old thing have meant? And even if she didn’t, why need the silly creatures be shocked? She did not attempt to deny that they were shocked, the flutter of dismay had indeed been so real a thing as to obtrude itself on ears, as well as eyes. Gasps of astonishment, of horror, of dismay, sounded to right and left; rustling of silk; hasty, inoperative coughs. Grizel still saw in remembrance the petrifaction on the large kind face looking down into her own, the scarlet mounting swiftly into Teresa’s cheeks. Only one person laughed, and that laugh had had the effect of heightening the general condemnation. It was Cassandra Raynor who laughed.
It was the afternoon of Grizel Beverley’s first “At Home” celebration. The drawing-room had been made ready for the occasion with the aid of what seemed to Martin a very army of workmen, and, as Grizel pointed out triumphantly, it looked as if it had been lived in for generations. Not a single new object marred the mellowed perfection of the whole. Old cabinets stood outlined against white walls, the floor was bare of the superfluity of little tables and flower-stands which characterise so many bride’s apartments; with one striking exception the general effect was austere in tone. The exception was found in a deep recess, on one side of the fire-place, the walls of which were hung with a gorgeous Chinese embroidery which made a feast of colour against the surrounding white and brown, and proclaimed to an understanding eye that the mistress of the house had appropriated the favoured niche for her own use.
Against the wall stood a huge old sofa, showing delicate touches of brass on the carved woodwork, and piled with a profusion of cushions to match the tapestries in tone. There was a table also of carved Chinese wood, littered with books, and a surprising number of odds and ends considering the very short period in which it had been in use; a bureau of dull red lacquer, littered to match, and a great blue enamel bowl containing a few, but only a few, spring flowers.
When Grizel did a thing at all she did it thoroughly, and when the drawing-room was finished to a thread, she herself dressed to match it in a cream lace robe of fallacious simplicity, caught together with a clasp of turquoise and diamonds, and a blue snood tied about her head. When the crucial moment arrived, she intended to seat herself sultana-like on her couch and burst in full splendour upon the admiring throngs. Martin was convinced that no living thing could fail to be subjugated by that gown, but he was equally convinced that Chumley would disapprove of the snood, which it would call a bandage, and consider theatrical and out of place. He knew his business better than to say so, however, and was at the moment abundantly occupied in trying to lure his wife from the window, where she had taken up her position, field-glasses in hand, to watch the approach of the first group of visitors up the lane leading to the gate.
“The Campbells are coming. Hurrah! Hurrah! Three of ’em. One stout person in green, one thin person in black, one girl with large feet. Girl with feet has fair hair. Who do you know, Martin, with fair hair and large feet?”
“Dozens of ’em.” Martin threw a quick look over his wife’s shoulder and recognised the group at a glance. “Mrs Mallison, wife of Major Mallison, retired Army man—the Seaforths. Eldest daughter Mary, dull and domestic. Second daughter Teresa, sporting. They are quite near the gate now, dearest. Don’t, please, let them see...”
Grizel put down the field-glasses, crossed to the couch, and seated herself thereon in an attitude of prunes and prisms propriety. The bell rang, and the three ladies were shown into the room. There was an air of diffidence, almost of shyness in their demeanour, for this was not an ordinary afternoon call, upon an ordinary bride. This bride had been a well-known personage in society, her marriage had been a subject of almost international interest, and the fleeting glimpses which Chumley had had of her, on previous visits to Martin’s sister Katrine, had confirmed all that rumour had to say touching the puzzling variability of her nature. It was impossible for these first callers to restrain a thrill of nervousness as to the nature of the reception before them. When the door opened to give a momentary glimpse of a white figure sitting outlined against a background of Oriental splendour, the nervousness deepened still more. They advanced tentatively, cautious of the polished floor, so tentatively that Grizel met them more than half-way, sailing gracefully forward with an infinity of assurance which had the unexpected result of daunting them still further. They were requested to sit down; they sat down, and stared...
“So good of you to come to see me! You are my very first callers.”
“I trust—nottooearly.” Mrs Mallison felt a pang of disquietude. “We were so anxious to meet you. You are feeling quite settled down, I hope. How do you like Chumley?”
“Oh, thank you,somuch! I adore everything. You do, don’t you, when you are newly married?”
Mrs Mallison and her eldest daughter looked indulgent, but shocked. It was quite natural, quite desirable indeed that a bride should entertain such sentiments, but to express them so openly and to absolute strangers, savoured almost of indelicacy. Teresa was occupied in taking in the details of Grizel’s costume, in condemning the blue snood, and determining to try the effect on her own hair immediately on her return home. She found time, however, to give a quick glance at Martin as Grizel made her pronouncement, and noted the quiver of feeling which passed over his face. The understanding which comes of fellow-feeling revealed the meaning of that quiver. She understood why the man lowered his eyes and gave no glance of response. He was afraid that he might reveal too much!
After that, other visitors arrived quick and fast. Bells rang, doors were opened, and in twos and threes the representatives of Chumley society were announced, and made their bow. They had come together for the sake of companionships or the sake also of being able to compare notes on the way home. They all wore their new spring costumes, and looked—the majority at least—personable enough, yet Martin realised with mingled pain and pride the gulf of difference which yawned between them and his wife. They were practical, commonplace women, leading practical, commonplace lives; to call them ill-bred or uncultivated would have been untrue. They came of good stock, had cultivated their brains and turned them to account, but there was one side of their nature which had not been developed, and that was the side which, in Grizel’s set, had been considered all-important. They had been brought up to discount appearances, and to view with suspicion any person of marked personal charm. They worshipped the god of convention, and its priestess Mrs Grundy. Grizel considered that a woman’s first duty was to charm, and her second,—if a second remained, worth speaking about,—to defy convention, and be a law unto oneself.
Seated in her niche of glowing colour, she looked as much out of place as an orchid in a field of wild flowers, and Martin watching the face of each new-comer, saw reflected upon it the same surprise, the same disapproval, the same unease. He realised that Chumley was a little shocked by the unconventionality of the drawing-room, and still more by the unconventionality of the bride herself. In the last ten years of his life he had remained supremely indifferent of what his neighbours might say or think, but—these good women would be Grizel’s neighbours, out of love for himself she had cast her lot among them; he was almost painfully anxious that she should have such small compensations as would result from liking, and being liked in return. Surely among them all must be found some congenial spirit!
“And are you happily settled with your maids, Mrs Beverley?” enquired Mrs Ritchards, wife of a City lawyer, who might almost be called retired, since he went up to town only two or three times a week. Mrs Ritchards had two subjects of conversation—her garden, and her servants, and had already unsuccessfully tackled the bride on the former topic. To her relief the second venture proved a decided draw, for Grizel leant her elbows on the table, cupped her chin in her hands, and puckered her face into a network of lines.
“Oh, yes, do let’s talk about servants! I’m so interested. I’m making all sorts of horrible discoveries. My cook wants to go out! A night out every week. She told me so to-day. She said she’d always been used to it. I said if it came to that, I’d always been used to having my dinner. I never knew that cooksexpectedto go out! Who is to cook one’s dinner if the cook goes out? She said she was accustomed to prepare a stew, and cold shapes. ‘Cold Shapes’!” Grizel’s voice dropped to a thrilling note, she lifted her chin, her outstretched fingers curved and wriggled in expressive distaste. “Cold Shapes! Gruesome sound! It makes one think of the Morgue!”
A shudder passed through the room, followed by a diffident laugh. Teresa Mallison and a few of the younger women giggled, the elders forbore on principle to smile at such an allusion, and the Vicar’s wife entered on a forbearing explanation.
“They are human creatures like ourselves, Mrs Beverley, and the fire is so trying! I encourage my cook to go out, as a matter of health. You are not limited to shapes, of course. There are so many nice cold sweets.”
Grizel shook her head. “Grace has not been given to me to eat cold sweets. Not onthosenights! I should have a carnal craving for omelettes. We must keep two cooks!” Her little nod waved aside the subject as settled and done with, and the matrons of Chumley exchanged stealthy glances of condemnation. Mrs Ritchards, however, warmed to the attack.
“Why not a kitchen-maid, who could make herself useful upstairs in the morning? There is a young girl in my daughter’s Sunday School Class who might suit you. Very respectable, but short. Of course, if she were expected to wait when the housemaid is out, that might be an objection.”
She paused enquiringly, and Grizel’s face fell.
“The parlourmaid too! Do theyallgo out? Then how can one possibly be fed? There will be nothing for it, Martin, but to go up to town two nights a week.” The suggestion would appear to have had a cheering effect, for she flashed once more into smiles, looking round the circle of watching faces with eyes a-sparkle with mischief. “It’s such fun trying to keep house when one knows nothing whatever about it! Like starting out on a voyage of adventure! I have the most thrilling experiences...”
Mrs Ritchards smiled with friendly encouragement.
“You will find it much more interesting when youdounderstand! I always say that to run a household, economically and well, is as satisfactory work as a woman need ask. It’s like everything else, Mrs Beverley, the more you study it, the more interesting it becomes. I have been at it for years, and I pride myself that there is very little that I do not know.”
“Ah!” cried Grizel deeply. She leant her elbow on her knee and bent forward, her expression one of breathless eagerness. “Then you are the very person I’ve been looking for! You can tell me something I’ve been dying to know... What is your opinion about Lard?”
Mrs Ritchards gasped, the other listeners gasped also. Martin choked, turned the choke into a cough, and became suddenly engrossed in the china on the mantelpiece.
“Lard! Lard!” Mrs Ritchards struggled with the inevitable disability to define a well-known article. “But surely... surely... In what respect did you want my opinion?”
“About allowing it, of course, and if one should. Cook asked if I did, and it seemed such a complex question, and there was an implication about dripping—and the colour of something,—dark versus light. I got hopelessly confused!”
Mrs Ritchards did not allow lard. “It’s a question of sufficient heat,” she maintained. “If they get the dripping hot enough, it does perfectly well. It must boil till you see a blue smoke...”
Grizel seized an ivory tablet, and made a hurried note. “Till you see a blue smoke...! I’ll bring that in to-morrow, and confound her with my knowledge. Thank you so much. That’s quite a relief.” She pushed aside the tablet, straightened her back and looked around with a bright, challenging glance. The subject of lard was exhausted, and she was ready to pass on to pastures new.
“Are you fond of games, Mrs Beverley?” Teresa asked, eager to secure another member for her various clubs, and feeling that the moment was a convenient one for introducing the subject. “We have a good tennis club, and ladies can play golf every day but Saturday, on the Links. It would be so nice if you would join. We have tea every afternoon. The members take it in turns to provide the cakes.”
“How nice!” cried Grizel with a gush. “I adore cakes. I’ll join certainly, if you’ll promise I need never play. It bores me so to run about after balls. I never can catch them, and I don’t want to, so why should I try? Really”—she dropped her chin sententiously—“it’s a waste of time!”
The Vicar’s wife sawheropportunity, and grasped it.
“I agree with you, Mrs Beverley. The tendency of the age is to spend far too much time over games. My husband considers that it is a national danger. There are so many other things better worth doing!”
“Oh, yes,” cried Grizel promptly. “There’s bridge.” The strain of the conversation was beginning to tell, and she told herself impatiently that she wouldnotbe “preached.”
“Bridge is so comfy; you can sit still, and have a cushion to your back, and smoke, and talk between the deals. It’s quite a good way of getting through the afternoon. What stakes do you play for here?”
The women in the company who played for money looked at the Vicar’s wife and were silent. Those who did not, felt virtuous, and looked it.
“At our house we make a point of playing for love,” Mrs Ritchards announced. “My husband disapproves of anything in the nature of gambling. Of course, when one has young people coming in and out, thereisa responsibility. Personally I should object very strongly to taking another person’s money. Don’t you feel an awkwardness, Mrs Beverley—from your own guests?”
“Not a bit. I love it!” declared Grizel naughtily. “But I hate to lose. I hope someone will be wicked enough to play for money with me. I suppose therearesome wicked people in the neighbourhood?”
“They do at the Court. I go up there sometimes. Lady Cassandra loves bridge,” Teresa said with a pride which overcame shyness. Was she not the only girl in Chumley who could boast of anything like intimacy with the big house? She watched her hostess’ face for a brightening of interest, and felt aggrieved when it failed to appear.
“That’s good. I’m glad there’s someone. I must ask her about it,” said Grizel nonchalantly, taking a future acquaintance for granted with a calmness which at once irritated and impressed her hearer. At the bottom of her heart Teresa felt the birth of a jealous dread; and found herself hoping that Cassandra would not call, would at any rate delay doing so for months to come, as was her custom with Chumley acquaintances. And then once again the door was thrown open, and with an accent of satisfaction the parlourmaid announced—Lady Cassandra Raynor.
She had come already! On the very first day on which Mrs Beverley was at home,—as quickly, as eagerly, as the humblest among them! Every woman in the room felt the same sense of amaze, the same rankling remembrance of the different manner in which she herself had been treated. Their eyes turned as on one pivot towards the door.
Cassandra entered, a vision of delight in grey velvet and chinchilla furs, her face with its delicately vivid bloom half hidden by the latest eccentricity in hats. Her dress was very tight, her hat was very large; from an artistic point of view the lines of both were abominable, but Cassandra considered them ravishing, and, being one of the happy people who look well despite their clothes, succeeded in mesmerising her audience into a like belief. She advanced, walking with short, mincing footsteps, while her eyes swept the room. Grizel rose from the sofa to greet her, and a glance was exchanged between them, a swift, appraising glance. The lookers-on heard the exchange of a few society phrases, pronounced, it appeared to them, with an unnecessary amount of “gush,” but in the moment in which the two hands clasped, and the hazel eyes looked into the blue, the two women realised that for them there need be no intermediate stage; they were not strangers, they were already friends.
Martin came forward and shook hands in his turn, and Cassandra seated herself, bending her head in a smiling greeting, intended to embrace the whole room. She had timed her visit in the hope that most of the guests would be ready to depart, and noticed with satisfaction the empty teacups, but every woman in the room with one exception, was at that moment forming a mental resolution to stay and listen to what passed between this interesting pair.
“Your house looks so beautifully settled, Mrs Beverley. I hope you haven’t been bored over the upset. It’s so impossible to get things done in the country!”
“Oh, thanks. I’m not on speaking terms with a workman in the neighbourhood, but Ididget things done as I wished! I always do. We parted on the worst of terms, and I gave them a heart-to-heart talk, and told them I hoped the Germans would come soon, and drill them into something like intelligence. It would really be an admirable thing for the country!”
The Vicar’s wife arose with heavy dignity. With a whole parish waiting on her ministrations she had no time to waste listening to such nonsense. Unpatriotic into the bargain. Yet despite her disapproval, there was an indefinable something in the bride’s personality which touched her heart. Perhaps it was the radiant happiness of her mien, perhaps it was that deep musical note which at times softened her voice, suggesting depths below the surface; perhaps it was simply her fragility and charm. Hannah Evans did not trouble to analyse her feelings, she merely held out a plump gloved hand, and smiled kindly into Grizel’s face.
“I must be running away, Mrs Beverley. My husband is hoping to call upon you very soon. This afternoon he has a class for confirmation. I must hurry home to give him tea. He comes in so tired. Good afternoon. So pleased to welcome you among us! I hope we may often meet.”
Her voice rang true, there was a kindliness written on the large, plain face to which Grizel’s heart made instant response. She brought her own left hand to join the right, clasping the grey glove with an affectionate pressure, and smiled back the while with a winsome friendliness. There was silence in the room while the onlookers looked with critical eyes at the two figures, so typical of youth and age. The bulky woman, with her jet bonnet and capacious black silk coat, the nymph-like form of the bride. Every ear listened for the response.
