Towards the end of June Caroline went to London to stay with Beatrix for a day or two. Beatrix had summoned her. She depended a good deal on Caroline now. She had asked Maurice to come, too, but he could not leave his work.
The morning after she had arrived Beatrix came into her room with a letter. Dick had gone off early to his ship. "Whatdoesthis mean? Surely it can't be true!" she said.
The letter was from her father. They were to have dined with him that evening. He was going off to Spain, on banking business, that day. He expected to be in Madrid and Barcelona about a week, and on his way back he should take Barbara to Switzerland for a fortnight or so, and then bring her home. Beatrix was to tell Caroline, and he would write to them from abroad. No time for more now, as he was going off in such a hurry. Then came a postcript. "Have you heard of Ella's engagement? Sir John Ambleside. He's a nice fellow, and just the right age for her. Write and congratulate her."
They stared at one another, utterly surprised. It was four months now since Caroline had come home, and the idea of a marriage between their father and Ellahad been discussed between them. Since then they had come to take it quite for granted. Ella had been in London ever since, except for two week-end visits to Surley, and one to Abington, when there had been so large a party of relations and friends that it had seemed as if the occasion would be chosen to make an announcement. That was a month ago, at Whitsuntide. Neither of them had seen Ella since, and their father had only once been down to Abington.
"Sir John Ambleside," said Caroline. "That's the Beckleys' cousin, that Jimmy told Bunting about. But—"
"Poor old Daddy. He's running away," said Beatrix. "But how beastly of her!"
They tried to adjust their recollections. They had taken it for granted. Had they had reason, or had they been mistaken all the time?
"Of course, she's never given a hint," said Caroline.
"Oh, my dear! You saw how she was with him at Whitsuntide."
"Not really very different from what she has always been. Perhaps gayer, and rather more at home. At least we thought so."
"I'm sure the poor old darling was in love with her. He was as happy as a king all that time.Iknow the signs."
"But nothing happened. Surely, if it had been as we thought they would have got engaged then, or before."
"Perhaps he was waiting until he was quite certain, and this has happened since—her falling in love with that other man.Ishan't congratulate her. I think she has behaved very badly.Poorold Daddy! It's frightfully rough luck on him."
"He doesn't want anything said about it, though. I wish he hadn't gone away alone. I'm glad he's going to take Barbara away when he comes back."
"I wish I knew exactly what had happened."
"Perhaps Aunt Mary will have heard something. We shall see her to-day. She will certainly have something to say about it."
They lunched with Lady Grafton, and she had a good deal to say about it. The announcement of the engagement had appeared in the 'Morning Post' that morning, and had taken her by surprise, though she would not admit quite how much it had taken her by surprise.
"He's been dancing after her," she said; "but nobody thought she would accept him. You know I blame you two girls more than anybody."
"Of course you do, darling," said Beatrix. "But we should like to know why, all the same."
"You've stuck up your noses at it. Poor dear George, like most men of his age who are in love, is sensitive to ridicule. He never could bring himself up to the point of proposing because he was afraid that he'd look like a fool. That party at the Abbey was the greatest possible mistake. I said so at the time."
"Who did you say it to, darling?" asked Beatrix."You told me that it was the very thing to bring it on. But I suppose you thought I was in a delicate state and must be humoured."
"Yes, it's all very well to treat it like that," said Lady Grafton. "But if it hadn't been for you it would certainly have been brought to a point then. They were both ready for it, and Ella Carruthers knew perfectly well that she had been asked down there to be proposed to. It was you and Caroline who stopped it, and I'm exceedingly annoyed with you, though I try not to show it."
"You don't try very hard, dear," said Caroline. "We expected it, too, and if we weren't quite ready for it at first we had got quite used to it by that time."
"We both showed it, too," said Beatrix. "We were as sweet to Ella as only we know how to be; and we took a great deal of pains to show darling Daddy that we were pleased with him. He knew that we knew all right, and were only waiting."
"Yes, and how did you show it? By hanging round him the whole time, and petting him as if you were children, instead of—"
"Instead of great girls of twenty-one and twenty-two," suggested Beatrix. "That's how we always have treated him, and always shall."
"Two married women," proceeded Lady Grafton.
"And one of them soon to become a mother," added Beatrix.
"Nobody was ever allowed to forgetthat," retorted Lady Grafton. "It was crammed down Ella's throatthat she would be a step-grandmamma, and George could never move anywhere without you flopping about him and calling him 'Daddy darling.' There wasn't much 'Daddy darling' when you fell fatuously in love, and treated him as if he counted for about as much as old Jarvis. Then there was Caroline—"
"Oh, it's my turn now," said Caroline.
