Chapter Seven.Stolen Hours.Driving home in the car Cassandra was conscious of contending emotions which carried her back to nursery days; pleasure, excitement, an underlying gnawing of guilt. So had she felt, stealthily playing in a corner with a toy purloined from a sister’s store, and yet, as she assured herself, there was no need for compunction. She had invited both Teresa and Dane; it was not her fault if the girl chose to refuse; not her fault if the man was ungallant enough to accept. Yet the feeling of guilt persisted. She looked curiously at Peignton to see if he shared her discomfort, but never did a man look more serene and unperturbed. Happy too! The thrill of pleasurable excitement which in her case was a real, though secondary sensation, was, to judge by appearance, all-pervading in his case. His eyes shone, the tired-out look had disappeared; his lips smiled.“What a good thing a good car is! I used to swear by walking, but the time has come when I find it very agreeable to slip into a cushioned seat, and be whirled where I would go. There’s something mysteriously fatiguing about decorating churches; haven’t you found it so? Perhaps it is the necessity of keeping quiet and forbearing from expressing oneself as one otherwise would, when one is unexpectedly scratched or bruised. In any case, Iamtired. And hungry! It is good of you to offer to feed me.”Cassandra smiled with the comfortable assurance of one who takes perfect meals as a matter of course. There was no consciousness of cold mutton, no fear of a heavy pudding, to mar her enjoyment of an unexpected guest, but having never experienced a housekeeper’s anxiety, she failed to appreciate the relief.“I hope they will give you something fit to eat!”“And afterwards... Will you show me your garden?”“I have no special garden. I do nothing myself. I’m always making up my mind to take over a little corner, but it takes a long time to make up my mind. I don’t want to dig and delve. I enjoy the flowers better when I get them without any trouble. It would be simply an effort to try to find an interest.—Do you believe in troubling to find an interest, when it doesn’t come naturally?”“Yes,” Dane said simply, and Cassandra stared at him with a feeling of check. She had not expected that quiet “yes”; it carried with it a finality which put an end to argument.“I have had to do it, you see!” he added. “The thing whichdidinterest me became impossible, so I was obliged to find something else to fill the gap.”Cassandra lay back against the cushions with an exaggerated sigh of resignation.“Oh, dear! here we are back at our Second Bests! I hate Second Bests, and makeshifts of every description, and I don’t recognise any obligation to adopt them. If I can gain an interest only at the cost of something it doesn’t interest me to do, how can it be an interest at all? I’m talking nonsense, but it’s your fault... You are so painfully philosophic... Does a land agencyreallyfill the gap left by the old regiment, and its associations?”“Nothing near it. But it helps. It is several degrees better than nothing.” Peignton spoke resolutely, but his face twitched, and Cassandra was smitten with compunction.“Ah! I shouldn’t have said it. It was mean of me. When you are so brave...” Her voice sank to a tenderness of which she was unaware, as she asked the next question: “What was it? I never heard more than just that you had a breakdown!”“Lungs,” he said simply. “I had a cough, and it stuck to me, and I lost weight, but I never dreamt of anything serious. It was a bit of a—jar! I was packed off home to a sanatorium, and came out at the end of six months with a clean bill of health. I’ve been up to be vetted every few months since. The last time it was a new fellow, and he could not spot the weak place, so I’m all right, you see; it has just made me physically a few years older than I really am. Given care, and an outdoor life, I have as good a chance as another man.”“Oh, of course. So many people... It’snothingnow, compared with what it used to be,” Cassandra assented hurriedly.Thatwas the reason of the subtly appealing look which had puzzled her from her first meeting with this man! He had looked death in the face; had left the mimic playing at arms, to fight a hand-to-hand battle with that grim spectre through weary weeks and months. Such an experience could not fail to leave its mark, however resolutely it might be ignored. She was silent for some minutes, staring dreamily out of the window, while Dane in his turn studied her face, and wondered in masculine innocence why every woman did not wear chinchilla.“How do you take it when such blows come?” she asked slowly at last. “Do you rage or sulk? I suppose with ordinary human creatures it comes down to one of the two. Only the saints are resigned, and I don’t fancy you—”“No, indeed. Very far from it!” He laughed, then sobered quickly. “I suppose I,—sulked! I got the credit for taking it uncommonly well, but that was because I was too proud to fuss. Pity hurt. For my own selfish sake it was easier to bluff it out, and pretend to be hopeful. But inside—I went through a pretty fair imitation of hell in those first few weeks!”In Cassandra’s low croon of sympathy sounded all the warmth of her Irish heart; her eyes were liquid with sympathy.“And then? Afterwards... How soon did you—”“Pull myself together? Oh, I dunno! As soon as I—began to pull round, I suppose!” He shrugged his shoulders. “Not much credit in that, was there? Isulked, as you put it, so long as everything seemed over, but when I saw I was going to live on, I was obliged to rouse myself to see what could be done. That’s natural! The more one has lost, the more important it is to make the most of what remains. I couldn’t enjoy my life in the way I intended, but I was determined to enjoy it all the same.”“And have you?”“Rather! Look at me now. Having a rattling time. I’ve never enjoyed things more in my life than during the last few weeks.”“Church decorations included!” Cassandra enquired with malice prepense. She wanted to see if he would look self-conscious at what was meant to be a veiled reference to his connection with Teresa, but he looked at her with the frankest of smiles and said: “Yes; didn’t you?” and it was she, not he, who suffered from embarrassment.At lunch Bernard was unaffectedly pleased to see the unexpected guest, and throughout its course talked to him persistently on topics which left Cassandra out in the cold. She was evidently accustomed to be thus ignored, for her dreamy eyes showed that her thoughts were far away, and she replied so absently to Dane’s tentative attempts to draw her into the conversation, that he was not encouraged to persevere. She awoke to sudden sharp consciousness, however, when Bernard began making suggestions for the afternoon, taking for granted that his guest was ready to accompany him wherever he should suggest to go. “I’ve been wanting to drive round Boxley for some time. You come along and give me your advice,” he said finally, and again Cassandra knew a revival of youthful days in the tingle of anger, the incredulous load of disappointment, which like a real physical weight pressed upon her heart. It was ridiculous, it was absurd, it was quite ludicrously out of proportion, to feel so torn about so small a thing, but shewastorn. It was in her at that moment to blaze into anger, to speak loud protesting words, to push aside her plate and dash from the room. All the different impulses which had torn the girl Cassandra when defrauded of a promised treat of the nursery surged up suddenly in the breast of the woman who sat in silent dignity at the head of her table, smiling her unruffled, society smile.Bernard, of course—Bernard never took her into consideration; but,—What would Peignton say?What he said was the easiest, most natural of explanations.“Thanks very much. Another time I’d be delighted, but this afternoon Lady Cassandra has promised to show me the gardens. Perhaps we could fix a day for next week?”The Squire knitted his eyebrows, and looked from his guest to his wife, back again from his wife to his guest. Plainly he was concerned, plainly also he was concerned for his guest’s sake, not that of his wife.“That’s very good of you,” he said slowly, “but er—the whole afternoon? Rather a fag, isn’t it? You could have a walk round after lunch, and we’d start at three.”“Thanks, but it’s against my principles to divide good things. We’ll do Boxley next week, if you’ll give me the chance.”The Squire looked at his wife again and smiled, a good-natured smile. He was obviously content that she should be amused, provided that he himself had no trouble in the matter.“That’s all right, then,” he said. “We’ll leave it at that. Cass will be quite pleased to have someone to talk to. Won’t you, Cass?”“Very pleased!” said Cassandra gravely. It was beyond her at that moment to make pretence, but the earnestness of her face had the effect of launching her husband on an old grievance.“It’s your own fault, you know; your own fault! I’m always talking to you about it. She won’t make friends, Peignton! Lived within a couple of miles of Chumley all these years, and hasn’t a single friend. Says there’s no one to know. Rubbish! Don’t tell me... Lots of ’em, if she took the trouble to find out. Too proud, that’s the size of it, and they know it, and it gets ’em on the raw. She’s made herself jolly unpopular, that’s what she’s done. You can’t deny that you have made yourself unpopular!”“I am quite the most unpopular woman in the neighbourhood,” Cassandra said, with the sideways tilt of the chin which Dane was beginning to recognise. “It’s humiliating, but I can’t see that I am to blame. I bore the Chumley people, and they bore me, and if I’m to be bored at all, I so very much prefer to do it for myself. I don’t complain of being alone.”“Oh, yes, you do. Not in words, perhaps. There are a jolly lot of ways in which a woman can rub it in,” cried the Squire with a shrewdness at which Cassandra laughed with unruffled good-nature.“Poor Bernard! Have I rubbed it in? Never mind! Grizel Beverley is going to prove a host in herself, and Captain Peignton is giving me a whole afternoon, and I’ve been at the church for over an hour, decorating, and talking prettily to the other helpers. Things are looking up. Who knows! I may be quite sociable by the end of another year!”But the Squire refused to be cajoled.“Lots of ’em!” he repeated pugilistically. “Lots. All those houses, and a woman in each. Don’t tell me! What’s the matter with Mrs Mawson? What’s the matter with Miss Mawle? What’s the matter with the Baxters, or the Gardiners, or Mrs Evans?”“I like Mrs Evans. I think I almostlovethe real Mrs Evans,” Cassandra said thoughtfully. “I have always a feeling that if I were in trouble the real Mrs Evans would understand. But one so seldom gets a glimpse of her!”“Don’t understand what you are talking about. Who else do you get a glimpse of?”“The Vicar’s wife,” said Cassandra, and rising from the table put an end to the discussion.After lunch the two men sat together smoking and talking, but before the end of half an hour Peignton grew restless, and cast about in his mind for an excuse to escape. Would Lady Cassandra come for him, or was he supposed to search for Lady Cassandra? In any case the best of the day was passing, and it was folly to waste time indoors. He strolled to the window, caught sight of a woman’s figure among the bushes on the nearer lawn, and lost no time in following. It was Cassandra, as he had surmised, Cassandra in a knitted coat and cap of a soft rose colour which matched the flush on her cheeks; her hands were thrust into her pockets, and she nodded welcome to him with a girlish air. No girl could have looked younger, or fresher, or more free from care, and she felt as free as she looked. The guilty feeling of the morning had disappeared, she had forgotten Teresa Mallison, and her claims, while her husband’s scepticism of the fact that any man should choose to spend an afternoon with her for his own enjoyment, had stirred up latent founts of coquetry. Peignton should enjoy himself! She had not yet forgotten how to charm a man. She would charm him now so that his afternoon in the spring garden should be a time to be remembered. She need not have troubled. Grave or gay, nothing that she could have said or done could possibly have failed to charm Peignton. But of that fact she was, as yet, as ignorant as himself. The south windows of the Court opened on to a stone terrace from which two separate flights of steps gave access to a succession of gardens, sloping down to the wide stretch of park. At the head of each stairway, and against the house in the spaces between the windows stood stone vases filled with the gayest of spring flowers. The fragrance of them filled the air, their colours flared gloriously against the dull grey background, and threw into striking contrast the green severity of the Dutch garden immediately beneath. Here, later on in the year, the beds would exhibit gay specimens of the latest development in carpet gardening, but in the meantime they were bare, and the quaintly cut trees and shrubs had a grim, almost funereal austerity. Lower down came a rose garden, with pergolas leading in four separate avenues to a centre dome. In summer the rose garden was a fairyland of beauty, but its time was not yet. The gardeners were busy pruning and training, cleverly inserting new branches among the old. Peignton noticed that though Cassandra gave the men a pleasant greeting, she did not pause for any of the questioning, the propositions, the consultations as to how and where, which true garden lovers find irresistible under such circumstances. She led the way to the lily beds, the ferneries, the herbaceous borders, and the sunk garden, all slumbering in the promise of beauty to come, last of all to the rockery, already ablaze with the gold of alyssum and the purple of aubretia, the little pockets between the stones filled with every variety of spring bulb: daffodils of yellow, white, and orange, flaring tulips, early hyacinths, and many-coloured anemones.After the unbroken greenery of the higher terraces, the rockery appeared a riot of colour, as if the very spirit of spring had chosen it for an abode. The air was sweet with fragrance, the sloping banks formed a protection against the breeze; it seemed an ideal position in which to pause and rest.“Where,” Dane asked tentatively, “does one sit?”