“Oh, you will; indeed you will! I shall often be running over to the Vicarage to see you.”
“That will be very nice.” Mrs Evans smiled complacently. “I hope you will. And I must not forget—I made a note to ask you before I left.—It would give us great pleasure if you could see your way to take up a little work. We are sadly in need of helpers. I was going to ask if you would join our Mothers’ Meeting?”
“Oh, give me time!” cried Grizel reproachfully. “Give me time!”
In answer to after reprisals she justified herself by the assertion that she had spoken on the impulse of the moment, and in absolute good faith. Besides, what else could the old thing have meant? And even if she didn’t, why need the silly creatures be shocked? She did not attempt to deny that they were shocked, the flutter of dismay had indeed been so real a thing as to obtrude itself on ears, as well as eyes. Gasps of astonishment, of horror, of dismay, sounded to right and left; rustling of silk; hasty, inoperative coughs. Grizel still saw in remembrance the petrifaction on the large kind face looking down into her own, the scarlet mounting swiftly into Teresa’s cheeks. Only one person laughed, and that laugh had had the effect of heightening the general condemnation. It was Cassandra Raynor who laughed.
Chapter Five.“Two of a Kind.”Mrs Evans’s departure gave the start to what was virtually a general stampede. As one woman rose to make her adieux, another hastily joined her, offering a seat in a carriage, or companionship on the walk home. Mrs Mallison collected her daughters with the flutter of an agitated hen. Mrs Ritchards forgot even to refer to the kitchen-maid. Grizel beamed upon them with her most childlike smiles, but there was no staying the flight: feebly, obstinately, as a flock of sheep each one followed her leader. In three minutes Cassandra alone was left, and Martin having escorted the last sheep to the door, took the opportunity to escape to his study, and shut himself in with a sigh of relief.Alone in the drawing-room the two women confronted each other in eloquent silence. Cassandra’s eyes were dancing, her cheeks were flushed to their brightest carmine; Grizel was pale, and a trifle perturbed. “Now I’ve been and gone and done it!”“You have indeed!” Cassandra laughed. It was delightful to be able to laugh, to feel absolutely at home, and in sympathy with another woman. There was reproach in her words, but none in her tone. “Howcould yousay it?”“Because I thought she meant it,—honestly I did, for the first second, and I always act on the first second. And why need the silly things be shocked? They’ve all got dozens. Whatisthe old Meeting, anyway?”“I think it’s... Mothers!” volunteered Cassandra illuminatingly. “Poor ones. They have plain sewing and coal clubs. I subscribe. You were invited to join the Committee. In the parish room. They—I believe they cut out the plain clothes.”“Fancy me cutting out plain clothes!” cried Grizel, and gave a complacent pat to her lace gown. “I’ll subscribe too, and stay at home, but I’ll apologise to the dear old thing. She meant to be kind, and I’m sorry I shocked her. I’m going to ring for fresh tea, and we can have a nice talk, and shock each other comfortably. Haveyouany children?”“I have a son,” said Cassandra. The brilliance of her smile faded as she spoke. She was conscious of it herself and laboriously endeavoured to keep her voice unchanged. “He is nine years old. At a preparatory school. Quite a big person.”Grizel also ceased to smile. There was an expression akin to reverence in the hazel eyes as they dwelt on the other’s face. The deep note was in her voice.“You look so young, just a girl, and you have a son nearly ten! Old enough to be a companion,—to talk with you, and to understand. How wonderful it must be!”There was a moment of silence during which Cassandra’s thoughts flew back to those never-to-be-forgotten days when a tiny form lay elapsed to a heart overflowing with the glory of motherhood, and then reproduced before her a stocky figure in an Eton suit, with a stolid, freckled face. She smiled with stiff lips.“He is a dear thing, quite clever too, which is satisfactory. You must see him in the holidays, but unless you can talk cricket I’m afraid he may bore you. It is not, of course, a responsive age.”“It will come! It will come! It’s storing up. These undemonstrative natures are the richest deep down,” Grizel said softly.The maid came in with the tea at that moment, and she said no more, but it was enough. Cassandra felt an amazed conviction that if she had spoken for hours, the situation could not have been more accurately understood.Grizel poured out tea, talking easily the while.“Having a son must mean educating oneself all over again. Cricket now! It’s the deadliest game. One goes to Lord’s for the frocks, and to meet friends and have tea, and see all the dear little top hats waved in the air at the end. I dote on enthusiasm; it goes to my head like wine. Every Eton and Harrow I wave and enthuse as wildly as if I’d ten sons on the winning side. But how on earth theycanenjoy that everlasting running about over the same few yards, between the same old posts, hour after hour, day after day!” She shrugged expressively. “Well! I neverlook.”“It’s worse when they talk about it!” Cassandra said. “When my boy is at home, he and his father talk cricket steadily through every meal. I am hopelessly out in the cold. I suppose it will grow worse as time goes on, and more masculine tastes develop.”Grizel paused, cup in hand, to stare reflectively at the fire.“Do you know that’s a subject which is exercising me very much! All my life until now I’ve lived with women, and been conversationally on my own ground, and now there’s Martin! We’ve got to have meals together, and depend on each other for conversation until death doth us part, and it’s a big proposition. Suppose he gets bored? SupposeIget bored? At present it’s such delight just to be together, that it doesn’t matter what we say. I could talk hats by the hour, and he would be patient, and he could prose about golf, and I’d murmur sympathetically in the pauses, and be quite happy just watching him, and thinking what a dear he was, but”—she put down her cup—“I’m not a child; Iknowthat that stage must pass! It may be just as sweet to be together—it may be sweeter, but the novelty will pass... Tell me!” she bent forward, gazing in Cassandra’s face. “How soon does it pass?”Again Cassandra was conscious of stiffened lips, of making a pretence at the answering smile.“The time varies, but even in exceptional cases it is horribly soon. I was very young when I married. We were a big family at home, and very hard up. It was a revolutionary change to come almost straight from the schoolroom, and an allowance of a few shillings a week, to be mistress of the Court. I was wild with excitement, it seemed impossible that I could ever getblasé.”“But you did?”“Oh, yes.”“How soon?”“Very soon, I’m afraid. Incredibly soon.”Grizel tossed her head.“I am neverblasé. It’s impossible that I ever could be. Life interests me too much. The more difficult it is, the more absorbing it becomes. But I’m sorry for the poor little ignorant brides who believe so implicitly in the ‘happy-ever-after’ theory, that they take no trouble to make it come true. I’m twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine, and I’ve no illusions on the point. My husband and I are gloriously happy, but I know we shan’t go on at the same level, unless I work hard to keep it up.”“I! Why notwe? Surely it’s a mutual affair?”“Yes, but bless ’em! men arenotadaptive, and most of them are so busy making the bread and butter, and too tired when that’s over, to bother about anything more! It’s the women who have to do the fitting in. That brings us back to where we started. I’m trying to think ahead, and prepare myself for the horrible moment when Martin wants to talk sense!”They both laughed, but Cassandra was conscious of a pricking of conscience. It had never occurred to her to “work hard” to preserve her husband’s love. Like many another woman she had taken for granted that once secured, it would automatically remain her own; she had grieved over a divergence of interest, as a calamity beyond her control. How could one “prepare” against such a contingency?“I’m not at all sure that I agree with you,” she said restlessly. “The ‘happy-ever-after’ theory has its drawbacks, but it’s very sweet while it lasts, and your other seems prosaic from the start. To have to work hard, to ‘struggle’ for one’s husband’s love!”“Well, why not? Is thereanybig thing in life which one gains, or keeps without a fight? And this is the biggest of all, and the most fragile and easily lost. Think! among all your friends how many could come to stay in your house for one month, that you wouldn’t be thankful to part from at the end? I don’t say you stop caring for them, but you’ve had enough! You say to yourself: ‘Emmeline is an angel, but that giggle of hers drives me daft. Thank the gods she’s leaving to-day!’ or ‘Emmeline’s a perfect dear, I’m devoted to her, buthaveyou noticed the way she wriggles her nose? It’s got on my nerves to such an extent that I can’t bear it an hour longer.’ And you stand on the platform and wave your hand, and draw a great big sigh of relief as the train puffs away, and within the railway carriage Emmeline is sighing too, and feeling unutterably relieved to be rid of you! ... You know it’s true!”“Oh!” laughed Cassandra, “don’t talk of a month. A week is enough for me. Less than a week!”“Then why wonder at the difficulties of marriage? There’s no magic in a few words spoken at the altar, to make two people impervious to each other’s faults. It’s the most wonderful and beautiful of miracles when they manage to live tied together for twenty, thirty, even fifty years, and to be decently civil until the end. It’s worth any amount of effort to accomplish. I adore my husband, I adore myself, but we are mortal... we have failings; and as we grow older they’ll grow worse. At present we are both blind, but there will come a time when our eyes are opened. I know. I’ve seen. I’ve watched. I’ve taken warning. I’m going to prepare myself in advance.”“What,par exemple, are you going to do?”“Study the brute! Study hisfads. Join the golf club, for one thing, and learn to listen intelligently, at the cost of a few miserable afternoons. I detest sports, and sporting clothes, and strong boots, and a red face, and tramping about mile after mile over rough ground. If we’d been intended to walk we should have had four legs; but I shall very soon pick up all that is necessary!”“Why not go a little further, while you are about it, and play with your husband? You might take lessons from the pro. to get up your game, and then you could go to the links together in the afternoons. If you are determined to sacrifice yourself, you may as well do it thoroughly. He’d be so pleased!”“I’m not so sure,” Grizel said shrewdly. “I’m his wife and he adores me, but he’d rather play golf with a boring man with a good handicap, and come home to find me sitting on a sofa looking pretty and fluffy, ready to acclaim his exploits, and listen to volumes about every hole, and the marvellous way in which he cleeked his tee off the bogie. Well! what is it? Don’t you call it a bogie?” She laughed herself, in sympathy with the other’s merriment, and ended with an involuntary: “Lady Cassandra! I’m sogladyou came. Do let us often laugh together! I have such a comfortable feeling that you won’t be shocked at anything I say.”“No one ever shocks me, except myself. You don’t know how glad I shall be. I’m really rather a lonely person, though I’ve lived here so long. It seems extraordinary to have had this intimate conversation with you on our very first meeting. I wouldn’t dream of discussing such matters with any other woman in the neighbourhood.”“Of course not. You don’t know anyone else so well. Weareintimates, so what’s the use of hedging?”“I don’t want to hedge. I’m only too thankful to know it. It’s not healthy to live so much alone. One grows introspective. These last years I’ve been growing more and more absorbed in Cassandra Raynor.”“Well! sheisattractive, isn’t she? I’m going to do exactly the same. I felt it in my bones the moment you entered the room. You felt it too! I saw the little spark leap to your eyes.”“It did. It’s quite true, but I ought to warn you that being associated with me, won’t make you any more popular in Chumley. Chumley doesn’t—approve of me! I expect you are sensitive enough to atmospheres to have grasped that fact for yourself?”“I did. Yes. But why?”“Oh, many reasons. I dress fashionably. I hate parish work. I don’t go to ‘teas,’ or give them in return. I’m lazy about calls. I’m not interested in the people, and I can’t pretend.”“Oh, but I shall be interested. I always am. I love all those dear old things in their dolmans and black silks. They are types of the old-fashioned women, whom I’ve read about, but never known. I shall love studying them, and hearing their views, and shocking them by telling them mine in return. They’ll love being shocked—all prim old ladies love it. They’re all walking home now, buzzing over myfaux pas, and feeling as perked up as if they’d been to the theatre. They think they are grieved, but they have really enjoyed themselves immensely. I lived with a very old great-aunt before my marriage, so I’m an expert in old ladies.”Cassandra assented absently. She was not interested in old ladies, but she was interested in watching Grizel as she talked. Her practised eye took in every detail of her appearance, and every detail was right. She studied her features, her expression, the waves of her soft fair hair, the swiftly moving hands, and sat smiling, appearing to listen, while her thoughts raced ahead, planning future meetings, seeing herself blessed with a friend who would fill the empty gap.“I shall be jealous of the old ladies if you give them too much of your company!” she said, with a charming smile which accentuated the flattery of the remark. Grizel smiled back with a little nod of acknowledgment, and Cassandra lifted her muff as if preparing to depart, asking casually the while:“Have you good news of your sister-in-law, Miss Beverley? I knew her slightly, and admired her a great deal. She went to India, I think?”Grizel’s eyes danced with animation.“She did. Yes. To visit a friend. We saw her off at Marseilles, my husband and I, and a fortnight later we were sitting in a café, drinking coffee, and flirting outrageously, when we suddenly saw the name of the ship on a poster! It had been in a collision in the Indian Ocean; and the passengers had to take to the boats. If another ship had not come to the rescue, they might all have been drowned.”“What a terrible experience! How sad for the poor girl, just when she was starting for such a delightful visit!”“Not at all sad. Not at all. A very good thing,” said Grizel unexpectedly. “Katrine had been wading through trivialities all her life; a big experience was just what she needed. Besides—as a matter of fact... there was aMan!”“Aha!” cried Cassandra, immediately fired with feminine interest. “On the ship?”“Pre-cisely! Fastening her into life-belts, bidding her a tragic adieu, waving a gallant hand from the sinking prow.”“Just so. I understand! And when is the wedding to be?”Grizel’s face lengthened in dismay.“Goodness me—I haven’ttoldyou, have I? No one is to know for a couple of months. How on earth did you guess?Pleasedon’t speak of it to a soul. You see, it’s a trifle awkward, because as a matter of fact the real man,—it wasn’t the real man,—I mean itwasthe real man really, only he pretended—”Cassandra held up a protesting hand.“I think you’d better leave it alone! You didn’t tell me anything; I guessed, but I’ll promise to forget forthwith, and be agreeably surprised when I hear the news a few months hence.Don’ttell me any names!”Before Grizel could reply the whizz of an electric bell sounded through the house, and both women involuntarily groaned, foreseeing an end to theirtête-à-tête, but the next moment Grizel’s eyes brightened.“It’s aman!” she whispered ecstatically. “It’s a man. I can hear his dear boots! My first man caller! Oh joy! Oh rapture!”“Captain Peignton.”Dane entered, his eyes narrowed in his usual, short-sighted fashion. Cassandra noticed that he threw a quick glance round the room and guessed, what was indeed the truth, that he had hoped to meet Teresa Mallison, and have an opportunity of escorting her home. When he caught sight of herself, his face showed a ripple of feeling that came and went before she could decipher its meaning. Then he sat down, and made conversation to Grizel, and was smiled at in return with a display of dimples which seemed to have sprung into existence for his benefit. Certainly the old ladies had not been treated to them; even Cassandra herself had come off second best, for Grizel was essentially a man’s woman, who awoke to her highest self in the presence of the opposite sex. It was easy to see that the present visitor was making a favourable impression, and that Grizel was alive to the charm which Cassandra had found it so difficult to define.Looking on in silence during the first moments of conversation, Cassandra was not so sure that Peignton reciprocated his hostess’s approval. Her light flow of conversation seemed to disconcert rather than put him at his ease, his answers came with difficulty, his eyes had none of their usual brightness. Well! the man who could fall in love with Teresa Mallison would hardly be likely to appreciate Grizel Beverley. Cassandra made up her mind to take her departure, but some minutes elapsed before she really rose, and then to her surprise Peignton also made his farewells, and accompanied her to the door. Outside, the car stood waiting, and as he helped her into it and held out his hand in farewell, his face in the fading light looked pale and tired, and Cassandra spoke on a quick impulse:“Can I give you a lift? It will be just as quick to go round by the cross roads. Unless you prefer to walk...”