On a spring day, early in March of the next year, 1908, Mathew Cardinal thought that he would go and discover how his niece was prospering. He had seen nothing of her for a very long time.
He did not blame himself for this, but then he never blamed himself for anything. A fate, often drunken and always imbecile, was to blame for everything that he did, and he pitied himself sincerely for having to be in the hands of such a creature. He happened to be just now very considerably frightened about himself, more frightened than he had been for a very long time, so frightened in fact that he had drunk nothing for weeks. For many years he had been leading a see-saw existence, and the see-saw had been swung by that mysterious force known as Finance. He had a real gift for speculation, and had he been granted from birth a large income he might have ended his days as a Justice of the Peace and a Member of Parliament. Unfortunately he had never had any private means, and he had never been able to make enough by his mysterious speculations to float him into security—"Let me once get so far," he would say to himself, "and I am a made man." But drink, an easy tolerance of bad company, and a rather touching conceit had combined to divorce him from so fine a destiny. He had risen, he had fallen, made a good thing out of this tip, been badly done over that, and missed opportunity after opportunity through a fuddled brain and an overweening self-confidence.
Last year for several months everything had succeeded; it was during that happy period that he had visited Maggie. Perhaps it was well for his soul that success had not continued. He was a man whom failure improved, having a certain childish warmth of heart and simplicity of outlook when things went badly with him. Success made him abominably conceited, and being without any morality self-confidence drove him to disastrous lengths. Now once more he was very near destruction and he knew it, very near things like forging and highway robbery, and other things worse than they. He knew that he was very near; he peered over into the pit and did not wish to descend. He was not a bad man, and had he not believed himself to be a clever one all might yet have been well. The temptation of his cleverness lured him on. A stroke of the pen was a very simple thing...
To save his soul he thought that he would go and see Maggie. His affection for her, conceited and selfish though it was, was the most genuine thing in him. For three-quarters of the year he forgot her, but when life went badly he thought of her again—not that he expected to get anything out of her, but she was good to him and she knew nothing about his life, two fine bases for safety.
"What have they been doing to her, those damned hypocrites, I wonder," was his thought. He admired, feared, and despised his sisters. "All that stuff about God" frightened him in spite of himself, and he knew, in his soul, that Anne was no hypocrite.
He rang the bell and faced Martha. He had dressed himself with some care and was altogether more tidy just then, having a new mistress who cared about outside appearances. Also, having been sober for nearly two months, he looked a gentleman.
"Is my niece at home?" he asked, blinking because he was frightened of Martha.
She did not seem to be prepared to let him in.
"Miss Maggie has been very ill," she said, frowning at him.
"Ill?" That really hurt him. He stammered, "Why? ... When?"
She moved aside then for him to pass into the hall. He came into the dark stuffy place.
"Yes," said Martha. "Just after Christmas. Brain-fever, the doctors said. They thought she'd die for weeks. Had two doctors ... You can't see her, sir," she ended grumpily.
Then Aunt Anne appeared, coming through the green-baize door.
"Why, Mathew," she said. Mathew thought how ill she looked.
"They're all ill here," he said to himself.
"So Maggie's ill," he said, dropping his eyes before her as he always did.
"Yes," Aunt Anne answered. "She was very ill indeed, poor child. I'm glad to see you, Mathew. It's a long time since you've been."
He thought she was gentler to him than she had been, so, mastering his fear of her, fingering his collar, he said:
"Can't I see her?"
"Well, I'm not ... I think you might. It might do her good. She wants taking out of herself. She comes down for an hour or two every day now. I'll go and see." She left him standing alone there. He looked around him, sniffing like a dog. How he hated the house and everything in it! Always had ... You could smell that fellow Warlock's trail over everything. The black cat, Tom, came slipping along, looked for a moment as though he would rub himself against Mathew's stout legs, then decided that he would not. Mysterious this place like a well, with its green shadows. No wonder the poor child had been ill here. At the thought of her being near to death Mathew felt a choke in his throat. Poor child, never had any fun all her life and then to die in a green well like this. And his sisters wouldn't care if she did, hard women, hard women. Funny how religion made you hard, darn funny. Good thing he'd been irreligious all his life. Think of his brother Charles! There was religion for you, living with his cook and preaching to her next morning. Bad thing religion!
Aunt Anne returned, coming down the stairs with that queer halting gait of hers.
"Maggie's in the drawing-room," she said. "She'll like to see you."
As they went up, Aunt Anne said: "Be careful with her, Mathew. She's still very weak. Don't say anything to upset her?"
He mumbled something in his throat. Couldn't trust him. Of course they couldn't. Never had ... Fine sort of sisters they were.
Maggie was sitting by the fire, a shawl over her shoulders. By God, but she looked ill. Mathew had another gulp in his throat. Poor kid, but she did look ill. Poor kid, poor kid.
"Sorry you've been bad, Maggie," he said.
She looked up, smiling with pleasure, when she saw who it was. Yes, she was really pleased to see him. But how different a smile from the old one! No blood behind it, none of that old Maggie determination. He was filled with compassion. He took a chair close beside her and sat down, leaning towards her, his large rather sheepish eye gazing at her.
"What's been the matter?" he asked.
"I don't know," Maggie said. "I was suddenly ill one day, and after that I didn't know any more for weeks. But I'm much better now."
"Well, I'm delighted to hear that anyway," he said heartily. He was determined to cheer her up. "You'll be as right as rain presently."
"Of course I shall. I've felt so lazy, as though I didn't want to do anything. Now I must stir myself."
"Have the old women been good to you?" he asked, dropping his voice.
"Very," she answered.
"Not bothering you about all their religious tommy-rot?"
She looked down at her hands.
"No," she said.
"And that hypocritical minister of theirs hasn't been at you again?"
"Mr. Warlock's dead," she answered very quietly.
"Warlock dead!" Uncle Mathew half rose from his chair in his astonishment. "That fellow dead! Well, I'm damned, indeed I am. That fellow—! Well, there's a good riddance! I know it isn't good form to speak about a man who's kicked the bucket otherwise than kindly, but he was a weight on my chest that fellow was, with his long white beard and his soft voice ... Well, well. To be sure! Whatever will my poor sisters do? And what's happened to that young chap, his son, nice lad he was, took dinner with us that day last year?"
"He's gone away," said Maggie. Mathew, stupid though he was, heard behind the quiet of Maggie's voice a warning. He flung her a hurried surreptitious look. Her face was perfectly composed, her hands still upon her lap. Nevertheless he said to himself, "Danger there, my boy! Something's happened there!"
And yet his curiosity drove him for a moment further.
"Gone, has he? Where to?"
"He went abroad," said Maggie, "after his father's death. I don't know where he's gone."
"Oh, did he? Pity! Restless, I expect—I was at his age."
There was a little pause between them when Maggie sat very quietly looking at her hands. Then, smiling, she glanced up and said:
"But tell me about yourself, Uncle Mathew. You've told me nothing."