“Wherever one can. On the least bumpy stone within reach,” Cassandra replied. She seated herself in illustration upon a boulder covered with a cushion of shaded moss, and immediately began snipping leaves from a shrub of scented verbena, the which she inhaled with languid enjoyment. “Just avoid stalks, and you are all right. Saxifrageslikebeing sat on; they are even grateful if you stamp upon them with strong boots, so you need feel no scruples.” She held the lemon leaf poised in air, studying his face with curious eyes. “You are rather given to scruples, aren’t you? Your conscience is very active!”“I’m afraid it is,” Dane said regretfully, as he in his turn selected an impromptu seat. “My people were all Friends, so it’s an inheritance. A Nonconformist conscience has a terrible persistence; there’s no living it down. It’s been a handicap to me many times, obtruding itself when it wasn’t wanted. One doesn’t seem to have much personal connection with one’s conscience. It seems so entirely independent of will, that there’s no kudos attached to having a lively one, or no blame if he’s quiescent. Mine happens to be of the persistent kind, and particularly long-lived. He was a worry to me in the nursery; he’s a worry to-day. I don’t think—” he paused for a moment, as if judicially weighing his words—“I don’t think I’ve ever been able to do wrong with any real satisfaction!”They looked at each other and laughed, but Cassandra hastily lowered her eyes, affecting to bend over a further bed in search of a new fragrance. In reality she was afraid that her eyes might show the tenderness of her heart. The man’s expression as he looked at her had been so full of goodness and honesty that the hidden impulse had been to stretch out her own hand and touch his, to stroke it, and hold it close, and say such fond words as women will, when their hearts are touched. “You dear thing! You dear thing! what harm haveyoudone?Yourconscience may sit at ease!” ... With a fellow-woman one would have carried out the impulse, but convention forbade such sincerities between a man and a woman unconnected by blood. Convention decreed that genuine feeling should be disguised.“Can’t you?” said Cassandra lightly. “Oh,Ican! I sinned gloriously in short frocks, with never a thought of consequences. My chum sister was my partner in wickedness, we planned all our rebellions together, but when it came to the bit, she missed half the fun. I could bury everything in the joy of the moment, and forget there was such a thing as to-morrow... She had no sooner done the deed, than she began to be visited by qualms. I didn’t object as much as I might have done, for if the sin was edible—and it generally was.—there was so much the more left for me. She used to sit and shiver, and say: ‘Cass, you’ll be ill! WhatwillMother say?’ while I ate up her share.”“And were you ill?”“I forget,” said Cassandra, and looked at him with a rebel’s eyes. “But I ate my cake!”Before he had time to answer, suddenly, impetuously she had sprung to her feet, and darted round a corner of the rockery to shelter behind a clump of shrubs. Peignton followed, alert but mystified, but the explanation came swiftly enough. From the raised path which curved through the park to the entrance of the house came a familiar whirr, and the next moment there sped into sight a large grey car carrying two men on the box, and within the tonneau one large, elderly dame. From the distance it was not possible to distinguish her face, but Cassandra recognised her all the same, and groaned aloud.“Mrs Freune... from Bagton. WhatshallI do?”“They’ll look for you?”“She’ll make them. They’ll ask the gardeners. They’ll say I’m here.”“Let’s run away!”She looked at him and her eyes danced, but the instincts of hospitality put up a fight. “It’s a long drive! Twelve miles. She’ll want tea.”“Does she stay long?”“Hours. And talks politics into the bargain.”“Lloyd George?”“Yes. And the German Invasion. There’s no avoiding it.”“But it’s a crime! On an afternoon like this, when the sun is shining... You can’t go...”“She’s driven twelve miles.”“Twelve miles in a good car! What’s that? She’ll enjoy her tea all the more for waiting... Couldn’t we—?”Cassandra came a step nearer, her voice sank to the thrilling note in which of old she had concocted mischief in the schoolroom.“Listen! ... there’s a summer-house near the north gate. It has a locked cupboard with things for tea. I keep them there for my especial use... If we ran down this path quickly... before she arrives—”“We could have tea there together? For goodness’ sake, let’s fly!”“But your conscience? The Nonconformist conscience? Are you sure you could enjoy—?”“She’s your visitor, not mine. I have no scruples. Only give me the chance!”“On your head be it!” cried Cassandra, and bending low, darted between the shrubs towards a winding path which led in the opposite direction from the house. Peignton followed with eager steps.
Driving home in the car Cassandra was conscious of contending emotions which carried her back to nursery days; pleasure, excitement, an underlying gnawing of guilt. So had she felt, stealthily playing in a corner with a toy purloined from a sister’s store, and yet, as she assured herself, there was no need for compunction. She had invited both Teresa and Dane; it was not her fault if the girl chose to refuse; not her fault if the man was ungallant enough to accept. Yet the feeling of guilt persisted. She looked curiously at Peignton to see if he shared her discomfort, but never did a man look more serene and unperturbed. Happy too! The thrill of pleasurable excitement which in her case was a real, though secondary sensation, was, to judge by appearance, all-pervading in his case. His eyes shone, the tired-out look had disappeared; his lips smiled.
“What a good thing a good car is! I used to swear by walking, but the time has come when I find it very agreeable to slip into a cushioned seat, and be whirled where I would go. There’s something mysteriously fatiguing about decorating churches; haven’t you found it so? Perhaps it is the necessity of keeping quiet and forbearing from expressing oneself as one otherwise would, when one is unexpectedly scratched or bruised. In any case, Iamtired. And hungry! It is good of you to offer to feed me.”
Cassandra smiled with the comfortable assurance of one who takes perfect meals as a matter of course. There was no consciousness of cold mutton, no fear of a heavy pudding, to mar her enjoyment of an unexpected guest, but having never experienced a housekeeper’s anxiety, she failed to appreciate the relief.
“I hope they will give you something fit to eat!”
“And afterwards... Will you show me your garden?”
“I have no special garden. I do nothing myself. I’m always making up my mind to take over a little corner, but it takes a long time to make up my mind. I don’t want to dig and delve. I enjoy the flowers better when I get them without any trouble. It would be simply an effort to try to find an interest.—Do you believe in troubling to find an interest, when it doesn’t come naturally?”
“Yes,” Dane said simply, and Cassandra stared at him with a feeling of check. She had not expected that quiet “yes”; it carried with it a finality which put an end to argument.
“I have had to do it, you see!” he added. “The thing whichdidinterest me became impossible, so I was obliged to find something else to fill the gap.”
Cassandra lay back against the cushions with an exaggerated sigh of resignation.
“Oh, dear! here we are back at our Second Bests! I hate Second Bests, and makeshifts of every description, and I don’t recognise any obligation to adopt them. If I can gain an interest only at the cost of something it doesn’t interest me to do, how can it be an interest at all? I’m talking nonsense, but it’s your fault... You are so painfully philosophic... Does a land agencyreallyfill the gap left by the old regiment, and its associations?”
“Nothing near it. But it helps. It is several degrees better than nothing.” Peignton spoke resolutely, but his face twitched, and Cassandra was smitten with compunction.
“Ah! I shouldn’t have said it. It was mean of me. When you are so brave...” Her voice sank to a tenderness of which she was unaware, as she asked the next question: “What was it? I never heard more than just that you had a breakdown!”
“Lungs,” he said simply. “I had a cough, and it stuck to me, and I lost weight, but I never dreamt of anything serious. It was a bit of a—jar! I was packed off home to a sanatorium, and came out at the end of six months with a clean bill of health. I’ve been up to be vetted every few months since. The last time it was a new fellow, and he could not spot the weak place, so I’m all right, you see; it has just made me physically a few years older than I really am. Given care, and an outdoor life, I have as good a chance as another man.”
“Oh, of course. So many people... It’snothingnow, compared with what it used to be,” Cassandra assented hurriedly.Thatwas the reason of the subtly appealing look which had puzzled her from her first meeting with this man! He had looked death in the face; had left the mimic playing at arms, to fight a hand-to-hand battle with that grim spectre through weary weeks and months. Such an experience could not fail to leave its mark, however resolutely it might be ignored. She was silent for some minutes, staring dreamily out of the window, while Dane in his turn studied her face, and wondered in masculine innocence why every woman did not wear chinchilla.
“How do you take it when such blows come?” she asked slowly at last. “Do you rage or sulk? I suppose with ordinary human creatures it comes down to one of the two. Only the saints are resigned, and I don’t fancy you—”
“No, indeed. Very far from it!” He laughed, then sobered quickly. “I suppose I,—sulked! I got the credit for taking it uncommonly well, but that was because I was too proud to fuss. Pity hurt. For my own selfish sake it was easier to bluff it out, and pretend to be hopeful. But inside—I went through a pretty fair imitation of hell in those first few weeks!”
In Cassandra’s low croon of sympathy sounded all the warmth of her Irish heart; her eyes were liquid with sympathy.
“And then? Afterwards... How soon did you—”
“Pull myself together? Oh, I dunno! As soon as I—began to pull round, I suppose!” He shrugged his shoulders. “Not much credit in that, was there? Isulked, as you put it, so long as everything seemed over, but when I saw I was going to live on, I was obliged to rouse myself to see what could be done. That’s natural! The more one has lost, the more important it is to make the most of what remains. I couldn’t enjoy my life in the way I intended, but I was determined to enjoy it all the same.”
“And have you?”
“Rather! Look at me now. Having a rattling time. I’ve never enjoyed things more in my life than during the last few weeks.”
“Church decorations included!” Cassandra enquired with malice prepense. She wanted to see if he would look self-conscious at what was meant to be a veiled reference to his connection with Teresa, but he looked at her with the frankest of smiles and said: “Yes; didn’t you?” and it was she, not he, who suffered from embarrassment.
At lunch Bernard was unaffectedly pleased to see the unexpected guest, and throughout its course talked to him persistently on topics which left Cassandra out in the cold. She was evidently accustomed to be thus ignored, for her dreamy eyes showed that her thoughts were far away, and she replied so absently to Dane’s tentative attempts to draw her into the conversation, that he was not encouraged to persevere. She awoke to sudden sharp consciousness, however, when Bernard began making suggestions for the afternoon, taking for granted that his guest was ready to accompany him wherever he should suggest to go. “I’ve been wanting to drive round Boxley for some time. You come along and give me your advice,” he said finally, and again Cassandra knew a revival of youthful days in the tingle of anger, the incredulous load of disappointment, which like a real physical weight pressed upon her heart. It was ridiculous, it was absurd, it was quite ludicrously out of proportion, to feel so torn about so small a thing, but shewastorn. It was in her at that moment to blaze into anger, to speak loud protesting words, to push aside her plate and dash from the room. All the different impulses which had torn the girl Cassandra when defrauded of a promised treat of the nursery surged up suddenly in the breast of the woman who sat in silent dignity at the head of her table, smiling her unruffled, society smile.
Bernard, of course—Bernard never took her into consideration; but,—What would Peignton say?
What he said was the easiest, most natural of explanations.
“Thanks very much. Another time I’d be delighted, but this afternoon Lady Cassandra has promised to show me the gardens. Perhaps we could fix a day for next week?”
The Squire knitted his eyebrows, and looked from his guest to his wife, back again from his wife to his guest. Plainly he was concerned, plainly also he was concerned for his guest’s sake, not that of his wife.
“That’s very good of you,” he said slowly, “but er—the whole afternoon? Rather a fag, isn’t it? You could have a walk round after lunch, and we’d start at three.”
“Thanks, but it’s against my principles to divide good things. We’ll do Boxley next week, if you’ll give me the chance.”
The Squire looked at his wife again and smiled, a good-natured smile. He was obviously content that she should be amused, provided that he himself had no trouble in the matter.
“That’s all right, then,” he said. “We’ll leave it at that. Cass will be quite pleased to have someone to talk to. Won’t you, Cass?”
“Very pleased!” said Cassandra gravely. It was beyond her at that moment to make pretence, but the earnestness of her face had the effect of launching her husband on an old grievance.
“It’s your own fault, you know; your own fault! I’m always talking to you about it. She won’t make friends, Peignton! Lived within a couple of miles of Chumley all these years, and hasn’t a single friend. Says there’s no one to know. Rubbish! Don’t tell me... Lots of ’em, if she took the trouble to find out. Too proud, that’s the size of it, and they know it, and it gets ’em on the raw. She’s made herself jolly unpopular, that’s what she’s done. You can’t deny that you have made yourself unpopular!”
“I am quite the most unpopular woman in the neighbourhood,” Cassandra said, with the sideways tilt of the chin which Dane was beginning to recognise. “It’s humiliating, but I can’t see that I am to blame. I bore the Chumley people, and they bore me, and if I’m to be bored at all, I so very much prefer to do it for myself. I don’t complain of being alone.”
“Oh, yes, you do. Not in words, perhaps. There are a jolly lot of ways in which a woman can rub it in,” cried the Squire with a shrewdness at which Cassandra laughed with unruffled good-nature.
