The Vicar's wife rose with alacrity, and the two ladies moved away, discussing the probable financial result of the Bazaar, and Toni was left alone with her new knowledge.
At half-past five on that same afternoon Jim Herrick and his dog were strolling across the meadows leading from the river to the village of Willowhurst.
The sky, which had been brilliantly blue all day, was beginning to be overcast, causing the energetic helpers at the Vicarage Bazaar to throw anxious glances towards the gathering clouds, and Herrick, who was a fair weather-prophet, foresaw a storm before sunset.
As he threw his leg over the stile leading into the last meadow, he paused suddenly.
Approaching him was Owen Rose's wife; and something in her mode of progress struck him as peculiar. She was coming along at a sort of fast walk, breaking now and then into a few running steps, stumbling occasionally and even stopping dead for a second before resuming her hurrying advance.
Her eyes were downcast; and she was quite close to him before she realized his presence. When she did look up he saw that she was crying, openly, sobbingly, as a child cries, the tears running in little channels over her cheeks and dropping unheeded where they would.
Even when she saw that she was not alone, Toni could not check those treacherous tears; and something told Herrick that she was craving for sympathy, that here was no sophisticated woman of the world, to whom the encounter would spell annoyance, but a forlorn and solitary child crying out its heart over some real or fancied tribulation, to whom a kindly word, a friendly greeting would bring only comfort.
He jumped off the stile and approached her, hat in hand.
"Mrs. Rose? You're in trouble over something? Will you tell me what's wrong—perhaps I can help you somehow?"
To his relief he saw that his impression had been correct. She turned to him desperately, like a child seeking consolation.
"Mr. Herrick"—she sobbed out the words—"I'm so miserable—I don't know what to do!"
"Come, that's bad!" He spoke kindly. "Well, suppose you rest here a moment and dry your eyes?"
She fumbled blindly in the front of her gown and then gave up the search with a childish wail.
"I've not got a handkerchief—I've lost it somewhere!"
"Never mind, I have one." He drew out a large silk square as yet unfolded, and pressed it into her hand. "There, use that—and then we'll have a talk."
She dried her eyes obediently, though fresh tears threatened to make her obedience futile; and then, still clinging to his handkerchief, she leaned against the stile and tried to regain her self-control.
"Well?" His tone, with its gentle sympathy, was balm to poor Toni's sore heart. "Come, little lady, what's the trouble? Let's see if we can't find a way out of it together."
She turned her eyes on him as he spoke, and he was almost startled at what he read there; for surely there was a hint of almost womanly suffering in their usually childish depths; and he knew intuitively that this was not the thoughtless, light-hearted girl he had previously known as Toni Rose.
"Mr. Herrick"—she spoke in a low voice, which in spite of all her efforts shook a little—"just now at the Vicarage Bazaar I heard Lady Martin and Mrs. Madgwick talking about me; and they said such terrible things that I think my heart will break!"
"Oh, come, Mrs. Rose!" His tone had, as he intended, a bracing effect. "Hearts don't break so easily as that! Whatever those two chatterers may have said, you must not let it affect you so seriously."
"They said I was common—and ill-bred—and ignorant." The words startled her hearer, though she spoke them with a kind of dreary quietness which was not without pathos. "They said Owen only married me because some girl—an earl's niece—had thrown him over and he wanted to get his own back—they said he was ashamed of me, that he blushed for me when we went out to dinner, and everyone pitied him for having such a common, empty-headed wife."
"My dear Mrs. Rose——" For a moment Herrick's wits deserted him beneath this recapitulation; and before he could hit on the right words, Toni had begun again.
"They said it was a pity for a clever man to be tied to an ignorant wife, that I bored him to death; and Lady Martin said I was a parasite, clinging to him for money and food, and that I had spoilt his life and ruined his career——"
"Oh, that is nonsense!" Herrick shook off the mental paralysis which had held him tongue-tied, and spoke vigorously. "No man's life was ever spoilt by the possession of a pretty, loving wife—like you."
"Ah, but you don't understand." She spoke drearily. "Ihavebeen a fool, I suppose. I was so happy myself that I never thought of Owen. I mean I just went on loving him—thinking he loved me. I didn't bother about his work and his career—it never struck me I should be doing Owen harm by my ignorance. I knew I wasn't clever enough to help him, but I thought that didn't matter so long as we were happy...."
"But youwerehappy?"
"I was." A big tear rolled forlornly down her cheek. "It was so lovely here—like a beautiful dream—the summer and the river and the roses ... every day was better than the last and I thought it would always be like that ... I had never dreamed I could be so happy ... it was just like a fairy-tale, I used to think sometimes I was like an enchanted princess, living in a wonderful castle—with my prince...." Her voice sank to a whisper, and she gazed out over the flower-strewn meadows with a wide-eyed glance which saw nothing.
Herrick's big heart, which in spite of his life's tragedy held still an infinite compassion for all weak and helpless things, was wrung with pity for this poor little creature, whose eyes had been opened so cruelly to the fact that life was not all an enchanted fairyland; and when he spoke his deep voice was very gentle.
"See here, little lady, you mustn't take all this to heart. These women were talking, you must remember, without any intimate knowledge of your affairs; and we all know that gossip is eminently uncharitable. Besides, loyalty to your husband should make you believe in him and his love."
"I do." She stopped abruptly, then went on again more impetuously. "But the worst of it is, I believe it is true, what they said. Iamignorant and silly. I hate going out to parties; I never feel at ease, I make foolish mistakes. Owen has been very kind, he has only laughed, but it must have been horrid for him to have such a foolish wife. At home, too ... it's quite true I haven't helped him. I've been out all day enjoying myself, and not bothering about his work. I did at first, and I made such stupid blunders that he used to have to do it all over again."
"Well, that's nothing." He spoke lightly. "After all, you are not a literary expert like your husband, and you can't be expected to do his work."
"No." She caught her white teeth fiercely in her lip. "But lots of women could have helped him. This one they spoke of—they said she was clever, accomplished, just the sort of wife for a man like Owen—not a stupid little dummy like me. And"—she paused, and every tinge of colour faded out of her face—"they said I was common—not a lady. Mr. Herrick, am I common? Am I—not a lady?"
With her eyes on his face, eyes full of a desperate hurt, Herrick felt a wild, impotent desire to strangle the two mischief-makers who had changed this girl's joy into bitterness, had turned a child's enchanted castle into a structure of pasteboard; but when he spoke his tone was admirably light.
"My dear child, now you are talking absolute nonsense. Common? Well, to me commonness consists in common behaviour, mean tempers, a nasty, spiteful attitude of mind, a discontent with one's surroundings, a petty jealousy of others—oh, I hate a common mind as much as anyone in the world—but to use the word in connection with you is merely an abuse of language and not to be treated seriously."
She was half perplexed, half comforted.
"But a lady, Mr. Herrick? Am I or am I not—a lady?"
"Well," he said slowly, "that again depends on the use of the word. Mrs. Swastika, my excellent charwoman, is referred to by her friends as 'the lady who looks after that queer man in the bungalow'; and when my usual milkman was taken ill the other day, my modest pint of milk was brought by a pig-tailed girl who announced, 'I'm the young lady as takes round Mr. Piggott's milk when he's sick!' So that you see the term 'lady' is capable of wide interpretation."