He fidgeted a little, shifting his thick legs, stroking his nose with his finger.
"I don't know that I've anything very good to tell you, my dear. Truth is, I haven't been doing so very well lately."
"Oh, Uncle, I'm sorry!"
"It's nothing to make yourself miserable about, my dear. I always turn my corners. Damn rocky ones they are sometimes too. Everything's turned itself wrong these last weeks, either too soon or too late. I don't complain, all the same it makes things a bit inconvenient. Thank you for that five pounds you sent me, my dear, very helpful it was I can tell you."
"Do you want another five pounds?" she asked him. He struggled with himself. His hesitation was so obvious that it was quite touching. She put her hand on his knee.
"Do have another five pounds, Uncle. It won't be difficult for me at all. I've been spending nothing all these weeks when I've been ill. Please do."
He shook his head firmly.
"No, my dear, I won't. As I came along I said to myself, 'Now, you'll be asking Maggie for money, and when she says "Yes" you're not to take it'—and so I'm not going to. I may be a rotter—but I'm not a rotten rotter."
He clung to his decision with the utmost resolve as though it were his last plank of respectability.
"I can't believe," he said to her with great solemnity, "that things can really go wrong. I know too much. It isn't men like me who go under. No. No."
He saw then her white face and strange grey ghostly eyes as though her soul had gone somewhere on a visit and the house was untenanted. He felt again the gulp in his throat. He bent forward, resting his fat podgy hand on her knee.
"Don't you worry, Maggie dear. I've always noticed that things are never bad for long. You've still got your old uncle, and you're young, and there are plenty of fish in the sea ... there are indeed. You cheer up! It will be all right soon."
She put her hands on his.
"Oh I'm not—worrying." But as she spoke a strange strangled little sob had crept unbidden into her throat, choking her.
He thought, as he got up, "It's that damned young feller I gave dinner to. I'd like to wring his neck."
But he said no more, bent closer and kissed her, said he was soon coming again, and went away.
After he had gone the house sank into its grey quiet again. What was Maggie thinking? No one knew. What was Aunt Anne thinking? No one knew ... But there was something between these two, Maggie and Aunt Anne. Every one felt it and longed for the storm to burst. Bad enough things outside with Mr. Warlock dead, members leaving right and left, and the Chapel generally going to wrack and ruin, but inside!
Old Martha, who had never liked Maggie, felt now a strange, uncomfortable pity for her. She didn't want to feel pity, no, not she, pity for no one, and especially not for an ugly untidy girl like that, but there it was, she couldn't help herself! Such a child that girl, and she'd been as nearly dead as nothing, and now she was suffering, suffering awful ... Any one could see ... All that Warlock boy. Martha had seen him come stumbling down the stairs that day and had heard Maggie's cry and then the fall. Awful noise it made. Awful. She'd stood in the hall, looking up the stairs, her heart beating like a hammer. Yes, just like a hammer! Then she'd gone up. It wasn't a nice sight, the poor girl all in a lump on the floor and Miss Anne just as she always looked before one of her attacks, as though she were made of grey glass from top to toe ...
But Martha hadn't pitied Maggie then. Oh, no. Might as well die as not. Who wanted her? No one. Not even her young man apparently.
Better if she died. But slowly something happened to Martha. Not that she was sentimental. Not in the least. But thoughts would steal in—steal in just when you were at your work. The girl lying there so good and patient—all the pots and pans winking at you from the kitchen-wall. Must remember to order that ketchup—cold last night in bed—think another blanket ... yes, very good and patient. Can't deny it. Always smiles just that same way. Smiles at every one except Miss Arne. Won't smile at her. Wonder why not? Something between those two. What about dinner? A little onion fry—that's the thing these damp days—Onion fry—Onion Fry. ONION FRY ... One last look back before the world is filled with the sense, smell, and taste of it.—Poor girl, so white and so patient—the young man will never come back—never ... never ... ONION FRY.
No; no one knew what Maggie was thinking. No one found out until Maggie had her second visitor, Miss Avies.
When Martha opened the door to Miss Avies she was astonished. Miss Avies hadn't been near the house since old Warlock died. What was she wanting here now, with her stiff back and bossy manner.
"I don't know whether you can see—"
"Oh nonsense, it's Maggie Cardinal I want to see. She's now in the drawing-room sitting on a chair with a shawl on by the fire. Don't tell me!"
Martha quivered with anger. "The doctor's orders is—"
"I'm going to be doctor to-day," she said, and strode inside. She went upstairs and found Aunt Elizabeth sitting with Maggie.
"How do you do, Miss Cardinal?" They shook hands, Miss Avies standing over Aunt Elizabeth like the boa constrictor raised above the mouse.
"That's all right ... No, I don't want to see your sister. And to be quite honest, I don't want to see you either. It's your niece I want to see. And alone—"
"Certainly—it's only the doctor said—"
"Not to excite her. I know. But I'm not going to excite her. I'm going to give her some medicine. You come back in half an hour from now. Will you? That's right. Thank you so much."
Aunt Elizabeth, unhappy, uncomfortable, filled with misgivings, as in these days she always was, left the room.
"Well, there ... that's right," said Miss Avies, settling herself in the opposite side of the fire from Maggie and looking at her with not unfriendly eyes. "How are you?"
"Oh much better, thank you," said Maggie. "Ever so much better."
"No, you're not," said Miss Avies. "And you're only lying when you say you are. You'll never get better unless you do what I tell you—"
"What's that?" asked Maggie.
"Face things. Face everything. Have it all out. Don't leave a bit of it alone, and then just keep what's useful."
"I don't quite know what you mean," said Maggie—but the faint colour had faded from her cheeks and her hands had run together for protection.
Miss Avies's voice softened—"I'm probably going away very soon," she said, "going away and not coming back. All my work's over here. But I wanted to see you before I went. You remember another talk we had here?"
"Very well," said Maggie.
"You remember what I told you?"
"You told me not to stay here," said Maggie.
"Yes, I did," said Miss Avies, "and I meant it. The matter with you is that you've been kept here all this time without any proper work to do and that's been very bad for you and made you sit with your hands folded in front of you, your head filling with silly fancies."
Maggie couldn't help smiling at this description of herself.
"Oh, you smile," said Miss Avies vigorously, "but it's perfectly true."
"Well, it's all right now." said Maggie, "because I am going away—as soon as ever I'm well enough." "What to do?" asked Miss Avies.
"I don't quite know yet," said Maggie.
"Well, I know," said Miss Avies. "You're going away to brood over that young man."
Maggie said nothing.
"Oh I know ... It seems cruel of me to speak of it just when you've had such a bad time, but it's kindness really. If I don't force you to think it all out and face it properly you'll be burying it in some precious spot and always digging it up to look at it. You face it, my girl. You say to yourself—well, he wasn't such a wonderful young man after all. I can lead my life all right without him—of course I can. I'm not going to be dependent on him and sigh and groan and waste away because I can't see him. I know what it is. I've been through it myself."