“Thank you, I’d be grateful. I’ve had a heavy day!”He seated himself beside her, and the car sped smoothly down the narrow road. For some moments neither spoke, but Cassandra was conscious of a pleasurable tingling of excitement. She had had so many lonely drives seated in solitary state among the luxurious fitments of her Rolls Royce, that the presence of a companion was in itself an agreeable novelty. Besides, as she reminded herself, she had a double reason in being interested in Dane Peignton, since both for Bernard’s sake and Teresa’s it was her duty to cultivate the friendship. She turned towards him, met the brown eyes, and smiled involuntarily. They wereniceeyes!“Well! what do you think of the bride?”“Just what I was going to ask you!”“I agree with Teresa. She is adorable!”The mention of Teresa aroused no flicker in his face. His brows contracted in consideration.“Is she? I’m not so sure. She does not strike me as a woman of very deep feeling.”“You would not say that, if you had heard her talking before you came in!”“Wouldn’t I? That’s interesting. What was she talking about?”“Oh!” The blood mounted into Cassandra’s cheeks, she felt a sudden unaccountable shyness. “Marriage! The relationship of husband and wives—that sort of thing.”Peignton laughed: a breezy laugh without a touch of self-consciousness.“Naturally! I might have known it. What else could you expect? She is a bride, and head over heels in love,—must have been, to give up all she did—naturally she’d want to prattle to another woman. Boring for you, though, as you know so much more of the game.”Cassandra looked at him thoughtfully. The electric light overhead showed the small oval face, with the rose flush on the cheek, the soft greys of the furs round her throat. The words came slowly.“Do you know—it’s a strange thing to confess,—but Idon’t! She is a bride of two months, and I’ve been married ten years—but she realises things now, that I’ve passed by. She sees deeper into the difficulties. She feelsmore, not less.”“You are too modest,” Dane said quickly, his brown eyes softening in involuntary admiration of the beautiful sad face. “Nothing is easier than to talk big, before the event. We can all theorise, and lay down the law; the tug comes when we begin to act. Mrs Beverley is living in Utopia at present, and talks the language thereof. Very exalted and charming, no doubt, but—it isn’t real! You should not take her too seriously.”Cassandra did not reply. It was not for her to betray another woman’s confidence, and for the moment she was occupied with the side-light which Peignton’s words had given her concerning his own sentiments.—Grizel Beverley believed in the reality of her Utopia, and intended to preserve it at the point of the sword; Peignton proclaimed it a delusion before he had even come into possession. Such an attitude was not natural, was not right. He was not temperamentally a cold-blooded man, the latent strength of his nature made itself felt, despite the indifference of his pose, and Teresa was young and pretty and fresh. Once more the older woman felt a stirring of pity for the younger. It was as the champion of Teresa’s youth that she spoke at last.“You seem to have no illusions! Isn’t it rather a pity, at your...”“Stage of the game?” He finished the sentence for her with unruffled composure. “I think not, Lady Cassandra. To expect too much, is to invite disappointment. I’m not very young, and my experience has shown me that for most people, life resolves itself into making the most of a second best. Thingsdon’tturn out as they expect. They set out to gain a certain prize, and they don’t gain it, or if they do, something unexpected creeps in to rub off the bloom. Don’t think I’m morbid. I’m not; I’ve no reason to be. There’s a lot of good, steady-going happiness open to all of us, if we are sensible enough to take it, and not lose our chance by expecting too much.”“You are very philosophical. Generally speaking, I suppose you are right, but we were talking of marriage, when even the most matter-of-fact people are supposed to have illusions. There are not many girls who would accept a lover who did not believe, for the time, at least, that he would be happy ever after if he could secure her as a companion.”“Oh, well!” he said, laughing. “Oh, well!”Cassandra was left to infer that there were occasions when exaggeration was legitimate; occasions even when a man might succeed in blindfolding himself, but the concession did not alter the inward conviction. Once more she relapsed into silence, considering his words. Peignton was one of the rare people with whom it was not necessary to carry on a continuous flow of conversation. One could be silent, pursuing one’s own thoughts with a comfortable assurance that he was mentally keeping touch, and that when speech came it would be to pronounce a mutual decision.“A second best!” Those were the words which had burned themselves on Cassandra’s brain. Life for the majority of people resolved itself into making the most of a second best. There was plenty of good, steady-going happiness in store for those who were sensible enough to take it, and not waste their time straining after the unattainable. The doctrine was distinctly bracing for those who had fallen into the trough of disappointment. Cassandra made a mental note to think over its axioms at her leisure. She had come to the stage when philosophy might have its turn, but, oh, it was good to remember that therehadbeen a day when she had not philosophised, had not reasoned, had not made the best of anything, because youth and hope had already placed that best in her hands! What if it had been a delusion,—she had had her hour, and nothing that life could bring could take away its memory!There stabbed through her heart a passion of pity for the man who was so calmly ignoring the glory of life. She turned towards him, her eyes dark with earnestness.“Ah, no, it’s a mistake. Why be satisfied with makeshifts, when there’s a chance of the best? To be too easily satisfied is as foolish as to expect too much; more foolish, for you miss the dream! If the reality fails, one can always look backward and remember the dream.”Peignton’s air of absorption had no personal reference. The words had passed over his head in so far as they applied to himself. He was looking at Cassandra and saying deep in his heart: “That woman! To grow tired of her! And Raynor! he can never have been worthy to black her boots.” Peignton had a hatred of waste, and it was waste of the worst sort to find this adorable woman thrown away on a man who was quite obtrusively unappreciative. There was such unconscious commiseration in his glance, that Cassandra drew back sharply.“Goodness, how serious we are growing! It’s the rarest thing in the world for me to theorise. It must be the pernicious effect of paying calls. I’m not responsible for anything I say after being cooped up with rows of women discussing cooks, and Mothers’ Meetings. Forgive me if I’ve bored you!”“I’m not bored. I’ll think over what you say. I expect you are right, and I’m wrong. When one is obliged to slack physically, as I’ve done these last years, the mind is apt to slack in sympathy. Itisa sort of slacking to be content with makeshifts. I must brace up, and aim at the sky, or if a makeshift is inevitable, at least one can use a little deception and pretend that it is the best.”“Couldyou do that?”Cassandra’s eyes were incredulous, but Peignton smiled with easy assurance.“Oh, yes, certainly. If I chose. It’s a question of temperament. It is always easier to me to be happy, than the other thing. One adapts oneself—”The car stopped at the cross roads and Cassandra held out her hand in farewell. The melancholy air had disappeared, an elf of mischief danced in her eyes.“Captain Peignton, you are hopelessly prosaic. It must be a second best after all, for the dream would be wasted upon you. The second best, and—shall I help you to it?”“Do!” he cried, and they parted with a mutual laugh. It was only after the car had whizzed ahead and he was left alone upon the road, that it occurred to him to connect Teresa Mallison with the offer.“Poor little girl. Too bad!” he said to himself then, and there was tenderness in his eyes, tenderness in his heart. With every conscious thought he was loyal to Teresa, yet one thing puzzled him,—when apart from her, he found it impossible to visualise the girl’s face. As often as he tried to summon it, it eluded him; he could see nothing but the sweep of dark hair across a white brow, the oval of delicately flushed cheeks, a little chin nestled deep into grey furs. And Raynor was indifferent to her,—indifferent to that woman!
Mrs Evans’s departure gave the start to what was virtually a general stampede. As one woman rose to make her adieux, another hastily joined her, offering a seat in a carriage, or companionship on the walk home. Mrs Mallison collected her daughters with the flutter of an agitated hen. Mrs Ritchards forgot even to refer to the kitchen-maid. Grizel beamed upon them with her most childlike smiles, but there was no staying the flight: feebly, obstinately, as a flock of sheep each one followed her leader. In three minutes Cassandra alone was left, and Martin having escorted the last sheep to the door, took the opportunity to escape to his study, and shut himself in with a sigh of relief.
Alone in the drawing-room the two women confronted each other in eloquent silence. Cassandra’s eyes were dancing, her cheeks were flushed to their brightest carmine; Grizel was pale, and a trifle perturbed. “Now I’ve been and gone and done it!”
“You have indeed!” Cassandra laughed. It was delightful to be able to laugh, to feel absolutely at home, and in sympathy with another woman. There was reproach in her words, but none in her tone. “Howcould yousay it?”
“Because I thought she meant it,—honestly I did, for the first second, and I always act on the first second. And why need the silly things be shocked? They’ve all got dozens. Whatisthe old Meeting, anyway?”
“I think it’s... Mothers!” volunteered Cassandra illuminatingly. “Poor ones. They have plain sewing and coal clubs. I subscribe. You were invited to join the Committee. In the parish room. They—I believe they cut out the plain clothes.”
“Fancy me cutting out plain clothes!” cried Grizel, and gave a complacent pat to her lace gown. “I’ll subscribe too, and stay at home, but I’ll apologise to the dear old thing. She meant to be kind, and I’m sorry I shocked her. I’m going to ring for fresh tea, and we can have a nice talk, and shock each other comfortably. Haveyouany children?”
“I have a son,” said Cassandra. The brilliance of her smile faded as she spoke. She was conscious of it herself and laboriously endeavoured to keep her voice unchanged. “He is nine years old. At a preparatory school. Quite a big person.”
Grizel also ceased to smile. There was an expression akin to reverence in the hazel eyes as they dwelt on the other’s face. The deep note was in her voice.
“You look so young, just a girl, and you have a son nearly ten! Old enough to be a companion,—to talk with you, and to understand. How wonderful it must be!”
There was a moment of silence during which Cassandra’s thoughts flew back to those never-to-be-forgotten days when a tiny form lay elapsed to a heart overflowing with the glory of motherhood, and then reproduced before her a stocky figure in an Eton suit, with a stolid, freckled face. She smiled with stiff lips.
“He is a dear thing, quite clever too, which is satisfactory. You must see him in the holidays, but unless you can talk cricket I’m afraid he may bore you. It is not, of course, a responsive age.”
“It will come! It will come! It’s storing up. These undemonstrative natures are the richest deep down,” Grizel said softly.
The maid came in with the tea at that moment, and she said no more, but it was enough. Cassandra felt an amazed conviction that if she had spoken for hours, the situation could not have been more accurately understood.
Grizel poured out tea, talking easily the while.
“Having a son must mean educating oneself all over again. Cricket now! It’s the deadliest game. One goes to Lord’s for the frocks, and to meet friends and have tea, and see all the dear little top hats waved in the air at the end. I dote on enthusiasm; it goes to my head like wine. Every Eton and Harrow I wave and enthuse as wildly as if I’d ten sons on the winning side. But how on earth theycanenjoy that everlasting running about over the same few yards, between the same old posts, hour after hour, day after day!” She shrugged expressively. “Well! I neverlook.”
“It’s worse when they talk about it!” Cassandra said. “When my boy is at home, he and his father talk cricket steadily through every meal. I am hopelessly out in the cold. I suppose it will grow worse as time goes on, and more masculine tastes develop.”
Grizel paused, cup in hand, to stare reflectively at the fire.
“Do you know that’s a subject which is exercising me very much! All my life until now I’ve lived with women, and been conversationally on my own ground, and now there’s Martin! We’ve got to have meals together, and depend on each other for conversation until death doth us part, and it’s a big proposition. Suppose he gets bored? SupposeIget bored? At present it’s such delight just to be together, that it doesn’t matter what we say. I could talk hats by the hour, and he would be patient, and he could prose about golf, and I’d murmur sympathetically in the pauses, and be quite happy just watching him, and thinking what a dear he was, but”—she put down her cup—“I’m not a child; Iknowthat that stage must pass! It may be just as sweet to be together—it may be sweeter, but the novelty will pass... Tell me!” she bent forward, gazing in Cassandra’s face. “How soon does it pass?”
Again Cassandra was conscious of stiffened lips, of making a pretence at the answering smile.
“The time varies, but even in exceptional cases it is horribly soon. I was very young when I married. We were a big family at home, and very hard up. It was a revolutionary change to come almost straight from the schoolroom, and an allowance of a few shillings a week, to be mistress of the Court. I was wild with excitement, it seemed impossible that I could ever getblasé.”
“But you did?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How soon?”
“Very soon, I’m afraid. Incredibly soon.”
Grizel tossed her head.
“I am neverblasé. It’s impossible that I ever could be. Life interests me too much. The more difficult it is, the more absorbing it becomes. But I’m sorry for the poor little ignorant brides who believe so implicitly in the ‘happy-ever-after’ theory, that they take no trouble to make it come true. I’m twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine, and I’ve no illusions on the point. My husband and I are gloriously happy, but I know we shan’t go on at the same level, unless I work hard to keep it up.”
“I! Why notwe? Surely it’s a mutual affair?”
“Yes, but bless ’em! men arenotadaptive, and most of them are so busy making the bread and butter, and too tired when that’s over, to bother about anything more! It’s the women who have to do the fitting in. That brings us back to where we started. I’m trying to think ahead, and prepare myself for the horrible moment when Martin wants to talk sense!”
They both laughed, but Cassandra was conscious of a pricking of conscience. It had never occurred to her to “work hard” to preserve her husband’s love. Like many another woman she had taken for granted that once secured, it would automatically remain her own; she had grieved over a divergence of interest, as a calamity beyond her control. How could one “prepare” against such a contingency?
“I’m not at all sure that I agree with you,” she said restlessly. “The ‘happy-ever-after’ theory has its drawbacks, but it’s very sweet while it lasts, and your other seems prosaic from the start. To have to work hard, to ‘struggle’ for one’s husband’s love!”
“Well, why not? Is thereanybig thing in life which one gains, or keeps without a fight? And this is the biggest of all, and the most fragile and easily lost. Think! among all your friends how many could come to stay in your house for one month, that you wouldn’t be thankful to part from at the end? I don’t say you stop caring for them, but you’ve had enough! You say to yourself: ‘Emmeline is an angel, but that giggle of hers drives me daft. Thank the gods she’s leaving to-day!’ or ‘Emmeline’s a perfect dear, I’m devoted to her, buthaveyou noticed the way she wriggles her nose? It’s got on my nerves to such an extent that I can’t bear it an hour longer.’ And you stand on the platform and wave your hand, and draw a great big sigh of relief as the train puffs away, and within the railway carriage Emmeline is sighing too, and feeling unutterably relieved to be rid of you! ... You know it’s true!”
“Oh!” laughed Cassandra, “don’t talk of a month. A week is enough for me. Less than a week!”
“Then why wonder at the difficulties of marriage? There’s no magic in a few words spoken at the altar, to make two people impervious to each other’s faults. It’s the most wonderful and beautiful of miracles when they manage to live tied together for twenty, thirty, even fifty years, and to be decently civil until the end. It’s worth any amount of effort to accomplish. I adore my husband, I adore myself, but we are mortal... we have failings; and as we grow older they’ll grow worse. At present we are both blind, but there will come a time when our eyes are opened. I know. I’ve seen. I’ve watched. I’ve taken warning. I’m going to prepare myself in advance.”
“What,par exemple, are you going to do?”
“Study the brute! Study hisfads. Join the golf club, for one thing, and learn to listen intelligently, at the cost of a few miserable afternoons. I detest sports, and sporting clothes, and strong boots, and a red face, and tramping about mile after mile over rough ground. If we’d been intended to walk we should have had four legs; but I shall very soon pick up all that is necessary!”
“Why not go a little further, while you are about it, and play with your husband? You might take lessons from the pro. to get up your game, and then you could go to the links together in the afternoons. If you are determined to sacrifice yourself, you may as well do it thoroughly. He’d be so pleased!”