"ButamI?" Her wistful tone craved for reassurance and Herrick gave it promptly.
"If by 'lady' you mean a woman who is fit to mix with any one in the land, yes," he said. "Of course you are."
She gave him a wan little smile, and dried away a few tears with the aid of his handkerchief.
"I don't know where mine is," she said, half-crying, half-laughing. "I must have dropped it somewhere."
"Or the Boo-Boos took it." He smiled at her puzzled expression. "Don't you know those dreadful little people—the people who hide one's pencils and one's handkerchiefs, put the clock back so that one misses one's train—or an appointment—and invariably send an organ-grinder outside one's window when one is hard at work and can't bear a noise!"
"But why do you call them Boo-Boos?" She might have been a child asking for the explanation of a fairy-tale.
"Well, they aren't Brownies, becausetheyare a good little folk. And the Pixies, though their tricks are much the same, pursue their avocations out of doors on moor or hill; so that the only name I could find for them was just that—Boo-Boos!"
He laughed at her bewildered face.
"Come, Mrs. Rose, don't you ever feel conscious of their teasing presence? Don't you lose your hair-pins, or your brooches, or whatever corresponds to our collar-studs? And have you never noticed how a pen with which you are about to sign an important document, a will or something of the kind, has changed mysteriously into a pencil—generally without a point—when you pick it up?"
He had succeeded in his intention. His nonsense had won her to a smile; and the eyes which a few moments before had looked like those of a tortured woman were once again the eyes of a child.
"Do you know, Mrs. Rose"—Herrick felt there was danger in prolonging the situation once she had attained a comparative serenity—"I'm afraid it's going to rain! Don't you think we had better be moving homewards?"
She rose at once.
"Just as you like." She spoke with the utmost docility. "I suppose we had better go. I haven't an umbrella—have you?"
"No—and your dress is thin." He looked at her white gown, which had not been improved by her incarceration in the mouldy summer-house, and showed traces of the dust and dirt of the bench on which she had crouched while the two women talked outside. Altogether Toni presented a pathetic little figure; and Herrick felt a sudden desire to know her safely at home, hidden from inquisitive eyes.
He called Olga, who had been playing an enticing game of hunting quite imaginary rabbits in the hedgerow; and when the great dog bounded up in obedience to his summons, he jumped over the stile and held out his hand to help Toni. She climbed over rather lifelessly, catching her white skirt on a splinter of wood and tearing a rent which filled Herrick with dismay.
"You've torn your pretty dress! What a shame—will it be quite spoilt?"
"Oh no, I can mead it," she returned indifferently, "and any way it doesn't matter." To Toni nothing mattered just then.
"That wretched splinter was to blame. I'm afraid I didn't notice it," he said contritely.
"Oh, it wasn't your fault. Perhaps it was one of your queer creatures, the Boo-Boos," said Toni with a wintry attempt at a smile; and Herrick was struck with the readiness with which she had adopted his whimsical theory.
As they went across the fields beneath the now cloudy sky, he tried to keep the conversation at the same light level; but although Toni strove to adapt herself to his mood, it was evident that her thoughts were still circling round the revelation which had shattered her fairy castle; and just as the chimneys of Greenriver came in sight above the tall tree-tops, she asked him a question which had been formulating in her mind throughout the walk homewards.
"Mr. Herrick, do you think I could improve myself somehow—I mean could I read some books, or do something to make myself a more suitable wife for Owen? You know"—she caught her breath—"I can't bear for him to be ashamed of me, or bored with me—and they said—those women, that he was both."
For a second Herrick thought of treating the matter lightly, assuring her that what the women had said was of no importance whatever. Then he knew there was only one course open to him, and he met sincerity with sincerity, candour with candour.
"It would be very easy for you to do a little reading," he said quietly. "Of course a literary man like Mr. Rose forgets that everyone has not his fine taste in books; and on the other hand, it is very easy to acquire a liking for poor stuff. But there are lots of authors who would delight you with their books, and if I can give you any help I shall be charmed to make you out a list."
"Will you?" Her eyes lighted up for a second. "There are hundreds of books in the house—the library is supposed to be rather remarkable, you know, and I expect lots of the books you mean are there."
"I've no doubt of it." He remembered hearing of the unique collection which Greenriver housed. "Tell me what sort of books you like? Travel, history, romance—what?"
The light died out of her eyes.
"I don't know." Her voice sounded flat. "I don't think I like anything much—except stories. Novels, I mean," she added hastily.
"Well, there are plenty of very fine novels," he said cheerily. "And no one need be ashamed of liking that form of story-telling. I always fail to understand the attitude of the person who says 'Ineverread novels!' as though he were claiming a tremendous superiority, whereas he's only showing himself a narrow-minded and unimaginative person!"
"But reading novels won't make me clever?" said Toni rather wistfully.
"Well, probably not, if you read nothing else," he owned. "But there is plenty more stuff for you to read. What about poetry?"
She shook her head.
"Well, you'll soon get to like it," he said smiling. "You needn't flesh your maiden sword in Browning, you know. Anyway, I will send you a list, shall I?—of books that I think you'll like. Can you read French?"
Blushing, she confessed her inability to do more than recognize a French quotation here and there; and a new thought filled her mind.
"Do you think if I were to study French, Mr. Herrick? I've got all my old books, and I could do an exercise every day."
Herrick was half inclined to smile, but she was so desperately in earnest that he refrained.
"A capital plan," he said heartily, thinking to himself that the harder she worked the less time she would have for fretting.
"And if I got to know more poetry I might be able to help Owen with his articles," she said, smiling happily, reassured by his friendly counsel. "Of course they were quite right—Iamstupid and ignorant, but if I work hard I think I ought to be able to make myself useful to Owen, oughtn't I, Mr. Herrick?"
"Don't work too hard," he said, half jesting, half in earnest. "You don't want to turn yourself into a blue-stocking, do you? Don't over-develop your brain at the expense of your heart and soul, as so many learned women have done—to their ultimate despair."
"There's no fear of that." Toni spoke in a low voice, and again he caught a glimpse of something disconcerting in her clear eyes. "Those women said Ihadno soul. But that's nonsense, because everyone has a soul."
"But not everyone realizes it," he said. "Some people go through life and never know they have more than a body, which claims attention while the soul waits, yearningly, for recognition."
He had spoken half to himself, his thoughts wandering for a moment from the girl beside him to another girl whose soul had been, to him at least, as a sealed book.
"I have been like that," said Toni surprisingly. "But I have a soul—and for Owen's sake I am going to prove it. Only"—she faltered find her brave accents died away—"perhaps it is too late, after all."
And though, when he left her at her own door, refusing her invitation to enter, she had regained much of her usual manner, her last words haunted Herrick all through the long, lonely evening.
He knew quite well that there was a good deal of truth in the accusation brought against the shrinking Toni. Although he lived a solitary life, it was impossible altogether to avoid contact with one's neighbours along the river; and he had heard sundry bits of conversation concerning Toni which went to prove that Owen Rose's choice of a wife was freely criticized in the neighbourhood. People agreed that she was certainly surprisingly pretty, but she did not belong to the class which filled all the big houses round about. The charitable said she was shy, the malicious called hergauche, without perhaps knowing exactly what they meant; and everyone who had talked to her asserted that she had no conversation, and did not appear in the least a suitable wife for a clever man like Mr. Rose.