Then there was a pause; then Maggie suddenly looked up and smiled.
"But you're quite wrong, Miss Avies. I've no intention of not facing Martin, and I've no intention either of having my life ruined because he's not here. At first, when I was very ill, I was unhappy, and then I saw how silly I was."
"Why?" said Miss Avies with great pleasure. "You've got over it already! I must say I'm delighted because I never thought much of Martin Warlock if you want to know, my dear. I always thought him a weak young man, and he wouldn't have done you any good. I'm delighted—indeed I am."
"That's not true either," said Maggie quietly. "If by getting over it you mean that I don't love Martin you're quite wrong. I loved him the first moment I saw him and I shall love him in just the same way until I die. I don't think it matters what he does or where he is so far as loving him goes. But that doesn't mean I'm sitting and pining. I'm not."
Miss Avies looked at her with displeasure.
"It's the same thing then," she said. "You may fancy you're going to lead an ordinary life again, but all the time you'll just be waiting for him to come back."
"No," said Maggie, "I shall not. I've had plenty of time for thinking these last weeks, and I've made up my mind to his never coming back—never at all. And even if he did come back he mightn't want me. So I'm not going to waste time about it. I shall find work and make myself useful somewhere, but I shall always love Martin just as I do now."
"You're very young," said Miss Avies, touched in spite of herself. "Later on you'll find some one much better than young Warlock."
"Perhaps I shall," said Maggie. "But what's the use of that if he isn't Martin? I've heard people say that before—some one's 'better' or 'stronger' or 'wiser.'—But what has that got to do with it? I love Martin because he's Martin. He's got a weak character you say. That's why he wants me, and I want to be wanted more than anything on earth."
"Why, child," said Miss Avies, astonished. "How you've grown these last weeks!"
"Do you want to know how I love Martin," said Maggie, "so that there shall be no mistake about it? Well, I can't tell you. I couldn't tell any one. I don't know how I love him, but I know that I shall never change or alter all my life—even though he never comes back again. I've given over being silly," she went on. "There were days and days at first when I just wanted to die. But now I'm going to make my own life and have a good time—and never stop loving Martin for one single second."
"Supposing," said Miss Avies, "some one wanted to marry you? Would you?"
"It would depend," said Maggie; "if I liked him and he really wanted me and I could help him I might. Only, of course, I'd tell him about Martin first."
She went on after a little pause: "You see, Miss Avies, I haven't been very happy with my aunts, and I always thought it was their fault that I wasn't. But during these weeks when I've been lying in bed I saw that it was my own fault for being so gloomy about everything. Now that I've got Martin—"
"Got him!" interrupted Miss Avies; "why, you've only just lost him!"
"No, I haven't," answered Maggie. "He didn't go away because he hated me or was tired of me, he went away because he didn't want to do me any harm, and I think he cared for me more just at that minute than he'd ever done before. So I've nothing to spoil my memory of him. I daresay we wouldn't have got on well, together, I don't think I would ever have fascinated him enough to keep him with me for very long—but now I know that he loved me at the very moment he went away and wasn't thinking how ugly I was or what a nasty temper I had or how irritating I could be."
"But, my dear child," said Miss Avies, astonished. "How can you say you loved one another if you were always quarrelling and expecting to part?" "We weren't always quarrelling," said Maggie. "We weren't together enough, but if we had been it wouldn't have meant that we didn't love one another. I don't think we'd ever been very happy, but being happy together doesn't seem to me the only sign of love. Love seems to me to be moments of great joy rising from every kind of trouble and bother. I don't call tranquillity happiness."
"Well, you have thought things out," said Miss Avies, "and all of us considering you so stupid—"
"I'm not going to squash myself into a corner any more," said Maggie. "Why should I? I find I'm as good as any one else. I made Martin love me—even though it was only for a moment. So I'm going to be shy no longer."
"And here was I thinking you heart-broken," said Miss Avies.
"I'm going out into the world," said Maggie half to herself. "I'm going to have adventures. I've been in this house long enough. I'm going to see what men and women are really like—I know this isn't real here. And I want to discover about religion too. Since Martin went away I've felt that there was something in it. I can't think what and the aunts can't think either; none of you know here, but some one must have found out something. I'm going to settle what it all means."
"You've got your work cut out," said Miss Avies. "I'll come and see you again one day soon."
"Yes, do," said Maggie.
When Miss Avies had gone Maggie realised that she had been talking with bravado—in fact she hid her head in the cushion of the chair and cried for at least five minutes. Then she sat up and wiped her eyes because she heard Aunt Anne coming. When Aunt Anne came towards her now she was affected with a strange feeling of sickness. She told herself that that was part of her illness. She did not hate Aunt Anne. For some weeks, when she had risen slowly from the nightmare that the first period of her illness had been, she hated Aunt Anne, hated her fiercely, absorbingly, desperately. Then suddenly the hatred had left her, and had she only known it she was from that moment never to hate any one again. A quite new love for Martin was suddenly born in her, a love that was, as yet, like the first faint stirring of the child in the mother's womb. This new love was quite different from the old; that had been acquisitive, possessive, urgent, restless, and often terribly painful; this was tranquil, sure, utterly certain, and passive. The immediate fruit of it was that she regarded all human creatures with a lively interest, an interest too absorbing to allow of hatred or even active dislike. Her love for Martin was now like a strong current in her soul washing away all sense of irritation and anger. She regarded people from a new angle. What were they all about? What were they thinking? Had they too had some experience as marvellous as her meeting with and parting from Martin? Probably; and they too were shy of speaking of it. Her love for Martin slowly grew, a love now independent of earthly contact and earthly desire, a treasure that would be hers so long as life lasted, that no one could take from her.
She no longer hated Aunt Anne, but she did not intend to live with her any more. So soon as she was well enough she would go. That moment of physical contact when Aunt Anne had held her back made any more relation between them impossible. There was now a great gulf fixed.
The loneliness, the sense of desperate loss, above all the agonising longing for Martin, his step, his voice, his smile—she faced all these and accepted them as necessary companions now on her life's journey, but she did not intend to allow them to impede progress. She wondered now about everybody. Her own experience had shown her what strange and wonderful things occur to all human beings, and, in the face of this, how could one hate or grudge or despise? She had a fellowship now with all humanity.
But she was as ignorant about life as ever. The things that now she wanted to know! About Aunt Anne, for instance. How had she been affected by Mr. Warlock's death and the disappointment of her expectations? The Chapel now apparently was to be taken over by Thurston, who had married Amy Warlock and was full of schemes and enterprises. Maggie knew that the aunts went now very seldom to Chapel, and the Inside Saints were apparently in pieces. Was Aunt Anne utterly broken by all this? She did not seem to be so. She seemed to be very much as she had been, except that she was in her room now a great deal. Her health appeared, on the whole, to be better than it had been. And what was Aunt Elizabeth thinking? And Martha? And Miss Avies? And Caroline Smith? ...