“Poor Bernard! Have I rubbed it in? Never mind! Grizel Beverley is going to prove a host in herself, and Captain Peignton is giving me a whole afternoon, and I’ve been at the church for over an hour, decorating, and talking prettily to the other helpers. Things are looking up. Who knows! I may be quite sociable by the end of another year!”
But the Squire refused to be cajoled.
“Lots of ’em!” he repeated pugilistically. “Lots. All those houses, and a woman in each. Don’t tell me! What’s the matter with Mrs Mawson? What’s the matter with Miss Mawle? What’s the matter with the Baxters, or the Gardiners, or Mrs Evans?”
“I like Mrs Evans. I think I almostlovethe real Mrs Evans,” Cassandra said thoughtfully. “I have always a feeling that if I were in trouble the real Mrs Evans would understand. But one so seldom gets a glimpse of her!”
“Don’t understand what you are talking about. Who else do you get a glimpse of?”
“The Vicar’s wife,” said Cassandra, and rising from the table put an end to the discussion.
After lunch the two men sat together smoking and talking, but before the end of half an hour Peignton grew restless, and cast about in his mind for an excuse to escape. Would Lady Cassandra come for him, or was he supposed to search for Lady Cassandra? In any case the best of the day was passing, and it was folly to waste time indoors. He strolled to the window, caught sight of a woman’s figure among the bushes on the nearer lawn, and lost no time in following. It was Cassandra, as he had surmised, Cassandra in a knitted coat and cap of a soft rose colour which matched the flush on her cheeks; her hands were thrust into her pockets, and she nodded welcome to him with a girlish air. No girl could have looked younger, or fresher, or more free from care, and she felt as free as she looked. The guilty feeling of the morning had disappeared, she had forgotten Teresa Mallison, and her claims, while her husband’s scepticism of the fact that any man should choose to spend an afternoon with her for his own enjoyment, had stirred up latent founts of coquetry. Peignton should enjoy himself! She had not yet forgotten how to charm a man. She would charm him now so that his afternoon in the spring garden should be a time to be remembered. She need not have troubled. Grave or gay, nothing that she could have said or done could possibly have failed to charm Peignton. But of that fact she was, as yet, as ignorant as himself. The south windows of the Court opened on to a stone terrace from which two separate flights of steps gave access to a succession of gardens, sloping down to the wide stretch of park. At the head of each stairway, and against the house in the spaces between the windows stood stone vases filled with the gayest of spring flowers. The fragrance of them filled the air, their colours flared gloriously against the dull grey background, and threw into striking contrast the green severity of the Dutch garden immediately beneath. Here, later on in the year, the beds would exhibit gay specimens of the latest development in carpet gardening, but in the meantime they were bare, and the quaintly cut trees and shrubs had a grim, almost funereal austerity. Lower down came a rose garden, with pergolas leading in four separate avenues to a centre dome. In summer the rose garden was a fairyland of beauty, but its time was not yet. The gardeners were busy pruning and training, cleverly inserting new branches among the old. Peignton noticed that though Cassandra gave the men a pleasant greeting, she did not pause for any of the questioning, the propositions, the consultations as to how and where, which true garden lovers find irresistible under such circumstances. She led the way to the lily beds, the ferneries, the herbaceous borders, and the sunk garden, all slumbering in the promise of beauty to come, last of all to the rockery, already ablaze with the gold of alyssum and the purple of aubretia, the little pockets between the stones filled with every variety of spring bulb: daffodils of yellow, white, and orange, flaring tulips, early hyacinths, and many-coloured anemones.
After the unbroken greenery of the higher terraces, the rockery appeared a riot of colour, as if the very spirit of spring had chosen it for an abode. The air was sweet with fragrance, the sloping banks formed a protection against the breeze; it seemed an ideal position in which to pause and rest.
“Where,” Dane asked tentatively, “does one sit?”
“Wherever one can. On the least bumpy stone within reach,” Cassandra replied. She seated herself in illustration upon a boulder covered with a cushion of shaded moss, and immediately began snipping leaves from a shrub of scented verbena, the which she inhaled with languid enjoyment. “Just avoid stalks, and you are all right. Saxifrageslikebeing sat on; they are even grateful if you stamp upon them with strong boots, so you need feel no scruples.” She held the lemon leaf poised in air, studying his face with curious eyes. “You are rather given to scruples, aren’t you? Your conscience is very active!”
“I’m afraid it is,” Dane said regretfully, as he in his turn selected an impromptu seat. “My people were all Friends, so it’s an inheritance. A Nonconformist conscience has a terrible persistence; there’s no living it down. It’s been a handicap to me many times, obtruding itself when it wasn’t wanted. One doesn’t seem to have much personal connection with one’s conscience. It seems so entirely independent of will, that there’s no kudos attached to having a lively one, or no blame if he’s quiescent. Mine happens to be of the persistent kind, and particularly long-lived. He was a worry to me in the nursery; he’s a worry to-day. I don’t think—” he paused for a moment, as if judicially weighing his words—“I don’t think I’ve ever been able to do wrong with any real satisfaction!”
They looked at each other and laughed, but Cassandra hastily lowered her eyes, affecting to bend over a further bed in search of a new fragrance. In reality she was afraid that her eyes might show the tenderness of her heart. The man’s expression as he looked at her had been so full of goodness and honesty that the hidden impulse had been to stretch out her own hand and touch his, to stroke it, and hold it close, and say such fond words as women will, when their hearts are touched. “You dear thing! You dear thing! what harm haveyoudone?Yourconscience may sit at ease!” ... With a fellow-woman one would have carried out the impulse, but convention forbade such sincerities between a man and a woman unconnected by blood. Convention decreed that genuine feeling should be disguised.
“Can’t you?” said Cassandra lightly. “Oh,Ican! I sinned gloriously in short frocks, with never a thought of consequences. My chum sister was my partner in wickedness, we planned all our rebellions together, but when it came to the bit, she missed half the fun. I could bury everything in the joy of the moment, and forget there was such a thing as to-morrow... She had no sooner done the deed, than she began to be visited by qualms. I didn’t object as much as I might have done, for if the sin was edible—and it generally was.—there was so much the more left for me. She used to sit and shiver, and say: ‘Cass, you’ll be ill! WhatwillMother say?’ while I ate up her share.”
“And were you ill?”
“I forget,” said Cassandra, and looked at him with a rebel’s eyes. “But I ate my cake!”
Before he had time to answer, suddenly, impetuously she had sprung to her feet, and darted round a corner of the rockery to shelter behind a clump of shrubs. Peignton followed, alert but mystified, but the explanation came swiftly enough. From the raised path which curved through the park to the entrance of the house came a familiar whirr, and the next moment there sped into sight a large grey car carrying two men on the box, and within the tonneau one large, elderly dame. From the distance it was not possible to distinguish her face, but Cassandra recognised her all the same, and groaned aloud.
“Mrs Freune... from Bagton. WhatshallI do?”
“They’ll look for you?”
“She’ll make them. They’ll ask the gardeners. They’ll say I’m here.”
“Let’s run away!”
She looked at him and her eyes danced, but the instincts of hospitality put up a fight. “It’s a long drive! Twelve miles. She’ll want tea.”
“Does she stay long?”
“Hours. And talks politics into the bargain.”
“Lloyd George?”
“Yes. And the German Invasion. There’s no avoiding it.”
“But it’s a crime! On an afternoon like this, when the sun is shining... You can’t go...”
“She’s driven twelve miles.”
“Twelve miles in a good car! What’s that? She’ll enjoy her tea all the more for waiting... Couldn’t we—?”
Cassandra came a step nearer, her voice sank to the thrilling note in which of old she had concocted mischief in the schoolroom.
“Listen! ... there’s a summer-house near the north gate. It has a locked cupboard with things for tea. I keep them there for my especial use... If we ran down this path quickly... before she arrives—”
“We could have tea there together? For goodness’ sake, let’s fly!”
“But your conscience? The Nonconformist conscience? Are you sure you could enjoy—?”
“She’s your visitor, not mine. I have no scruples. Only give me the chance!”
“On your head be it!” cried Cassandra, and bending low, darted between the shrubs towards a winding path which led in the opposite direction from the house. Peignton followed with eager steps.
Chapter Eight.The Skirts of Chance.Now that Lent was over dinner parties came on with a rush, started, as was only discreet, with a state gathering at the Court, when the county was invited to welcome the bride. The Vicar and his wife were the sole representatives of Chumley proper, but Dane Peignton was in request, as an odd man is bound to be in the countryside.“It will be deadly dull,” Cassandra had warned her friend, “but it has to be done. Brace up, and go through it bravely, and if you don’t like it you need never try again.”“I won’t,” Grizel said frankly. “A duty is a duty, and has to be done whether you like it or not, but I choose my pleasures to suit myself. If I’m amused I’ll go,—if I’m not, all the saddles of mutton in the world won’t tempt me. It always amuses me to be with you, my dear, but judging from the specimens I’ve already seen, it’s a very, very heavy county. The women are heavy in the afternoon. I tremble to think of what they must be in the drawing-room after dinner. Could I do anything to jolt them up? Put on a black gown, or do a little skirt dancing, or tell stories? I could tell some awakening stories!”But Cassandra shook her head and issued her orders.“You are to wear your wedding dress, and behave yourself like a sweet young bride, and do credit to yourself, and to me, and to your husband’s books! When you go to Rome, do as the Romans do.”When the night of the dinner arrived the sweet young bride repaired to her husband’s dressing-roomen routefrom the bathroom to her own apartment, and squatted on the floor to watchhimshave, with her white gown wrapped around a foam of lacey under-garments, and her white shoes kicked off on to the rug. She looked young, and fresh, and blooming, and brought with her a delicious odour of violets, and it appeared to afford her intense satisfaction to watch Martin lather his chin, and twist it from side to side for the convenience of the safety razor.“Darling, youdolook plain! I love you dreadfully when I see you shave. All that trouble to spare me a beard! ... Don’t cut yourself, like a precious. I do so object to bits of cotton-wool... Doesn’t it feel nice and married to have me sitting here, watching you, in my bare tootsies, and knowing that even the Vicaress herself could not object? She’ll be there to-night, you know. What will she wear?—A black satin, cut in a V, with a pendant of agate, and a cap with an aigrette. Dear thing! I must remember to enquire for the Mothers’ Meeting.”Martin, his chin violently undulating, murmured a word which was evidently of a warning nature, but Grizel took no notice. Her hands were clasped round her knees, she was smiling, in a soft reflective fashion.“No,” she said slowly, “no! this first year must be just for ourselves.—I am so thankful that Katrine is away and so happy, for our own sakes, as well as her own. I am thankful there are no other near relatives to trouble about. I don’t wantAnyoneto come between us this first year, not even—that! A year or two alone together we must have, and then,—we’ll pray for twins!”Martin’s sureness of hand alone saved him from the necessity of cotton-wool. He turned round, smiling, lathered, twinkling with humour.“Why be so greedy? Surelyone—”“No, no—two would be twice as nice. You get on so slowly with one at a time.” She bent her head still lower, so that her chin rested upon her knees; her golden eyes stared into space, her shoulders heaved with a regretful sigh. “No,” she said at last, “no! I suppose it would not do. Tripletsarevulgar, but oh, Martin, think of it!—threeducks, all in a row, each with its long white tail, and its little ribbons round its wrists, and its little gold sovereign hanging round its neck... The Queen’s Bounty! And oh, Martin, think, think! what an advertisement for your books... It would be in all the papers. ‘Mrs Martin Beverley, wife of the well-known novelist, yesterday became the mother of three daughters. (They must be daughters!) Later enquiries at the house elicited the news that the mother and family were all doing well.’”“Really, Grizel! really!” cried Martin, protesting. “You make me blush.”“Oh, well!” Grizel sighed, and rose to her feet in one swift, astonishingly agile movement. “Bear up. There’s no use getting agitated before the time. It might be only twins!”She strolled out of the room, and seating herself on the chair before her own mirror, gave herself into the hands of the waiting maid.“Now then, Marie, make me look like a sweet young bride.”Marie looked complacent. It was easy to obey that order, since her mistress was radiant with beauty and happiness, and there lay waiting on the bed a gown, which looked as if it had been blown straight out of a fairy tale for her adornment. The ordinary white satin was far too dull and substantial to have a place in its concoction. It was a mass of cobweb lace of extraordinary antiquity and frailness, mounted on a lining of silver gauze. The fine folds accentuated the reed-like slimness of Grizel’s figure, the misty indefiniteness of shading suited to a marvel the small face, with its white cheeks and amber eyes, that face which was at once so colourless, and so aglow. Marie looking at the reflection in the mirror, pushed aside the cases of jewels, and lifting a piece of tulle swathed it lightly round her mistress’ head, allowing one long end to flow down the back. It was unconventional, it was daring, but the effect was irresistible, and Marie stood aside heaving a sigh of triumph.