"Poor little girl!" Herrick rose from his seat with a sigh at the end of the long, dreary evening. "I'm sorry for her—like the little mermaiden of Hans Andersen, she is ready—now—to dance upon knives for the possession of a soul! Well, she'll win her soul all right, but God grant the winning of it doesn't end in tragedy!"
He stood for a moment gazing into vacancy with a half-tender, half-cynical smile on his lips. Then he extinguished the lamp, called Olga from her resting-place on the old divan, and went slowly to bed.
Herrick duly sent Toni a list of such books as he thought suitable for her purpose; and then began for Toni a succession of long and, if the truth be told, tedious days spent, in Owen's absence, in the quiet, stately library, while the August sunshine streamed in through the big mullioned windows, and turned the books, in their many-hued bindings, into pools of rich, dim colour, lighted here and there with the flash of gold, the gleam of purple and scarlet.
Toni used to wish, half-rebelliously, that the sun would not shine in so gloriously, turning the polished floor into a golden sea, and bathing her, as she sat at the table, in a flood of dancing sunbeams.
It was so hard to sit there reading, trying in vain to dig out the heart of some book of old stories, sagas and the like, or struggling helplessly to understand a poem written in lovely but surely incomprehensible metaphors, and full of words which, though she realized their beauty, still conveyed little to her intelligence.
Herrick had perhaps slightly over-estimated her powers. He had never before come in contact with quite such an undeveloped mind. His own married life had been too short for him to grasp fully the characteristics of his wife, and although in some respects she had not been unlike Toni, she had been differently educated. Her mind had perhaps little depth, but she was quick and versatile; and owing to her surroundings she had been able, always, to adopt the shibboleth of the social set to which she belonged by right of birth.
So it was that Herrick, with all his sympathy, all his intuition, failed to plumb the shallows of Toni's mind. He gave her Rossetti when he should have given her Ella Wheeler Wilcox; and George Eliot when he should have introduced her to Jane Austen and her gentle sister, Miss Burney. The "Idylls of the King," clothed in Tennyson's poetic garments, would have won her interest—instead he advised her to read Malory, and read him she obediently did, until her brain ached with the clash of swords, and her eyes were wearied with the glitter of the dragons' scales or the silver mail of the knights who fought to the death for the damsels they served.
Knowing her love of outdoor life, he sent her to Borrow, but even "Lavengro" failed to charm the lonely student, to whom the sun, the moon, the stars were all "sweet things" indeed, when no printed page intervened between her and their sweetness.
It was weary work, toiling there day after day, while the river flashed and gleamed in the sunlight, and Jock ran barking hither and thither under the windows, as though imploring her to leave those musty haunts and come to chase the elusive yellow sunbeams on the lawn.
At first she had been used to take the big, high-backed chair at the head of the table, and spreading out her books, refuse to cast so much as a look at the sunny world without; but after four or five mornings so spent she gave in suddenly and betook herself to the little table in the window, where from her seat she could watch the tall white lilies swaying in the breeze, or catch the fragrance of the mauve and scarlet sweet-peas which climbed their hedge just out of sight.
It was weary work, and Toni's eyes and head ached when the luncheon-bell rang to set her free from her self-imposed task; but she did not give in, and after her hasty meal she would return to the library and struggle till tea-time with half a dozen French exercises, which by the aid of a key she sternly corrected when finished.
When Owen arrived home, shortly before dinner, Toni was worn out with the combined effects of her mental exertions and her lack of fresh air; but Owen, who was turning over in his mind the material for a novel, was not in a mood to notice her unwonted silence, and was relieved when, after dinner, she went early to bed and set him free to spend the evening in his sanctum, making notes and generally planning out the book he felt he could write.
To the novelist there comes, at the inception of a book, a period in which the things and people around him recede into the background before the people and things he seeks to create; and it is scarcely to be wondered at if at these times the writer's vision, which is turned, so to speak, inward, fails to realize the significance of the scenes being enacted beneath his mortal eyes.
And it was so with Owen. During that strenuous fortnight of Toni's laborious study, Owen was so fully occupied with the visions of his brain that he had little time to spare for the flesh and blood inmate of his home; and though he was always kind to Toni, he did not notice that the laughter was absent from her lips, the joyful light of happiness quenched in her eyes.
The idea of his book was beginning to absorb him very thoroughly. Hitherto he had never had the time to devote to purely imaginative work; but now that theBridgewas going ahead and his series of articles for outside papers was finished, he felt the call of fiction very strongly.
His story was concerned with the conflict between East and West, with the life of an Indian prince who, after his English education, was called upon to rule his dead father's kingdom; and Owen's impressions of India, gathered during a stay of some months in that magic land, formed a brilliant setting for the half-political, half-romantic story he had to tell.
Barry, who was, of course, in the secret, was intensely interested in this new departure; and had no doubt whatever as to the certainty of Owen's success. Indeed Owen himself was surprised at the ease with which he did work he felt to be good. By nature a critic, he would have been the first to detect signs of carelessness, of over-fluency even in his own writing; but the narrative, with its felicitous turns of expression, its lucid, clear-cut phrases, slipped naturally from his pen; and he felt to the full the truth of Stevenson's couplet:
"Bright is the ring of wordsWhen the right man rings them."
"Bright is the ring of wordsWhen the right man rings them."
One afternoon Owen invited Barry to motor down and dine with them at Greenriver; and Barry accepted the invitation with alacrity, for he had not seen Toni for some weeks and was anxious to know how life was treating her.
He hurried over his work for the afternoon, and Miss Loder, the secretary whose services he and Owen shared in common, was secretly surprised, not to say shocked, by his flippant behaviour over a monograph supplied by a valued contributor.
"It's a bit stodgy, eh, Miss Loder? You can feel the ecclesiastical hand upon the pen-holder, can't you?"
Miss Loder was the daughter of a clergyman, whose large family had all been educated with a view to doing some sort of work in the world, and as was only natural she resented the implied censure on the Church.
"If purity of English and clarity of thought are stodgy, Mr. Raymond, I suppose you are right. But what a treat this is after the article of young Bright's! That was hardly in keeping with the tone of theBridge, if you like!"
"Young Bright's article—why, Miss Loder, it was a gem! It was whimsical in tone, I grant you, perhaps here and there a trifle frivolous, but it was splendid in its way. It simply sparkled with wit and a kind of delicate satire."
"You thought so? I'm afraid I didn't." Miss Loder, who at Cambridge had been known as an excellent debater, closed the subject by her tone; and Barry smiled quietly at her self-sufficiency.
Truth to tell, he had never much liked Miss Loder. While admitting her absolute competency for the post—for she was in her way a brilliant young woman—he found her unsympathetic, narrow-minded, wedded to her own standards of thought and behaviour; and he was wont to assert that her clear grey eye struck terror to his soul.
Miss Loder had been intended for a scholastic career: but although she had passed through her College life with distinction, she found that after all teaching was not her vocation.