“I’m not so sure,” Grizel said shrewdly. “I’m his wife and he adores me, but he’d rather play golf with a boring man with a good handicap, and come home to find me sitting on a sofa looking pretty and fluffy, ready to acclaim his exploits, and listen to volumes about every hole, and the marvellous way in which he cleeked his tee off the bogie. Well! what is it? Don’t you call it a bogie?” She laughed herself, in sympathy with the other’s merriment, and ended with an involuntary: “Lady Cassandra! I’m sogladyou came. Do let us often laugh together! I have such a comfortable feeling that you won’t be shocked at anything I say.”
“No one ever shocks me, except myself. You don’t know how glad I shall be. I’m really rather a lonely person, though I’ve lived here so long. It seems extraordinary to have had this intimate conversation with you on our very first meeting. I wouldn’t dream of discussing such matters with any other woman in the neighbourhood.”
“Of course not. You don’t know anyone else so well. Weareintimates, so what’s the use of hedging?”
“I don’t want to hedge. I’m only too thankful to know it. It’s not healthy to live so much alone. One grows introspective. These last years I’ve been growing more and more absorbed in Cassandra Raynor.”
“Well! sheisattractive, isn’t she? I’m going to do exactly the same. I felt it in my bones the moment you entered the room. You felt it too! I saw the little spark leap to your eyes.”
“It did. It’s quite true, but I ought to warn you that being associated with me, won’t make you any more popular in Chumley. Chumley doesn’t—approve of me! I expect you are sensitive enough to atmospheres to have grasped that fact for yourself?”
“I did. Yes. But why?”
“Oh, many reasons. I dress fashionably. I hate parish work. I don’t go to ‘teas,’ or give them in return. I’m lazy about calls. I’m not interested in the people, and I can’t pretend.”
“Oh, but I shall be interested. I always am. I love all those dear old things in their dolmans and black silks. They are types of the old-fashioned women, whom I’ve read about, but never known. I shall love studying them, and hearing their views, and shocking them by telling them mine in return. They’ll love being shocked—all prim old ladies love it. They’re all walking home now, buzzing over myfaux pas, and feeling as perked up as if they’d been to the theatre. They think they are grieved, but they have really enjoyed themselves immensely. I lived with a very old great-aunt before my marriage, so I’m an expert in old ladies.”
Cassandra assented absently. She was not interested in old ladies, but she was interested in watching Grizel as she talked. Her practised eye took in every detail of her appearance, and every detail was right. She studied her features, her expression, the waves of her soft fair hair, the swiftly moving hands, and sat smiling, appearing to listen, while her thoughts raced ahead, planning future meetings, seeing herself blessed with a friend who would fill the empty gap.
“I shall be jealous of the old ladies if you give them too much of your company!” she said, with a charming smile which accentuated the flattery of the remark. Grizel smiled back with a little nod of acknowledgment, and Cassandra lifted her muff as if preparing to depart, asking casually the while:
“Have you good news of your sister-in-law, Miss Beverley? I knew her slightly, and admired her a great deal. She went to India, I think?”
Grizel’s eyes danced with animation.
“She did. Yes. To visit a friend. We saw her off at Marseilles, my husband and I, and a fortnight later we were sitting in a café, drinking coffee, and flirting outrageously, when we suddenly saw the name of the ship on a poster! It had been in a collision in the Indian Ocean; and the passengers had to take to the boats. If another ship had not come to the rescue, they might all have been drowned.”
“What a terrible experience! How sad for the poor girl, just when she was starting for such a delightful visit!”
“Not at all sad. Not at all. A very good thing,” said Grizel unexpectedly. “Katrine had been wading through trivialities all her life; a big experience was just what she needed. Besides—as a matter of fact... there was aMan!”
“Aha!” cried Cassandra, immediately fired with feminine interest. “On the ship?”
“Pre-cisely! Fastening her into life-belts, bidding her a tragic adieu, waving a gallant hand from the sinking prow.”
“Just so. I understand! And when is the wedding to be?”
Grizel’s face lengthened in dismay.
“Goodness me—I haven’ttoldyou, have I? No one is to know for a couple of months. How on earth did you guess?Pleasedon’t speak of it to a soul. You see, it’s a trifle awkward, because as a matter of fact the real man,—it wasn’t the real man,—I mean itwasthe real man really, only he pretended—”
Cassandra held up a protesting hand.
“I think you’d better leave it alone! You didn’t tell me anything; I guessed, but I’ll promise to forget forthwith, and be agreeably surprised when I hear the news a few months hence.Don’ttell me any names!”
Before Grizel could reply the whizz of an electric bell sounded through the house, and both women involuntarily groaned, foreseeing an end to theirtête-à-tête, but the next moment Grizel’s eyes brightened.
“It’s aman!” she whispered ecstatically. “It’s a man. I can hear his dear boots! My first man caller! Oh joy! Oh rapture!”
“Captain Peignton.”
Dane entered, his eyes narrowed in his usual, short-sighted fashion. Cassandra noticed that he threw a quick glance round the room and guessed, what was indeed the truth, that he had hoped to meet Teresa Mallison, and have an opportunity of escorting her home. When he caught sight of herself, his face showed a ripple of feeling that came and went before she could decipher its meaning. Then he sat down, and made conversation to Grizel, and was smiled at in return with a display of dimples which seemed to have sprung into existence for his benefit. Certainly the old ladies had not been treated to them; even Cassandra herself had come off second best, for Grizel was essentially a man’s woman, who awoke to her highest self in the presence of the opposite sex. It was easy to see that the present visitor was making a favourable impression, and that Grizel was alive to the charm which Cassandra had found it so difficult to define.
Looking on in silence during the first moments of conversation, Cassandra was not so sure that Peignton reciprocated his hostess’s approval. Her light flow of conversation seemed to disconcert rather than put him at his ease, his answers came with difficulty, his eyes had none of their usual brightness. Well! the man who could fall in love with Teresa Mallison would hardly be likely to appreciate Grizel Beverley. Cassandra made up her mind to take her departure, but some minutes elapsed before she really rose, and then to her surprise Peignton also made his farewells, and accompanied her to the door. Outside, the car stood waiting, and as he helped her into it and held out his hand in farewell, his face in the fading light looked pale and tired, and Cassandra spoke on a quick impulse:
“Can I give you a lift? It will be just as quick to go round by the cross roads. Unless you prefer to walk...”
“Thank you, I’d be grateful. I’ve had a heavy day!”
He seated himself beside her, and the car sped smoothly down the narrow road. For some moments neither spoke, but Cassandra was conscious of a pleasurable tingling of excitement. She had had so many lonely drives seated in solitary state among the luxurious fitments of her Rolls Royce, that the presence of a companion was in itself an agreeable novelty. Besides, as she reminded herself, she had a double reason in being interested in Dane Peignton, since both for Bernard’s sake and Teresa’s it was her duty to cultivate the friendship. She turned towards him, met the brown eyes, and smiled involuntarily. They wereniceeyes!
“Well! what do you think of the bride?”
“Just what I was going to ask you!”
“I agree with Teresa. She is adorable!”
The mention of Teresa aroused no flicker in his face. His brows contracted in consideration.
“Is she? I’m not so sure. She does not strike me as a woman of very deep feeling.”
“You would not say that, if you had heard her talking before you came in!”
“Wouldn’t I? That’s interesting. What was she talking about?”
“Oh!” The blood mounted into Cassandra’s cheeks, she felt a sudden unaccountable shyness. “Marriage! The relationship of husband and wives—that sort of thing.”
Peignton laughed: a breezy laugh without a touch of self-consciousness.
“Naturally! I might have known it. What else could you expect? She is a bride, and head over heels in love,—must have been, to give up all she did—naturally she’d want to prattle to another woman. Boring for you, though, as you know so much more of the game.”
Cassandra looked at him thoughtfully. The electric light overhead showed the small oval face, with the rose flush on the cheek, the soft greys of the furs round her throat. The words came slowly.
“Do you know—it’s a strange thing to confess,—but Idon’t! She is a bride of two months, and I’ve been married ten years—but she realises things now, that I’ve passed by. She sees deeper into the difficulties. She feelsmore, not less.”
“You are too modest,” Dane said quickly, his brown eyes softening in involuntary admiration of the beautiful sad face. “Nothing is easier than to talk big, before the event. We can all theorise, and lay down the law; the tug comes when we begin to act. Mrs Beverley is living in Utopia at present, and talks the language thereof. Very exalted and charming, no doubt, but—it isn’t real! You should not take her too seriously.”
Cassandra did not reply. It was not for her to betray another woman’s confidence, and for the moment she was occupied with the side-light which Peignton’s words had given her concerning his own sentiments.—Grizel Beverley believed in the reality of her Utopia, and intended to preserve it at the point of the sword; Peignton proclaimed it a delusion before he had even come into possession. Such an attitude was not natural, was not right. He was not temperamentally a cold-blooded man, the latent strength of his nature made itself felt, despite the indifference of his pose, and Teresa was young and pretty and fresh. Once more the older woman felt a stirring of pity for the younger. It was as the champion of Teresa’s youth that she spoke at last.
“You seem to have no illusions! Isn’t it rather a pity, at your...”
“Stage of the game?” He finished the sentence for her with unruffled composure. “I think not, Lady Cassandra. To expect too much, is to invite disappointment. I’m not very young, and my experience has shown me that for most people, life resolves itself into making the most of a second best. Thingsdon’tturn out as they expect. They set out to gain a certain prize, and they don’t gain it, or if they do, something unexpected creeps in to rub off the bloom. Don’t think I’m morbid. I’m not; I’ve no reason to be. There’s a lot of good, steady-going happiness open to all of us, if we are sensible enough to take it, and not lose our chance by expecting too much.”
“You are very philosophical. Generally speaking, I suppose you are right, but we were talking of marriage, when even the most matter-of-fact people are supposed to have illusions. There are not many girls who would accept a lover who did not believe, for the time, at least, that he would be happy ever after if he could secure her as a companion.”
“Oh, well!” he said, laughing. “Oh, well!”
Cassandra was left to infer that there were occasions when exaggeration was legitimate; occasions even when a man might succeed in blindfolding himself, but the concession did not alter the inward conviction. Once more she relapsed into silence, considering his words. Peignton was one of the rare people with whom it was not necessary to carry on a continuous flow of conversation. One could be silent, pursuing one’s own thoughts with a comfortable assurance that he was mentally keeping touch, and that when speech came it would be to pronounce a mutual decision.
“A second best!” Those were the words which had burned themselves on Cassandra’s brain. Life for the majority of people resolved itself into making the most of a second best. There was plenty of good, steady-going happiness in store for those who were sensible enough to take it, and not waste their time straining after the unattainable. The doctrine was distinctly bracing for those who had fallen into the trough of disappointment. Cassandra made a mental note to think over its axioms at her leisure. She had come to the stage when philosophy might have its turn, but, oh, it was good to remember that therehadbeen a day when she had not philosophised, had not reasoned, had not made the best of anything, because youth and hope had already placed that best in her hands! What if it had been a delusion,—she had had her hour, and nothing that life could bring could take away its memory!
There stabbed through her heart a passion of pity for the man who was so calmly ignoring the glory of life. She turned towards him, her eyes dark with earnestness.
“Ah, no, it’s a mistake. Why be satisfied with makeshifts, when there’s a chance of the best? To be too easily satisfied is as foolish as to expect too much; more foolish, for you miss the dream! If the reality fails, one can always look backward and remember the dream.”
Peignton’s air of absorption had no personal reference. The words had passed over his head in so far as they applied to himself. He was looking at Cassandra and saying deep in his heart: “That woman! To grow tired of her! And Raynor! he can never have been worthy to black her boots.” Peignton had a hatred of waste, and it was waste of the worst sort to find this adorable woman thrown away on a man who was quite obtrusively unappreciative. There was such unconscious commiseration in his glance, that Cassandra drew back sharply.
“Goodness, how serious we are growing! It’s the rarest thing in the world for me to theorise. It must be the pernicious effect of paying calls. I’m not responsible for anything I say after being cooped up with rows of women discussing cooks, and Mothers’ Meetings. Forgive me if I’ve bored you!”
“I’m not bored. I’ll think over what you say. I expect you are right, and I’m wrong. When one is obliged to slack physically, as I’ve done these last years, the mind is apt to slack in sympathy. Itisa sort of slacking to be content with makeshifts. I must brace up, and aim at the sky, or if a makeshift is inevitable, at least one can use a little deception and pretend that it is the best.”
“Couldyou do that?”
Cassandra’s eyes were incredulous, but Peignton smiled with easy assurance.
“Oh, yes, certainly. If I chose. It’s a question of temperament. It is always easier to me to be happy, than the other thing. One adapts oneself—”
The car stopped at the cross roads and Cassandra held out her hand in farewell. The melancholy air had disappeared, an elf of mischief danced in her eyes.
“Captain Peignton, you are hopelessly prosaic. It must be a second best after all, for the dream would be wasted upon you. The second best, and—shall I help you to it?”
“Do!” he cried, and they parted with a mutual laugh. It was only after the car had whizzed ahead and he was left alone upon the road, that it occurred to him to connect Teresa Mallison with the offer.
“Poor little girl. Too bad!” he said to himself then, and there was tenderness in his eyes, tenderness in his heart. With every conscious thought he was loyal to Teresa, yet one thing puzzled him,—when apart from her, he found it impossible to visualise the girl’s face. As often as he tried to summon it, it eluded him; he could see nothing but the sweep of dark hair across a white brow, the oval of delicately flushed cheeks, a little chin nestled deep into grey furs. And Raynor was indifferent to her,—indifferent to that woman!
