CHAPTER II

CHAPTER II

“I ’M dying to go into the garden,” said Mrs. Summers. She slipped her arm within Cecily’s, and while she talked volubly, felt its trembling gradually lessen. “Tongue cannot tell what I’ve endured since I landed on Tuesday,” she exclaimed. “The children’sayahhas been ill, relations have incessantly banged at the front door, Mother has had one of her attacks—excitement, you know,—and I’ve been tearing my hair. I daren’t write to tell you when to expect me because I didn’t know from hour to hour when I could get away. At last to-day there was a lull; so,forbiddinganything to happen in my absence, I just rushed off to you.”

“And the babies?” asked Cecily.

“Splendid. They got horribly spoilt on board, and now Mother’s putting the finishing touches.”

“And Jack?”

“Very fit when I left him, a month ago. But I’m not going to talk babies, nor even husbands. I want to know aboutyou.”

Cecily shrugged her shoulders. “There’s nothing to tell,” she said. “You saw me a month before I came into this house; I’ve been here ever since. This is rather a nice seat.”

They sat down on a bench under a beech tree, and for all her volubility Rose felt herself nonplussed. She glanced at Cecily, her momentary hesitation as to what to say next indicated by a little furrow between the eyes.

Rose Summers was scarcely a pretty, but certainly a striking woman, who, in spite of trying circumstances in the shape of an Eastern climate, looked younger than her thirty-one years. Her figure, of the athletic type, was good; she was exceedingly well dressed, and she wore her clothes with distinction. Her slightly freckled face had a healthy tint, and her eyes—gray, clear, and steady—were beautiful as well as kindly. Their expression was contradicted, to some extent, by the sarcasm indicated in a rather large and certainly humorous mouth. The eyes she turned upon her friend now were troubled, almostincredulous. Her mental picture of the Cecily of five years back had been so vivid that, even with the witness before her, she could not realize the change those years had brought.

Cecily was still graceful; nothing could rob her of the beautiful movements which characterized every change of attitude; and as she threw herself back against the cushions in the corner of the bench, for the first time Mrs. Summers recognized the Cecily of the past.

But her beauty was wellnigh gone. It was a beauty that had always largely depended on happiness, and now, with her blue eyes faded, the delicate color gone from her cheeks, her hair still soft but lustreless, she was almost a plain woman. Rose glanced furtively from her face to her dress. It was of simple dark blue linen, quite neat, quite serviceable. She thought of the dainty muslins, the ribbons, the flowers of earlier summers—and the ludicrousness of even imagining Cecily in a gown that could be characterized as serviceable!

“When you begin to neglect your frocks, Cis, I shall know the end is near.” In the old days Mrs. Summers had often told her this. She recalled it now, and made haste to break the silence.

“Where is Robert?” she asked. “Do I call him Robert? I forget.”

“Of course you do. He’s in town—reading at the British Museum.”

Rose raised her eyebrows with a laugh. “Since when has our Robert become so studious?”

“He’s writing a historical novel, and has to study up the period. Robert is getting quite famous, you know, Rose,” she added, after a moment’s pause.

“Yes—butyou, Cis? Why areyounot famous?”

“I? Oh, I’m married—instead,” she replied, with a little laugh.

“Tell me all about Robert,” demanded Mrs. Summers. “If you only knew how horribly out of things I feel! I know nothing of what’s been going on in the book world.”

“I should think not—with two babies to look after.”

“And the constant moving from one station to another. One loses touch so quickly, and you know, Cis,” with a touch of reproach, “you haven’t written. Why didn’t you write? For the last year or two I’ve scarcely heard anything of you.”

For a moment her cousin was silent, and when she spoke her voice trembled.

“I know. But after baby died, I hadn’t the heart. And then——” She broke off abruptly.

Mrs. Summers’ voice was very gentle.

“Yes, dear, of course—I understand,” she said. “But tell me everything now. Robert’s getting famous? That means that you’re getting rich, you lucky little wretch!”

“Yes,” returned Cecily. “Yes, I suppose we shall be rich,” she added, slowly.

“Bless the child! Aren’t you glad? Isn’t he glad?”

“Oh, yes, he’s very glad. We can get away now.” She spoke in a quiet, unemotional tone, and Rose glanced at her sharply.

“Get away? But doesn’t he love this place?”