She was absolutely devoid of patience, and wanting in the tact, the kindly firmness, the warm sympathy, which go to equip the perfect teacher; and although she might have a subject at her very finger-tips, so to speak, she found it almost impossible to hand on her knowledge so that her class might share it with her.
Once she realized the fact, Miss Loder very wisely withdrew from the field in which she was unable to shine; and since the death of her father had rendered it imperative that she find some remunerative work without delay, she was glad to accept the post which Owen offered her through a mutual friend.
Having once intended to take up journalism, she was conversant with the mysteries of typewriting and shorthand, and her excellent classical education rendered her particularly fitted for the post of secretary to the editor of theBridgeand his coadjutor, Barry Raymond. Her own literary taste was admirable, if a trifle academic; and Owen found her a really useful person with whom to discuss the various departments of his beloved review.
In appearance, Miss Loder was of middle height, with good features, grey eyes of an almost disconcerting frankness, and fair hair which she parted on her forehead and coiled neatly round her head. She was twenty-nine years of age, but looked younger; and she generally wore a well-cut grey skirt and severely plain white shirt, which somehow suited her rather boyish appearance.
At five o'clock on this particular afternoon Barry bade her good-day, and joined Owen in the street outside the office, where the big motor stood throbbing impatiently beneath its owner's hand.
"Jump in, Barry. If we have a good run we might take Toni on the river for an hour. Poor little girl, I'm afraid I've rather neglected her lately."
Barry took his seat, and under Owen's skilful guidance they were soon out of the City tumult, speeding smoothly away in the direction of Richmond.
It was just beyond Staines that the accident happened.
Through no fault of his own Owen collided with a badly-steered motor negotiating a sharp bend; and though no one else was injured it was discovered, after all was over, that Owen had sustained a fracture of the right arm.
The owner of the other car, who was only too palpably a novice in the art of driving, confounded himself in apologies. He was indeed so manifestly upset and distressed to find what his carelessness had done, that in the midst of his own natural annoyance Owen found time to assure him of his complete forgiveness; and the irony of the situation was made evident when it leaked out that the offender was a surgeon, resident in the district, who practised the art of motoring in his spare moments.
He insisted on Owen returning with him to receive all the care and attention his medical skill could supply; and thus it was that when the car, driven by Barry, finally drew up in front of the hall door of Greenriver, Toni, running down the steps to greet her husband and his visitor, was startled to observe Owen, a trifle pale, descend from the car with his right arm supported in a black silk sling.
"Owen!" Every vestige of colour died out of Toni's face. "What has happened? You've had an accident!"
"Nothing much, dear!" He spoke reassuringly. "Collided with another car outside Staines, and I've broken my stupid arm. But that's all."
"Quite enough," struck in Barry, smiling. "No one else was hurt, Mrs. Rose—not even the old idiot who was to blame."
"It's nearly dinner-time, I suppose," said Owen, looking up at the hall clock. "We started early to take you on the river, Toni, but I'm afraid it's too late now."
"And you're disabled," said Barry. "You'll be dependent on our good offices for your dinner; won't he, Mrs. Rose?"
And so it proved, for like a good many people Owen felt utterly at a loss with only one available hand. To Toni fell the task of cutting up his food, and her big eyes grew anxious as she noted his lack of appetite.
As a matter of fact Owen felt disinclined for food, for anything but solitude and rest. His head was aching, and his arm was beginning to pain him so severely that he feared sleep would be out of the question.
After dinner he yielded to the joint entreaties of Toni and Barry and went to bed; leaving his wife to entertain his guest until the car should come round to take him to the station.
The evening had closed in with rain, and the two sat by one of the widely-opened windows in the drawing-room, looking out into the dusky garden, and listening to the soft patter of the rain on the foliage bordering the lawn. There was no wind, and against the cloudy sky the tall trees stood like black giants holding out immovable arms, while from the flowers, refreshed by the shower after their hot, thirsty day, a grateful fragrance rose to sweeten the damp, cool air.
For some time Barry and his hostess sat in silence. Toni had taken her favourite low chair, and her hands lay idly in her lap, the wedding-ring which was their sole ornament gleaming in the lamplight. To Barry's eyes her youthful prettiness had a slightly dimmed effect. Without losing anything of its virginal purity of outline there was a hint of weariness, of almost jaded fatigue, which startled Barry. He thought always of Toni as some joyous woodland nymph, a pagan it might be, a hedonist by nature and training; and while he had regretted, formerly, her lack of worldly and womanly experience, it gave him something of a pang at heart to find that this little pagan creature, this pretty, wild, untutored Undine could apparently lose, for the moment at least, her joy in the "sweet things" of life. That in the process she might be slowly and painfully realizing her soul he did not stop to think. To him the fatigue in her face was pathetic; to Herrick it would have been enlightening.
"Mr. Raymond——" Toni spoke at last, and he threw off his absorption to listen. "If Owen's arm is broken, how will he do his work?"
"That is just what I've been wondering," said Barry. "Of course the ordinary office work, the work of theBridge, will go on all right without him for a bit. I mean—well, you see I can look after things pretty well, and we have an excellent secretary in Miss Loder."
"But his own work? He is writing a book—a novel, isn't he? He said something about it—though he hasn't read any of it to me," added Toni rather wistfully.
"I don't suppose he's got very far," said Barry, wondering whether she felt slighted by the omission. "Owen is a quick worker, I know, but he has only been at it for a week or two."
"Oh, I know," she replied hastily. "But how will he go on with it? He can't write with his left hand, can he?"
"Not very well." An idea struck Barry, and without stopping to think he gave it utterance. "Look here, Mrs. Rose, you can help Owen no end! You must take it down for him. You could easily scribble it off and then type it out afterwards, couldn't you?"
Into Toni's eyes flashed a light of pure joy.
"Oh, do you think I could! I'd do anything—anything to help Owen," she said eagerly. "It wouldn't be like his articles, full of quotations and things that want verifying, would it? I mean even a stupid girl—like me—could do it, couldn't she?"
"You're not stupid," he rallied her gaily. "Look how quickly you learned to read proof! And even the superior Miss Loder doesn't type as well as you!"
"Doesn't she!" Toni's depression had vanished like magic, and her eyes were sparkling as she looked at him. "Oh, if I could! But I don't believe I dare offer, Mr. Raymond! Do you think ifyouwere to mention it to Owen——"
"Oh, it would come much better from you!" Barry, whose interference on the subject of Owen's marriage had not been too well received, shrank from further officiousness. "If you propose it, I'm sure Owen will jump at it; and he won't mind his enforced helplessness half so much if he can get on with the book."
For a moment Toni said nothing.
The rain had ceased, and in the darkened sky one or two pale-gold stars were gleaming. The air was full of sweet, moist scents; and a big white owl flew by the window, looking weird and ghostly in the dusk. A moment later they heard him hoot from his eyrie in one of the tall tree-tops, and Toni shivered a little.
"I can't get used to their queer cries," she said in a low voice. "Sometimes I hear them in the night, and they make me shudder. Owen laughs at me, and quotes Shakespeare, about the owl and the baker's daughter, but I hate them, all the same."