Chapter Six.The East End.Mrs Mallison was one of the kindest of women; she was also one of the most exasperating. She herself was complacently aware of the first fact, and referred to it frequently in conversation, enumerating her benefactions with obvious satisfaction: of the latter attribute she remained blandly, blindly unaware. The combination is frequent, the havoc wrought thereby in domestic circles widespread throughout the land. Mrs Mallison rose early from preference. Having reached a time of life when she required little sleep, she found it a relief to rise at seven, and by an exercise of logic, unanswerable to her own judgment, considered it incumbent upon the whole household to experience a similar briskness. She read a chapter of the Bible and the day’s portion of Daily Light before leaving her bedroom, and prayed sadly to be preserved throughout the trials and temptations of the day. To expect happiness she would have considered a flippant attitude, unworthy a professing Christian, the glad morning face had no justification in her eyes.“Well, Bailey! I wonder what trials the Lord has in store for me to-day!” she would sigh meekly to the old servant who brought her early tea, and sallying forth from her bedroom, thus expectant, seldom failed to encounter several minor trials on the way downstairs: Dust; grease; marks on white paint. It was usually a chastened Mrs Mallison who took her seat behind the urn.Mrs Mallison had an active mind and a cumbersome body. This combination is also widely known, and deplored by grown-up daughters. No sooner had an idea entered her mind, than she wished it put into instant execution—by a daughter. Whatever the daughter might be doing, however responsible might be her work, she must leave it, dismiss it from her mind, be ready with heart and will to execute her mother’s behests. Such was a daughter’s duty; to fail in it was to risk references to serpents’ teeth, and to that subsequent burden of remorse, to be borne by the delinquent, when death should have removed her mother to another sphere. Mary Mallison found it simpler to give in at once, leave a letter half-written, or a photographic plate half-toned, and adjourn upstairs to move the position of jars on the storeroom shelves, or make sure that a drawer was safely locked. She would even rise in the middle of her breakfast, and walk meekly into the drawing-room to feel if the palms needed water; but Mary was thirty-two, and anaemic into the bargain, and her axiom in life was, “For goodness’ sake, let us have peace!” It was easier to walk a dozen yards into the drawing-room, than to be talked at for the rest of the meal. Mary obeyed, swallowing a constant mental revolt, the strain of which showed in her wan bloodless face. Long ago, when she was twenty-four, she had loved a curate, and the curate had not loved her in return. No man had ever loved her; it was to the last degree unlikely that anyone ever would. Mary offered automatic thanks weekly for the gift of creation, and smothered as wicked the wonder what she had been created for? She also, like her mother, wondered drearily what troubles lay ahead.Teresa was young, and pretty, and had been educated at a public school. She had inherited from her mother a fair skin, flaxen locks, a strong will, and a pertinacity of purpose which might in time develop to disagreeable proportions. In the meantime she was the admired youngest member of a plain and heavy family, and was by nature affectionate and appreciative. It was only on occasions that Mrs Mallison was conscious of running up against a dead rock when she opposed her will to that of her youngest daughter; only in glimmering rays of light that she realised that what Teresa desired, almost inevitably came to pass. Over and over again the same thing happened. Teresa had come forward with a proposition: consent had been withheld, Teresa had withdrawn. Weeks, even months had passed by; to all appearance Teresa had abandoned the proposition, and then suddenly it crystallised, it became fact. Quietly, placidly, Teresa had bided her time, clinging with limpet-like determination to her point, moving the pawns on the board, waiting for the right moment to make the final dash.Teresa had left the proud position of head girl in a great school to vegetate in a dull country town, dust the drawing-room, arrange flowers, make her own blouses, and “keep up her music,” and had found the routine as unsatisfactory as does every other modern girl. The Mallisons were comfortably off—that is to say, they had a small detached house, in a good-sized garden, kept two indoor maids, and a man who looked after the garden and drove the shabby dog-cart. They were also able to pay their bills with praiseworthy regularity, and to take a yearly holidayen famille. They likewise allowed each daughter thirty pounds a year for dress and pocket money, and would have strongly resented an insinuation that they were not acting generously in so doing. Mary had “managed” on thirty for a dozen years. Teresa managed for two, and then relinquished the struggle. She made no moan, for moans would have had no avail, except to bring about her ears a harvest of precepts. Teresa informed her sister that “they must be shown,” and she proceeded to show them. She bought no new dress, she went about with her parents in aggressively shabby clothes, she walked incredible distances to save twopences, and thereby made herself late for meals; in short she demonstrated to her old-fashioned parents, that if they wished to possess a pretty, creditable daughter they must be prepared to pay for her. The allowance was increased to fifty, and Mary languished beneath a sense of injury. Thirty had been considered enough forher!On the morning after Grizel Beverley’s reception the Mallison quartette was assembled at breakfast in the stiff, sunless morning room. Mrs Mallison poured out coffee; Major Mallison sat facing her before the silver bacon dish, the morning light streaming in on his tired, discouraged face. Mary sat on the right, opposite the toast-rack and the egg-stand. Teresa on the left, by the marmalade and honey jar. TheMorning Postlay neatly folded on the sideboard. Mrs Mallison approved of sociability at meals; conversation helped digestion. When the Major declared that he loathed general conversation at breakfast, and would rather be left in peace than listen to the finest conversationalist alive, he was told that he was unamiable and selfish, and a burden of regret prophesied for him also “when he hadnoone to talk to!”Mrs Mallison poured out four cups of coffee, made her usual lamentrethe price of bacon, and cast a disapproving eye on Teresa’s bluecrêpeblouse.“I thought, my dear, that you were going to church this morning to decorate the chancel.”“I am, Mother.”“In that blouse?”“Certainly. Why not?”“Most unsuitable. Too light. A dark flannel is the right thing for the occasion. You will have time to change it before you start. Don’t forget!”Teresa cast down her eyes and applied herself steadily to bacon. She had not the slightest intention of wearing a dark flannel blouse. The bluecrêpehad been chosen, not for its durability, but that it might look pleasant in the eyes of Dane Peignton. All the mothers in the world could not have made Teresa change it; so what was the use of discussing the point! She gave the conversation an adroit little switch.“Don’t wait lunch for me, Mother. I shall probably go to the Vicarage. We shall need all our time.”“We are having fried steak. If you come at all, you must be punctual. If it’s done too long, all the strength has gone. I could give you sandwiches to eat in the vestry. Or it might be stewed. If papa did not object, it couldquitewell be stewed. He dislikes the onions. If we had carrots instead, would you object, papa? But, of course, there’s the flavour. Carrots arenotso seasoning... Perhaps it had better be sandwiches. Mary, is there a glass of that chicken and ham paste? See if there’s a glass, dear. Cook could make some nice fresh sandwiches.”Mary moved automatically, but Teresa stopped her with a waving hand.“I loathe sandwiches. I shall go somewhere and have a proper lunch. Don’t bother, Mother.”“My dear,” said Mrs Mallison reproachfully, “I am your mother. When you have a tiring day before you I am naturally anxious that you should be fed. They will be busy at the Vicarage. Cold meat and salad. One could hardly expect more, but you are accustomed to a hot dish. It is the day for steak, but if papa didn’t object we might change. I don’t care for changes as a rule, it upsets the servants, but just for once.—A chicken now! You like chicken. Just run to the telephone, dear, and tell Bates to send one up. Good, roasting. Three and six. If papa doesn’t mind.”Not a flicker of expression passed over the Major’s face. He was the Jorkins of the establishment, and knew well that, useful as he might be for purposes of quotation, he was negligible as a working factor. He continued resignedly to partake of bacon. Teresa vouchsafed an appreciative smile.“We’ll have fowl for dinner. Plenty of time when the boy calls. I’m going out to lunch, Mother. I’d rather. It’s part of the fun.”Mrs Mallison sighed. Here was one of the expected trials. A daughter, unappreciative, preferring to roam abroad, oblivious of the fact that after a morning’s church decorating she would be in possession of a harvest of small talk which a mother would naturally desire to hear. Who decorated the lectern; who the finials; who did the windows this year? The windows were the least coveted post. A mother whose daughter had been honoured with the east end would naturally feel agreeable sympathy for the mother of those who wrestled modestly with window-sills. Then also there were subsidiary interests. Who brought the Squire’s flowers? Did Lady Cassandra drive down? Was the Vicar tiresome about nails? Exactly what did everyone present say about Teresa’s scheme of colour? The good lady felt it hard that she should have to wait until evening to satisfy her interest on these thrilling points. She set her lips and said to herself, “Certainly not! If young people have no consideration for others, they cannot expect to be indulged.Notfowl. Roast end of the neck.”At the side of the table Mary sighed, and stared dejectedly into space. Eight years agoshehad been asked to “do” the east end, and the curate had been by her side all day helping her, reaching to high places, bending down, taking the vases from her hand. After all these years she could still see before her every line of the smooth boyish face. He had never loved her, he had gone away and married another girl, but he had been admiring and attentive; several times in the course of that day he had made her sit down to rest; at tea at the Vicarage he had placed a cushion behind her back. In Mary’s starved life such small incidents took the place of romance. She looked across the table at her sister, not so much with envy, as with pity. Poor Trissie! she also was dreaming; she also must awake. And Teresa understood the glance and set her red lips. She had not the least intention in the world of following in Mary’s footsteps. Thirty-two should never findherdragging along at home! She thought of Dane Peignton with the warm glow at the heart which always accompanied the thought. If Dane did not “care,” her dearest hope would be blasted, but it was characteristic of Teresa that she could put aside the possibility, and be assured that even Dane himself could not spoil her life, or reduce her to Mary’s apathy of indifference.After breakfast came “Worship,” when the maids came in and sat on two chairs placed as near as possible to the door, and the mistress of the house read aloud a chapter in the Bible, followed by a long prayer from a book entitledFamily Devotions. The chapter this morning was taken from Judges, and had little obvious bearing on the lives of the hearers. It is doubtful if anyone attended after the first few verses. The cook was listening for the tradesmen’s bell. If it rang in the middle of Worship it was understood that she was to rise softly and creep out. Under such circumstances it was, as she expressed it, difficult to “settle down.” The housemaid was thinking of her young man. Teresa was considering her scheme of decoration. Major Mallison and Mary were resignedly sitting it out. For the prayer everyone rose and knelt down, but the mental attitude remained unchanged. They rose once more with sighs of relief.After breakfast Teresa dusted the drawing-room, made her own bed, and hung over the banisters listening for the moment when her mother should begin telephoning orders to the tradespeople, when she herself might leave the house without fear of further questioning as to the blue blouse. She expanded her shoulders with a sigh of relief on reaching the open air, and sped along the quiet road with the feeling of escape which every member of the Mallison household experienced when the gate was safely closed, before a shrill recall had sounded from door or window.Teresa’s thoughts that morning were occupied as many another daughter’s have been before her, in pondering the astonishing problem of her parents’ youth. Father and Mother in love! Father ardent, Mother shy! Father and Mother exchanging love glances; engrossed in one another’s society. Could such things be? And if so—lacerating thought!—could they be again? In thirty years’ time could Teresa and Dane...Teresa flushed violently. She had not prayed at Family Worship. She had been frankly and emphatically bored, but she prayed now, walking along the public road, in her blue coat and fashionable jam-pot hat, she lifted her eyes to the grey skies, and the voice in her heart cried earnestly: “I’ll make him happy! Help me to keep him happy! Give him to me, and make me a good wife.” A glow of tenderness softened the hard young eyes. “Make me good,” cried Teresa, “For Dane’s sake!”She was the first to arrive at the church, before even the Vicar’s wife. Was she not the honoured young worker, to whom had been entrusted the decoration of the east end? A mass of daffodils, wallflowers, and primroses lay banked in baskets along the aisles. These were the contributions of the poorer members of the community, the villagers and owners of small gardens. Outside the chancel rails were ranged rows of growing bulbs in pots, hyacinths, narcissus, the finer variety of daffodils, great trumpet-like heads of white and cream, orange and gold. These were the first contribution from the Court; later on the carriage would bring down a hamper of flowers, freshly cut and fragrant. The sexton came forward with a box containing the tin vases and fitments provided for such occasions, and delivered the usual warning about nails. The Vicar would allow no nails. Teresa took off her long coat and placed it in a pew; the blue of her blouse seemed to take an added richness from the austerity of the surroundings. How glad she was that she had disobeyed her mother and kept it on!Presently the Vicarage party arrived, and quickly following one after another the helpers. Teresa lifted the flower-pots one by one and placed them behind the delicate tracery of the oak screen, so that the pots themselves were hidden and the carved openings appeared to give a vista into a sweet spring garden.All the while she worked, she kept a strained outlook for Dane’s appearance. When another helper approached, and would have loitered in conversation, she made a speedy excuse for hurrying away, lest he should come now, and their meeting be marred; when her back was turned to the aisle she listened for the sound of his footsteps. At any moment he might enter, stand by her side, call to her in his full, rich tones: “Miss Teresa!”Eleven o’clock came, and he had not appeared; half-past eleven. All the pots were arranged. Intentionally Teresa had lingered over the work, dreading to begin the more elaborate decorations which would require aid. If she were seen mounting a stool, some of the men helpers would at once come forward to assist; and Dane entering and seeing her thus provided, might attach himself to someone else. A dull ache of disappointment filled Teresa’s heart. If he really cared; if the opportunity meant to him what it did to herself, he would not have wasted the hours. She put her last pot in its place, stood back to view the effect, and heard at last the longed-for words of welcome.“Miss Teresa—here I am; bright and early, you see! What have you got for me to do?”He was smiling, composed, unconscious of offence. The ache sharpened into pain at the realisation, but Teresa had a wisdom beyond her years, and allowed no sign of disappointment to become visible. To sulk and looked aggrieved was not the way to increase a man’s admiration. She smiled into his eyes, and cried readily:“Heaps of things! I need you for all the stretchy places. You are so big. And those great palms... They have to go into the corners. Will you help me to move them?”“Certainly not. I’ll do it myself. Just point out where they are to go. What’s the good of me if I can’t save you fatigue?”The tenderness of his smile was as ointment of healing, but true to her principles Teresa averted her eyes, and put on her most business-like manner, so that no answering sign of tenderness might be visible. Not to the verger himself had her manner been more cool and detached, but Dane showed no sign of dissatisfaction. They had met to work, not to make love; he admired the girl for her brisk, capable ways, and found pleasure in the sight of her alert young figure clad in the short skirt, stout boots, and untrimmed hat. They worked industriously for the next half-hour, banking up comers of palms, covering the foremost pots with a velvety cushion of moss. Side by side they knelt on the marble floor, pulling apart the fragrant sods, patting them into shape. Once when a rebellious morsel refused to remain in place Teresa fumbled among her yellow locks for a hairpin to act as skewer, whereupon Dane made a quick movement to withdraw her hand.“No, no, it’s covered with soil! ... Let me!” He covered his finger and thumb with a handkerchief, carefully extracted the nearest pin, and held it towards her. “That’s better! It’s too bad to soil your pretty hair. You’ve got loads of hair, haven’t you? I love to see a girl with good hair. How far does it come down?”“Past my waist.” Teresa’s conscience pricked her on account of one braid which could come down as far as required, but there seemed no immediate need for confession on that score. Her cheeks were flushed, she took a long time over the last arrangement of moss, pondering uneasily. Had anyoneseen? What would they think? She hoped to goodness that Miss Mason’s eyes had been averted! What Miss Mason saw at noon, was parish news by sunfall... “By the by, you’ll be interested to hear that Teresa Mallison is engaged to that young Peignton. I saw himdistinctlystroking her hair.” In imagination she could hear the thin, clipped voice scattering the news broadcast. And in time it would come to Dane’s own ears...Teresa rose and cast a searching glance round the church. No one was looking, the workers were engrossed and preoccupied. The Vicar’s wife was affixing a cross of daffodils to the front of the pulpit, the doctor’s daughters were trimming the lectern with stiff little bunches of daffodils. All down the aisle workers were twisting sprays of ivy round the tall gas standards, in the discreet background dowdy nobodies were wrestling with window-sills. The Vicar’s wife held firmly to the theory of universal brotherhood, but it would never have occurred to her to ask a wealthy parishioner to “do” the windows, or a tradesman’s wife to undertake the east end. Teresa and Dane left the chancel and stood hesitating at the head of the aisle. Now they were ready for the cut flowers, and the cut flowers had not arrived.“The Squire promised to send down. I wrote again last night to remind him. Hecan’thave forgotten.”