No, she must get out into the world and discover these things for herself. She did not know how the way of escape would come, but she was certain of its arrival.
It arrived, and through her third visitor. Her third visitor was Mrs. Mark.
When Katherine Mark came in Maggie was writing to Uncle Mathew. She put aside her writing-pad with a little exclamation of surprise. Mrs. Mark, the very last person in all the world whom she had expected to see! As she saw her come in she had a swift intuition that this was Destiny now that was dealing with her, and that a new scene, involving every sort of new experience and adventure, was opening before her. More than ever before she realised how far Katherine Mark was from the world in which she, Maggie, had during all these months been living. Katherine Mark was Real—Real in her beautiful quiet clothes, in her assurance, her ease, the sense that she gave that she knew life and love and business and all the affairs of men at first hand, not only seen through a mist of superstition and ignorance, or indeed not seen at all.
"This is what I want," something in Maggie called to her.
"This will make me busy and quiet and sensible—at last—"
When Katherine Mark sat down and took her hand for a moment, smiling at her in the kindliest way, Maggie felt as though she had known her all her life.
"Oh! I'm so glad you've come!" she cried spontaneously; and then, as though she felt she'd gone too far, she blushed and drew back.
But Katherine held her hand fast.
"I wrote," she said, "some weeks ago to you, and your aunt answered the letter saying you were very ill. Then, as I heard nothing of you, I was anxious and came to see what had happened. You've not kept your word, Maggie, you know. We were to have been great friends, and you've never been near me."
At the use of her Christian name Maggie blushed with pleasure.
"I couldn't come," she said. "I didn't want to until—until—until some things had settled themselves."
"Well—and they have?" asked Katherine.
"Yes—they have," said Maggie.
"What's been the matter?" asked Katherine.
"I was worried about something, and then I was ill," said Maggie.
"And you're not worried now?" said Katherine.
"I'm not going to give in to it, anyway," said Maggie. "As soon as I'm well, I'm off. I'll find some work somewhere."
"I've got a plan," said Katherine. "It came into my head the moment I saw you sitting there. Will you come and stay with us for a little?"
That sense that Maggie had had when she saw Katherine of fate having a hand in all of this deepened now and coloured her thoughts, so that she could feel no surprise but only a curious instinct that she had been through all this scene before.
"Stay with you!" she cried. "Oh, I should love to!"
"That's good," said Katherine. "Your aunts won't mind, will they?"
"They can't keep me," said Maggie. "I'm free. But they won't want to. Our time together is over—"
"I'll come and fetch you to-morrow," said Katherine. "You shall stay with us until you're quite well, and then we'll find some work for you."
"Why are you good to me like this?" Maggie asked.
"I'm not good to you," Katherine answered, laughing. "It's simply selfish. It will be lovely for me having you with me."
"Oh, you don't know," said Maggie, throwing up her head.
"No, I don't think I'll come. I'm frightened. I'm not what you think. I'm untidy and careless and can't talk to strangers. Perhaps I'll lose you altogether as a friend if I come."
"You'll never do that," said Katherine, suddenly bending forward and kissing her. "I don't change about people. It's because I haven't any imagination, Phil says."
"I shall make mistakes," Maggie said. "I've never been anywhere. But I don't care. I can look after myself."
The thought of her three hundred pounds (which were no longer three hundred) encouraged her. She kissed Katherine.
"I don't change either," she said.
She had a strange conversation with Aunt Anne that night, strange as every talk had always been because of things left unsaid. They faced one another across the fireplace like enemies who might have been lovers; there had been from the very first moment of this meeting a romantic link between them which had never been defined. They had never had it out with one another, and they were not going to have it out now; but Maggie, who was never sentimental, wondered at the strange mixture of tenderness, pity, affection, irritation and hostility that she felt.
"Aunt Anne, I'm going away to-morrow," said Maggie.
"To-morrow!" Aunt Anne looked up with her strange hostile arrogance. "Oh no, Maggie. You're not well yet."
"Mrs. Mark," said Maggie, "the lady I told you about, is coming in a motor to fetch me. She will take me straight to her house, and then I shall go to bed."
Aunt Anne said nothing.
"You know that it's better for me to go," said Maggie. "We can't live together any more after what happened. You and Aunt Elizabeth have been very very good to me, but you know now that I'm a disappointment. I haven't ever fitted into the life here. I never shall."
"The life here is over," said Aunt Anne. "Everything is over—the house is dead. Of course you must go. If you feel anger with me now or afterwards remember that I have lost every hope or desire I ever had. I don't want your pity. I want no one's pity. I wanted once your affection, but I wanted it on my own terms. That was wrong. I do not want your affection any longer; you were never the girl I thought you. You're a strange girl, Maggie, and you will have, I am afraid, a very unhappy life."
"No, I will not," said Maggie. "I will have a happy life."
"That is for God to say," said Aunt Anne.
"No, it is not," said Maggie. "I can make my own happiness. God can't touch it, if I don't let Him."
"Maggie, you're blasphemous," said Aunt Anne, but not in anger.
"I'm not," said Maggie. "When I came here first I didn't believe in God, but now—I'm not sure. There's something strange, which may be God for all I know. I'm going to find out. If He has the doing of everything then He's taken away all I cared for, and I'm not going to give Him the satisfaction of seeing that it hurt; if He didn't do it, then it doesn't matter."
"You'll believe in Him before you die, Maggie," said Aunt Anne. "It's in you, and you won't escape it. I thought it was I who was to bring you to Him, but I was going too fast. The Lord has His own time. You'll come to Him afterwards."
"Oh," cried Maggie. "I'm so glad I'm going somewhere where it won't be always religion, where they'll think of something else than the Lord and His Coming. I want real life, banks and motor-cars and shops and clothes and work ..."
She stopped suddenly.
Aunt Anne was doing what Maggie had never seen her do before, even in the worst bouts of her pain—she was crying ... cold solitary lonely tears that crept slowly, reluctantly down her thin cheeks.
"I meant to do well. In everything I have done ill ... Everything has failed in my hands—"
Once again, as long before at St. Dreot's, Maggie could do nothing.
There was a long miserable silence, then Aunt Anne got up and went away.
Next day Katherine came in a beautiful motor-car to fetch Maggie. Maggie had packed her few things. Bound her neck next her skin was the ring with three pearls ...
She said good-bye to the house: her bedroom beneath which the motor-omnibuses clanged, the sitting-room with the family group, the passage with the Armed Men, the dark hall with the green baize door ... then good-bye to Aunt Elizabeth (two kisses), Aunt Anne (one kiss), Martha, Thomas the cat, the parrot ... all, everything, good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!
May I never see any of you again. Never, never, never, never! ...
She was helped into the car, rugs were wrapped round her, there was a warm cosy smell of rich leather, a little clock ticked away, a silver vase with red and blue flowers winked at her, and Katherine was there close beside her ...