"Yes, you were almost as bad. You've left his house, but you come up every day to see that his sheets are properly aired, and send out in the middle of dinner to see whether his hot water bottle is filled."
"Oh, Aunt Mary!"
"Well, that's the impression you give everybody. You made him look like an elderly man, when if you'd let him alone he'd have seemed quite like a young one. How would you have liked it yourselves, if you'd been in Ella's place? She's only a year or two older than you. Probably what put her off was that she was afraid you'd be calling her 'Mummy darling!'"
"Oh, it wasshethat was put off!" said Caroline. "You said at first that it was Dad, because we turned up our noses at it."
"I've no patience with you," concluded Lady Grafton, ignoring this.
"No, you don't seem to have much, darling," said Beatrix sweetly. "You're all wrong though. Caroline and I have been talking it over. We think that she was almost ready to marry him then. She behaved to us as if she were. We can't tell you how, but we both felt the same about it. She wanted to know how weshould take it, and we let her know that we should be pleased. We understood each other perfectly, though not a word was said directly."
"I wishI'dsaid a word, directly. It only wanted that. One is afraid of interfering, and then one wakes up to find everything has gone wrong."
"If only you'd interfered with us all a little more, darling, how much happier we should have been," said Beatrix. "What Caroline and I think is that she never couldquitemake up her mind, and he wouldn't say anything till he saw that she had."
"That's how it's supposed to have happened withyou, isn't it? It isn't every man who expects the woman he's in love with to fall down and cuddle his boots."
"Don't be tart, darling. It doesn't suit you, really, though you think it does."
"She found out after all that she wanted somebody younger," said Caroline.
"Yes, that's whatyou'dthink. The truth of it is you've both been scratching each other's backs. 'Of course he'd want what Dick wanted in you,darling,' and 'Of course she'd want somebody more like Maurice,dearie.' To any sensible woman George is worth Dick and Maurice put together. Well, I don't know what has happened. I think she would have had him a month ago, if he'd asked her. I've hardly seen her since. At any rate, it's all over. George won't marry now. This was the only chance. He wouldn't marry for the sake of marrying, and he wouldn't go aboutlooking for somebody to fall in love with. You've stopped his doing either, till it's too late. But with somebody provided for him, so to speak, who would just suit him, and could make him fall in love with her into the bargain—it would have been simply ideal. Now the poor man has got to fly off and forget all about it. Of course he won't forget all about it for a long time. He'll feel himself old all of a sudden, and know that he'll have to go on getting older for the rest of his life. I'm furious about it."
Caroline and Beatrix went on to see Lady Handsworth. They agreed on the way there that Aunt Mary was really rather sweet about their father, though she always tried to be too clever. Itwashard lines on the poor old darling, and they would have to do their best to prevent him feeling he was getting old. It seemed that he actually had run away. Uncle James had said that somebody from the Bank was to have been sent to Spain in a day or two, but that he had suddenly announced his intention of going himself, immediately. He had said nothing about the engagement, but he must have known of it when he made his decision, as he had written to Beatrix that afternoon.
Lady Handsworth was concerned about the news. "I did hope that she would have married your father," she said. "But I never felt quite so sure about it as Mary, and others, have. I think she could never quite make up her mind. Sir John Ambleside has been rather determined in his wooing, and I suppose it cameto a point where George held back, not liking to put himself into rivalry with a much younger man."
"I think that's much the most likely thing to have happened," said Caroline. "But he did love her, I'm pretty sure, and I'm most awfully sorry for him."
"So am I," said Lady Handsworth. "But he will get over it, perhaps sooner than one might think. A man of his age never lets himself quite go, unless he's absolutely sure. He knows, for one thing, that life isn't all made up of love, and if he has had a blow he can look forward to the time when he will have left off feeling it. Besides, your father hasn't lost the love that he has always had, and that has been enough for him hitherto."
This was more consoling than Lady Grafton's statement that it was all their fault. Of course he hadn't lost their love; it was stronger than ever, because he would depend upon them more than if Ella had gone to him to fill their place.
"I'm afraid Iwasrather selfish when I found out how much I loved Dick," Beatrix said, when they had left Lady Handsworth. "Dick says I was, himself, and that if I had made a little more fuss with Daddy he wouldn't have wanted to go off loving somebody else. I loved him just the same, but I suppose I didn't think enough that he'd want me to show it. Still,youhaven't been like that. You're more thoughtful than I am, dearest. I don't think it would have made much difference. I think Aunt Mary was right there. Itwas Ella making up to him that led him on—even if she didn't mean to lead him on so far."