“Oh, no. They’ll be here soon. There’s a car at the door now.” Peignton peered forward, looking down the length of the aisle into the sunlit churchyard beyond, and the girl watching him, as she loved to do at unobserved moments, saw a sudden light come into the lazy eyes. She peered in her turn, and beheld a small grey foot emerge from the door of the car, then a second foot, and finally a tall figure, grey-robed, grey-furred, which stood aside, sharply outlined against the darkness of the background, and waited for the descent of still another figure, coated in white.Lady Cassandra! ... she had come herself, and with her Mrs Martin Beverley. They were driving about together in the morning, a sign of intimacy more eloquent than a dozen afternoon meetings. They were smiling into each other’s faces as they walked up the church path, talking with the ease of lifelong friends.Teresa felt a pang of jealousy, not of Dane Peignton,—these women were married and could have no interest for him,—but for herself, and her position in the Raynor household. Proud as she had been of the degree of intimacy to which she had been admitted, in her heart she had acknowledged the presence of a barrier shutting her out from personal friendship. She had been a favoured acquaintance, nothing more, and now a friend had appeared, and the acquaintance must needs stand aside.Up the church aisle came the two women, side by side, graver now as befitted their surroundings, yet bringing with them a whiff of the world of gaiety and fashion, the influence of which spread subtly over the feminine body of workers. The Vicar’s wife pulled down her cuffs, and brushed the leaves from her gown; the doctor’s daughters arranged stray locks, and placed themselves in artistic attitudes around the desk, and from the background poor Miss Bruce looked on with widened eyes.Cassandra came forward to shake hands with Mrs Evans, the natural hostess of the occasion.“Good morning, Mrs Evans. How busy you all are! I drove down with the flowers, and brought Mrs Beverley with me. The groom is bringing them in. We promised Miss Mallison—”She looked around, caught sight of Teresa and Peignton standing side by side, and nodded, faintly smiling. The affair was progressing then! No need for outside help. Teresa, flushed and happy, the blue of her blouse setting off the pink and white of her complexion, looked her most attractive self. Cassandra envied her, pitied her, felt an inexplicable irritation with her, all at the same moment, but being bred in the school which considers the suppression of feeling to be the first axiom of good manners, her smile of greeting remained unchanged.The vases for the altar had been carried into a vestry, where they stood on a table ready to be filled. The groom was directed where to carry his hamper, and the two visitors followed, talking in undertones to Teresa and Dane as they went. Inside the room itself there was a greater sense of freedom, and their voices instantly heightened in tone. They had an air of having nothing to do, and of being indifferent as to how long they stayed, which was far from welcome to one at least of the workers.Teresa had planned exactly how the vases were to be arranged, and had anticipated a happy half-hour, alone with Dane, free from the observation of curious eyes. She was capable of carrying out her own ideas, and wished for no assistance. It was Peignton who made the unwelcome suggestion that Cassandra should remain to help.“I’m out of this!” he said, shrugging. “Never arranged flowers in my life, and don’t know how to begin. Dragging about palms is more in my line, but that’s done now, and I’m no more use. Sorry to be such a broken reed, Miss Teresa! Perhaps Lady Cassandra—” He looked at Cassandra, and once again his eyes lightened, as if what they beheld was good in his sight. “I am sure you know how to arrange flowers!”“Oh, yes,” Cassandra said calmly, “I’m supposed to be quite good. Well, Teresa, I am at your service. You are in command. Issue your instructions! Mrs Beverley, you won’t mind waiting a short time?”“Oh, no,” Grizel said sweetly. “I’ll help too!” She made no motion to take off her gloves, however, but stood watching with a lazy smile while her companion threw off her furs in business-like fashion. The square emerald sparkled against the whiteness of her hand, as she turned over flowers, searching for the most perfect specimens. Once more Dane watched it with fascinated attention, once more looked from it to Teresa’s hands, reddened and stained with soil, and hastily averted his eyes. Henceforth he kept them averted. There was no disloyalty in admiring a beautiful thing. The wrong began when one stooped to invidious comparisons.By degrees it came about that Cassandra arranged, while the others stood by, and supplied her wants. She was accustomed to the handling of delicate blooms, and possessed little coaxing tricks of propping and supporting, which added greatly to their effect. Of the first two vases completed, hers was so palpably superior, that the obvious course was to invite her to undertake all five. Teresa gave the invitation with a good grace, and stood aside handing sprays of lilies, and disentangling delicate fronds of green.As she stood she faced a small mirror on the wall, before which the Rev. Vicar presumably concluded his clerical toilet. At the moment it gave back the reflection of herself and Cassandra, standing side by side, and the contrast stung. At home, by the same law of contrast, Teresa complacently considered herself next door to a beauty, but seen side by side with Cassandra Raynor, her image appeared of a sudden coarsened and blunted. Moreover, the inferiority was not confined to the body; mentally as well as physically she was at a disadvantage;—her words seemed halting and difficult, compared with the other’s delicate ripple of conversation. Teresa’s honesty accepted the fact, disagreeable though it was. The little ache at her heart was not caused so much by jealousy, as by regret for the hour which she had longed for, the hour which was not to be. Surreptitiously she watched Peignton to see if he shared her disappointment. His manner was quieter than when they had been alone together. He looked less at his ease, but he was interested, his eyes followed the delicate work with absorbed attention. He was more interested, rather than less. Teresa felt suddenly very tired. She had hoped he would look disappointed!Meanwhile Grizel had strolled out of the vestry and stood viewing the scene with lazy, smiling eyes. The workers were so busy that they had not noticed her approach, and she had time to study them unawares. For the most part they worked in pairs, consulting together, the more deft-handed arranging the flowers, the less skilful acting as assistant, and executing her commands. Quietly though they worked, there was in the air a sense ofcamaraderie; and one divined that these workers were friends who had chosen to work together, and enjoyed the companionship. In the background a solitary black-robed figure stood straining upward from the seat of a pew, engaged in covering the sill of a window with fragments of foliage, and those inferior flowers which had been rejected for more prominent places. Grizel took a short cut through a pew, and approached this worker’s side.“May I help you?” she asked, and Miss Bruce turned her head and stared in bewilderment. She was a middle-aged spinster, who lived in a small villa, with a small servant-girl, a fox-terrier, and a canary in a brass cage. She possessed exactly two hundred pounds a year, and felt herself rich. It was only in the matter of friends that she was poor, for the taint of trade set her apart from the people whom she wished to know, while as a lady of independent means she, in her turn, despised the class from which she had sprung. Mrs Evans considered Miss Bruce a “useful” worker, and asked her to tea regularly once a year, in addition to a summer garden party. The churchwarden’s wife was asked to meet her on these occasions. “You won’t mind, dear, I know,” the Vicar’s wife would premise. “Youareso kind, and it gives her such pleasure, poor soul!” But as a matter of fact the tea party gave Miss Bruce no pleasure at all. She was keen enough to realise the exact conditions of her invitation, and instead of feeling flattered was wounded and aggrieved... “Last week she had nine people there one afternoon, the Mallisons and the Escourts, all that set. Ellen heard about it from the cook. Why couldn’t she ask me then?” she would ask herself bitterly. “Never anyone but Mrs Rose!” Every year she decided to refuse the next invitation, but when it came to the time her courage failed. In the deadly dullness of her life a change was too rare to be lightly foregone. She stepped down from her high perch now, and turned her dull eyes to stare into Grizel Beverley’s happy face.“May I help you a little?”“Thank you. It’s very kind, I’m sure. I shall be much obliged.”“That’sall right!” said Grizel cordially, and promptly seated herself at the end of a pew, and extended an arm along the top of the oaken back, in an attitude of luxurious ease. Exactly what form the “help” was to take it was difficult to guess, but Miss Bruce was not thinking of such mundane considerations; her mind was occupied in grasping the astounding fact that the latest celebrity of the countryside, Mrs Martin Beverley, late Miss Grizel Dundas, had chosen to single out her insignificant self, when some of the most important ladies in the parish were present.“It’s—not very interesting over here,” she stammered apologetically. “Window-sills are so dull. It’s impossible to get an effect.”“Theyarerather muddly, aren’t they?” Grizel agreed cheerfully, casting a roving eye over the branches of greenery, scattered intermittently with daffodils which had had their day. “But I daresay no one will look... I don’t think I know your name, do I? You haven’t called on me yet?”Miss Bruce flushed a deep brick-red. Her lips tightened in remembrance of the old grudge.“I—don’t call!” she said bluntly. “It would not be—acceptable. I am poor.”“Oh, so am I! There we can sympathise. Isn’t itdull?” cried Grizel gaily.Miss Bruce looked at her in silent disclaimer. No one could look into Grizel’s face and doubt the honesty of her words, but Miss Bruce reflected tartly that there were different degrees of poverty! Why, the clothes on the bride’s back this morning must have cost a considerable portion of her own year’s income! The white coat hung in strange and wonderful folds, the outside was severely plain, just a simple, unadorned cloth garment which an ordinary woman might have worn; but as she sat, the fronts had fallen apart, and the spinster gazed with awe upon a gorgeousness of lining such as it had not entered into her brain to conceive. Ivory brocade, shot through with gold; a band of exquisite embroidery where the two fabrics met, cascades of delicate lace. Miss Bruce was fond of coining phrases to express her meaning. She coined one now, “Muffled magnificence!” It seemed an inconceivable thing that any woman could allow such richness to be hidden away beneath a cloth exterior, yet something latent within her applauded the feat. “Muffled magnificence,” she repeated to herself, her gloating eyes taking in each perfection of detail. Her lips twisted in grim realisation of the difference in degrees of poverty, but a quality of sincerity and kindliness in Grizel’s hazel eyes prompted an unwonted confidence. She heard herself saying quite simply and naturally:“There is something besides poverty, Mrs Beverley! My father was a plumber. Quite in a big way, of course, but still,—he was in trade. He was a very good father; he educated me well and left me enough to live on. I’m grateful to him, but,—you can understand—”Grizel gave a soft littlemoveof appreciation.“Agoodplumber.—A plumber with principles... Oh, youmustbe proud! I’ve travelled all over the world, but I never heard of such a thing before. All the other plumbers I’ve heard of have brought misery on everyone who knew them... You must certainly come to see me, and tell me all about him, and I’ll call on you too, and see his photograph... Had he a chin beard?”Miss Bruce’s gratification was merged in stunned surprise.“Chin—beard?”“They always have. Haven’t you noticed? If your father hadn’t, that makes him more wonderful still. And where is your house, Miss—”“Bruce. In Rose Lane. Near the Men’s Institute. A little house with a green porch. You wouldn’t have noticed—”“I’ve just come, you see,” Grizel apologised, “and I’ve been busy about my own little house. I’ll show it to you, and you must show me yours. When will you come to tea?”Miss Bruce stood silent, struggling between a longing to name a date, clinch the invitation, and wave a flag of triumph in the eyes of her enemies, and some softer feeling which forebade taking advantage of the ignorance of a new-comer. She looked down at the young happy face, at the slim young body in its dainty trappings, and a rare impulse of tenderness stirred in her dried heart. People said that Mrs Beverley had been born to a great fortune, had lived in luxury among the highest in the land, but she gave herself fewer airs than many upstarts in semi-detached villas. One good turn deserved another. Miss Bruce rose to unexampled heights of sacrifice.“It is very kind of you—I appreciate it, but I’d better not! The gentlefolk don’t know me, don’t want to. If they met me sitting in your drawing-room it would be awkward for everybody concerned.”Grizel elevated expressive eyebrows.“I choose my own friends. No one has a right to dictate. I’ll drive over for you some day, and carry you off whether you want to or not. You could help me so much! There are thousands of things I want to know about the place, and the workpeople, and where to send, and what to do when things happen—they alwaysarehappening in a house, and I’ve a sort of conviction that you could tell me! I’m rather a lazy person, but I get things done. Providence is kind in sending along people to do them for me.”Such was the magnetism of the dimpling smile that Miss Bruce entirely forgot that this was the person who in the present instance had volunteered to help herself, and stammered ardent promises. Anything she could do! Everything she could do. Only too pleased and proud—“That’sall right, then. And about those daffodils!Don’tyou think they’d look better massed together into little groups? They do look so plaintive fading away all on their own little lones. You’d get more effect from good-sized bunches!”“Well, I can try!” Miss Bruce conceded amiably, and for the next ten minutes she worked diligently, carrying out the instructions given by a soft voice, and a waving hand in an exquisitely fitting glove. The result was distinctly to the good, and Grizel had no hesitation in taking her due share of praise.“Wehavedone them well!” she said graciously at parting, and Miss Bruce magnanimously agreed.“Thank you so much for your help!”Grizel made another short cut through a pew, and was intercepted by the Vicar’s wife, who had been watching thetête-à-têtewith wondering eyes. Mrs Martin Beverley, and poor Miss Bruce! What on earth had they found to talk about all that time? Her keen eyes were alight with curiosity, but Grizel vouchsafed no information; she knew without hearing what the good lady would have to say, and was in no mind to hear it. Perhaps of all sins, pride is the most universal, and the most varied in the manner of its presentment. It hides itself under many disguises, obtrudes its head in the most unexpected situations. The socialist railing at society, and calling upon mankind to follow his example, is often more inflated with pride than the aristocrats against whom he inveighs: an ardent philanthropist living happily among East End roughs, will display unexpected bristles to a fellow-worker who has not known the advantages of a public school; so Grizel Beverley, looking down on the small folk of Chumley from the altitude of her past experiences, failed to grasp Infinitesimal distinctions, and saw no reason why she should be hindered thereby. She had no mind to obey instructions from the Vicar’s wife! She floated past with a nod and a smile, and joined the little group of three who were standing outside the Cancel rails, surveying the effect of the completed vases. The girl Teresa looked paler and more set in expression; tired, no doubt, with her morning’swork. Cassandra, on the contrary, looked refreshed, the interest of having work to do, and doing it well, lighting her eyes into a girlish brightness. Her face was almost as happy as Grizel’s own, as she turned to greet her.“Here you are! I hope I’ve not kept you too long. It must be nearly time for lunch.” She cast a quick glance at the two by her side, and added tentatively; “I’m going straight back in the car; won’t you both come, too, and let me feed you after your labours? Do! I’d be so pleased.”Without a flicker of hesitation came Teresa’s refusal.“Thank you; I couldn’t possibly. I’ve not finished. There is always a cold lunch at the Vicarage. Mrs Evans asks anyone who likes to go. It’s so near.”“Yes, of course.” Cassandra held out her hand in placid acceptance of the fact, spoke a few words of farewell, and turned to Peignton, taking for granted a like excuse on his part, but he was hesitating, and displaying an obvious wish to accept.“Is there anything more that I can do to help you, Miss Teresa?—If my work is finished, there’s no need for me to stay. Of course, if there’s anything I can do—”“No, thank you. Only a few odds and ends. Nothing serious. I can manage quite well,” said Teresa staunchly. Her heart was cramped with pain, but she made no sign. As calmly as a martyr of old, she smiled through the fire, shook hands with each of the three in turn, and accompanied them a few steps down the aisle.Cassandra walked ahead, her head in the air. “Now why did he do that?” she asked herself uneasily. “I asked them together. I never dreamed he would come alone. Perhaps Bernard was mistaken, and there’s nothing between them, after all. She seemed absolutely detached!” The possibility brought with it a sense of relief, and her thoughts flew ahead to the afternoon. “I’ll take him to my summer-house to tea, and we can talk. There are quite a number of things I want to say...”It was five o’clock before Teresa Mallison returned home that afternoon, for the “few odd things” stretched out to unexpected length. The day had turned out very differently from what she expected, but there was no anger in her heart against the two who had disturbed her peace. With unusual fairness of mind she realised their unconsciousness, their unwillingness to offend. Things had just happened. No one was to blame. This philosophic attitude did not prevent her from being exceedingly short and snappy with her family for the rest of the evening, or from refusing coldly to partake of the fowl which had been provided for her delectation. To some natures a scapegoat is necessary, and in nine cases out of ten they are conveniently discovered in the home circle.
Mrs Mallison was one of the kindest of women; she was also one of the most exasperating. She herself was complacently aware of the first fact, and referred to it frequently in conversation, enumerating her benefactions with obvious satisfaction: of the latter attribute she remained blandly, blindly unaware. The combination is frequent, the havoc wrought thereby in domestic circles widespread throughout the land. Mrs Mallison rose early from preference. Having reached a time of life when she required little sleep, she found it a relief to rise at seven, and by an exercise of logic, unanswerable to her own judgment, considered it incumbent upon the whole household to experience a similar briskness. She read a chapter of the Bible and the day’s portion of Daily Light before leaving her bedroom, and prayed sadly to be preserved throughout the trials and temptations of the day. To expect happiness she would have considered a flippant attitude, unworthy a professing Christian, the glad morning face had no justification in her eyes.
“Well, Bailey! I wonder what trials the Lord has in store for me to-day!” she would sigh meekly to the old servant who brought her early tea, and sallying forth from her bedroom, thus expectant, seldom failed to encounter several minor trials on the way downstairs: Dust; grease; marks on white paint. It was usually a chastened Mrs Mallison who took her seat behind the urn.