“No jewels. Only the gauze. In effect—a veil!”So it came to pass that when Mr and Mrs Beverley made their entrance into the great drawing-room of theCourt, there came to one and all of the assembled guests the impression of a creature half human, half fairy, poised midway between heaven and earth, aglow with that absolute, unshadowed happiness, which is seldom given to mortals to see or to enjoy. It was indeed the primitive note in Grizel’s temperament, which made such a condition possible. The least introspective of mortals, she accepted happiness as manna from heaven, throve on to-day’s supply, and confidently expected the morrow’s supply. The minor trials, which would have dimmed the rapture of another bride, pricked her for the moment, and were then cast aside, and dismissed from thought, as completely as though they had never existed. There were occasions when such abstraction brought about materialcontretemps, but of the mental lightening there could be no doubt.Everyone in the room received the same impression of radiance as the bride entered, but on the different minds the impression acted differently. The Vicar’s wife, clad as had been foretold, in black satin and aigretted cap, but showing a pendant of cameo, instead of agate, on the discreet décolletage, felt a sudden unreasoning disposition towards tears, and the good man, her husband, breathed a mental “God keep her!” but the Hon. Mrs Mawson was distinctly shocked. She was the Evangelical magnate whose religion seemed largely to consist in disapproving of other people’s enjoyments, and the bride’s obtrusive happiness appeared to her as a deliberate “tempting of Providence.” Moreover, she disapproved of the costume as theatrical and unusual. Why not satin, like everybody else? And no jewels! The niece of Lady Griselda Dundas must possess jewels of price. Then why that bare neck? Mrs Mawson was wearing her own rubies, and took it as a personal slight that the bride had come to meet her unadorned.Midway between the two extremes flowed the general verdict, but Grizel was blissfully unconscious of criticism. She went through the necessary greetings of acquaintances, among whom she was surprised to recognise Teresa Mallison, and then exchanged a few words with her hostess before leading the way to dinner on the Squire’s arm.Cassandra looked as usual, both tired and vivid; she gave a caressing pressure to her friend’s elbow, and murmured softly:“Exquisite. About eighteen! ... Talk hard, Grizel, for pity’s sake—talk hard! The atmosphere is freezing. At the last moment Mona Fenchurch sent a wire. Flue. I had to send for Teresa. She’s so good about filling gaps.”“Oh, well!” Grizel said significantly. Of course Teresa was delighted to come, especially when by good luck it was Peignton’s predestined partner who had fallen out! She stood by his side now—flushed, silent, a trifle gauche, for it was something of an ordeal to meet the people who politely ignored her existence in the life of the neighbourhood. Grizel divined something of the cause of the girl’s embarrassment, and sent her a smile of beaming friendliness. Well! all had turned out for the best. Nobody wanted Mona Fenchurch for the pleasure of her company, and her absence had paved the way to a lovers’ meeting. Captain Peignton looked supremely content, and how sensible of the girl to stick to blue!Teresa, however, was not at all self-congratulatory on the subject of her gown. If she had had a day’s notice,—even half a day, she could have dashed up to town, and equipped herself in something newer, and more worthy of the occasion. She was miserably conscious that the blue dress was past its freshness, and had already paid several visits to the Court.The dinner which followed was lengthy and stately. It was also undeniably dull! At one end of the table Grizel chatted and leant her elbows on the table, and kept the Squire in complacent chuckles of laughter, but their gaiety, instead of spreading, seemed to throw into greater contrast the forced conversations of the other guests. With the exception of Teresa Mallison they were all elderly people, who had driven over many miles of country to perform a social duty, and neither expected nor received any pleasure in its execution. They all knew each other, met at intervals, and discoursed together on the same well-worn topics. Lady Rose talked garden, and was an expert on bulbs. Sir George Everley, her partner, described all bulbs vaguely as daffodils, lived simply and solely for “huntin’,” and would in all probability die for it another day. The Vicar’s partner lived for bridge, and his wife had fallen to the share of an old general who looked upon food and drink as the events of the moment, and had no intention of losing a good chance. Long years of dining out had made him an expert at the game of starting his partner on a hobby during an interval between courses, and then giving her her head until the next stop. “Well! and what is the latest good work in the parish, Mrs Evans, eh, what?” he enquired genially, as he waited the advent of fish, and then with the help of a, “Did you though? God bless my soul! Pine work! fine work!” he was left free to enjoy his fare, and make mental notes on the flavouring of the sauce, until such time as he had leisure to give Mrs Evans another lead on the vexed question of the choir.Lord Kew sat on Cassandra’s left side, and threw depressed crumbs of conversation to his companion, the stout wife of the huntin’ squire. It was said of Lord Kew that he could not talk for five minutes together without bringing in the German invasion, and his conviction that England was galloping headlong to the dogs. He prophesied as much to the squire’s wife in less than the prescribed time, and she said that “something ought to be done,” and seizing on the word “dog” introduced to his notice her two pet Chows. From time to time also Cassandra helped her along with a few words, leaving Martin to make the acquaintance of his right-hand neighbour, who had heard of his books, and really must get them from the library. “Do you write under your own name?”Teresa sat like a poker, still and silent, vouchsafing monosyllabic replies to the formalities of a county magnate, about whom she knew everything, but who had got it firmly impressed into his sluggish brain that she was someone else, and accordingly insisted upon referring to people and incidents of whom she had never heard. Now and then came a happy moment when Peignton gave her his attention, and smiled encouragement into her eyes, but he was working hard to rouse a chilly lady to animation, and even on occasion throwing an occasional bold challenge across the table, where a couple seemed settling down into permanent silence.Teresa had the impression that Dane was putting aside his own amusement as something entirely subservient to the general good. It was almost as though he felt a responsibility, and was working for a reward. She never suspected that the reward came more than once in a glance from Cassandra’s eyes, and a smile of appreciation flashed down the length of table. Cassandra’s head and neck rose above the banked-up flowers, her cheeks were flushed, the stars of emeralds on her throat sent out green flames of light, she looked brilliant and beautiful, a fitting chatelaine for the stately old house, but it was not her beauty which appealed to Peignton’s heart; it was the subtlewantwhich mysteriously he felt able to supply. He did not trouble himself to enquire into the nature of this strong mutual sympathy, for he was a practical man accustomed to do the next thing, and not trouble about the future.To-night Cassandra was a hostess struggling with an unusually depressing set of guests, and he expended himself to help her. Looking up the length of table, Grizel’s face was like a flowering shrub in an avenue of cedars. Peignton looked at her and felt a pang of something like anger.Shewas content enough! She had everything she wanted. Things were cursedly unfair...In the drawing-room Grizel as the bride was handed round for five-minute conversations, and being in an amiable mood exerted herself to be all things to all women. She talked “huntin’” and she talked bridge, she asked advice concerning her garden, she listened sweetly to details of May Meetings, and vouchsafed copious and entirely untrue descriptions of an author at home; only with the Vicar’s wife did she allow herself the privilege of being natural, and saying what she really meant.Mrs Evans was elderly and stout, parochial and intensely proper. Grizel was young and unconventional to an extreme, yet beneath the dissimilarity there existed a sympathy between the two women which both divined, and both failed equally to understand.Grizel knew that Mrs Evans’s brain viewed her with suspicion, but she was complacently aware that Mrs Evans’s heart was not in sympathy with her brain. Was it not exactly the same in her own case? Mentally she had pronounced the Vicar’s wife a parochial bore, the type of middle-aged orthodox, prudish woman whom her soul abhorred, but, as a matter of fact, she did not abhor her at all, for the eyes of the soul saw down beneath the stiffness and the propriety, and recognised a connecting link.“If I were in trouble, I’d like to put my head down on her nice broad shoulder, and,—she’d like to have me there!”“Well!” cried Grizel, sinking down in a soft little swirl of lace and silver by the side of the chair which held the portly black satin form, and resting one little hand on its arm with a gesture of half-caressing intimacy. “Well! Are the Mothers still meeting?”Mrs Evans preened herself, and did her honest best to look distressed.“My dear, I am afraid youmeanto be naughty!”Grizel nodded cheerily.“I do... Aren’t you glad? It’s no use pretending to be shocked. You have a whole parish-full of proper people who do what they ought, and say what they should, and I come in as a refreshing change. Besides, I really mean quite well! Who knows,—after half a dozen years of Chumley influence, I may be as douce and staid as any one of them!”At this point the obvious thing for Mrs Evans to do was plainly to express a hope such might be the case; she knew it, and opened her mouth to utter the aspiration, but as she did so she inclined her head to look down into the dimpling radiance of the bride’s face, and once again her heart softened, and she felt that mysterious pricking at the back of her eyes.“My dear,” she said gently, “I—I think I prefer you as you are!”Grizel did not answer, but her eyes softened, and she slipped her hand an inch forward so that it pressed against the black satin sleeve. She was thinking happily that she had already two friends in Chumley, Cassandra, and—the Vicar’s wife!Seeing a pause in the conversation, a small woman in pink satin made a swoop for the seat next the bride, and eyed her with a bright, birdlike smile. This was Mrs Fotheringham (with a small “f”), a lady who combined having nothing to say with a positively uninterrupted flow of conversation. She overcame the apparent difficulty by pouring forth a flood of personal questions, from the storehouse of a curiosity which knew no bounds. She pounced upon Grizel now, as a hawk pounces upon its prey.“So pleased to meet you to-night. So unfortunate to miss you when I called. I’ve been so longing to meet you. Knew you so well by name. You were Miss Grizel Dundas?”“Yes.”“Niece of Lady Griselda?”“Yes.”“Lived with her, didn’t you? Sort of adopted child?”“Yes.”“All your life?”“Yes.”“But of course you had parents?—”“No—”The “no” was devilment pure and simple, and gave Mrs Fotheringham what is technically described as a “sensation.” She jerked, stared, and finally forced a wooden laugh.“Oh, I see. Yes. Stupid of me. Died, I suppose, at your birth?”“One after. One before.”“How sad. Very eccentric, wasn’t she? Lady Griselda, I mean. I’ve heard that she was exceedingly—”“She was.”“But you got on with her? Must have done, of course, or she would not... Quite attached to you, I suppose?”“Yes.”“So nice! And you stayed with her until her death, and married immediately after? It was immediately after, was it not?”“Several months.”“So nice for you that you had Mr Beverley. He must be a proud man. Not many women would have given up so much. But I’m sure you never regret it?”“Oh, but I do!” cried Grizel. “Often!”She was getting bored by this time, and decided that this might be a favourable point at which to end the catechism, so she rose and strolled across the room, leaving Mrs Fotheringham to express her consternation to the nearest listener.“How extraordinary! Did you hear? She said shedoes!”But Mrs Evans had known the question-monger from a child, and stood upon no ceremony.“You had no right to put such a question, Flora. It was impertinent. Mrs Beverley answered in the only manner possible, by turning it into a joke.”“I suppose so. Yes. It must have been a joke. Shelookshappy.” The birdlike eyes roved towards Martin, who had just entered the room with the other men, and subjected him to a curious scrutiny. “Doyou think he looks worth it?”“My dear, it is immaterial what I think! How can any outsider judge of the worth which another woman’s husband represents to herself? It’s not a question of credentials. It’s a question offit!”Half an hour later the Squire buttonholed Peignton in a corner of the room, and gave him his instructions.“I’ve ordered the car for Miss Mallison. See her safely home, will you, and take it on to your own place? Might as well do two good turns while it’s about it.”His look gave significance to the words, and Peignton could not do less than declare his pleasure at the suggestion. As a matter of fact, however, it was not pleasure of which he was conscious at that moment, but something unaccountably like disappointment.He had not expected the evening to end so soon; he was unwilling to be dismissed. Throughout the long dinner he had been subconsciously looking forward to something to come; and he now felt defrauded and chilled. He had imagined that he would have had five minutes’ talk with Lady Cassandra—that they would laugh together, and in the meeting of eyes exchange confidences which it would have been indiscreet to put into words, but Cassandra was surrounded by guests of honour, and apparently oblivious of his presence.She turned with a start as he approached her with Teresa by his side, and received the girl’s adieux with a gracious smile. “So soon! Captain Peignton going to see you home. That’s right.Goodnight. It was really noble of you to come to the rescue. So very many thanks!”Her manner to the girl was all that could be wished, but as she turned to Peignton there came an unmistakable chill. Her face, her voice, the fleeting touch of her hand were alike cold, devoid of friendship.Cassandra was disappointed too, and, womanlike, vented her displeasure on her fellow-sufferer. She also had looked forward to a few brief moments of communion after the emptiness of the evening. She also had the baffled feeling of one who has waited for naught. The while she listened to Lady Mawson’s dreary pronouncements she watched the dark figure follow the girl from the room, and a pang pierced her heart.