Never again, never again! And yet how strange, as they turned the corner of the street down into the Strand, Maggie felt a sudden pang of regret, of pathos, of loneliness, as though she were leaving something that had loved her dearly, and leaving it without a word of friendliness.
"Poor dear!" She wanted to return, to tell it ... to tell it what? She had made her choice. She was plunging now into the other half of the world, and plunging not quite alone, because she was taking Martin with her.
"I do hope you won't mind, dear," said Katherine. "My cousin Paul—the clergyman you met once—is staying with us. He and his sister. No one else."
"Oh, I shan't mind," said Maggie. Her fingers, inside her blouse, tightly clutched the little pearl ring.
For a week Maggie was so comfortable that she could think of nothing but that. It must be remembered that she had never before known what comfort was, never at St. Dreot's, never at Aunt Anne's, and these two places had been the background of all her life.
She had never conceived of the kind of way that she now lived. Her bedroom was so pretty that it made her almost cry to look at it: the wall-paper scattered with little rosy trees, the soft pink cretonne on the chairs, the old bureau with a sheet of glass covering its surface that was her dressing-table, the old gold mirror—all these things were wonders indeed. She was ordered to have breakfast in bed; servants looked after her with a kindliness and ease and readiness to help that she had never dreamed of as possible. The food was wonderful; there was the motor ready to take her for a drive in the afternoon, and there was the whole house at her service, soft and cosy and ordered so that it seemed to roll along upon its own impulse without any human agency.
"I believe if every one went away and left it," she thought, "it would go on in exactly the same way."
Figures gradually took their places in front of this background. The principals at first were Katherine and Philip, Henry and Millicent, Katherine's brother and sister, Mr. Trenchard senior, Katherine's father, Lady Rachel Seddon, Katherine's best friend, and Mr. Faunder, Katherine's uncle. She saw at once that they all revolved around Katherine; if Katherine were not there they would not hold together at all. They were all so different—so different and yet so strangely alike. There was, for instance, Millicent Trenchard, whom Maggie liked best of them all after Katherine. Millie was a young woman of twenty-one, pretty, gay, ferociously independent, enthusiastic about one thing after another, with hosts of friends, male and female, none of whom she took very seriously. The love of her life, she told Maggie almost at once, was Katherine. She would never love any one, man or woman, so much again. She lived with her mother and father in an old house in Westminster, and Maggie understood that there had been some trouble about Katherine's marriage, so that, although it happened three years ago, Mrs. Trenchard would not come to see Katherine and would not allow Katherine to come and see her.
Then there was Henry, a very strange young man. He was at Cambridge and said to be very clever. He did indeed seem to lead a mysterious life of his own and paid very little attention to Maggie, asking her once whether she did not think The Golden Ass wonderful, and what did she think of Petronius; and when Maggie laughed and said that she was glad to say she never read anything, he left her in an agitated horror. Lady Rachel Seddon was very grand and splendid, and frightened Katherine. She was related to every kind of duke and marquis, and although that fact did not impress Maggie in the least, it did seem to remove Lady Rachel into quite another world.
But they were all in another world—Maggie discovered that at once. They had, of course, every sort of catch-word and allusion and joke that no one but themselves and the people whom they brought into the house understood; Katherine was kindness itself. Philip too (he seemed to Maggie a weak, amiable young man) took a lot of trouble about her, but they did not belong to her nor she to them.
"And why should they?" said Maggie to herself. "I must look on it as though I were staying at a delightful hotel and were going on with my journey very soon."
There was somebody, however, who did not belong any more than Maggie did, and very soon he became Maggie's constant companion—this was the Rev. Paul Trenchard, Katherine's cousin.
From the very moment months ago, when Maggie and he had first met in Katherine's drawing-room, they had been friends. He had liked her, Maggie felt, at once. She on her side was attracted by a certain childlike simplicity and innocence. This very quality, she soon saw, moved the others, Philip and Henry and Mr. Trenchard senior, to derision. They did not like the Rev. Paul. They chaffed him, and he was very easily teased, because he was not clever and did not see their jokes. This put Maggie up in arms in his defence at once. But they had all the layman's distrust of a parson. They were all polite to him, of course, and Maggie discovered that in this world politeness was of the very first importance, so that you really never said what you thought nor did what you wanted to. They frankly could not understand why Katherine asked the parson to stay, but because they loved Katherine they were as nice to him as their natures would allow them to be. Paul did not apparently notice that they put him outside their life. He was always genial, laughed a great deal when there WAS no reason to laugh at all, and told simple little stories in whose effect he profoundly believed. He was supported in his confidence by his sister Grace, who obviously adored him. She too was "outside" the family, but she seemed to be quite happy telling endless stories of Paul's courage and cleverness and popularity. She did indeed believe that Skeaton-on-Sea, where Paul had his living, was the hub of the universe, and this amused all the Trenchard family very much indeed. It must not be supposed that Paul and his sister were treated unkindly. They were shown the greatest courtesy and hospitality, but Maggie knew that that was only because it was the Trenchard tradition to do so, and not from motives of affection or warmth of heart.
They could be warm-hearted; it was wonderful to see the way that they all adored Katherine, and they had many friends for whom they would do anything, but the Rev. Paul seemed to them frankly an ass, and they would be glad when he went away.
He did not seem to Maggie an ass. She thought him the kindest person she had ever known, kinder even than Katherine, because with Katherine there was the faintest suspicion of patronage; no, not of patronage—that was unfair ... but of an effort to put herself in exactly Maggie's place so that she might understand perfectly what were Maggie's motives. With Paul Trenchard there was no effort, no deliberate slipping out of one world into another one. He was frankly delighted to tell Maggie everything—all about Skeaton-on-Sea and its delights, about the church and its marvellous east window, about the choir and the difficulties with the choir-boys and the necessity for repairing the organ, about the troubles with the churchwardens, especially one Mr. Bellows, who, in his cantankerous and dyspeptic objections to everything that any one proposed, became quite a lively figure to Maggie's imagination, about the St. John's Brotherhood which had been formed to keep the "lads" out of the public-houses and was doing so well, about the Shakespeare Reading Society and a Mrs. Tempest (who also became a live figure in Maggie's brain), "a born tragedian" and wonderful as Lady Macbeth and Katherine of Aragon. Skeaton slowly revealed itself to Maggie as a sunny sparkling place, with glittering sea, shining sand, and dark cool woods, full of kindliness, too, and friendship and good-humour. Paul and Grace Trenchard seemed to be the centre of this sunshine. How heartily Paul laughed as he recounted some of the tricks and escapades of his "young scamps." "Dear fellows," he would say, "I love them all ..." and Grace sat by smiling and nodding her head and beaming upon her beloved brother.