"I shall write to her," said Caroline. "He asks us to. He won't want us not to be friends; and I suppose she will still be living at Surley sometimes."
Both of them wrote. Ella's answers were affectionate, but it seemed to them a little shame-faced. She said very little to them about the man she was going to marry, though it would have been natural for her to expatiate upon him to such intimate friends. Her only reference to Grafton was in her letter to Caroline, in which she said: "I told dear Mr. Grafton before anybody, and he was so sweet about it, and has promised me a very handsome wedding present."
Caroline had a letter from Barbara after she went home. Barbara was in a heaven of delight. She had seen her father on his way through Paris, and was preparing to go off with him on his way back.
"How silly I was to bother myself and all of you about Ella," she wrote. "Dad told me she was going to be married to that little ass Jimmy's cousin. Dad was quite pleased about it. He was awfully sweet to me, and says he is longing to have me at home to look after him. It will be spiffing fun going to Switzerland together. The darling old thing wants a holiday. He says he's been working rather hard at the Bank, and he certainly looks rather run down. I shall take the utmost possible care of him. He bought me a hat in the Rue de la Paix. Ser-wish!"
Barbara and her father left Paris one evening and arrived at Montreux the next morning. In the afternoon they climbed up by the electric train to Château d'Oex, where they had spent a happy fortnight five winters before, skating and ski-ing and lugeing. Barbara had been given the choice of a place to go to, and had chosen this. She wanted to see the mountain pastures, which they had known only under snow, in their early summer dress. Grafton did not want to travel about. They were to stay wherever they went to, and perhaps visit a few other places on their homeward way.
The next day Barbara wrote to Caroline.
"Here we are, in the same old rooms, with the same jolly old view, but you've no idea of the difference. There is still snow on the Gummfluh and the Rübli, but only in the clefts and hollows, and all the rest is the most lovely pinks and purples and yellows and heavenly green. All the fields are simply full of flowers, growing with the hay. They say that a month ago they were white with narcissus, but they couldn't have been more beautiful than they are now, with all their colours. Dad and I had a walk this morning across the valley to where we used to ski. It was like walking through a garden, and the river looks topping, all free of ice, andflowing between the rocks and firs. The cows are feeding half-way up the Cray, and those that are still down here all have great cow-bells. You hear them booming and tinkling all the time. We are going to have a lot of walks, and go up to the chalets where they make the cheeses. The rink is now a tennis court, but the people who play there don't look very interesting and Dad hasn't brought any things so I don't think we shall launch ourselves among them. There aren't many people in the hotel yet—very different from what it was when we were here. But we like it, and are going to be thoroughly lazy, and loll about with books, except when we go for walks.
"Now I've got Dad all to myself, of course I cansee. I was a fool to write what I did from Paris. The poor old darling had made up his mind to keep it all to himself, and had screwed himself to be extra merry and bright with me, so that I shouldn't twig anything. He did take me in, but I only saw him for a few hours. Of course he can't really hide it, though he thinks he's doing it beautifully, poor lamb! I do believe I'm the proper person to be with him, Cara dear. Perhaps you would do it better, but you can't be here, so I hope you'll be glad that I am, and not think that I only want to enjoy myself, though I am doing that, and it is lovely to be here, and with Dad. It's rather pathetic how he likes to be always with me, and Iknowhe is glad that he brought me here. When we were reading on the balcony this afternoon, I could see he wasn't reading much, but every now and then he looked at me,and once he said how jolly it was that we were here, and were going home together. So I'm a sort of comfort to him, which I'm frightfully glad of, and is just what I want to be. I'm not sure I shan't try to get him to say something later on. After all, everybody knows. I hate her for treating him like that, though of course I'm glad in a way. It shows what she would have been like. She must have made him think that she loved him, and of course he is bowled over. I heard him walking up and down the balcony last night. When he came into my room this morning he said that he had got up to see the sun rise, but it was quite dark when I heard him. After he had had hispetit déjeunerhe went back to bed and slept till ten nearly, which is a good thing.
"But you mustn't think he is moping. It isn't like that at all. He is very cheerful and amusing generally, and we are having a lovely time. I've only told you what I have seen behind it. I'm sure he just wants to forget all about it, and I'm going to help him the very best way I can. I do love him. I shan't marry at all, but shall live at home and look after him. Of course I don't blame you for marrying, darling, as you had to. But I've thought it over and I don't care about it for myself."