“Oh, to be young! To be young,—and to be loved!”Peignton struggled into his coat, and muttered savagely when a stud caught in the lining. His usual mood was so serene that this sudden irritability and depression was as puzzling as it was disagreeable. He asked himself curtly what the devil was wrong, and made a swift mental summary of the wine consumed at dinner. Nothing wrong, but these elaborate feasts were not in his line. They bored him stiff. Another time he would decline...At this point Teresa made her appearance wrapped in a white opera cloak, with her mother’s best lace scarf draped over her head, and Dane’s depression lightened, as he smiled at her and took his place by her side in the car. He felt a pleasant sense of intimacy as the door shut, and they were alone together speeding through the darkened park. He had been thinking a good deal of marriage lately, more than he had ever done before, but he did not realise that at the same time he had been thinking less of Teresa. He thought of her now, warmed by her presence, and by the natural rebound from his fit of irritation. She looked pretty in that white kit,—that lace over her face was uncommonly becoming. He had divined the difficulty of her position during the evening, pitchforked among a number of people who as a rule ignored her existence, and he had admired the quiet composure of her manner. A nice little girl. A dear little girl. A pretty, clever, uncommonly sensible little girl.Teresa looked up, met the approval in his eyes, and thrilled with happiness. The evening had come as an unexpected and golden ending to a long dull day. At tea-time she had been dismally counting over the days which had elapsed since her last sight of Peignton, dismally realising that no mutual engagements lay ahead, and then suddenly the summons had arrived which had placed her by his side during the length of that long dinner, and, best of all, ensured thistête-à-têtedrive in the friendly dimness. Surely now—if he cared at all, he would open his heart—But Peignton was far from such an intention; he was opening his lips to make some casual remark, half-bantering, half-caressing, as had grown to be his habit when with Teresa, when there suddenly came about one of those small happenings which are monumental in their effect on life. The chauffeur, steering out of the lodge gate, took a sharp turn, and the inner wheels of the car descended into the ditch. He was a skilful driver, and as a rule careful enough, but the necessity of turning out at night for the convenience of an insignificant guest had tried his temper, and he was not unwilling to prejudice Miss Mallison against a repetition of the drive. In any case, the swerve was startling enough, and Teresa, feeling herself sinking through space, instinctively threw out her hands and grasped the nearest object. For the moment she was unconscious that that object was Dane himself; she simply found support, and clung, and Dane’s arms held her fast. Two or three violent wrenches followed, as the whole strength of the car struggled to mount the incline, and meantime, locked in each other’s arms, the man and the girl swayed together, this way and that, backwards and forwards, until with a final jerk and groan the roadway was reached. All the time Teresa had not uttered a sound, but now that safety was assured, a sobbing breath quavered from between her lips. It was a pathetic little sound, like the sob of a child in pain, and the red lips were very near. From pure instinct, rather than any definite intention, Peignton bent still nearer, and kissed those lips into silence, murmuring gentle words of encouragement.“Poor girl—poor dear! It’s all over... We are all right now. You are not frightened, Teresa?”He held her fast, resisting a faint movement to escape. He did not want her to go. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her again, and feel her lips tremble against his own. The sore, wounded feeling of the evening had disappeared, his heart was beating with strong, rapid strokes. The electric lamp showed the girl’s face flushed and tremulous, the eyes shyly drooping before his own. He bent over her and whispered a question, knowing full well what the answer would be, but wanting to hear it, all the same.“Are you angry with me for kissing you, Teresa?”The girl shook her head. Her low voice sounded young and sweet.“Oh, no... I’m glad!”“Why are you glad?”“Because you,—youcare!” said Teresa, trembling.For a breath Dane hesitated, and in that pause something ominous gripped at his heart, and like a man who has made a false step on the edge of a precipice he saw a glimpse of an abyss; but the next moment youth and blood rose to the appeal, and he kissed the soft lips once and again, murmuring appropriate protestations.“Of course I care—who wouldn’t? I’ve cared a long time... And you care too? You do care for me, Teresa?”“Oh,yes!”The answer came with a fervour which could not fail to be infectious.“Enough—some day—to be my wife? I wish I had more to offer you, little girl!”“Oh, I want nothing, I want nothing. I would marry you if you were a workman in a cottage. Sooner—than aking!”It was true. The girl’s voice rang with a sincerity of passion, which was startling in its contrast to the man’s light tones, and Peignton, realising the contrast, was at once touched and abashed.“You dear girl!” he said softly. “Thank you, dear. I’m not worth it, but—I’ll be good to you, Teresa! You shall never regret it.”Teresa laughed at the absurdity of the thought. It seemed impossible that anything in the nature of regret, or grief, or anxiety, or even boredom could ever again cloud her heart. She had reached the pinnacle of her desires. To know that Dane loved her meant absolute, unclouded happiness. He would go on loving her. Therefore she would go on being blissful and content. As in the fairy tales, they would be happy ever after. “I never knew that it was possible to be so happy!” sighed Teresa in her heart.
Now that Lent was over dinner parties came on with a rush, started, as was only discreet, with a state gathering at the Court, when the county was invited to welcome the bride. The Vicar and his wife were the sole representatives of Chumley proper, but Dane Peignton was in request, as an odd man is bound to be in the countryside.
“It will be deadly dull,” Cassandra had warned her friend, “but it has to be done. Brace up, and go through it bravely, and if you don’t like it you need never try again.”
“I won’t,” Grizel said frankly. “A duty is a duty, and has to be done whether you like it or not, but I choose my pleasures to suit myself. If I’m amused I’ll go,—if I’m not, all the saddles of mutton in the world won’t tempt me. It always amuses me to be with you, my dear, but judging from the specimens I’ve already seen, it’s a very, very heavy county. The women are heavy in the afternoon. I tremble to think of what they must be in the drawing-room after dinner. Could I do anything to jolt them up? Put on a black gown, or do a little skirt dancing, or tell stories? I could tell some awakening stories!”
But Cassandra shook her head and issued her orders.
“You are to wear your wedding dress, and behave yourself like a sweet young bride, and do credit to yourself, and to me, and to your husband’s books! When you go to Rome, do as the Romans do.”
When the night of the dinner arrived the sweet young bride repaired to her husband’s dressing-roomen routefrom the bathroom to her own apartment, and squatted on the floor to watchhimshave, with her white gown wrapped around a foam of lacey under-garments, and her white shoes kicked off on to the rug. She looked young, and fresh, and blooming, and brought with her a delicious odour of violets, and it appeared to afford her intense satisfaction to watch Martin lather his chin, and twist it from side to side for the convenience of the safety razor.
“Darling, youdolook plain! I love you dreadfully when I see you shave. All that trouble to spare me a beard! ... Don’t cut yourself, like a precious. I do so object to bits of cotton-wool... Doesn’t it feel nice and married to have me sitting here, watching you, in my bare tootsies, and knowing that even the Vicaress herself could not object? She’ll be there to-night, you know. What will she wear?—A black satin, cut in a V, with a pendant of agate, and a cap with an aigrette. Dear thing! I must remember to enquire for the Mothers’ Meeting.”
Martin, his chin violently undulating, murmured a word which was evidently of a warning nature, but Grizel took no notice. Her hands were clasped round her knees, she was smiling, in a soft reflective fashion.
“No,” she said slowly, “no! this first year must be just for ourselves.—I am so thankful that Katrine is away and so happy, for our own sakes, as well as her own. I am thankful there are no other near relatives to trouble about. I don’t wantAnyoneto come between us this first year, not even—that! A year or two alone together we must have, and then,—we’ll pray for twins!”
Martin’s sureness of hand alone saved him from the necessity of cotton-wool. He turned round, smiling, lathered, twinkling with humour.
“Why be so greedy? Surelyone—”
“No, no—two would be twice as nice. You get on so slowly with one at a time.” She bent her head still lower, so that her chin rested upon her knees; her golden eyes stared into space, her shoulders heaved with a regretful sigh. “No,” she said at last, “no! I suppose it would not do. Tripletsarevulgar, but oh, Martin, think of it!—threeducks, all in a row, each with its long white tail, and its little ribbons round its wrists, and its little gold sovereign hanging round its neck... The Queen’s Bounty! And oh, Martin, think, think! what an advertisement for your books... It would be in all the papers. ‘Mrs Martin Beverley, wife of the well-known novelist, yesterday became the mother of three daughters. (They must be daughters!) Later enquiries at the house elicited the news that the mother and family were all doing well.’”
“Really, Grizel! really!” cried Martin, protesting. “You make me blush.”
“Oh, well!” Grizel sighed, and rose to her feet in one swift, astonishingly agile movement. “Bear up. There’s no use getting agitated before the time. It might be only twins!”
She strolled out of the room, and seating herself on the chair before her own mirror, gave herself into the hands of the waiting maid.
“Now then, Marie, make me look like a sweet young bride.”
Marie looked complacent. It was easy to obey that order, since her mistress was radiant with beauty and happiness, and there lay waiting on the bed a gown, which looked as if it had been blown straight out of a fairy tale for her adornment. The ordinary white satin was far too dull and substantial to have a place in its concoction. It was a mass of cobweb lace of extraordinary antiquity and frailness, mounted on a lining of silver gauze. The fine folds accentuated the reed-like slimness of Grizel’s figure, the misty indefiniteness of shading suited to a marvel the small face, with its white cheeks and amber eyes, that face which was at once so colourless, and so aglow. Marie looking at the reflection in the mirror, pushed aside the cases of jewels, and lifting a piece of tulle swathed it lightly round her mistress’ head, allowing one long end to flow down the back. It was unconventional, it was daring, but the effect was irresistible, and Marie stood aside heaving a sigh of triumph.
“No jewels. Only the gauze. In effect—a veil!”
So it came to pass that when Mr and Mrs Beverley made their entrance into the great drawing-room of theCourt, there came to one and all of the assembled guests the impression of a creature half human, half fairy, poised midway between heaven and earth, aglow with that absolute, unshadowed happiness, which is seldom given to mortals to see or to enjoy. It was indeed the primitive note in Grizel’s temperament, which made such a condition possible. The least introspective of mortals, she accepted happiness as manna from heaven, throve on to-day’s supply, and confidently expected the morrow’s supply. The minor trials, which would have dimmed the rapture of another bride, pricked her for the moment, and were then cast aside, and dismissed from thought, as completely as though they had never existed. There were occasions when such abstraction brought about materialcontretemps, but of the mental lightening there could be no doubt.
Everyone in the room received the same impression of radiance as the bride entered, but on the different minds the impression acted differently. The Vicar’s wife, clad as had been foretold, in black satin and aigretted cap, but showing a pendant of cameo, instead of agate, on the discreet décolletage, felt a sudden unreasoning disposition towards tears, and the good man, her husband, breathed a mental “God keep her!” but the Hon. Mrs Mawson was distinctly shocked. She was the Evangelical magnate whose religion seemed largely to consist in disapproving of other people’s enjoyments, and the bride’s obtrusive happiness appeared to her as a deliberate “tempting of Providence.” Moreover, she disapproved of the costume as theatrical and unusual. Why not satin, like everybody else? And no jewels! The niece of Lady Griselda Dundas must possess jewels of price. Then why that bare neck? Mrs Mawson was wearing her own rubies, and took it as a personal slight that the bride had come to meet her unadorned.
Midway between the two extremes flowed the general verdict, but Grizel was blissfully unconscious of criticism. She went through the necessary greetings of acquaintances, among whom she was surprised to recognise Teresa Mallison, and then exchanged a few words with her hostess before leading the way to dinner on the Squire’s arm.
Cassandra looked as usual, both tired and vivid; she gave a caressing pressure to her friend’s elbow, and murmured softly:
“Exquisite. About eighteen! ... Talk hard, Grizel, for pity’s sake—talk hard! The atmosphere is freezing. At the last moment Mona Fenchurch sent a wire. Flue. I had to send for Teresa. She’s so good about filling gaps.”