"I rather like them," said Barry lightly. "Anyway, you mustn't drive them away; it's the very worst of luck to turn them out of their accustomed dwelling-places!"
"Then, they'll have to stop, I suppose," said Toni practically. "But I shall go on hating them all the same!"
Barry laughed and turned the conversation back to her proposed collaboration with Owen; and Toni was only too eager to discuss the subject, which lasted, indeed, until Barry said good-bye.
His last glimpse of her was as she stood on the steps calling out her farewell; and he carried away a clearly-cut impression of the slight, blue-robed figure, her black hair a little loosened round her eager, vivid face, her eyes full of a new and ardent resolution, which had quite banished the look of sadness and fatigue he had noticed earlier in the evening.
It was evident his suggestion had fired her heart and mind, and for a moment, as he was borne swiftly down the black avenue on to the high road, Barry asked himself if he had done well to light that lamp of hope and high desire in her soul.
If Owen should refuse her aid, if he should let her see that he had no desire for help from her, no exportation of any adequate service, the flame which Barry's words had lit would be cruelly extinguished, leaving in its place only the blank and utter darkness of disillusionment.
And once removed from her beseeching presence, Barry wondered, rather hopelessly, if indeed Toni's help would be of any value. She was ready, eager indeed, to be of use; but was she capable of work such as Owen would require?
Against his will Barry had a vision of Miss Loder in Toni's place—not as wife, but as assistant—and he confessed to himself with a groan that the highly-finished product of school and college would probably prove herself of far more practical use than the impulsive, emotional, and alas! unliterary Toni.
But the harm was done now. He had lighted the torch in Toni's soul, and he could only hope that no adverse breath would blow to extinguish its flame.
"Toni, I have a proposal to make. Suppose you stop typing for a little while and listen to me. Will you, dear?"
Toni, all the colour slipping out of her face, put down the sheet she had just taken up and waited obediently to hear Owen's proposal.
This was the ninth day of their mutual labour; and even Toni's optimism could not assert that the experience had been successful.
She had tried so hard, poor Toni. With every nerve strained to the utmost, with her mind emptied of anything which did not bear upon the subject in hand, she had striven to help Owen, to take down from dictation the words, the sentences, in which his thoughts were clothed.
She had learned not to look up expectantly at every pause, since she had realized that to the harassed author, struggling for the one right phrase, that bright expectancy exercised a deadening effect; and she never even raised her head when silence fell—the silence in which Owen weighed and sifted his material, selecting this, rejecting that, and embodying the result in just the one glowing, clean-cut sentence which would effectually tell.
But Toni found herself, all unwillingly, handicapped, by her non-comprehension both of the matter and method of Owen's creative work.
A plain, straightforward story Toni could assimilate easily enough. Something primitive in her responded, also, to the call of the world-wide emotions of love, hatred, revenge; but Owen's book dealt with none of these; and the subtle philosophy, the carefully interwoven motives of political expediency and half-reluctant patriotism were alike uninteresting and unintelligible.
Where she did not understand, it was natural she should transcribe incorrectly; and although it was easy for Owen to revise the typewritten script after each day's labours, he was perpetually checked in his stride, as it were, by the necessity of repeating or explaining some incident or allusion by which Toni was frankly puzzled.
Naturally, too, the girl was nervous; and Owen's habit of striding to and fro as he dictated made things, as she said desperately to herself, far worse. In vain she quickened her pace in a wild attempt to keep up with him. Faster and faster went her pen, more and more indistinct grew the scribbled words; and in the hour of stress all ideas of spelling and punctuation took to themselves wings and fled.
But worse even than her comparative failure with the merely mechanical portion of the work was her mental inability to follow the working of Owen's mind. Handicapped by the necessity of dictating his book, the author often found himself at a standstill for some word which eluded him; and although he encouraged Toni to make suggestions, it was very seldom that she ventured to do so. The work went badly in consequence. Owen used to think sometimes that if Toni's mind had been more attuned to his, if they had shared ideas, had held the same standard in fiction, he might have gained something from this enforced collaboration; but as things were it became an irritation, effectually stopping the flow of his ideas; and although he did his best to keep Toni in ignorance of his feelings, she was bound to realize that the work was progressing in a lame and halting fashion.
Therefore she was not surprised when Owen broke it to her, gently, that he was thinking of a change of secretary.
"You see, dear,"—he spoke very kindly, feeling indeed very pitiful towards the girl, whose fluctuating colour showed her mental disturbance—"this sort of work demands a special training. You are doing your best, I know, and I am very grateful to you, but you can see, can't you, that I am getting on badly?"
"Yes, Owen." She spoke very slowly, and for a moment Owen wondered whether it would be possible to continue the present arrangement. Then common sense and creative ardour combined to utter a decided negative, and feeling himself to be brutal he hurried on.
"Unfortunately I shan't be able to use my arm for some weeks. That stupid old doctor ought to pay my secretary's fees, oughtn't he, since he's responsible for my helplessness!"
He laughed; but Toni said nothing, and after waiting a second he continued:
"You've been most awfully good and patient, dear, and I'm afraid I've been horribly irritable over the job. But I don't think it's any good our going on. I'm wearing you out, and losing a lot of time into the bargain."
"You are going on with the book?"
"Of course, yes." His matter-of-fact assent caused poor Toni a pang. "But I think I shall have to borrow Miss Loder from the office for a few weeks. She is used to the job, you know. She told me she had once taken down an eighty-thousand-word book, typed it, and seen it through the press, because the author was nearly blind. So she would really know all about the work."
"Yes." Toni wondered, dully, why the sunshine which poured over her held no warmth to-day.
"Well, I'll drop a line to Barry and ask him if he can spare her for a bit. There's a rather smart typist in one of the other rooms could take her place, and I might not want her for very long. As far as the book itself is concerned, I can't work fast enough to get it all done."
"Yes." Sitting there, repeating the word, parrot-wise, Toni looked very forlorn; and something in her attitude struck Owen with a perhaps exaggerated feeling of remorse.
"Well, that's settled," he said cheerfully, "and after this you needn't lose your roses sitting indoors so much. I'll tell you what—let's have a day off, shall we?"
She nodded, hoping he would not see the tears in her eyes.
"Right. We'll have the car—Fletcher will have to drive—and go for a good long run into the country. We'll have lunch out and get back for dinner. You'll like that?"
"Very much." She rose. "I'll go and get ready, shall I?"
"Yes. We'll start at once. By Jove, I shall enjoy a holiday myself!"
Throughout the day Owen surrounded Toni with an atmosphere of kindness which he trusted might dispel the soreness he guessed she was experiencing; but somehow he failed in his object.
Although the day was superb, a still, golden August day, when the summer seemed to pause, arrested in its flight by the fulness of perfection to which it had brought the land, neither Owen nor Toni was sorry to return to Greenriver. As the car stopped in front of the door Toni cast a rather wistful look at the jasmine-covered old house she had learned to love; and for a moment she felt as though she saw herself as those other women had seen her—the ignorant, frivolous, common little person whom Owen had married out of pique.
Never in all her life had Toni felt so humble as on this evening, when she entered the house which was her home. What had she in common with the beautiful old hall, with the broad staircase leading to the spacious gallery, lighted now by the Ten Little Ladies, whose light pierced the gloom like so many kindly little stars?