Barbara also wrote to Bunting—a not too indulgent description of the people staying in the hotel, with references to the changed aspect of the country, and to some places that he knew.
"Dad is enjoying his holiday," she wrote, "andlooks better already. He was rather run down, but he is picking up in this jolly air, and getting very active. He makes me laugh all the time, he is so pleased with everything. I was rather a fool to write to you what I did from Paris. I suppose I was bored at not being at home, and got ideas into my head. But when you told me what that little ass Jimmy said, I didn't worry any more. I knew that I was safe in believing the opposite. Dad is very pleased at Ella's engagement to Sir John Ambleside, as of course he is very fond of her, as she has been almost like one of us to him, and was nice to him when all of us were away. She has been in love with Sir John for months, but couldn't quite make up her mind to marry him when she found out he was Jimmy's cousin. However, that seems to be his only drawback, and when Jimmy grows up hemayimprove. There's always hope."
Grafton's letters were short, but fairly frequent. There was no further mention of Ella in them, but there was a good deal about Barbara.
"Barbara is a delightful companion," he wrote, some days after they had gone to Château d'Oex. "I've never had her to myself so much before. We never bore one another, and we talk about all things under the sun. She's a dear child, and has developed extraordinarily. There's a lot in that investigating mind of hers, and it's all beginning to come out. It was a good thing to send her to Paris, though I'm glad enough that the time is over, and I shall have her at home now. She says she is going to stay with me foryears and years. But I doubt if I shall keep the sort of young woman she's growing into for more than two or three at the outside. However, they will be happy ones, and there's no reason why the happiness should end when she does get married, bless her!"
One morning they set out very early to walk to the coombe of the Vanil Noir. Grafton carried a rücksack with their lunch, and they walked slowly, as they had learnt to do with a long day's expedition before them. The air was deliriously fresh and fragrant, and the sun had not yet become hot.
They crossed pasture after pasture deep in flowers, and as they slowly mounted, the great panorama shifted and changed; distant snowpeaks lifted themselves into view, and became new mountain ranges; the windings of their own valley were displayed, and little towns and villages on its green floor looked like scattered children's buildings.
They came to the wide solemn coombe, and went up it to the foot of the mountain. The snow lingered here, sometimes in deep drifts, among the rocks, but almost every foot of ground that had shaken off its winter covering was jewelled with Alpine flowers. It was another world they had come to, above the trees and the coarser growths, with a sense of freedom and space and bigness about it that was lacking in the lower valleys. The silence was broken only by the tinkle of the rivulets and the occasional shrill chatter of amarmotte, which they could sometimes descry sitting alert on a distant rock.
They ate their lunch of sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, chocolate, Gruyère cheese, and oranges, with a bottle of Valais wine, and agreed that they had never enjoyed a lunch more. Then they sat with their backs against a rock, while Grafton smoked, and a deep peace and contentment settled down upon them.
"Isn't it perfect?" said Barbara, after a time. "I feel that this is the best that life has to offer, Dad. I wonder how much of that feeling is due to being rested and fed, after having been rather tired and rather hungry."
"I should think about half," he said.
"That only leaves half for the scenery, and the lovely air and the sunshine, andnotbeing in Paris, and being with you, and looking forward to going home as the next thing. It isn't enough."
"And it leaves nothing at all for being young, and having nothing on your mind; nothing at all to worry yourself about. That's the great advantage of being young, which you never realise till you're no longer young. When something good comes along, like this, you can enjoy it to the full."
"You've got nothing to worry you now, have you, Dad?" she asked, after a pause.
"No, darling," he said, after another. "The way is pretty clear ahead now. Lots of jolly things to be done and some quite nice people to take an interest in. You and I will be able to do some of the nice things together, won't we?"
"It will be lovely," she said. "We're doing one ofthe nice things now. It was rather a good move, our coming here together, wasn't it, Dad?"
"Yes, a first-class move. Do you ever read Wordsworth, Barbara?"
"Not more than I'm obliged, darling. I've read about the tiresome child who couldn't count, and he nagged at her."
"I don't mean that sort of Wordsworth. Mother loved him. She read me things when we were on our honeymoon, going to beautiful places together."
"Then I should like to read him. What sort of things?"
"He makes you see how beautiful Nature is: I can't explain it exactly, but if you take it right it has a sort of soothing uplifting influence on you."
"Yes, I've felt that sometimes, especially since we went to live at Abington. But—perhaps it's because I'm too young—I don't think you can enjoy it so much alone."