“Oh, well!” Grizel said significantly. Of course Teresa was delighted to come, especially when by good luck it was Peignton’s predestined partner who had fallen out! She stood by his side now—flushed, silent, a trifle gauche, for it was something of an ordeal to meet the people who politely ignored her existence in the life of the neighbourhood. Grizel divined something of the cause of the girl’s embarrassment, and sent her a smile of beaming friendliness. Well! all had turned out for the best. Nobody wanted Mona Fenchurch for the pleasure of her company, and her absence had paved the way to a lovers’ meeting. Captain Peignton looked supremely content, and how sensible of the girl to stick to blue!
Teresa, however, was not at all self-congratulatory on the subject of her gown. If she had had a day’s notice,—even half a day, she could have dashed up to town, and equipped herself in something newer, and more worthy of the occasion. She was miserably conscious that the blue dress was past its freshness, and had already paid several visits to the Court.
The dinner which followed was lengthy and stately. It was also undeniably dull! At one end of the table Grizel chatted and leant her elbows on the table, and kept the Squire in complacent chuckles of laughter, but their gaiety, instead of spreading, seemed to throw into greater contrast the forced conversations of the other guests. With the exception of Teresa Mallison they were all elderly people, who had driven over many miles of country to perform a social duty, and neither expected nor received any pleasure in its execution. They all knew each other, met at intervals, and discoursed together on the same well-worn topics. Lady Rose talked garden, and was an expert on bulbs. Sir George Everley, her partner, described all bulbs vaguely as daffodils, lived simply and solely for “huntin’,” and would in all probability die for it another day. The Vicar’s partner lived for bridge, and his wife had fallen to the share of an old general who looked upon food and drink as the events of the moment, and had no intention of losing a good chance. Long years of dining out had made him an expert at the game of starting his partner on a hobby during an interval between courses, and then giving her her head until the next stop. “Well! and what is the latest good work in the parish, Mrs Evans, eh, what?” he enquired genially, as he waited the advent of fish, and then with the help of a, “Did you though? God bless my soul! Pine work! fine work!” he was left free to enjoy his fare, and make mental notes on the flavouring of the sauce, until such time as he had leisure to give Mrs Evans another lead on the vexed question of the choir.
Lord Kew sat on Cassandra’s left side, and threw depressed crumbs of conversation to his companion, the stout wife of the huntin’ squire. It was said of Lord Kew that he could not talk for five minutes together without bringing in the German invasion, and his conviction that England was galloping headlong to the dogs. He prophesied as much to the squire’s wife in less than the prescribed time, and she said that “something ought to be done,” and seizing on the word “dog” introduced to his notice her two pet Chows. From time to time also Cassandra helped her along with a few words, leaving Martin to make the acquaintance of his right-hand neighbour, who had heard of his books, and really must get them from the library. “Do you write under your own name?”
Teresa sat like a poker, still and silent, vouchsafing monosyllabic replies to the formalities of a county magnate, about whom she knew everything, but who had got it firmly impressed into his sluggish brain that she was someone else, and accordingly insisted upon referring to people and incidents of whom she had never heard. Now and then came a happy moment when Peignton gave her his attention, and smiled encouragement into her eyes, but he was working hard to rouse a chilly lady to animation, and even on occasion throwing an occasional bold challenge across the table, where a couple seemed settling down into permanent silence.
Teresa had the impression that Dane was putting aside his own amusement as something entirely subservient to the general good. It was almost as though he felt a responsibility, and was working for a reward. She never suspected that the reward came more than once in a glance from Cassandra’s eyes, and a smile of appreciation flashed down the length of table. Cassandra’s head and neck rose above the banked-up flowers, her cheeks were flushed, the stars of emeralds on her throat sent out green flames of light, she looked brilliant and beautiful, a fitting chatelaine for the stately old house, but it was not her beauty which appealed to Peignton’s heart; it was the subtlewantwhich mysteriously he felt able to supply. He did not trouble himself to enquire into the nature of this strong mutual sympathy, for he was a practical man accustomed to do the next thing, and not trouble about the future.
To-night Cassandra was a hostess struggling with an unusually depressing set of guests, and he expended himself to help her. Looking up the length of table, Grizel’s face was like a flowering shrub in an avenue of cedars. Peignton looked at her and felt a pang of something like anger.Shewas content enough! She had everything she wanted. Things were cursedly unfair...
In the drawing-room Grizel as the bride was handed round for five-minute conversations, and being in an amiable mood exerted herself to be all things to all women. She talked “huntin’” and she talked bridge, she asked advice concerning her garden, she listened sweetly to details of May Meetings, and vouchsafed copious and entirely untrue descriptions of an author at home; only with the Vicar’s wife did she allow herself the privilege of being natural, and saying what she really meant.
Mrs Evans was elderly and stout, parochial and intensely proper. Grizel was young and unconventional to an extreme, yet beneath the dissimilarity there existed a sympathy between the two women which both divined, and both failed equally to understand.
Grizel knew that Mrs Evans’s brain viewed her with suspicion, but she was complacently aware that Mrs Evans’s heart was not in sympathy with her brain. Was it not exactly the same in her own case? Mentally she had pronounced the Vicar’s wife a parochial bore, the type of middle-aged orthodox, prudish woman whom her soul abhorred, but, as a matter of fact, she did not abhor her at all, for the eyes of the soul saw down beneath the stiffness and the propriety, and recognised a connecting link.
“If I were in trouble, I’d like to put my head down on her nice broad shoulder, and,—she’d like to have me there!”
“Well!” cried Grizel, sinking down in a soft little swirl of lace and silver by the side of the chair which held the portly black satin form, and resting one little hand on its arm with a gesture of half-caressing intimacy. “Well! Are the Mothers still meeting?”
Mrs Evans preened herself, and did her honest best to look distressed.
“My dear, I am afraid youmeanto be naughty!”
Grizel nodded cheerily.
“I do... Aren’t you glad? It’s no use pretending to be shocked. You have a whole parish-full of proper people who do what they ought, and say what they should, and I come in as a refreshing change. Besides, I really mean quite well! Who knows,—after half a dozen years of Chumley influence, I may be as douce and staid as any one of them!”
At this point the obvious thing for Mrs Evans to do was plainly to express a hope such might be the case; she knew it, and opened her mouth to utter the aspiration, but as she did so she inclined her head to look down into the dimpling radiance of the bride’s face, and once again her heart softened, and she felt that mysterious pricking at the back of her eyes.
“My dear,” she said gently, “I—I think I prefer you as you are!”
Grizel did not answer, but her eyes softened, and she slipped her hand an inch forward so that it pressed against the black satin sleeve. She was thinking happily that she had already two friends in Chumley, Cassandra, and—the Vicar’s wife!
Seeing a pause in the conversation, a small woman in pink satin made a swoop for the seat next the bride, and eyed her with a bright, birdlike smile. This was Mrs Fotheringham (with a small “f”), a lady who combined having nothing to say with a positively uninterrupted flow of conversation. She overcame the apparent difficulty by pouring forth a flood of personal questions, from the storehouse of a curiosity which knew no bounds. She pounced upon Grizel now, as a hawk pounces upon its prey.
“So pleased to meet you to-night. So unfortunate to miss you when I called. I’ve been so longing to meet you. Knew you so well by name. You were Miss Grizel Dundas?”
“Yes.”
“Niece of Lady Griselda?”
“Yes.”
“Lived with her, didn’t you? Sort of adopted child?”
“Yes.”
“All your life?”
“Yes.”
“But of course you had parents?—”
“No—”
The “no” was devilment pure and simple, and gave Mrs Fotheringham what is technically described as a “sensation.” She jerked, stared, and finally forced a wooden laugh.
“Oh, I see. Yes. Stupid of me. Died, I suppose, at your birth?”
“One after. One before.”
“How sad. Very eccentric, wasn’t she? Lady Griselda, I mean. I’ve heard that she was exceedingly—”
“She was.”
“But you got on with her? Must have done, of course, or she would not... Quite attached to you, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“So nice! And you stayed with her until her death, and married immediately after? It was immediately after, was it not?”
“Several months.”
“So nice for you that you had Mr Beverley. He must be a proud man. Not many women would have given up so much. But I’m sure you never regret it?”
“Oh, but I do!” cried Grizel. “Often!”
She was getting bored by this time, and decided that this might be a favourable point at which to end the catechism, so she rose and strolled across the room, leaving Mrs Fotheringham to express her consternation to the nearest listener.
“How extraordinary! Did you hear? She said shedoes!”
But Mrs Evans had known the question-monger from a child, and stood upon no ceremony.
“You had no right to put such a question, Flora. It was impertinent. Mrs Beverley answered in the only manner possible, by turning it into a joke.”
“I suppose so. Yes. It must have been a joke. Shelookshappy.” The birdlike eyes roved towards Martin, who had just entered the room with the other men, and subjected him to a curious scrutiny. “Doyou think he looks worth it?”
“My dear, it is immaterial what I think! How can any outsider judge of the worth which another woman’s husband represents to herself? It’s not a question of credentials. It’s a question offit!”
Half an hour later the Squire buttonholed Peignton in a corner of the room, and gave him his instructions.
“I’ve ordered the car for Miss Mallison. See her safely home, will you, and take it on to your own place? Might as well do two good turns while it’s about it.”
His look gave significance to the words, and Peignton could not do less than declare his pleasure at the suggestion. As a matter of fact, however, it was not pleasure of which he was conscious at that moment, but something unaccountably like disappointment.
He had not expected the evening to end so soon; he was unwilling to be dismissed. Throughout the long dinner he had been subconsciously looking forward to something to come; and he now felt defrauded and chilled. He had imagined that he would have had five minutes’ talk with Lady Cassandra—that they would laugh together, and in the meeting of eyes exchange confidences which it would have been indiscreet to put into words, but Cassandra was surrounded by guests of honour, and apparently oblivious of his presence.
She turned with a start as he approached her with Teresa by his side, and received the girl’s adieux with a gracious smile. “So soon! Captain Peignton going to see you home. That’s right.Goodnight. It was really noble of you to come to the rescue. So very many thanks!”
Her manner to the girl was all that could be wished, but as she turned to Peignton there came an unmistakable chill. Her face, her voice, the fleeting touch of her hand were alike cold, devoid of friendship.
Cassandra was disappointed too, and, womanlike, vented her displeasure on her fellow-sufferer. She also had looked forward to a few brief moments of communion after the emptiness of the evening. She also had the baffled feeling of one who has waited for naught. The while she listened to Lady Mawson’s dreary pronouncements she watched the dark figure follow the girl from the room, and a pang pierced her heart.
“Oh, to be young! To be young,—and to be loved!”
Peignton struggled into his coat, and muttered savagely when a stud caught in the lining. His usual mood was so serene that this sudden irritability and depression was as puzzling as it was disagreeable. He asked himself curtly what the devil was wrong, and made a swift mental summary of the wine consumed at dinner. Nothing wrong, but these elaborate feasts were not in his line. They bored him stiff. Another time he would decline...
At this point Teresa made her appearance wrapped in a white opera cloak, with her mother’s best lace scarf draped over her head, and Dane’s depression lightened, as he smiled at her and took his place by her side in the car. He felt a pleasant sense of intimacy as the door shut, and they were alone together speeding through the darkened park. He had been thinking a good deal of marriage lately, more than he had ever done before, but he did not realise that at the same time he had been thinking less of Teresa. He thought of her now, warmed by her presence, and by the natural rebound from his fit of irritation. She looked pretty in that white kit,—that lace over her face was uncommonly becoming. He had divined the difficulty of her position during the evening, pitchforked among a number of people who as a rule ignored her existence, and he had admired the quiet composure of her manner. A nice little girl. A dear little girl. A pretty, clever, uncommonly sensible little girl.
Teresa looked up, met the approval in his eyes, and thrilled with happiness. The evening had come as an unexpected and golden ending to a long dull day. At tea-time she had been dismally counting over the days which had elapsed since her last sight of Peignton, dismally realising that no mutual engagements lay ahead, and then suddenly the summons had arrived which had placed her by his side during the length of that long dinner, and, best of all, ensured thistête-à-têtedrive in the friendly dimness. Surely now—if he cared at all, he would open his heart—
But Peignton was far from such an intention; he was opening his lips to make some casual remark, half-bantering, half-caressing, as had grown to be his habit when with Teresa, when there suddenly came about one of those small happenings which are monumental in their effect on life. The chauffeur, steering out of the lodge gate, took a sharp turn, and the inner wheels of the car descended into the ditch. He was a skilful driver, and as a rule careful enough, but the necessity of turning out at night for the convenience of an insignificant guest had tried his temper, and he was not unwilling to prejudice Miss Mallison against a repetition of the drive. In any case, the swerve was startling enough, and Teresa, feeling herself sinking through space, instinctively threw out her hands and grasped the nearest object. For the moment she was unconscious that that object was Dane himself; she simply found support, and clung, and Dane’s arms held her fast. Two or three violent wrenches followed, as the whole strength of the car struggled to mount the incline, and meantime, locked in each other’s arms, the man and the girl swayed together, this way and that, backwards and forwards, until with a final jerk and groan the roadway was reached. All the time Teresa had not uttered a sound, but now that safety was assured, a sobbing breath quavered from between her lips. It was a pathetic little sound, like the sob of a child in pain, and the red lips were very near. From pure instinct, rather than any definite intention, Peignton bent still nearer, and kissed those lips into silence, murmuring gentle words of encouragement.