The pictures, the bowls of roses, all the inanimate things she had grown to look upon as friends—it seemed to her to-night that they looked coldly to her, resenting her presence as an interloper; and in one queer, horrible flash of insight Toni seemed to visualize the woman who should have been thechâtelaineof Greenriver—a tall, dignified, beautiful woman, with the bearing of a princess....
"What's the matter, dear?" Owen had seen her shiver. "Are you cold? Yet it's a warm night."
"No, thank you, I'm not cold." She spoke gently. "I—I think I'm a little tired."
She picked up a brown envelope from the table.
"Look, Owen, here's a telegram for you."
"So there is. Open it for me, will you, dear?"
She did so and handed him the flimsy paper. His eyes brightened as he read.
"Good old Barry! He's wasted no time—Miss Loder will come down to-morrow by the ten o'clock train. I must send the car."
He went out and spoke to the chauffeur, returning to say: "Will you arrange for some lunch to be sent up every day, Toni? She can get off by the four train, I daresay, and that will give us a good long time for work."
"I will see to it," Toni said quietly.
"Thanks, dear. Let me see, there's half an hour before dinner. I might go and put everything in order as far as we've gone, so that we can start fair. I mustn't waste her time when she gets here."
"No. Of course not."
Although she tried to speak casually, a note in her voice struck Owen rather unpleasantly. He looked at her sharply in the lamplight; and something in her child-like attitude, as she stood motionless, her hands hanging by her sides, gave him a sudden twinge of something like reproach.
He looked round quickly. They were alone, and acting on impulse Owen stooped, and putting his left hand under her chin, tilted her face upwards until their eyes met.
"Come, Toni." He had seen the tears in those wistful eyes of hers. "What's the matter? You are not hurt about the work, are you? If you would rather not have the woman, say so, and we will go on as we have been doing. It will get easier in time."
"Oh no!" Toni spoke quickly, though her lips quivered. "Indeed I'm not hurt. I—I'm sorry I'm such a fool. I'm only a hindrance to you instead of a help."
Although he had no conception of the wound dealt to her by two thoughtless women, Owen realized that she was in earnest; that she understood, and regretted, her failure to give him the help he needed; and for perhaps the first time since his marriage Owen pitied his wife sincerely. After all, it was he, not she, who was to blame; and being still in the dark, Owen thanked God that at least she had no idea he had married her without giving her the love she had had a right to expect.
"Hush, Toni dear." He held her to him with his sound arm. "After all, I want you for my wife, not my typist. Miss Loder may be able to do the work I want done better than you, because she's used to it; but you're my wife, Toni, and what does anything else matter?"
He did not know whether his words brought her any comfort. She smiled, faintly, and returned the kiss he gave her before he let her go; but when she was alone in her quiet room Toni wept till she could weep no more.
She hated Miss Loder from the first.
Her self-possessed manner, her cool, grey eyes, above all the suggestion of competency which lurked in every line of her trim, well-tailored figure, all alike filled Toni with a sharp sense of resentment which she felt to be both childish and stupid.
Without perhaps intending it, Miss Loder conveyed a sense of superiority. Toni was made to feel that this newcomer knew just why she had been sent for—understood that it was in reality to Toni's incapacity that she owed her present position; and Toni felt, with a miserable intensity, that Miss Loder looked upon her as some brilliant sixth-form girl would survey a kindergarten child, with a kindly, half-amused, half-contemptuous tolerance.
Never had Toni so desperately longed to be clever as during that first week of Miss Loder's secretaryship; and never had she felt herself to be so ignorant, so childish, so futile a companion for a man like Owen.
At first Miss Loder had eaten her lunch in solitude. It was Toni's suggestion that she should join them in the dining-room, and Owen, supposing that Toni felt it a little discourteous to condemn the other woman to a lonely meal, agreed cordially to the plan.
Over her luncheon Miss Loder laid aside her rather scholastic, manner, and talked pleasantly in a quite refreshingly frivolous way; but try as she might Toni never felt at ease in her presence; and gradually she dropped out of the conversation until she sat for the greater part of the meal in silence.
Owen, absorbed in his book, did not notice her taciturnity, and though he responded politely to Miss Loder's chatter, it was evident he was not captivated by her undoubted social gifts to the extent of forgetting the purpose of her presence.
As for Miss Loder, Toni had guessed her attitude towards Mr. Rose's wife correctly enough. To the clever, highly-trained mind of the Girton girl Toni's whole personality was so appallingly feeble.
"The brains of a hen, and the soul, probably, of a chorus-girl." So Miss Loder, quite unjustly, summed up Toni. "Married the man to get out of a life of drudgery, I expect, and is as much of a companion to her husband as a pretty little Persian cat would be. Whywillthese nice men marry such nonentities, I wonder? She is bound to be a drag on him all her days."
For all her shrewdness Miss Loder never dreamed that her estimation of Toni was clearly evident to the person concerned. In her fatally orderly mind Toni was classified as a "type"—the type of the pretty, useless, childish wife; and Miss Loder never looked for any variation of the type when once she had labelled the specimen.
That his now secretary did her work admirably Owen realized with intense gratitude. For all her modern self-assertiveness Miss Loder was clever enough to realize that in Owen she had met her intellectual master; and being at heart a veritable woman she never attempted to challenge the supremacy of the masculine mind.
The work progressed quickly; and gradually, as the fascination of his work grew upon him, Owen became more and more absorbed in his book. He was always planning some incident, rehearsing, mentally, some situation or some telling dialogue; and the outer life around him receded into a dim and misty distance, in which Toni's pathetic little figure was almost lost.
Toni did not give in easily. She made feeble tentative attempts to share his author's rapture. She asked him timid little questions, to which he gave smilingly vague answers; and once she even suggested that he should read to her the chapters he had already finished.
Owen refused, quite gently, but inexorably; and Toni felt a miserable certainty that he did not think her capable of understanding or appreciating his work.
The day this happened she ordered the car and went for a long and solitary excursion into the country. Of late she had not used the car, preferring to hang wretchedly about the house and garden, half-resenting the absorption of the two workers shut up in the library, not daring to interrupt their toil, yet longing, vaguely, for the courage to enter boldly and claim her share of the mutual labour.
But to-day she felt that she could stand the house no longer. A great desire was upon her for the sunny places of the earth, and in her present mood the slow, gliding traffic of the river held for her no attraction. She longed for the swift, exhilarating rush through the air which, the car would give her; and Fletcher took her orders with alacrity.
"A long round—yes, ma'am." He deliberated. "It's not three yet, and I suppose you don't care to be 'ome much before dinner-time?"
"No, I want to be out for hours," she said feverishly, and Fletcher was only too pleased to oblige her.
Even Toni's depression could not hold beneath the tonic of that glorious ride. It was a splendid September day, when the country lay bathed in floods of rolling sunshine, and there was just enough bite in the air to set the blood racing through one's veins, and bring the sparkle to one's eyes.
Toni sat upright in the car, gazing out over the golden fields to the misty hills beyond, and everything she saw filled her with the true and vivid happiness which the lover of the "sweet things" of the earth knows so well.
