COUNTER-OPINIONS AT OLD LAFER
On the day Danby's letter to the Admiral arrived, Cynthia too had one.
It was the more important-looking of the two; had the Admiral seen it he
would have fired into anger, suspecting its contents. But she received
it in her own room before breakfast. She knew what it held the moment
her eye lit on the envelope. Nothing less than a photograph could be
there. She had asked for one.
When, a little later, she emerged in the gallery, Mrs. Hennifer was
just disappearing down the stairs. She ran after her and brought her
back, putting the photograph into her hands, and looking at it over her
shoulder.
It was a remarkable face, and Mrs. Hennifer knew instantly that she
had seen it before, and that Cynthia was going to marry the man to
whom Mrs. Severn had once been engaged. It was not, however, then
sealed by the sardonic keenness that marked it now. Danby's life had
been passed in India, but the skin was still, as it had been in youth,
extraordinarily white, except on the jaw and upper lip, where close
shaving tinged it with indigo. The features were of the moulded rather
than the chiselled type. The eyes had a straight gaze of penetrating
hardness that, remaining fixed, yet seemed to go beyond the object
looked at, and thus could not be deemed offensive. They concentrated
the interest of the face. The pupils had the opaqueness of marble, but
Mrs. Hennifer knew that the radiating violet of the iris possessed
the faculty of a sea-anemone in contracting and expanding. Had she not
known Danby she would have detested those eyes as holding what a bad man
might reciprocate and a good woman resent; discovering to the one too
much knowledge, to the other the nearness of evil. But she knew him as
a young man, and she remembered the mortal agony of wasted tenderness
they had once shown her. Why was her darling Cynthia to be the atonement
for that agony? Surely it was unnatural that her young and ardent life
should have chosen the subdued emotions of a man whose drama of emotion
she had herself witnessed years ago, when she and her husband and he
were at the same Indian station. Ought she, must she tell Cynthia all
this? Or had Danby himself? Did he know that Clothilde was at Old Lafer?
'Do you like it?' said Cynthia at last.
Mrs. Hennifer sighed involuntarily.
'It is the antipodes to yours, dearest.'
'So dark? But so was Anthony's.'
'And the expression----'
'Yes. Theo disliked it when first we all met. I did not think about him
then. But every one cannot be like Anthony--have that awfully sweet
look, you know.'
'That look would have become very dear to you in pain or trouble.'
Cynthia flushed, then shook her head.
'This is very dear to me now,' she said. 'And I feel as though Lucius
wants happiness and brightness, and I can give them. Sometimes Anthony
nearly made me cry, and it vexed me always that I could not give what he
wanted, at least----' she faltered and turned away.
'Never, my darling?' said Mrs. Hennifer wistfully.
'Once. There was one little moment when I could have. But it was only a
moment,' she added gaily. 'And now the leaf is turned down for ever, and
I shall learn every day and hour what Lucius wants, and how to make him
happy.'
'Although he is so much older than you? You may be his nurse before many
years are over, Cynthy.'
'Nonsense, he's not so old as that,' said she with bright impatience.
'I know his age, he's in the prime of life. But supposing he were
invalided, I'd rather be his nurse than frolicking about with any other.'
'It seems so strange he should not already be married----'
'Yes, it does, I confess,' she said, lapsing into gravity. 'I have
thought that too, and I said so to him. Of course I could not expect he
had never had an attachment before he met me. It is partly that he has
lived in India I think, and partly, chiefly, because he had once an--but
why should I tell you?' she added, breaking off with a shake of her head
and a laugh. 'He has told me. That is sufficient. There was some one
before, I don't even know her name--it was natural; you understand? But
it is me now? my turn wholly. He loves me well. Oh, I know I shall make
him happy, and that's all I want.'
There was no combating this mood. Mrs. Hennifer had not forces to
control the enemy, she could only determine to throw up earthworks to
fortify her position.
She was going to the christening at Old Lafer to-day. Mrs. Severn had
not been well, and it had been deferred. She had a shrewd suspicion
as to the cause of her invalidism this time, and acknowledged
there was reason in it. The situation was such that a better and
more self-controlled woman might have been daunted, knowing the
uncompromisingly honest stuff of which her husband was made. A whisper
had reached the Hall that she had been to the Mires again. Indeed, when
Anna's engagement was known, and Mrs. Hennifer had hastened to Old Lafer
with congratulations, Anna herself had inadvertently admitted as much,
and she discovered it was on the same day as her call to name Cynthia's
engagement. There was no doubt in her own mind that the name of Lucius
Danby had then sent her from her home. There was no doubt also that she
would have to face out the situation by obtruding herself upon attention
as little as possible, and certainly not by indulging in her old freak
of flight to the Mires.