“Poor girl—poor dear! It’s all over... We are all right now. You are not frightened, Teresa?”
He held her fast, resisting a faint movement to escape. He did not want her to go. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her again, and feel her lips tremble against his own. The sore, wounded feeling of the evening had disappeared, his heart was beating with strong, rapid strokes. The electric lamp showed the girl’s face flushed and tremulous, the eyes shyly drooping before his own. He bent over her and whispered a question, knowing full well what the answer would be, but wanting to hear it, all the same.
“Are you angry with me for kissing you, Teresa?”
The girl shook her head. Her low voice sounded young and sweet.
“Oh, no... I’m glad!”
“Why are you glad?”
“Because you,—youcare!” said Teresa, trembling.
For a breath Dane hesitated, and in that pause something ominous gripped at his heart, and like a man who has made a false step on the edge of a precipice he saw a glimpse of an abyss; but the next moment youth and blood rose to the appeal, and he kissed the soft lips once and again, murmuring appropriate protestations.
“Of course I care—who wouldn’t? I’ve cared a long time... And you care too? You do care for me, Teresa?”
“Oh,yes!”
The answer came with a fervour which could not fail to be infectious.
“Enough—some day—to be my wife? I wish I had more to offer you, little girl!”
“Oh, I want nothing, I want nothing. I would marry you if you were a workman in a cottage. Sooner—than aking!”
It was true. The girl’s voice rang with a sincerity of passion, which was startling in its contrast to the man’s light tones, and Peignton, realising the contrast, was at once touched and abashed.
“You dear girl!” he said softly. “Thank you, dear. I’m not worth it, but—I’ll be good to you, Teresa! You shall never regret it.”
Teresa laughed at the absurdity of the thought. It seemed impossible that anything in the nature of regret, or grief, or anxiety, or even boredom could ever again cloud her heart. She had reached the pinnacle of her desires. To know that Dane loved her meant absolute, unclouded happiness. He would go on loving her. Therefore she would go on being blissful and content. As in the fairy tales, they would be happy ever after. “I never knew that it was possible to be so happy!” sighed Teresa in her heart.
Chapter Nine.The Gift of Creation.Teresa entered the quiet house, cast a look at the drawing-room door, and realised with relief that her mother had retired to bed. Probably she would be awake, and would expect the returning daughter to enter her room in passing, and give a history of the evening’s adventures, but Teresa had no intention of doing anything of the sort. Pausing for a moment in the hall, she took off her slippers and crept noiselessly past the dreaded portals up to the third floor. To-morrow morning there would be reprisals, but she had news to tell which would speedily turn the tide. The flood of questions and curiosities which were bound to flow from the maternal lips would be intolerable to-night, nevertheless Teresa felt the need of speech. The relief, the joy, the triumph of the moment seemed more than she could endure alone. She needed someone to listen, not to talk, and Mary had been trained by long years of self-abnegation to fill that post.Teresa entered her sister’s room and turned on the electric switch. Mary lay asleep, her face showing yellow against the whiteness of the pillow, her hair screwed together in a walnut-like knob at the top of her head. She stirred, opened listless eyes to stare at her sister, and automatically struggled to a sitting position.“Got back?—Do you—is there anything you want?”Teresa sat down on the side of the bed and threw back her cloak. In the plainly furnished bedroom her blue dress became at once a rich and gorgeous garment, the trifling ornament on her neck gleamed with a new splendour; to Mary’s dazzled eyes she appeared a vision of beauty and happiness.“What should I want? Cocoa? Coffee? You funny old Martha! your thoughts never get away from housekeeping. I don’t want anything; not one single thing in the whole wide world. I’ve got so much already that I can hardly bear it... Mary! I’m engaged. Hedoescare. He asked me to-night.”“Who?” asked Mary blankly, and Teresa, staring at her in indignation, realised that, incredible as it appeared, this ignorance was real, not feigned. A pricking of curiosity made itself felt; since this most obtuse of sisters had noticed nothing between herself and Dane, it would be interesting to see whom she would select as a possiblefiancé. She smiled, and said, “Guess!”“Mr Hunter,” said Mary promptly.“Gerald Hunter!” Teresa was transfixed with surprise at the unexpectedness of the reply, for Gerald Hunter, the young partner of the local doctor, had come to the neighbourhood some months later than Dane himself, by which time she had no attention to bestow upon another man. Hunter was a member of the tennis club, he made a welcome addition to local dances and bridge teas; occasionally on Sunday afternoons he had called and stayed to tea. Teresa was aware that he had a dark complexion, a strong, overhand serve, and a dancing step which went well with her own, but beyond these preliminaries her mind had not troubled to go.“What on earth made you think it was Gerald Hunter?”“He admires you.”“Oh, well!” Teresa glanced complacently into the tilted mirror which showed a reflection of flaxen hair, pink cheeks, and rounded shoulders, sufficiently attractive to merit any man’s admiration. The same law of contrast which made the dress appear rich and elaborate came into operation as regards its wearer. The mirror reflected the faces of both sisters, and it was not unnatural that Teresa should feel a thrill of pleasure at her own fair looks. “Oh, well! But that’s different. Lots of people mayadmire. Guess again, Mary! Somebody far, far more exciting than Mr Hunter.”But Mary shook her head.“If it’s not Mr Hunter, I don’t know. Tell me yourself.”“Dane Peignton! Oh, Mary, why didn’t you guess? I’ve cared always—from the very first hour I saw him, and I knew he cared too, I was sure of it—and yet, onecan’tbe sure! When one cares so much, it seems too good to be true. He is so different from anyone else in this stupid little place. He belongs to the world, and to people like... like the people I met to-night, not to our poor, prosy little set. He was the most popular man there. He talked, and they listened; he made things go. They all liked him, and admired him. He has been here only a few months, and they all treat him as a friend, and oh, Mary! you know what they are like tous? If it hadn’t been for him I should have felt like a fish out of water. They gushed, of course, they always gush, but one felt so apart. Old Sir Henry sat on my other side, and persisted in mistaking me for Miss Pell, and talked of things I knew nothing about. I am sure they were all wondering what on earth I was doing up there. What will they think to-morrow when they hear! I’m going to announce it at once. I want everyone to know. I’d like to shout it from the church tower... Oh, Mary, isn’t it splendid? Don’t you think I am the luckiest girl... Don’t you think it is wonderful that he should care for me?”“Yes... Does he?”There was an incredulity in the voice in which the words were put which arrested Teresa in her flow of eloquence. She stared with lips agape, her blue eyes darkening in amaze.“Does he? Does he care?... You ask me that! What are you dreaming about? If he didn’t care, why in the world should he ask me to be his wife? We are not rich; we are not grand. Ours is not exactly alivelyfamily for a man to marry into. He might have chosen a girl in such a different position. Why should he choose me?”Mary pulled the blankets over her thin chest, and appeared to consider the matter, her eyes resting on her sister’s face with a coolly critical scrutiny.“Perhaps because—you wanted him to! You generally do manage to get what you want, don’t you, Teresa?”Teresa straightened herself with an air of offence.“There was nomanagementabout this, anyhow! Whatever I wanted, I didn’t give myself away. I never ran after him and made myself cheap, as some girls do. It’s horrid of you to suggest such a thing. Did I ever show that I cared for him when he was here? I can’t have done, or you would not have been so surprised when you heard of our engagement.”“I knew you cared for him. You had a perfectly different face when he was in the room. We all knew. We were sorry for you, because we thought he didn’t return it. Mother was thinking of sending you to Aunt Emma’s.”“Oh, she was, was she!” Teresa tossed her head once more, but the inner happiness was too great to allow of more than a passing irritation. She stretched out her hand, and gripped her sister by the arm.“Mary! you are horrid. Not one single nice word yet, not one congratulation, when I came in at once to tell you before anyone in the world! If it had been mother, she’d have been hanging round my neck in hysterics of excitement, but you do nothing but lie there and croak, and throw cold water. I’m your own sister—does it seem so extraordinary that a man should want to marry me? Mary, benice! Congratulate me! Won’t you be glad to have a married sister, and all the fun and excitement of a wedding in the house?”“Fun!” echoed Mary, and shuddered eloquently. In imagination she saw her mother collecting store catalogues, comparing prices to the fraction of a penny, and dictating innumerable notes. In imagination she saw herself spending week after week eternally sewing for Teresa, marking for Teresa, running ribbons through Teresa’slingerie, unpacking Teresa’s presents, packing Teresa’s boxes, tidying, arranging, slaving for Teresa, while Teresa herself paid calls, and sat with her lover in the drawing-room. All these things she would do when the time came, and do them meekly and well, but in the doing there would be no “fun.” There was no lightsomeness of spirit in the Mallison household to ease the strain of small duties, or turn acontretempsinto a joke. Mrs Mallison’s heart would swell with pride at the prospect of providing an outfit for the future Mrs Dane Peignton; she would say and believe that the whole responsibility was borne on her shoulders; nevertheless, the preparation of that outfit would add years to the lives of every human creature beneath her roof.“I can’t say that I look forward to the wedding itself, but I hope you will be happy. It would be nice for one of us to be happy. Captain Peignton is a good man; I hope he will be happy too.” Mary hesitated, and a pathetic curiosity showed itself in her face. “I suppose you couldn’t tell me what he said?”Teresa shook her head.“Ofcourse not! ... Very little really. It was in the car. The man ran us into the ditch. I was frightened, and... and then, of course—he comforted me! We got home so quickly that there was not much time.—He is coming to-morrow morning.”Mary nodded, a light of comprehension brightening her eyes.“You are quite sure he meant it? You are always so sure that you are right, and that everything ought to go as you wish. Don’t be too sure of him, Teresa! Even if you are properly engaged, don’t be too sure. He has only met you now and again for an hour at a time, and seen that you were young and pretty, and good at games. Now he will see you often. He may be disappointed and change his mind!”“Am I so much worse than I appear?”“I didn’t mean worse.”“Then whatdidyou mean? Not better, evidently. What do you expect him to find out when he knows me better?”“Nothing. There’s nothing to find.”Teresa rose with an elaborate flutter of garments, and stood tall and straight by the bedside.“I’d better go. It is evidently not the slightest use talking to you to-night. I think you have been very unsisterly and disagreeable. I wish I had never come in. I was so happy, and you have done nothing but throw cold water. Are you jealous, Mary, that you are so unkind?”Mary gave her back look for look. A dull flush showed itself on her cheek-bones.“Would it be such a wonderful thing if I were? Iamjealous; of course I am jealous. I have every reason to be jealous. You get everything, Teresa; and I get nothing. It has always been like that, and it always will be. You are strong, and I am weak; you are pretty, and I am plain; you are popular, and I am dull. You are masterful, and get your own way, and I am cowardly, and am beaten; but because one is dull, and cowardly, and plain, it doesn’t follow that one can’t feel—it doesn’t follow that one can’tache! I have ached for this all my life, and it has come to you. No one ever cared for me, but I should have made a good wife. I should have loved him more than you will ever love. You have wasted so much love on yourself, but I had it all to give. I loved a man once, as you love Captain Peignton, but he never thought of me. He married a girl with a pretty face, and lived close to us for nearly two years. Mother used to invite them here, and send me with messages to the house. I could not look out of the window without seeing them together, walking down the street, sitting in the garden. My bedroom window overlooked their summer-house. I used to see him come in and kiss her.”Teresa shuddered.“I should have gone mad! Poor old Mary! But why did you stand it? I should have gone away, and done something.”“What?” Mary asked, and Teresa was silent. Mary had a way of asking questions which were impossible to answer. WhatcouldMary do? She was one of the vast army of middle-class daughters brought up to do nothing, and thereby as hopelessly imprisoned as any slave of old. She possessed no natural gifts nor accomplishments, she lacked the training which would have ensured excellence in any one department of domestic work, she was devoid of a personality which would make her mere companionship of marketable value. What could Mary do, and who would care to engage Mary to do it? Teresa was silent, finding no reply. She stood hesitating by the bedside, sympathetic but impatient. She was sorry; of course she was sorry, but to-night she wanted to be glad. It would have been better to have gone straight to her room.“I couldn’t go away,” Mary continued slowly, “but they went—after two years! I fought so hard to deaden myself that I might not feel, that I seem to have been half dead ever since. It’s eight years since they left. I don’t love him now. I don’t think of him for months at a time; but that was my love affair, Teresa. There was never anyone else. There never will be now, and life goes on just the same year after year. It’s wicked, I suppose, but I wonder sometimes why women like me were ever born.”“Mary, you are very useful. You work so hard—you are always working.”“Little things!” said Mary, sighing. “Little things! Things with my hands. But a woman is notallhands.” She hitched the blankets once more, and lay back on the pillow. “You’d better go to bed. It’s getting late.”“Good night, Mary; good old Mary! You shall come and stay with me in my house, and I’ll give you a real good time.”Teresa turned away, eager to make her escape. She did not kiss her sister, for kisses were not frequent in the Mallison family, and the sudden unlocking of Mary’s sealed lips left an effect of strangeness, as if some stranger had taken her place. It was disturbing and disagreeable to realise that Mary couldfeel! She opened the door softly and was stepping over the threshold when Mary’s voice called in an urgent note. “More confidences!” sighed Teresa to herself, and stood still to listen.“Did you remember to turn out the hall light?” asked Mary.