To Maggie, fresh from the dark and confused terrors of the Chapel, it was all marvellous. Here was rest indeed, here, with Martin cherished warmly in her heart, she might occupy herself with duties and interests. Here surely she would be useful to "somebody." She heard a good deal of an old Mr. Toms, "a little queer in his head, poor man," who seemed to figure in the outskirts of Skeaton society as a warning and a reassurance. ("No one in Skeaton thinks of him in any way but tenderly.") Maggie wondered whether he might not want looking after ...
The thought gradually occurred to her that this kindly genial clergyman might perhaps find her some work in Skeaton. He even himself hinted at something ... She might be some one's secretary or housekeeper.
About Grace Trenchard Maggie was not quite so sure. She was kindness itself and liked to hold Maggie's hand and pat it—but there was no doubt at all that she was just a little bit tiresome. Maggie rebuked herself for thinking this, but again and again the thought arose. Grace was in a state of perpetual wonder, everything amazed her. You would not think to look at her flat broad placidity that she was a creature of excitement, and it might be that her excitement was rather superficial. She would say: "Why! Just fancy, Maggie! ... To-day's Tuesday!" Then you wondered what was coming next and nothing came at all. She had endless stories about her adventures in the streets of London, and these stories were endless because of all the details that must be fitted in, and then the details slipped out of her grasp and winked at her maliciously as they disappeared. The fact was perhaps that she was not very clever, but then Maggie wasn't very clever either, so she had no right to criticise Miss Trenchard, who was really as amiable as she could be. Henry Trenchard said once to Maggie in his usual scornful way:
"Oh, Grace! ... She's the stupidest woman in Skeaton, which means the stupidest woman in the world."
The Trenchards, Maggie thought, were rather given to scorning every one save themselves. Even Philip, who was not a Trenchard, had caught the habit. Katherine, of course, despised no one and liked every one, but that was rather tiresome too.
In fact at the end of her first week Maggie thought that as soon as possible she would find a room for herself somewhere and start to earn her living. She discovered that she was developing a new sensitiveness. When she was living with the aunts she had not minded very seriously the criticisms made upon her; she had indeed been disappointed when Aunt Anne had not admired her new dress, and she had hated Amy Warlock's rudeness, but that was because Martin had been involved. This new sensitiveness worried her; she hated to care whether people laughed at the way she came into a room or whether she expressed foolish opinions about books and pictures. She had always said just what she thought, but now, before Philip's kindly attention and Mr. Trenchard senior's indulgence (he wrote books and articles in the papers), she hated her ignorance. Paul Trenchard knew frankly nothing about Art. "I know what I like," he said, "and that's enough for me." He liked Watts's pictures and In Memoriam and Dickens, and he heard The Messiah once a year in London if he could leave his parish work. He laughed about it all. "The souls of men! The souls of men!" he would say. "That is what I'm after, Miss Cardinal. You're not going to catch them with the latest neurotic novel, however well it's written."
Oh, he was kind to her! He was kinder and kinder and kinder. She told him everything—except about Martin. She told him all about her life at St. Dreot's and her father and Uncle Mathew, the aunts and the Chapel.
He was frankly shocked by the Chapel. "That's not the way to get into heaven," he said. "We must be more patient than that. The daily round, the daily task, that's the kind."
His physical presence began to pervade all her doings. He was not handsome, but so clean, so rosy, and so strong. No mystery about him, no terrors, no invasions from the devil. Everything was clear and certain. He knew just where he was and exactly whither he was going. One afternoon, when they were out in the motor together, he took Maggie's hand under the rug and he held it so calmly, so firmly, with so kindly a benevolence that she could not be frightened or uncomfortable. He was like a large friendly brother ...
One day he called her Maggie. He blushed and laughed. "I'm so sorry," he said. "It slipped out. I caught it from Katherine."
"Oh, please, ... never mind," she answered. "Miss Cardinal's so stiff."
"Then you must call me Paul," he said.
A little conversation that Maggie had after this with Millicent showed her in sharp relief exactly where she stood in relation to the Trenchard family. They had been out in the motor together. Millie had been shopping and now they were rolling back through the Park.
"Are you happy with us, Maggie?" Millicent suddenly asked.
"Very happy," Maggie answered.
"Well, I hope you are," said Millicent. "I don't think that as a family we're very good at making any one happy except ourselves. I think we're very selfish."
"No, I don't think you're selfish," said Maggie, "but I think you're sufficient for yourselves. I don't fancy you really want any one from outside."
"No, I don't think the others do. I do though. You don't suppose I'm going to stay in the Trenchard bosom for ever, do you? I'm not, I assure you. But what you've said means that you don't really feel at home with us."
"I don't think I want to feel at home with you," Maggie answered. "I don't belong to any of you. Contrast us, for instance. You've got everything—good looks, money, cleverness, position. You can get what you like out of life. I've got nothing. I'm plain, poor, awkward, uneducated—and yet you know I wouldn't change places with any one. I'd rather be myself than any one alive."
"Yes, you would," said Millicent, nodding her head. "That's you all over. I felt it the moment you came into the house. You're adventurous. We're not. Katherine was adventurous for a moment when she married Philip, but she soon slipped back again. But you'll do just what you want to always."
"I shall have to," said Maggie, laughing. "There's no one else to do it for me. It isn't only that I don't belong to you—I've never belonged to any one, only one person—and he's gone now. I belong to him—and he'll never come back."
"Were you frightfully in love?" asked Millie, deeply interested.
"Yes," said Maggie.
"He oughtn't to have gone away like that," said Millicent.
"Yes, he ought," said Maggie. "He was quite right. But don't let's bother about that. I've got to find some place now where I can work. The worst of it is I'm so ignorant. But there must be something that I ran do."
"There's Paul," said Millie.
"What do you mean?" asked Maggie.
"Oh, he cares like anything for you. You must have noticed. It began after the first time he met you. He was always asking about you. Of course every one's noticed it."
"Cares for me," Maggie repeated.
"Yes, of course. He's wanted to marry for a long time. Tired of Grace bossing him, I expect. That doesn't sound very polite to you, but I know that he cares for you apart from that—for yourself, I mean. And I expect Grace is tired of housekeeping."
Maggie's feelings were very strange. Why should he care about her? Did she want him to care? A strange friendly feeling stole about her heart. She was not alone then, after all. Some one wanted her, wanted her so obviously that every one had noticed it—did not want her as Martin had wanted her, against his own will and judgment. If he did offer her his home what would she feel?
There was rest there, rest and a real home, a home that she had never in all her life known. Of course she did not love him in the least. His approach did not make her pulses beat a moment faster, she did not long for him to come when he was not there—but he wanted her! That was the great thing. He wanted her!
"Of course if he asked you, you wouldn't really think of marrying him?" said Millicent.
"I don't know," said Maggie slowly.
"What! Marry him and live in Skeaton!" Millicent was frankly amazed. "Why, Skeaton's awful, and the people in it are awful, and Grace is awful. In the summer it's all nigger-minstrels and bathing-tents, and in the winter there isn't a soul—" Millicent shivered.