Mrs Mallison had an active mind and a cumbersome body. This combination is also widely known, and deplored by grown-up daughters. No sooner had an idea entered her mind, than she wished it put into instant execution—by a daughter. Whatever the daughter might be doing, however responsible might be her work, she must leave it, dismiss it from her mind, be ready with heart and will to execute her mother’s behests. Such was a daughter’s duty; to fail in it was to risk references to serpents’ teeth, and to that subsequent burden of remorse, to be borne by the delinquent, when death should have removed her mother to another sphere. Mary Mallison found it simpler to give in at once, leave a letter half-written, or a photographic plate half-toned, and adjourn upstairs to move the position of jars on the storeroom shelves, or make sure that a drawer was safely locked. She would even rise in the middle of her breakfast, and walk meekly into the drawing-room to feel if the palms needed water; but Mary was thirty-two, and anaemic into the bargain, and her axiom in life was, “For goodness’ sake, let us have peace!” It was easier to walk a dozen yards into the drawing-room, than to be talked at for the rest of the meal. Mary obeyed, swallowing a constant mental revolt, the strain of which showed in her wan bloodless face. Long ago, when she was twenty-four, she had loved a curate, and the curate had not loved her in return. No man had ever loved her; it was to the last degree unlikely that anyone ever would. Mary offered automatic thanks weekly for the gift of creation, and smothered as wicked the wonder what she had been created for? She also, like her mother, wondered drearily what troubles lay ahead.
Teresa was young, and pretty, and had been educated at a public school. She had inherited from her mother a fair skin, flaxen locks, a strong will, and a pertinacity of purpose which might in time develop to disagreeable proportions. In the meantime she was the admired youngest member of a plain and heavy family, and was by nature affectionate and appreciative. It was only on occasions that Mrs Mallison was conscious of running up against a dead rock when she opposed her will to that of her youngest daughter; only in glimmering rays of light that she realised that what Teresa desired, almost inevitably came to pass. Over and over again the same thing happened. Teresa had come forward with a proposition: consent had been withheld, Teresa had withdrawn. Weeks, even months had passed by; to all appearance Teresa had abandoned the proposition, and then suddenly it crystallised, it became fact. Quietly, placidly, Teresa had bided her time, clinging with limpet-like determination to her point, moving the pawns on the board, waiting for the right moment to make the final dash.
Teresa had left the proud position of head girl in a great school to vegetate in a dull country town, dust the drawing-room, arrange flowers, make her own blouses, and “keep up her music,” and had found the routine as unsatisfactory as does every other modern girl. The Mallisons were comfortably off—that is to say, they had a small detached house, in a good-sized garden, kept two indoor maids, and a man who looked after the garden and drove the shabby dog-cart. They were also able to pay their bills with praiseworthy regularity, and to take a yearly holidayen famille. They likewise allowed each daughter thirty pounds a year for dress and pocket money, and would have strongly resented an insinuation that they were not acting generously in so doing. Mary had “managed” on thirty for a dozen years. Teresa managed for two, and then relinquished the struggle. She made no moan, for moans would have had no avail, except to bring about her ears a harvest of precepts. Teresa informed her sister that “they must be shown,” and she proceeded to show them. She bought no new dress, she went about with her parents in aggressively shabby clothes, she walked incredible distances to save twopences, and thereby made herself late for meals; in short she demonstrated to her old-fashioned parents, that if they wished to possess a pretty, creditable daughter they must be prepared to pay for her. The allowance was increased to fifty, and Mary languished beneath a sense of injury. Thirty had been considered enough forher!
On the morning after Grizel Beverley’s reception the Mallison quartette was assembled at breakfast in the stiff, sunless morning room. Mrs Mallison poured out coffee; Major Mallison sat facing her before the silver bacon dish, the morning light streaming in on his tired, discouraged face. Mary sat on the right, opposite the toast-rack and the egg-stand. Teresa on the left, by the marmalade and honey jar. TheMorning Postlay neatly folded on the sideboard. Mrs Mallison approved of sociability at meals; conversation helped digestion. When the Major declared that he loathed general conversation at breakfast, and would rather be left in peace than listen to the finest conversationalist alive, he was told that he was unamiable and selfish, and a burden of regret prophesied for him also “when he hadnoone to talk to!”
Mrs Mallison poured out four cups of coffee, made her usual lamentrethe price of bacon, and cast a disapproving eye on Teresa’s bluecrêpeblouse.
“I thought, my dear, that you were going to church this morning to decorate the chancel.”
“I am, Mother.”
“In that blouse?”
“Certainly. Why not?”
“Most unsuitable. Too light. A dark flannel is the right thing for the occasion. You will have time to change it before you start. Don’t forget!”
Teresa cast down her eyes and applied herself steadily to bacon. She had not the slightest intention of wearing a dark flannel blouse. The bluecrêpehad been chosen, not for its durability, but that it might look pleasant in the eyes of Dane Peignton. All the mothers in the world could not have made Teresa change it; so what was the use of discussing the point! She gave the conversation an adroit little switch.
“Don’t wait lunch for me, Mother. I shall probably go to the Vicarage. We shall need all our time.”
“We are having fried steak. If you come at all, you must be punctual. If it’s done too long, all the strength has gone. I could give you sandwiches to eat in the vestry. Or it might be stewed. If papa did not object, it couldquitewell be stewed. He dislikes the onions. If we had carrots instead, would you object, papa? But, of course, there’s the flavour. Carrots arenotso seasoning... Perhaps it had better be sandwiches. Mary, is there a glass of that chicken and ham paste? See if there’s a glass, dear. Cook could make some nice fresh sandwiches.”
Mary moved automatically, but Teresa stopped her with a waving hand.
“I loathe sandwiches. I shall go somewhere and have a proper lunch. Don’t bother, Mother.”
“My dear,” said Mrs Mallison reproachfully, “I am your mother. When you have a tiring day before you I am naturally anxious that you should be fed. They will be busy at the Vicarage. Cold meat and salad. One could hardly expect more, but you are accustomed to a hot dish. It is the day for steak, but if papa didn’t object we might change. I don’t care for changes as a rule, it upsets the servants, but just for once.—A chicken now! You like chicken. Just run to the telephone, dear, and tell Bates to send one up. Good, roasting. Three and six. If papa doesn’t mind.”
Not a flicker of expression passed over the Major’s face. He was the Jorkins of the establishment, and knew well that, useful as he might be for purposes of quotation, he was negligible as a working factor. He continued resignedly to partake of bacon. Teresa vouchsafed an appreciative smile.
“We’ll have fowl for dinner. Plenty of time when the boy calls. I’m going out to lunch, Mother. I’d rather. It’s part of the fun.”
Mrs Mallison sighed. Here was one of the expected trials. A daughter, unappreciative, preferring to roam abroad, oblivious of the fact that after a morning’s church decorating she would be in possession of a harvest of small talk which a mother would naturally desire to hear. Who decorated the lectern; who the finials; who did the windows this year? The windows were the least coveted post. A mother whose daughter had been honoured with the east end would naturally feel agreeable sympathy for the mother of those who wrestled modestly with window-sills. Then also there were subsidiary interests. Who brought the Squire’s flowers? Did Lady Cassandra drive down? Was the Vicar tiresome about nails? Exactly what did everyone present say about Teresa’s scheme of colour? The good lady felt it hard that she should have to wait until evening to satisfy her interest on these thrilling points. She set her lips and said to herself, “Certainly not! If young people have no consideration for others, they cannot expect to be indulged.Notfowl. Roast end of the neck.”
At the side of the table Mary sighed, and stared dejectedly into space. Eight years agoshehad been asked to “do” the east end, and the curate had been by her side all day helping her, reaching to high places, bending down, taking the vases from her hand. After all these years she could still see before her every line of the smooth boyish face. He had never loved her, he had gone away and married another girl, but he had been admiring and attentive; several times in the course of that day he had made her sit down to rest; at tea at the Vicarage he had placed a cushion behind her back. In Mary’s starved life such small incidents took the place of romance. She looked across the table at her sister, not so much with envy, as with pity. Poor Trissie! she also was dreaming; she also must awake. And Teresa understood the glance and set her red lips. She had not the least intention in the world of following in Mary’s footsteps. Thirty-two should never findherdragging along at home! She thought of Dane Peignton with the warm glow at the heart which always accompanied the thought. If Dane did not “care,” her dearest hope would be blasted, but it was characteristic of Teresa that she could put aside the possibility, and be assured that even Dane himself could not spoil her life, or reduce her to Mary’s apathy of indifference.
After breakfast came “Worship,” when the maids came in and sat on two chairs placed as near as possible to the door, and the mistress of the house read aloud a chapter in the Bible, followed by a long prayer from a book entitledFamily Devotions. The chapter this morning was taken from Judges, and had little obvious bearing on the lives of the hearers. It is doubtful if anyone attended after the first few verses. The cook was listening for the tradesmen’s bell. If it rang in the middle of Worship it was understood that she was to rise softly and creep out. Under such circumstances it was, as she expressed it, difficult to “settle down.” The housemaid was thinking of her young man. Teresa was considering her scheme of decoration. Major Mallison and Mary were resignedly sitting it out. For the prayer everyone rose and knelt down, but the mental attitude remained unchanged. They rose once more with sighs of relief.
After breakfast Teresa dusted the drawing-room, made her own bed, and hung over the banisters listening for the moment when her mother should begin telephoning orders to the tradespeople, when she herself might leave the house without fear of further questioning as to the blue blouse. She expanded her shoulders with a sigh of relief on reaching the open air, and sped along the quiet road with the feeling of escape which every member of the Mallison household experienced when the gate was safely closed, before a shrill recall had sounded from door or window.
Teresa’s thoughts that morning were occupied as many another daughter’s have been before her, in pondering the astonishing problem of her parents’ youth. Father and Mother in love! Father ardent, Mother shy! Father and Mother exchanging love glances; engrossed in one another’s society. Could such things be? And if so—lacerating thought!—could they be again? In thirty years’ time could Teresa and Dane...
Teresa flushed violently. She had not prayed at Family Worship. She had been frankly and emphatically bored, but she prayed now, walking along the public road, in her blue coat and fashionable jam-pot hat, she lifted her eyes to the grey skies, and the voice in her heart cried earnestly: “I’ll make him happy! Help me to keep him happy! Give him to me, and make me a good wife.” A glow of tenderness softened the hard young eyes. “Make me good,” cried Teresa, “For Dane’s sake!”
She was the first to arrive at the church, before even the Vicar’s wife. Was she not the honoured young worker, to whom had been entrusted the decoration of the east end? A mass of daffodils, wallflowers, and primroses lay banked in baskets along the aisles. These were the contributions of the poorer members of the community, the villagers and owners of small gardens. Outside the chancel rails were ranged rows of growing bulbs in pots, hyacinths, narcissus, the finer variety of daffodils, great trumpet-like heads of white and cream, orange and gold. These were the first contribution from the Court; later on the carriage would bring down a hamper of flowers, freshly cut and fragrant. The sexton came forward with a box containing the tin vases and fitments provided for such occasions, and delivered the usual warning about nails. The Vicar would allow no nails. Teresa took off her long coat and placed it in a pew; the blue of her blouse seemed to take an added richness from the austerity of the surroundings. How glad she was that she had disobeyed her mother and kept it on!
Presently the Vicarage party arrived, and quickly following one after another the helpers. Teresa lifted the flower-pots one by one and placed them behind the delicate tracery of the oak screen, so that the pots themselves were hidden and the carved openings appeared to give a vista into a sweet spring garden.
All the while she worked, she kept a strained outlook for Dane’s appearance. When another helper approached, and would have loitered in conversation, she made a speedy excuse for hurrying away, lest he should come now, and their meeting be marred; when her back was turned to the aisle she listened for the sound of his footsteps. At any moment he might enter, stand by her side, call to her in his full, rich tones: “Miss Teresa!”
Eleven o’clock came, and he had not appeared; half-past eleven. All the pots were arranged. Intentionally Teresa had lingered over the work, dreading to begin the more elaborate decorations which would require aid. If she were seen mounting a stool, some of the men helpers would at once come forward to assist; and Dane entering and seeing her thus provided, might attach himself to someone else. A dull ache of disappointment filled Teresa’s heart. If he really cared; if the opportunity meant to him what it did to herself, he would not have wasted the hours. She put her last pot in its place, stood back to view the effect, and heard at last the longed-for words of welcome.
“Miss Teresa—here I am; bright and early, you see! What have you got for me to do?”
He was smiling, composed, unconscious of offence. The ache sharpened into pain at the realisation, but Teresa had a wisdom beyond her years, and allowed no sign of disappointment to become visible. To sulk and looked aggrieved was not the way to increase a man’s admiration. She smiled into his eyes, and cried readily:
“Heaps of things! I need you for all the stretchy places. You are so big. And those great palms... They have to go into the corners. Will you help me to move them?”
“Certainly not. I’ll do it myself. Just point out where they are to go. What’s the good of me if I can’t save you fatigue?”
The tenderness of his smile was as ointment of healing, but true to her principles Teresa averted her eyes, and put on her most business-like manner, so that no answering sign of tenderness might be visible. Not to the verger himself had her manner been more cool and detached, but Dane showed no sign of dissatisfaction. They had met to work, not to make love; he admired the girl for her brisk, capable ways, and found pleasure in the sight of her alert young figure clad in the short skirt, stout boots, and untrimmed hat. They worked industriously for the next half-hour, banking up comers of palms, covering the foremost pots with a velvety cushion of moss. Side by side they knelt on the marble floor, pulling apart the fragrant sods, patting them into shape. Once when a rebellious morsel refused to remain in place Teresa fumbled among her yellow locks for a hairpin to act as skewer, whereupon Dane made a quick movement to withdraw her hand.
“No, no, it’s covered with soil! ... Let me!” He covered his finger and thumb with a handkerchief, carefully extracted the nearest pin, and held it towards her. “That’s better! It’s too bad to soil your pretty hair. You’ve got loads of hair, haven’t you? I love to see a girl with good hair. How far does it come down?”
“Past my waist.” Teresa’s conscience pricked her on account of one braid which could come down as far as required, but there seemed no immediate need for confession on that score. Her cheeks were flushed, she took a long time over the last arrangement of moss, pondering uneasily. Had anyoneseen? What would they think? She hoped to goodness that Miss Mason’s eyes had been averted! What Miss Mason saw at noon, was parish news by sunfall... “By the by, you’ll be interested to hear that Teresa Mallison is engaged to that young Peignton. I saw himdistinctlystroking her hair.” In imagination she could hear the thin, clipped voice scattering the news broadcast. And in time it would come to Dane’s own ears...
Teresa rose and cast a searching glance round the church. No one was looking, the workers were engrossed and preoccupied. The Vicar’s wife was affixing a cross of daffodils to the front of the pulpit, the doctor’s daughters were trimming the lectern with stiff little bunches of daffodils. All down the aisle workers were twisting sprays of ivy round the tall gas standards, in the discreet background dowdy nobodies were wrestling with window-sills. The Vicar’s wife held firmly to the theory of universal brotherhood, but it would never have occurred to her to ask a wealthy parishioner to “do” the windows, or a tradesman’s wife to undertake the east end. Teresa and Dane left the chancel and stood hesitating at the head of the aisle. Now they were ready for the cut flowers, and the cut flowers had not arrived.
“The Squire promised to send down. I wrote again last night to remind him. Hecan’thave forgotten.”
“Oh, no. They’ll be here soon. There’s a car at the door now.” Peignton peered forward, looking down the length of the aisle into the sunlit churchyard beyond, and the girl watching him, as she loved to do at unobserved moments, saw a sudden light come into the lazy eyes. She peered in her turn, and beheld a small grey foot emerge from the door of the car, then a second foot, and finally a tall figure, grey-robed, grey-furred, which stood aside, sharply outlined against the darkness of the background, and waited for the descent of still another figure, coated in white.