Teresa entered the quiet house, cast a look at the drawing-room door, and realised with relief that her mother had retired to bed. Probably she would be awake, and would expect the returning daughter to enter her room in passing, and give a history of the evening’s adventures, but Teresa had no intention of doing anything of the sort. Pausing for a moment in the hall, she took off her slippers and crept noiselessly past the dreaded portals up to the third floor. To-morrow morning there would be reprisals, but she had news to tell which would speedily turn the tide. The flood of questions and curiosities which were bound to flow from the maternal lips would be intolerable to-night, nevertheless Teresa felt the need of speech. The relief, the joy, the triumph of the moment seemed more than she could endure alone. She needed someone to listen, not to talk, and Mary had been trained by long years of self-abnegation to fill that post.
Teresa entered her sister’s room and turned on the electric switch. Mary lay asleep, her face showing yellow against the whiteness of the pillow, her hair screwed together in a walnut-like knob at the top of her head. She stirred, opened listless eyes to stare at her sister, and automatically struggled to a sitting position.
“Got back?—Do you—is there anything you want?”
Teresa sat down on the side of the bed and threw back her cloak. In the plainly furnished bedroom her blue dress became at once a rich and gorgeous garment, the trifling ornament on her neck gleamed with a new splendour; to Mary’s dazzled eyes she appeared a vision of beauty and happiness.
“What should I want? Cocoa? Coffee? You funny old Martha! your thoughts never get away from housekeeping. I don’t want anything; not one single thing in the whole wide world. I’ve got so much already that I can hardly bear it... Mary! I’m engaged. Hedoescare. He asked me to-night.”
“Who?” asked Mary blankly, and Teresa, staring at her in indignation, realised that, incredible as it appeared, this ignorance was real, not feigned. A pricking of curiosity made itself felt; since this most obtuse of sisters had noticed nothing between herself and Dane, it would be interesting to see whom she would select as a possiblefiancé. She smiled, and said, “Guess!”
“Mr Hunter,” said Mary promptly.
“Gerald Hunter!” Teresa was transfixed with surprise at the unexpectedness of the reply, for Gerald Hunter, the young partner of the local doctor, had come to the neighbourhood some months later than Dane himself, by which time she had no attention to bestow upon another man. Hunter was a member of the tennis club, he made a welcome addition to local dances and bridge teas; occasionally on Sunday afternoons he had called and stayed to tea. Teresa was aware that he had a dark complexion, a strong, overhand serve, and a dancing step which went well with her own, but beyond these preliminaries her mind had not troubled to go.
“What on earth made you think it was Gerald Hunter?”
“He admires you.”
“Oh, well!” Teresa glanced complacently into the tilted mirror which showed a reflection of flaxen hair, pink cheeks, and rounded shoulders, sufficiently attractive to merit any man’s admiration. The same law of contrast which made the dress appear rich and elaborate came into operation as regards its wearer. The mirror reflected the faces of both sisters, and it was not unnatural that Teresa should feel a thrill of pleasure at her own fair looks. “Oh, well! But that’s different. Lots of people mayadmire. Guess again, Mary! Somebody far, far more exciting than Mr Hunter.”
But Mary shook her head.
“If it’s not Mr Hunter, I don’t know. Tell me yourself.”
“Dane Peignton! Oh, Mary, why didn’t you guess? I’ve cared always—from the very first hour I saw him, and I knew he cared too, I was sure of it—and yet, onecan’tbe sure! When one cares so much, it seems too good to be true. He is so different from anyone else in this stupid little place. He belongs to the world, and to people like... like the people I met to-night, not to our poor, prosy little set. He was the most popular man there. He talked, and they listened; he made things go. They all liked him, and admired him. He has been here only a few months, and they all treat him as a friend, and oh, Mary! you know what they are like tous? If it hadn’t been for him I should have felt like a fish out of water. They gushed, of course, they always gush, but one felt so apart. Old Sir Henry sat on my other side, and persisted in mistaking me for Miss Pell, and talked of things I knew nothing about. I am sure they were all wondering what on earth I was doing up there. What will they think to-morrow when they hear! I’m going to announce it at once. I want everyone to know. I’d like to shout it from the church tower... Oh, Mary, isn’t it splendid? Don’t you think I am the luckiest girl... Don’t you think it is wonderful that he should care for me?”
“Yes... Does he?”
There was an incredulity in the voice in which the words were put which arrested Teresa in her flow of eloquence. She stared with lips agape, her blue eyes darkening in amaze.
“Does he? Does he care?... You ask me that! What are you dreaming about? If he didn’t care, why in the world should he ask me to be his wife? We are not rich; we are not grand. Ours is not exactly alivelyfamily for a man to marry into. He might have chosen a girl in such a different position. Why should he choose me?”
Mary pulled the blankets over her thin chest, and appeared to consider the matter, her eyes resting on her sister’s face with a coolly critical scrutiny.
“Perhaps because—you wanted him to! You generally do manage to get what you want, don’t you, Teresa?”
Teresa straightened herself with an air of offence.
“There was nomanagementabout this, anyhow! Whatever I wanted, I didn’t give myself away. I never ran after him and made myself cheap, as some girls do. It’s horrid of you to suggest such a thing. Did I ever show that I cared for him when he was here? I can’t have done, or you would not have been so surprised when you heard of our engagement.”
“I knew you cared for him. You had a perfectly different face when he was in the room. We all knew. We were sorry for you, because we thought he didn’t return it. Mother was thinking of sending you to Aunt Emma’s.”
“Oh, she was, was she!” Teresa tossed her head once more, but the inner happiness was too great to allow of more than a passing irritation. She stretched out her hand, and gripped her sister by the arm.
“Mary! you are horrid. Not one single nice word yet, not one congratulation, when I came in at once to tell you before anyone in the world! If it had been mother, she’d have been hanging round my neck in hysterics of excitement, but you do nothing but lie there and croak, and throw cold water. I’m your own sister—does it seem so extraordinary that a man should want to marry me? Mary, benice! Congratulate me! Won’t you be glad to have a married sister, and all the fun and excitement of a wedding in the house?”
“Fun!” echoed Mary, and shuddered eloquently. In imagination she saw her mother collecting store catalogues, comparing prices to the fraction of a penny, and dictating innumerable notes. In imagination she saw herself spending week after week eternally sewing for Teresa, marking for Teresa, running ribbons through Teresa’slingerie, unpacking Teresa’s presents, packing Teresa’s boxes, tidying, arranging, slaving for Teresa, while Teresa herself paid calls, and sat with her lover in the drawing-room. All these things she would do when the time came, and do them meekly and well, but in the doing there would be no “fun.” There was no lightsomeness of spirit in the Mallison household to ease the strain of small duties, or turn acontretempsinto a joke. Mrs Mallison’s heart would swell with pride at the prospect of providing an outfit for the future Mrs Dane Peignton; she would say and believe that the whole responsibility was borne on her shoulders; nevertheless, the preparation of that outfit would add years to the lives of every human creature beneath her roof.
“I can’t say that I look forward to the wedding itself, but I hope you will be happy. It would be nice for one of us to be happy. Captain Peignton is a good man; I hope he will be happy too.” Mary hesitated, and a pathetic curiosity showed itself in her face. “I suppose you couldn’t tell me what he said?”
Teresa shook her head.
“Ofcourse not! ... Very little really. It was in the car. The man ran us into the ditch. I was frightened, and... and then, of course—he comforted me! We got home so quickly that there was not much time.—He is coming to-morrow morning.”
Mary nodded, a light of comprehension brightening her eyes.
“You are quite sure he meant it? You are always so sure that you are right, and that everything ought to go as you wish. Don’t be too sure of him, Teresa! Even if you are properly engaged, don’t be too sure. He has only met you now and again for an hour at a time, and seen that you were young and pretty, and good at games. Now he will see you often. He may be disappointed and change his mind!”
“Am I so much worse than I appear?”
“I didn’t mean worse.”
“Then whatdidyou mean? Not better, evidently. What do you expect him to find out when he knows me better?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing to find.”
Teresa rose with an elaborate flutter of garments, and stood tall and straight by the bedside.
“I’d better go. It is evidently not the slightest use talking to you to-night. I think you have been very unsisterly and disagreeable. I wish I had never come in. I was so happy, and you have done nothing but throw cold water. Are you jealous, Mary, that you are so unkind?”
Mary gave her back look for look. A dull flush showed itself on her cheek-bones.
“Would it be such a wonderful thing if I were? Iamjealous; of course I am jealous. I have every reason to be jealous. You get everything, Teresa; and I get nothing. It has always been like that, and it always will be. You are strong, and I am weak; you are pretty, and I am plain; you are popular, and I am dull. You are masterful, and get your own way, and I am cowardly, and am beaten; but because one is dull, and cowardly, and plain, it doesn’t follow that one can’t feel—it doesn’t follow that one can’tache! I have ached for this all my life, and it has come to you. No one ever cared for me, but I should have made a good wife. I should have loved him more than you will ever love. You have wasted so much love on yourself, but I had it all to give. I loved a man once, as you love Captain Peignton, but he never thought of me. He married a girl with a pretty face, and lived close to us for nearly two years. Mother used to invite them here, and send me with messages to the house. I could not look out of the window without seeing them together, walking down the street, sitting in the garden. My bedroom window overlooked their summer-house. I used to see him come in and kiss her.”
Teresa shuddered.
“I should have gone mad! Poor old Mary! But why did you stand it? I should have gone away, and done something.”
“What?” Mary asked, and Teresa was silent. Mary had a way of asking questions which were impossible to answer. WhatcouldMary do? She was one of the vast army of middle-class daughters brought up to do nothing, and thereby as hopelessly imprisoned as any slave of old. She possessed no natural gifts nor accomplishments, she lacked the training which would have ensured excellence in any one department of domestic work, she was devoid of a personality which would make her mere companionship of marketable value. What could Mary do, and who would care to engage Mary to do it? Teresa was silent, finding no reply. She stood hesitating by the bedside, sympathetic but impatient. She was sorry; of course she was sorry, but to-night she wanted to be glad. It would have been better to have gone straight to her room.
“I couldn’t go away,” Mary continued slowly, “but they went—after two years! I fought so hard to deaden myself that I might not feel, that I seem to have been half dead ever since. It’s eight years since they left. I don’t love him now. I don’t think of him for months at a time; but that was my love affair, Teresa. There was never anyone else. There never will be now, and life goes on just the same year after year. It’s wicked, I suppose, but I wonder sometimes why women like me were ever born.”
“Mary, you are very useful. You work so hard—you are always working.”
“Little things!” said Mary, sighing. “Little things! Things with my hands. But a woman is notallhands.” She hitched the blankets once more, and lay back on the pillow. “You’d better go to bed. It’s getting late.”
“Good night, Mary; good old Mary! You shall come and stay with me in my house, and I’ll give you a real good time.”
Teresa turned away, eager to make her escape. She did not kiss her sister, for kisses were not frequent in the Mallison family, and the sudden unlocking of Mary’s sealed lips left an effect of strangeness, as if some stranger had taken her place. It was disturbing and disagreeable to realise that Mary couldfeel! She opened the door softly and was stepping over the threshold when Mary’s voice called in an urgent note. “More confidences!” sighed Teresa to herself, and stood still to listen.
“Did you remember to turn out the hall light?” asked Mary.