“No, he’s sick of it,” she said, still in the same indifferent voice. “We’re going to sell it, and move to London in the autumn.”

“But Robert was so wild to take it!”

“That was five years ago.”

“It’s perfectly lovely, of course,” returned her friend, glancing round her. “Butyounever wanted to come, I remember. You wanted so much to live in town. Thediscussion of townversuscountry was at its height when I left. So country won?”

“Yes, country won,” Cecily repeated.

“Well, it’s beautiful,” Rose repeated. “I never saw such flowers. What a gardener you must have!”

Cecily laughed. “I am the gardener. I do it nearly all myself.”

Rose’s astonishment kept her silent. Cecily, who knew nothing of country things! Cecily, who, in spite of her love for nature, belonged first to the town—to its life, its thoughts, its opportunities! To this meeting with the friend of her girlhood she had been looking forward for months, and she had met a stranger. She had foolishly expected to take up the thread of intimacy where she had dropped it, and in the interval a whole new pattern had been woven,—a pattern in faded colors, whose design she did not understand.

Cecily was obviously unhappy; obviously, also, she was keeping her at arm’s length, and with such success that she had not the courage to ask direct questions. With gratitude she hailed the appearance of a maid who came with tea, as a relief to her embarrassment—that terrible embarrassment one feels in the presence of a close friend to whose mind one has lost the key.

While the cloth was being spread, and the maid was moving to and fro from the house, they exchanged information on family matters.

“Diana is almost grown up,” said Cecily, speaking of her sister, whom Mrs. Summers remembered as a child of twelve. “You know she’s been living with Uncle Henry and Aunt Mary since father died?” The softening of her voice, the hesitation with which she spoke his name, reminded Rose of one great grief, at least, through which in her absence her friend had passed. “You will like Diana,” Cecily added after a moment. “Of course you’re going to stay to-night, Rose?”

Mrs. Summers admitted that she was open to an invitation. “When is Robert coming back?” she inquired.

“This afternoon, I think. He was staying last night at his godmother’s—Lady Wilmot, you know.”

The mention of her husband’s name did not, as Rose hoped, lead to confidences. Cecily began at once to inquire the earliest date at which her friend could leave the children long enough for a “proper visit,” and Mrs. Summers was soon driven to make conversation.

“What a ridiculous little world it is!” she remarked, stirring her tea; “I haven’t yetbeen home a week, and already I’ve run across people I’d lost sight of for years before I left England. Now, on Monday, for instance, I was going to the dressmaker’s when I met a girl I used to know, a girl called Philippa Burton.”

“Philippa Burton!” echoed Cecily, with interest. “Why, I went to school with her. A rather pretty dark girl?”

“Major Burton’s daughter? Yes? How strange!”

“Philippa Burton! How it brings all the schooldays back!” exclaimed Cecily, with a retrospective laugh. “I had no idea you knew her, Rose. When did you meet her?”

“That year I went to Leipzig to study music, you know. She was in the samepension, studying something or other also; I forget what. Affectation, I should think.”

“But she had brought that to a fine art even as a schoolgirl,” Cecily remarked. “Tell me about her. We left school the same term, I remember. Is she as pretty as ever?” She spoke with animation, obviously glad of a topic which drew conversation away from personal matters.

“Pretty?—yes, in a floppy fashion.”

Cecily laughed. “Oh, she still flops? Sheused to be a most intense young woman. When she asked you to pass the salt at dinner, you felt inclined to burst into tears. She was High Church when I knew her, but that was early in her career.”

“Oh, yes, there’s been Rationalism since then, and Socialism, and Vegetarianism, and Theosophy, and what not. Just now it’s Sandals and the Simple Life, whatever that may mean. It seems to cover a multitude of complexities.”

“Does she still yearn?”

“Oh, horribly! She begins at breakfast-time, I’m sure. She’s doing miniatures and mystic drawings now.”

“And mouse-traps, and moonshine, and everything else that begins with anM? It sounds likeAlice in Wonderland. Go on. I’m awfully interested to hear of her again. Even as a schoolgirl Philippa posed more than any other human being I’ve ever met.”

“She has a studio in Fulham somewhere,” Mrs. Summers continued. “I happened to be quite close to it when I met her, and she asked me to come in to tea.Shehad grape-nuts and plasmon. It’s astonishing what lurid views of life can be nourished upon this apparently mild diet,” she added, reflectively.