Maggie smiled. "Of course it seems dull to you, but my life's been very different. It hasn't been very exciting, and if I could really help him—" she broke off. "I do like him," she said. "He's the kindest man I've ever met. Of course he seems dull to you who have met all kinds of brilliant people. I hate brilliant people."
The car was in Bryanston Square. Just before it stopped Millie bent over and kissed Maggie.
"I think you're a darling," she said.
But Millie didn't think Maggie "a darling" for long—that is, she did not think about her at all for long; none of the family did.
So quiet was Maggie, so little in any one's way that, at the end of a fortnight, she made no difference to any one in the house. She was much better now, looking a different person, colour in her cheeks and light in her eyes. During her illness they had cut her hair and this made her look more than ever like a boy. She wore her plain dark dresses, black and dark blue; they never quite fitted and, with her queer odd face, her high forehead, rather awkward mouth, and grave questioning eyes she gave you the impression that she had been hurried into some disguise and was wearing it with discomfort but amusement. Some one who met her at the Trenchards at this time said of her: "What a funny girl! She's like a schoolboy dressed up to play a part in the school speeches." Of course she was not playing a part, no one could have been more entirely natural and honest, but she was odd, strange, out of her own world, and every one felt it.
It was, perhaps, this strangeness that attracted Paul Trenchard. He was, above everything, a kindly man-kindly, perhaps a little through laziness, but nevertheless moved always by distress or misfortune in others. Maggie was not distressed—she was quite cheerful and entirely unsentimental—nevertheless she had been very ill, was almost penniless, had had some private trouble, was an orphan, had no friends save two old aunts, and was amazingly ignorant of the world.
This last was, perhaps, the thing that struck him most of all. He, too, was ignorant of the world, but he didn't know that, and he was amazed at the things that Maggie brushed aside as unimportant. He found that he was beginning to think of her as "my little heathen." His attitude was the same as that of a good missionary discovering a naked but trusting native.
The thought of training this virgin mind was delightful to him.
He liked her quaintness, and one day suddenly, to his own surprise, when they were alone in the drawing-room, he kissed her, a most chaste kiss, gently on the forehead.
"Oh. my dear child—" he said in a kind of dismay.
She looked up at him with complete confidence. So gentle a kiss had it been that it had been no more than a pressure of the hand.
A few days later Katherine spoke to her. She came up to her bedroom just as Maggie was beginning to undress. Maggie stood in front of the glass, her evening frock off, brushing her short thick hair before the glass.
"Have you made any plans yet, dear?" asked Katherine.
Maggie shook her head.
"No." she said. "Not yet."
Katherine hesitated.
"I've got a confession to make," she said at last.
Maggie turned to look at her with her large childish eyes.
"Oh, I do hope you've done something wrong," she said, laughing, "something really bad that I should have to 'overlook.'"
"What do you mean?" asked Katherine.
Maggie only said: "We'd be more on a level then."
"I don't think it's anything very bad. But the truth is, Maggie, that I didn't ask you here only for my own pleasure and to make you well. There was a third reason."
"I know," said Maggie; "Paul."
"My dear!" said Katherine, amazed. "How did you guess? I never should have done."
"Paul's asked you to find out whether I like him," said Maggie.
"Yes," said Katherine.
"Well, I do like him." said Maggie.
"Don't think that I've been unfair," said Katherine. They were sitting now side by side on Maggie's bed and Katherine's hand was on Maggie's knee. "I'll tell you exactly how it happened. Paul was interested in you from the moment that he saw you at my house ever so long ago. He asked ever so many questions about you, and the next time he stayed he wanted me to write and ask you to come and stay. Well, I didn't. I knew from what you told me that you cared for somebody else, and I didn't want to get Paul really fond of you if it was going to be no good. You see, I've known Paul for ages. He's nearly ten years older than I, but he used to come and stay with us at Garth, when he was at Cambridge and before he was a clergyman."
"I'm very fond of him. I know the others think he's stupid simply because he doesn't know the things that they do, but he's good and kind and honest, and just exactly what he seems to be."
"I like him," repeated Maggie, nodding her head.
"He's been wanting to be married," went on Katherine, "for some time. I'm going to tell you everything so that I shall have been perfectly fair. Grace wants him to be married too. All her life she's looked after him and he's always done exactly what she told him. He's rather lazy and it's not hard for some one to get an influence over him. Well, she's not really a very good manager. She thinks she is, but she isn't. She arranges things and wants things to stay just where she puts them, but she arranges all the wrong unnecessary things. Still, it's easy to criticise, and I'm not a very good manager myself. I think she's growing rather tired of it and would like some one to take it off her hands. Of course Paul must marry the right person, some one whom she can control and manage, and some one who won't transplant her in Paul's affection. That's her idea. But it's all nonsense, of course. You can't have your cake and eat it. She simply doesn't understand what marriage is like. When Paul marries she'll learn more about life in a month than she's learnt in all her days. Well, Maggie, dear, she thinks you're just the girl for Paul. She thinks she can do what she likes with you. She thinks you're nice, of course, but she's going to 'form' you and 'train' you. You needn't worry about that, you needn't really, if you care about Paul. You'd manage both of them in a week. But there it is—I thought I ought to warn you about Grace."
"As to Paul, I believe you'd be happy. You'd have your home and your life and your friends. Skeaton isn't so bad if you live in it, I believe, and Paul could get another living if you weren't happy there."
Did Katherine have any scruples as she pursued her argument? A real glance at Maggie's confiding trustful gaze might have shaken her resolve. This child who knew so little about anything—was Skeaton the world for her? But Katherine had so many philanthropies that she was given to finishing one off a little abruptly in order to make ready for the next one.
She was interested just now in a scheme for adopting illegitimate babies. She thought Maggie an "angel" and she just longed for her to be happy. Nevertheless Maggie was very ignorant, and it was a little difficult to see what trade or occupation she would be able to adopt. She was nearly well now and Katherine did not know quite what to do with her. Here was an admirable marriage, something that would give a home and children and friends. What could be better? She had just passed apparently through a love affair that could have led to no possible good—solve the difficulty, make Maggie safe for life, and pass on to the illegitimate babies!
"Of course, I don't love him," said Maggie, staring in front of her.
"But you like him," said Katherine. "It isn't as though Paul were a very young man. He wouldn't expect anything very romantic. He isn't really a romantic man himself."
"And I shall always love Martin," pursued Maggie.
Katherine's own romance had fulfilled itself so thoroughly that it had almost ceased to be romantic. The Trenchard blood in her made her a little impatient of unfulfilled romances.
"Don't you think, Maggie, dear," she said gently, "that it would be better to forget him?"
"No, I don't," said Maggie, moving away from Katherine. "And I should have to tell Paul about him. I'd tell Paul the exact truth, that if I married him it was because I liked him and I thought we'd be good friends. I see quite clearly that I can't sit for ever waiting for Martin to come back, and the sooner I settle to something the better. If Paul wants a friend I can be one, but I should never love him—even though Martin wasn't there. And as to the managing, I'm dreadfully careless and forgetful."