He looked at her in some surprise. "Have you found that out already?" he said. "I found it out after Mother died. I was frightfully unhappy. I went away by myself to some of the places we'd been to together. But it made me unhappier still. In fact, it spoilt the memory of those places for me till I went there again years afterwards, with Cara and B. Then I got back my first impression of them."
She snuggled up to him. "Take me to them, sometime, Daddy," she said.
"Yes, I will, darling. You were too young then.I think perhaps we might go this autumn. It was in September that she and I were married. How happy we were! She had planned out where we were to go to. Mostly out-of-the-way beautiful places. I suppose I had been too busy amusing myself, with other people, to want to go to places simply because they were beautiful, before. But she taught me to love the beauty of Nature, though for a time after she died it did nothing for me."
"Perhaps it doesn't when you're unhappy and alone. Do you think Caroline loves it in the same way as Mother did, Daddy?"
He thought for a moment. "She gets it from her, I suppose," he said. "Perhaps she has it even more strongly. She's going to make it the chief thing in her life, you know, she and Maurice together. And one doesn't feel that she is wrong in doing it."
"Of course, she has tried the other," she said, after a pause.
He smiled at her. "Are you thinking that it wouldn't be enough for you?" he asked. "I don't think it would, darling; it wouldn't have been enough for Mother and me—a refreshment—perhaps the best sort of refreshment, while we were young, and something to come to more and more if we had grown old together. At any rate, you'll have your taste of pleasure, as Cara and B had it, and you'll be right to enjoy it, as they did. It did neither of them any harm and it won't do you any harm."
"Why should it do anybody harm, Dad?"
"Oh, well—if pleasure were put in the first place, for the whole of a lifetime! That's what you see all round you, among people of our sort. It would have been more of a danger for B than for Caroline. But B is all right now. She'll make a good loving wife and mother. She'll have a good time, but she won't put having a good time first."
"I should like you to expound that for me a little, Daddy; for my good, you know."
"Well, I don't know that I'm the best person to expound it to you, except perhaps that I've done it a bit too much myself. You see when you have enough money to do pretty well what you like, you do rather get into the way of gratifying yourself at every turn—or trying to. Even the good things in life—love is the best of them all—you're apt to think more of yourself than of other people—even of the very people you love."
She thought this might be the beginning of a confidence, and listened eagerly for more.
"I'm not sure that the best thing for a man isn't to have something stiff to do," he went on. "I never have had. I've been too lucky."
"You've made all of us happy, darling."
"Well, that's something, isn't it, if I have? You've all made me happy too. Best not to be always looking out for happiness for yourself—much less pleasure. Some clever fellow said once that happiness only came when you weren't looking for it."
"I think the best thing is to do what you can tomake other people happy. I don't mean in a priggish sort of way—setting yourself out to do it—but because you love them and it comes natural to you to want to."
"I believe you've hit upon the whole duty of women, darling. It's what they are here for. A selfish woman always seems more off the lines than a selfish man. But selfishness is ugly everywhere. You can't always see it in yourself, but when you do you had better get rid of it as quickly as possible."
"You're not selfish."
"Most men are. I don't think I'm much different from other fellows. But I like you to think I am."
"You know, Daddy, I've been thinking lately that it's rather like what you said just now—you mustn't grab at things, and it may not be altogether good for you to be able to get everything you want. By far the nicest of the girls you sent me to Paris to consort with is Nora O'Brien, whom I told you about. Her people are very hard up, and one of her aunts is educating her. The others are all rich—at least their people are—and the richest are the horridest, except Katie Brown, whose father is a millionaire; and she laughs at it, and would be just as happy if he were poor. I thinkweare all so nice because we really love each other, and that's the best of all the things we have at home; though it's very jolly having a beautiful house and lots of friends too."
"Yes, it's love that makes the world go round, wherever you find it. It gives you a reason for enjoyingyourself too. At least it does when you've a young woman of nearly eighteen, soon to be launched on the world. I hope you'll enjoy yourself, darling, when it comes to the time for you to go out and about."
"I shall like best being at home with you, Daddy."
"Well, you'll be at home a lot too, I hope. But you must have your fling, and see what the world is like all round."
"I think I shall like it, you know. Caroline did, though she got tired of it afterwards."
"I don't think it was so much that she got tired of it as that she found something else she liked better to put in its place. Oh, I'm happy about Caroline and B both. And about you too, darling. And about Bunting, who is growing into a very good sort of man. In fact I've nothing to grouse about at all, except that I can't have the last five and twenty years all over again. Now I think it's time to be getting down to our happy valley."