A field of yellow corn ablaze with scarlet poppies, a group of trees among which the copper beech blazed with a glory as of the sunset, a glimpse of a wide common all aflame with sweet-scented gorse ... now and again a hint of the river flashing and sparkling beneath the shining sky—Toni, the ignorant, despised Toni, knew how to appreciate the glories of the earth as the brilliant Millicent Loder could never do.
On and on they rushed. Fletcher, who in common with the other servants respected Owen and adored Toni, was only too glad to please his young mistress by taking her far afield; and he utilized his wide knowledge of the countryside in her service, treating Toni indeed to such a panorama of the fertile country as she had never yet been privileged to behold.
They were running through a little village on their homeward way when a tyre burst with a loud report; and Fletcher pulled up with an expression of dismay.
"I'm sorry, ma'am—I shall have to delay you a bit while I put on a new tyre." He looked round him rather doubtfully. "I suppose you wouldn't care to take a cup of tea while I put it right?"
"Mrs. Rose!" A cyclist had halted by the car, and looking up Toni saw Herrick standing beside her. "Had an accident? Nothing serious, I hope."
"Tyre burst, sir," announced the chauffeur, who with the rest of the village looked upon the shabby inhabitant of the Hope House as a harmless eccentric. "I was just asking my mistress if she would care to have some tea while I repair it."
"A capital idea," said Herrick, whose amused eyes saw quite well the chauffeur's estimate of him. "Mrs. Rose, may I take you to get some tea? One of these cottages will supply it, I daresay—or there is quite a decent little inn over yonder."
"Thanks very much." Toni was thirsty, and she liked Herrick. "I'd love some tea—if you'll have some too."
"To be sure I will." He propped his bicycle carelessly against a fence and opened the door of the car. "Which shall we try? A cottage or the inn?"
In the end they decided for the inn; and leaving Fletcher to set to work, Herrick escorted Toni down the village street to the door of the old-fashioned inn which called itself, rather ambiguously, the "Cock and Bottle."
The landlady, who spoke with a Northern burr which made, Herrick glance curiously at her, came bustling into the flagged passage to greet them, and when she had taken their order for tea she ushered them into the parlour with a hospitable smile.
"I'll fetch tea in a minute," said she, "t' kettle's boilin' an' I've a cake on the griddle just about fit."
When she had gone Toni turned two perplexed eyes on Herrick.
"Mr. Herrick, what does she mean? Does the cake fit the griddle, or what?"
Herrick laughed lustily.
"Oh, you Londoner—you poor little Southern kid! Haven't you ever been in Yorkshire—good old Yarkshire, as they call it—the country of tykes and gees and men that can't be beat?"
"Oh, is that Yorkshire!" Toni coloured with excitement. "Mr. Herrick, my father came from there! All his people did—but they're dead now, and I've never been North!"
"Really?" He was to the full as much interested in the coincidence as she. "Well, our good landlady is certainly a Yorkshire woman—and I hope she'll give us a real Yorkshire tea!"
His hope was fulfilled when the buxom Mrs. Spencer returned, which she speedily did. She carried a tray laden not only with cups and saucers, but with an assortment of cakes which would have rejoiced the heart of a Yorkshire child.
"Them's crud cheesecakes," said she, beaming on the pair, "an' these fat rascals is to-day's bake—and the griddle cakes an' all." She laid the table deftly. "I'll fetch the tea-pot and t' cream, and then ye can help yersens."
When she put down the tea-pot, however, Herrick detained her with a question.
"You don't belong to these parts, Mrs. Spencer?"
"No, sir." She shook her head blithely. "I'm a Yorkshire woman, praise the pigs! Married a South-country man, I did—and often wished as I 'adn't—when 'e wur alive, that's to say."
"Since his demise you've altered your mind?"
"Well, he left me pretty well provided for," returned the late Spencer's widow comfortably, "an' I won't say as 'e wur an out-an-out bad 'usband. But somehow I can't abide South-country folk."
"They say we Yorkshire tykes are a rough lot," said Herrick, smiling, and she took up the challenge at once.
"Oh, that's all my eye and Betty Martin," she returned in the vernacular of her youth, "I grant you there's a lot of soft-sawder about the fellers down here, but they ain't in it wi' us up in Yorkshire."
"Where do you come from, Mrs. Spencer? I'm a dalesman myself; Wensleydale's my native land."
"I'm from Thirsk, sir. My mother was washerwoman to lots of the gentry round, and my people still lives there, in a cottage on the Green."
"Ah, I know Thirsk—fine old church there, one of the finest in the North Riding. You've never been there, Mrs. Rose?" He turned to include Toni in the conversation, and found her wide-eyed and flushed with excitement.
"Mr. Herrick, my people lived near Thirsk—in a farm at Feliskirk in the hills. Oh, do you think she knew them?"
Mrs. Spencer, who had hitherto overlooked Toni, turned to her in surprise.
"If you'll tell me the name, miss—ma'am. We knew most of t' people in t' neighbourhood."
"Gibbs—their name was Gibbs." She spoke breathlessly. "The house was called the Green Farm. Oh, do you know anything about them?"
"Gibbs? The Green Farm?" Mrs. Spencer stared incredulously. "Why, I knew old Gregory Gibbs well—and a fine old fellow he was too. And Fred and Roger—why, I knew 'em both. They used to come down into t' town on market days with their dad, and a pair of jolly little lads they were an' all—especially Roger."
"Roger was my father," said Toni quietly, and Mrs. Spencer uttered an exclamation.
"You don't say! But Roger, he ran away—leastways e went off to furrin parts and we 'eard as 'ow 'e'd married an Heyetalian young lady out there. And you are really Roger Gibbs' bairn?"
"Yes; he married my mother—an Italian girl—in Naples. I was born there. But they're both dead now," said Toni sadly.
"Oh, I'm sorry to 'ear that!" Mrs. Spencer spoke sincerely. "To think as I should live to see young Roger's lass 'ere in my 'ouse! You don't favour the Gibbs, miss, if I may say so."
"No, Mrs. Rose is more like her mother's people, I expect," said Herrick, noticing as he spoke how pale Toni looked now that the flush of excitement had died away. "But if she has never been to Yorkshire, at least she can taste her native cakes, eh, Mrs. Spencer?"
Thus reminded of her duties Mrs. Spencer bustled away to find some "preserve," which was only brought out for specially honoured guests; and Toni took the seat Herrick placed for her at the table.
"You'll pour out for us? That's right. I'm afraid our good landlady will want to stay and chatter! Do you mind?"
"Oh, no—do let her stay and talk about my people!" pleaded Toni, and this Mrs. Spencer was very ready to do.
Standing by the table, resting her empty tray on her ample hip, she poured forth a stream of disjointed memories to which Toni listened eagerly. Mrs. Spencer, it seemed, had had an aunt living in the village with the Gibbs; and as a child she had often stayed there; so that she had known Toni's father well.
"Of course, t' Gibbs were always a cut above us," she owned frankly. "My feyther was a foundry hand till he died, and wasn't too steady neither; and when 'e died my mother took in washing. There was a trick young Roger once played 'er about a washing-basket ... what was it now?" She paused to meditate. "Nay, I can't think on this minute ... but she allus said as 'e wur nowt but a bowdekite!" She laughed, jollily, at the recollection, and pressed a cheesecake on Toni with a heartiness there was no resisting.