"You'd soon learn," said Katherine.
"Do you think I should?" asked Maggie. "I don't know, I'm sure. As to Grace, I think we'd get on all right. There's a greater difficulty than that though."
"What?" asked Katherine as Maggie hesitated.
"Religion," said Maggie. "Paul's a clergyman and I don't believe in his religion at all. Two months ago I'd have said I hated all religion—and so would you if you'd had a time like me. But since Martin's gone I'm not so sure. There's some-thing I want to find out... But Paul's found out everything. He's quite sure and certain. I'd have to tell him I don't believe in any of his faith."
"Tell him, of course," said Katherine. "I think he knows that already. He's going to convert you. He looks forward to it. If he hadn't been so lazy he'd have been a missionary."
"Tell me about Skeaton," said Maggie.
"I've only been there once," said Katherine. "Frankly, I didn't like it very much, but then I'm so used to the Glebeshire sea that it all seemed rather tame. There was a good deal of sand blowing about the day I was there, but Paul's house is nice with a garden and a croquet-lawn, and—and—Oh! very nice, and nice people next door I believe."
"I'm glad it's not like Glebeshire," said Maggie. "That's a point in its favour. I want to be somewhere where everything is quiet and orderly, and every one knows their own mind and all the bells ring at the right time and no one's strange or queer, and—most of all—where no one's afraid of anything. All my life I've been with people who were afraid and I've been afraid myself. Now Paul and Grace are not afraid of anything."
"No, they're not," said Katherine, laughing.
Suddenly Maggie broke out:
"Katherine! Tell me truly. Does Paul want me, does he need me? Does he indeed?"
The storm of appeal in Maggie's voice made Katherine suddenly shy; there was a hint at loneliness and desolation there that was something beyond her reach. She wanted to help. She was suddenly frightened at her urging of Paul's suit. Something seemed to say to her: "Leave this alone. Don't take the responsibility of this. You don't understand ..."
But another voice said: "Poor child ... all alone, penniless, without a friend. What a chance for her! Paul such a kind man."
So she kissed Maggie, and said: "He wants you dreadfully, Maggie dear."
Maggie's cheeks flushed.
"That's nice," she said in her most ordinary voice. "Because no one ever has before, you know."
Paul's proposal came the very next day. It came after luncheon in a corner of the drawing-room.
Maggie knew quite well that it was coming. She was lying in a long chair near the fire, a shawl over her knees. It was a blustering day at the end of February. The windows rattled, and the wind rushing down the chimney blew the flame into little flags and pennants of colour.
Paul came and stood by the fire, warming his hands, his legs spread out. Maggie looked at him with a long comprehensive glance that took him in from head to foot. She seemed to know then that she was going to marry him. A voice seemed to say to her: "Look at him well. This is the man you're going to live with. You'd better realise him."
She did realise him; his white hair, his rosy cheeks, his boyish nose and mouth and rounded chin, his broad chest, thick long legs and large white hands—soft perhaps, but warm and comfortable and safe. Maggie could think of little else as she looked at him but of how nice it would be to lay her head back on that broad chest, feel his arms around her, and forget—forget—forget!
That was what she needed—forgetfulness and work ... She did not love him—no, not one little atom. She had never felt less excitement about anybody, but she liked him, respected him, and trusted him. And he wanted her, wanted her desperately, Katherine had said, that was the chief thing of all.
"Maggie!" he said suddenly, turning round to her. "Would you ever think of marrying me?"
She liked that directness and simplicity, characteristic of him.
She looked up at him.
"I don't think I'd be much of a success, Paul," she said.
He saw at once from that that she did not intend instantly to refuse him. His rosy cheeks took on an added tinge of colour and he caught a chair, drew it up to her long one and sat down, bending eagerly towards her.
"Leave that to me," he said.
"I oughtn't to think of it," she answered, shaking her head. "And for very good reasons. For one thing I'm not in love with you, for another I'm not religious, and for a third I'm so careless that I'd never do for your wife."
"Of course I knew about the first," he said eagerly. "I knew you didn't love me, but that will come, Maggie. It MUST come ..."
Maggie shook her head. "I love some one else," she said, "and I always will. But he's gone away and will never come back. I've made up my mind to that. But if he did come back and wanted me I couldn't promise that I wouldn't—" She broke off. "You can see that it wouldn't do."
"No, I can't see," he said, taking her hand. "I can see that you like me, Maggie. I can see that we're splendid friends. If your other—friend—has left you altogether, then—well, time makes a great difference in those things. I think after we'd been together a little—Oh, Maggie, do!" he broke off just like a boy. "Do! We suit each other so well that we MUST be happy, and then Grace likes you—she likes you very much. She does indeed."
"Let's leave Grace out of this," Maggie said firmly. "It's between you and me, Paul. It's nobody else's affair. What about the other two objections? I don't believe in your faith at all, and I'm unpunctual and forgetful, and break things."
Strangely she was wanting him urgently now to reassure her. She realised that if now he withdrew she would be faced with a loneliness more terrible than anything that she had known since Martin had left her. The warm pressure of his hand about hers reassured her.
"Maggie dear," he said softly, "I love you better because you're young and unformed. I can help you, dear, and you can help me, of course; I'm a dreadful old buffer in many ways. I'm forty, you know, and you're such a child. How old are you, Maggie?"
"Twenty," she said.
"Twenty! Fancy! And you can like an old parson—well, well ... If you care for me nothing else matters. God will see to the rest."
"I don't like leaving things to other people," Maggie said slowly. "Now I suppose I've shocked you. But there you are; I shall always be shocking you."
"Nothing that you can say will shock me," he answered firmly. "Do you know that that's part of the charm you have for me, you dear little wild thing? If you will come and live with me perhaps you will see how God works, how mysterious are His ways, and what He means to do for you—"
Maggie shivered: "Oh, now you're talking like Aunt Anne. I don't want to feel that I'm something that some one can do what he likes with. I'm not."
"No. I know you're not," Paul answered eagerly. "You're very independent. I admire that in you—and so does Grace—"
"Would Grace like us to marry?" asked Maggie.
"It's the desire of her heart," said Paul.
"But how can you want to marry me when you know I don't love you?"
"Love's a strange thing. Companionship can make great changes. You like me. That is enough for the present. I can be patient. I'm not an impetuous man."
He was certainly not. He was just a large warm comfortable creature far, far from the terrified and strangely travelled soul of Martin ... Insensibly, hardly realising what she did, Maggie was drawn towards Paul. He drew close to her, moved on to the sofa, and then with one arm about her let her head rest against his chest. Maggie could neither move nor speak. She only felt a warm comfort, an intense desire for rest.
Very, very gently he bent down and kissed her forehead. The clock ticked on. The flames of the fire spurted and fell. Maggie's eyes closed, she gave a little sigh, and soon, her cheek against his waistcoat, like a little child, was fast asleep.