“Are Philippa’s views lurid?” asked Cecily.

“Oh, my uninstructed married ignorance is to blame, of course!” declared Mrs. Summers, with a meek expression.

“What did she say?”

“A great many things—most of them quite unfit for publication. But the latest and simplest gospel, according to Burton, appears to be, ‘Down with the proprietary view of marriage.’”

Cecily leaned back against her cushions. “Ah!” she said.

“Yes,” continued Mrs. Summers, meditatively, “there should be room in life for frank, free comradeship—camaraderiewas, I think, the word—between husbands and ladies who are living the Simple Life. Room for beautiful, breezy, ennobling friendships, untrammelled by vulgar jealousy on the part of the wife.”

“I see,” returned Cecily. “And is the wife to have beautiful, breezy friendships too?”

“Oh, yes! Liberty, Fraternity (presumably), and Equality, of course.”

Cecily was silent a moment. “And you don’t believe in that kind of thing?” she asked.

Mrs. Summers shrugged her shoulders.

“My dear, I haven’t lived the Simple Life,” she returned, dryly.

“Some more tea?” Cecily suggested. “Well, a complicated biscuit, then? I’m afraid I haven’t any plasmon in the house. I wonder now whether a woman like Philippa Burton is more of a hypocrite or a self-deceiver?” she added, thoughtfully, after a few moments.

“About her theories, you mean?”

“Or her practices. A woman seldom has a theory without a concrete example to illustrate it. Philippa has a concrete example, of course?”

“Oh, yes, one of the husbands who comes to be ennobled.”

“Isn’t his wife suited to the task?”

“Apparently not. He is a great genius, warped, stifled, suffocated by the atmosphere of domesticity.”

“Poor man,” said Cecily.

“The wife’s crime, as far as I can understand,” pursued Mrs. Summers, “is her existence, and from Philippa’s point of view I admit it’s enough. No doubt when a man’s tired of his wife itisawfully annoying and stultifying to his genius. But somehow, while Philippa talked, I felt rather sorry forthe poor little woman whose mind is so ill-balanced that she can’t turn off her emotions to order.”

“Is the man in love with Philippa, do you think?”

“Well, as he generally spends several hours a day with her, I should say he was—speaking of the human man as I know him.”

“And Philippa?” asked Cecily.

“Philippa, my dear, has sandals and an exalted mind. I also suspect her of a certain amount of concealedjaeger,—and she thinks him very noble. He always speaks ‘quite nicely’ of his wife.” Mrs. Summers paused, the ironical smile deepening upon her lips. “Under these circumstances,” she continued, “thedénouementmay be a little delayed.”

“Ah well!” observed Cecily, rising. “It’s a very common little story, no doubt.” There was an underlying ring of bitterness in her words which did not escape her friend’s notice, as she too got up from the bench. “You’d like to come to your room, Rose? Dinner’s at half-past seven.”

“Oh, common enough, of course,” returned Rose, in answer to her first remark. “There’s nothing particularly remarkable about Mr. Fergus Macdonald, I should imagine——”

She was stooping to pick up her handkerchief as she spoke, when a half-articulate exclamation made her sharply raise her head.

Cecily was standing looking at her. “Mr.——? I didn’t catch the name,” she said, in an odd voice.

“Fergus Macdonald,” repeated Rose. “She didn’t tell me his name, but I couldn’t help seeing a very soulful inscription in a book. Why, Cecily, do you know him?” She stammered over the last words, for while she spoke, every drop of color had ebbed away from the other woman’s face.

“Cecily!” she urged.

Cecily sank into the seat she had just left. There was silence for a moment, and then she began to laugh.

“Cecily!” said Mrs. Summers again. “Don’t, Cecily! Do you know him?”

“A little,” she replied. “He’s my husband.”

There was quite a long silence. Rose noticed the long shadows on the grass, was conscious of the brilliance of a bed of flowers in the sunset light.

“Robert!” she whispered at last. “But how——”

“It’s his writing name,” said Cecily, wearily.She had left off laughing now. “Oh, of course, you didn’t know, dear. As you say, you have been out of things——” Her voice trailed off without finishing the sentence.

Mrs. Summers mentally reviewed the preceding conversation. “O Cis,” she murmured, “I could kill myself for it. What a fool I am!—what afool!”

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