Lady Cassandra! ... she had come herself, and with her Mrs Martin Beverley. They were driving about together in the morning, a sign of intimacy more eloquent than a dozen afternoon meetings. They were smiling into each other’s faces as they walked up the church path, talking with the ease of lifelong friends.
Teresa felt a pang of jealousy, not of Dane Peignton,—these women were married and could have no interest for him,—but for herself, and her position in the Raynor household. Proud as she had been of the degree of intimacy to which she had been admitted, in her heart she had acknowledged the presence of a barrier shutting her out from personal friendship. She had been a favoured acquaintance, nothing more, and now a friend had appeared, and the acquaintance must needs stand aside.
Up the church aisle came the two women, side by side, graver now as befitted their surroundings, yet bringing with them a whiff of the world of gaiety and fashion, the influence of which spread subtly over the feminine body of workers. The Vicar’s wife pulled down her cuffs, and brushed the leaves from her gown; the doctor’s daughters arranged stray locks, and placed themselves in artistic attitudes around the desk, and from the background poor Miss Bruce looked on with widened eyes.
Cassandra came forward to shake hands with Mrs Evans, the natural hostess of the occasion.
“Good morning, Mrs Evans. How busy you all are! I drove down with the flowers, and brought Mrs Beverley with me. The groom is bringing them in. We promised Miss Mallison—”
She looked around, caught sight of Teresa and Peignton standing side by side, and nodded, faintly smiling. The affair was progressing then! No need for outside help. Teresa, flushed and happy, the blue of her blouse setting off the pink and white of her complexion, looked her most attractive self. Cassandra envied her, pitied her, felt an inexplicable irritation with her, all at the same moment, but being bred in the school which considers the suppression of feeling to be the first axiom of good manners, her smile of greeting remained unchanged.
The vases for the altar had been carried into a vestry, where they stood on a table ready to be filled. The groom was directed where to carry his hamper, and the two visitors followed, talking in undertones to Teresa and Dane as they went. Inside the room itself there was a greater sense of freedom, and their voices instantly heightened in tone. They had an air of having nothing to do, and of being indifferent as to how long they stayed, which was far from welcome to one at least of the workers.
Teresa had planned exactly how the vases were to be arranged, and had anticipated a happy half-hour, alone with Dane, free from the observation of curious eyes. She was capable of carrying out her own ideas, and wished for no assistance. It was Peignton who made the unwelcome suggestion that Cassandra should remain to help.
“I’m out of this!” he said, shrugging. “Never arranged flowers in my life, and don’t know how to begin. Dragging about palms is more in my line, but that’s done now, and I’m no more use. Sorry to be such a broken reed, Miss Teresa! Perhaps Lady Cassandra—” He looked at Cassandra, and once again his eyes lightened, as if what they beheld was good in his sight. “I am sure you know how to arrange flowers!”
“Oh, yes,” Cassandra said calmly, “I’m supposed to be quite good. Well, Teresa, I am at your service. You are in command. Issue your instructions! Mrs Beverley, you won’t mind waiting a short time?”
“Oh, no,” Grizel said sweetly. “I’ll help too!” She made no motion to take off her gloves, however, but stood watching with a lazy smile while her companion threw off her furs in business-like fashion. The square emerald sparkled against the whiteness of her hand, as she turned over flowers, searching for the most perfect specimens. Once more Dane watched it with fascinated attention, once more looked from it to Teresa’s hands, reddened and stained with soil, and hastily averted his eyes. Henceforth he kept them averted. There was no disloyalty in admiring a beautiful thing. The wrong began when one stooped to invidious comparisons.
By degrees it came about that Cassandra arranged, while the others stood by, and supplied her wants. She was accustomed to the handling of delicate blooms, and possessed little coaxing tricks of propping and supporting, which added greatly to their effect. Of the first two vases completed, hers was so palpably superior, that the obvious course was to invite her to undertake all five. Teresa gave the invitation with a good grace, and stood aside handing sprays of lilies, and disentangling delicate fronds of green.
As she stood she faced a small mirror on the wall, before which the Rev. Vicar presumably concluded his clerical toilet. At the moment it gave back the reflection of herself and Cassandra, standing side by side, and the contrast stung. At home, by the same law of contrast, Teresa complacently considered herself next door to a beauty, but seen side by side with Cassandra Raynor, her image appeared of a sudden coarsened and blunted. Moreover, the inferiority was not confined to the body; mentally as well as physically she was at a disadvantage;—her words seemed halting and difficult, compared with the other’s delicate ripple of conversation. Teresa’s honesty accepted the fact, disagreeable though it was. The little ache at her heart was not caused so much by jealousy, as by regret for the hour which she had longed for, the hour which was not to be. Surreptitiously she watched Peignton to see if he shared her disappointment. His manner was quieter than when they had been alone together. He looked less at his ease, but he was interested, his eyes followed the delicate work with absorbed attention. He was more interested, rather than less. Teresa felt suddenly very tired. She had hoped he would look disappointed!
Meanwhile Grizel had strolled out of the vestry and stood viewing the scene with lazy, smiling eyes. The workers were so busy that they had not noticed her approach, and she had time to study them unawares. For the most part they worked in pairs, consulting together, the more deft-handed arranging the flowers, the less skilful acting as assistant, and executing her commands. Quietly though they worked, there was in the air a sense ofcamaraderie; and one divined that these workers were friends who had chosen to work together, and enjoyed the companionship. In the background a solitary black-robed figure stood straining upward from the seat of a pew, engaged in covering the sill of a window with fragments of foliage, and those inferior flowers which had been rejected for more prominent places. Grizel took a short cut through a pew, and approached this worker’s side.
“May I help you?” she asked, and Miss Bruce turned her head and stared in bewilderment. She was a middle-aged spinster, who lived in a small villa, with a small servant-girl, a fox-terrier, and a canary in a brass cage. She possessed exactly two hundred pounds a year, and felt herself rich. It was only in the matter of friends that she was poor, for the taint of trade set her apart from the people whom she wished to know, while as a lady of independent means she, in her turn, despised the class from which she had sprung. Mrs Evans considered Miss Bruce a “useful” worker, and asked her to tea regularly once a year, in addition to a summer garden party. The churchwarden’s wife was asked to meet her on these occasions. “You won’t mind, dear, I know,” the Vicar’s wife would premise. “Youareso kind, and it gives her such pleasure, poor soul!” But as a matter of fact the tea party gave Miss Bruce no pleasure at all. She was keen enough to realise the exact conditions of her invitation, and instead of feeling flattered was wounded and aggrieved... “Last week she had nine people there one afternoon, the Mallisons and the Escourts, all that set. Ellen heard about it from the cook. Why couldn’t she ask me then?” she would ask herself bitterly. “Never anyone but Mrs Rose!” Every year she decided to refuse the next invitation, but when it came to the time her courage failed. In the deadly dullness of her life a change was too rare to be lightly foregone. She stepped down from her high perch now, and turned her dull eyes to stare into Grizel Beverley’s happy face.
“May I help you a little?”
“Thank you. It’s very kind, I’m sure. I shall be much obliged.”
“That’sall right!” said Grizel cordially, and promptly seated herself at the end of a pew, and extended an arm along the top of the oaken back, in an attitude of luxurious ease. Exactly what form the “help” was to take it was difficult to guess, but Miss Bruce was not thinking of such mundane considerations; her mind was occupied in grasping the astounding fact that the latest celebrity of the countryside, Mrs Martin Beverley, late Miss Grizel Dundas, had chosen to single out her insignificant self, when some of the most important ladies in the parish were present.
“It’s—not very interesting over here,” she stammered apologetically. “Window-sills are so dull. It’s impossible to get an effect.”
“Theyarerather muddly, aren’t they?” Grizel agreed cheerfully, casting a roving eye over the branches of greenery, scattered intermittently with daffodils which had had their day. “But I daresay no one will look... I don’t think I know your name, do I? You haven’t called on me yet?”
Miss Bruce flushed a deep brick-red. Her lips tightened in remembrance of the old grudge.
“I—don’t call!” she said bluntly. “It would not be—acceptable. I am poor.”
“Oh, so am I! There we can sympathise. Isn’t itdull?” cried Grizel gaily.
Miss Bruce looked at her in silent disclaimer. No one could look into Grizel’s face and doubt the honesty of her words, but Miss Bruce reflected tartly that there were different degrees of poverty! Why, the clothes on the bride’s back this morning must have cost a considerable portion of her own year’s income! The white coat hung in strange and wonderful folds, the outside was severely plain, just a simple, unadorned cloth garment which an ordinary woman might have worn; but as she sat, the fronts had fallen apart, and the spinster gazed with awe upon a gorgeousness of lining such as it had not entered into her brain to conceive. Ivory brocade, shot through with gold; a band of exquisite embroidery where the two fabrics met, cascades of delicate lace. Miss Bruce was fond of coining phrases to express her meaning. She coined one now, “Muffled magnificence!” It seemed an inconceivable thing that any woman could allow such richness to be hidden away beneath a cloth exterior, yet something latent within her applauded the feat. “Muffled magnificence,” she repeated to herself, her gloating eyes taking in each perfection of detail. Her lips twisted in grim realisation of the difference in degrees of poverty, but a quality of sincerity and kindliness in Grizel’s hazel eyes prompted an unwonted confidence. She heard herself saying quite simply and naturally:
“There is something besides poverty, Mrs Beverley! My father was a plumber. Quite in a big way, of course, but still,—he was in trade. He was a very good father; he educated me well and left me enough to live on. I’m grateful to him, but,—you can understand—”
Grizel gave a soft littlemoveof appreciation.
“Agoodplumber.—A plumber with principles... Oh, youmustbe proud! I’ve travelled all over the world, but I never heard of such a thing before. All the other plumbers I’ve heard of have brought misery on everyone who knew them... You must certainly come to see me, and tell me all about him, and I’ll call on you too, and see his photograph... Had he a chin beard?”
Miss Bruce’s gratification was merged in stunned surprise.
“Chin—beard?”
“They always have. Haven’t you noticed? If your father hadn’t, that makes him more wonderful still. And where is your house, Miss—”
“Bruce. In Rose Lane. Near the Men’s Institute. A little house with a green porch. You wouldn’t have noticed—”
“I’ve just come, you see,” Grizel apologised, “and I’ve been busy about my own little house. I’ll show it to you, and you must show me yours. When will you come to tea?”
Miss Bruce stood silent, struggling between a longing to name a date, clinch the invitation, and wave a flag of triumph in the eyes of her enemies, and some softer feeling which forebade taking advantage of the ignorance of a new-comer. She looked down at the young happy face, at the slim young body in its dainty trappings, and a rare impulse of tenderness stirred in her dried heart. People said that Mrs Beverley had been born to a great fortune, had lived in luxury among the highest in the land, but she gave herself fewer airs than many upstarts in semi-detached villas. One good turn deserved another. Miss Bruce rose to unexampled heights of sacrifice.
“It is very kind of you—I appreciate it, but I’d better not! The gentlefolk don’t know me, don’t want to. If they met me sitting in your drawing-room it would be awkward for everybody concerned.”
Grizel elevated expressive eyebrows.
“I choose my own friends. No one has a right to dictate. I’ll drive over for you some day, and carry you off whether you want to or not. You could help me so much! There are thousands of things I want to know about the place, and the workpeople, and where to send, and what to do when things happen—they alwaysarehappening in a house, and I’ve a sort of conviction that you could tell me! I’m rather a lazy person, but I get things done. Providence is kind in sending along people to do them for me.”
Such was the magnetism of the dimpling smile that Miss Bruce entirely forgot that this was the person who in the present instance had volunteered to help herself, and stammered ardent promises. Anything she could do! Everything she could do. Only too pleased and proud—
“That’sall right, then. And about those daffodils!Don’tyou think they’d look better massed together into little groups? They do look so plaintive fading away all on their own little lones. You’d get more effect from good-sized bunches!”
“Well, I can try!” Miss Bruce conceded amiably, and for the next ten minutes she worked diligently, carrying out the instructions given by a soft voice, and a waving hand in an exquisitely fitting glove. The result was distinctly to the good, and Grizel had no hesitation in taking her due share of praise.
“Wehavedone them well!” she said graciously at parting, and Miss Bruce magnanimously agreed.
“Thank you so much for your help!”
Grizel made another short cut through a pew, and was intercepted by the Vicar’s wife, who had been watching thetête-à-têtewith wondering eyes. Mrs Martin Beverley, and poor Miss Bruce! What on earth had they found to talk about all that time? Her keen eyes were alight with curiosity, but Grizel vouchsafed no information; she knew without hearing what the good lady would have to say, and was in no mind to hear it. Perhaps of all sins, pride is the most universal, and the most varied in the manner of its presentment. It hides itself under many disguises, obtrudes its head in the most unexpected situations. The socialist railing at society, and calling upon mankind to follow his example, is often more inflated with pride than the aristocrats against whom he inveighs: an ardent philanthropist living happily among East End roughs, will display unexpected bristles to a fellow-worker who has not known the advantages of a public school; so Grizel Beverley, looking down on the small folk of Chumley from the altitude of her past experiences, failed to grasp Infinitesimal distinctions, and saw no reason why she should be hindered thereby. She had no mind to obey instructions from the Vicar’s wife! She floated past with a nod and a smile, and joined the little group of three who were standing outside the Cancel rails, surveying the effect of the completed vases. The girl Teresa looked paler and more set in expression; tired, no doubt, with her morning’swork. Cassandra, on the contrary, looked refreshed, the interest of having work to do, and doing it well, lighting her eyes into a girlish brightness. Her face was almost as happy as Grizel’s own, as she turned to greet her.
“Here you are! I hope I’ve not kept you too long. It must be nearly time for lunch.” She cast a quick glance at the two by her side, and added tentatively; “I’m going straight back in the car; won’t you both come, too, and let me feed you after your labours? Do! I’d be so pleased.”
Without a flicker of hesitation came Teresa’s refusal.
“Thank you; I couldn’t possibly. I’ve not finished. There is always a cold lunch at the Vicarage. Mrs Evans asks anyone who likes to go. It’s so near.”
“Yes, of course.” Cassandra held out her hand in placid acceptance of the fact, spoke a few words of farewell, and turned to Peignton, taking for granted a like excuse on his part, but he was hesitating, and displaying an obvious wish to accept.
“Is there anything more that I can do to help you, Miss Teresa?—If my work is finished, there’s no need for me to stay. Of course, if there’s anything I can do—”
“No, thank you. Only a few odds and ends. Nothing serious. I can manage quite well,” said Teresa staunchly. Her heart was cramped with pain, but she made no sign. As calmly as a martyr of old, she smiled through the fire, shook hands with each of the three in turn, and accompanied them a few steps down the aisle.
Cassandra walked ahead, her head in the air. “Now why did he do that?” she asked herself uneasily. “I asked them together. I never dreamed he would come alone. Perhaps Bernard was mistaken, and there’s nothing between them, after all. She seemed absolutely detached!” The possibility brought with it a sense of relief, and her thoughts flew ahead to the afternoon. “I’ll take him to my summer-house to tea, and we can talk. There are quite a number of things I want to say...”
It was five o’clock before Teresa Mallison returned home that afternoon, for the “few odd things” stretched out to unexpected length. The day had turned out very differently from what she expected, but there was no anger in her heart against the two who had disturbed her peace. With unusual fairness of mind she realised their unconsciousness, their unwillingness to offend. Things had just happened. No one was to blame. This philosophic attitude did not prevent her from being exceedingly short and snappy with her family for the rest of the evening, or from refusing coldly to partake of the fowl which had been provided for her delectation. To some natures a scapegoat is necessary, and in nine cases out of ten they are conveniently discovered in the home circle.