Thanks to her chatter time flew; and Herrick was just beginning to think of the waiting chauffeur, when there was a sudden spatter of rain against the window panes; and looking out he saw that while they had been talking a storm had been brewing.
"I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little, Mrs. Rose!" He pointed to the rain, now streaming down in a steady torrent. "It won't be more than a shower, I daresay."
"Oh, and Fletcher's outside in it." Toni put down her cup. "Mr. Herrick, could I tell him to come inside and have some tea, do you think? We've been out for hours, you know."
"Certainly. I'll see about it."
He went out and brought in the chauffeur, delivering him over to Mrs. Spencer's good offices; and then returned to find Toni sitting rather disconsolately by the window, looking out at the rain as it splashed into the quickly-forming puddles in the village street.
The sudden storm, the silence which fell after Mrs. Spencer's departure, or the early-falling dusk, had brought back all her misery to Toni's mind, banishing in a flash all her recent joyful animation; and when, after observing her for a moment, Herrick came forward, he saw that a blight had fallen over her late gaiety.
She did not hear his step—thought, perhaps, that he had stayed to speak to the chauffeur or chat with the landlady; and all at once such a sense of bitter desolation swept over Toni that she began to cry softly to herself in the dusk.
Instantly Herrick began to back noiselessly towards the door; but Fate, or perhaps a malignant Boo-Boo, pushed a footstool in his path, over which he stumbled with an involuntary ejaculation.
Startled, Toni turned round and saw him; and cursing his own clumsiness, Herrick judged it best to come forward openly.
"Your man is having some tea, under Mrs. Spencer's kindly auspices." He smiled. "It seems she 'don't reckon nowt' to our combined appetites, so I hope Fletcher will make up for our shortcomings."
He sat down in the low window seat, not far from Toni, and with a smile asked permission to smoke.
"Of course—please do." She spoke indifferently.
"Your husband isn't an inveterate smoker—like me?" He lighted a cigarette gratefully. "I thought most literary men were slaves to tobacco."
"I think Owen smokes a good deal," she said. "And especially now that he is working so hard. Miss Loder is quite shocked at his cigarettes."
"Miss Loder?" The question slipped out before he had time to reflect.
"My husband's secretary." She broke off abruptly, as though unwilling to say more. Then a great flood of bitterness rolled over her spirit, at the memory of her own failure; and mingled with it came a sore envy and distrust of the clear-eyed, capable woman who had supplanted her. Together, the two proved irresistible; and with an almost child-like instinct to confide in the man whom she felt to be trustworthy, Toni turned to Herrick and poured forth her sad little story of disappointment and bitter disillusionment.
Out it all came, her desire to help her husband, and the dread awakening to the fact of her own incompetency. Herrick, listening, realized, as perhaps Owen could not have done, what a blow to Toni's hopes the failure of the experiment had been; and remembering her earlier confidences, when she had appealed to him to reverse the judgment passed upon her by two cruel women, he began to wonder whether Toni would ever find any happiness in the life which had once looked so glorious to her youthful eyes.
He said very little till she had finished, though now and again, a quiet question made clear some point involved by her own incoherency; and from the bottom of his heart he pitied the girl who was beginning to realize that though she might be the wife of the man she loved, she would never be his real companion and helpmate until she could attain something nearer to the high standard of perfection for which he looked.
"This Miss Loder—you like her?"
"I believe—sometimes—I almost hate her," said Toni drearily. "She is everything I am not, you see. She is clever, well-educated, amusing. I think I hate women who tell amusing stories," she added vindictively, biting her lip with her strong little teeth.
"But she is not personally objectionable to you?" Herrick wished to hear, if possible, how she treated her employer's wife.
"No—at least she doesn't mean to be," said Toni, striving to speak fairly. "But I know she thinks I am a fool, and pities Owen for having married me. I believe she thinks I ought never to speak to Owen, never ask him any questions about the book. She was quite—short—with me yesterday because I went in to speak to Owen during the afternoon!"
"Oh, but that's absurd!" Herrick felt a quite unreasonable dislike for the superior Miss Loder. "After all you are his wife—she is only his secretary—and husbands and wives have a claim on each other which no sane person would deny."
"Yes." She did not look convinced, and he tried again.
"Don't forget, will you, that a wife holds an absolutely unique position. She is the one person in the world to whom the man is answerable for his actions, just as she is answerable to him for her own; and if she is—hurt—or annoyed by any proceeding on the part of her husband, she has a perfect right to express her wishes on the subject."
"You mean I have a right to ask Owen to send away Miss Loder?" Toni was always direct in her statements. "I suppose I have—if I wanted to—but I don't. It isn't Miss Loder who makes me miserable. It's the whole hopeless situation."
Her words startled him.
"Not hopeless, Mrs. Rose!"
"Why not?" In her eyes he read again that hint of a tortured woman soul which he had glimpsed before. "It isn't very hopeful, is it? My husband wants help and sympathy, which I cannot give him; and yet because he married me he can't ask anyone else for it except in a business way."
"But—you don't mean:——" Herrick paused, aghast at the horrible idea her words had conjured up; and Toni, with the new quickness which suffering was teaching her, hastened to reassure him.
"Oh, I don't mean he wants to marry any other woman," she said proudly. "I am his wife—unfortunately for him, perhaps, but he will always be true to me. Besides, Miss Loder isn't that sort," she added, rather vaguely.
"Then what——"
"Oh, you don't understand!" Her sad voice robbed the words of all petulance. "Though you are most awfully kind—and clever—you see you aren't married, Mr. Herrick, and that makes a difference."
"Who told you I was not married?" His tone was studiously quiet, yet the girl looked at him quickly, wonderingly.
"I don't think anyone told me—but I thought you weren't." She hesitated, then went on hurriedly. "I used to think that was why you were so—so sad. I mean—oh, I know you laugh and talk and are kind, but somehow I felt all the time there was a sadness underneath...."
She broke off, roused from thoughts of her own trouble by the fear that she had given him pain; and for a moment neither spoke.
Then, with a glance at the window, down whose panes the rain was still streaming, Herrick took a sudden resolution.
Perhaps if he told this girl the story of his own marriage, opened before her eyes the book on whose pages was inscribed so tragic a history, she might take courage anew, realizing that her own pitiful little story held no hint, at least, of shame or disgrace, no hint of a mutual disillusionment which only death could adjust.
He rose abruptly.
"I'll just speak to your man," he said. "I don't think it would be wise to start yet, but I'll see what he says, shall I?"
She let him go, wondering whether her last speech had vexed him; and in a moment he returned.
"Fletcher agrees with me that it will be wise to wait a quarter of an hour," he said; "the rain is not nearly so heavy, and the sky is growing lighter."
"Very well." She spoke listlessly, and his resolve was strengthened. Sitting down on the window seat again, he asked her a question.
"You didn't know I was married? Would you care to hear the story of my marriage? It isn't a very happy story, but it might serve to show you what a different thing your marriage will yet turn out to be."