The coach came round at eleven o'clock, clattering over the flags of the
courtyard. Mrs. Marlowe was going with her to the chapel-of-ease at East
Lafer but would not get out. It was a hot September day, but the coach
was stuffed with as many cushions and rugs as though the season were
Arctic. A fat pug was lifted by a footman into one corner, where it lay
gasping in useless expostulation against the delusion that it was taking
the air. Mrs. Marlowe, in a cinnamon silk and velvet mantle, and a
bonnet whose sprigged lace veil hung to her waist, descended the steps
feebly. The Admiral was always in attendance on her. His portly little
figure was set off by a buff waistcoat and a bunch of seals dangling
at the fob. Mrs. Hennifer was crisply Quakerish in black satin and the
usual fringed Oriental shawl. There wafted from the group the scent of
Tonquin beans. Cynthia was not going. Her riding-horse was being led up
and down, and she appeared in the hall in her habit as the coach rolled
off. She and the Admiral were going to have one of their favourite
morning rides round some of the inland farms where repairs were in
operation, and both knew that to-day their talk would be serious. She
intended Danby to have permission to come to Lafer at once.
An hour or two later the christening party had returned to Old Lafer.
The ling had blown late this year and the moors were still in their
glory, rolling up beyond the bent in a haze of purple. Borlase,
loitering in the garden after dinner until Anna's housewifely duties
allowed her to join him, shaded his eyes to face them. How gloriously
beautiful, yet how calmly unconscious they were! Stubble fields gleamed
among the soft misty greens of the far-stretching plain. The trees in
the gill below the house were motionless. There was no breeze. The
murmur of the beck was in the air; now and then a bee buzzed over the
larkspurs and lilies under the wall.
When Anna appeared she was carrying a little table, and the children
with her had dishes of fruit. Dessert was arranged on the grass-plot
in the centre of Madam's garden--peaches and greengages, sponge-cakes
that Anna had whisked, and syllabub, all on white trellis-china. The
gay flower-borders glowed beyond; there was a murmur of bees in the
trees overhead; in the distance the opalescent plain lay in alternate
shade and shine under the sailing cloud-shadows. Antoinette, Emmeline,
Joan, and Jack, in their holland smocks and Roman scarves, frolicked
from meadow to gill. Mr. Severn and Tremenheere sauntered out of the
house--Mr. Severn with a decanter of claret which he intended the Canon
to finish; Tremenheere himself more conscious of the charm of the place
than of its conventional accessories, and bent on a walk over the moor
when the shadows were lengthening and the evening breeze should silence
the chirp of the grasshoppers and rustle through the ling.
The ladies were left in the parlour. Mrs. Severn had floated away from
the dinner-table in her sweeping black draperies with a face so white
that Borlase was still obliged to consider her an orthodox patient. Mrs.
Hennifer insisted on ensconcing her on the settee with her feet up. The
parlour, with its faded rose-wreathed chintzes flouncing the chairs, its
gently-swaying net curtains and oak-panelled walls, was cool and quiet.
Mrs. Hennifer took a chair near the window. She felt like napping. It
was pleasantly suggestive to think that a nap would certainly refresh
Mrs. Severn. She looked through a manuscript book of songs for a guitar
accompaniment, and noticed that Clothilde soon closed her eyes and
allowed her head to fall back upon the cushions. She then at once closed
hers too, with a pleasant relaxing of her angular figure into something
approaching negligent comfort. She had scarcely done so before Mrs.
Severn spoke.
'Mary!'
'Yes.'
Mrs. Hennifer was upright again in a moment, more angry than
embarrassed. She was convinced that Mrs. Severn had waited to betray her
into a wish for a doze, for the sake of thwarting it immediately.
'Did you really think I meant to go to sleep, Mary?'
'Certainly. You are tired and it is so quiet here. You don't seem to
have got up your strength well. You look no better than when I saw you
last--in July, was it not?'
'No, later than that. The day you came over to tell me about Miss
Marlowe, you know. I confess I don't think I have ever been well since.
You must have something more to tell me now, have you not?'
'What about?' said Mrs. Hennifer, fixing her eyes sharply upon her. Mrs.
Severn avoided them; her gaze idly followed the play of her own fingers
through the fringe of the coverlet thrown over her.
'Well, you know--about Miss Marlowe.'
Mrs. Hennifer scrutinised her face in silence for some time, but its
absence of colour was equalled by that of expression.
'Clothilde,' she said, 'we will not deal in innuendo. It is detestable.
Why don't you say like an honest woman, "Have you seen Lucius Danby yet?
Is he the man I was once engaged to marry?" It is perfectly natural,
in fact necessary, that you should still be interested in him to that
extent. For you'll have to keep out of his way. But this dallying with
a love-affair that was wholly dishonouring to yourself is disgusting.
You chose to obliterate yourself from his life years ago, and you
did not choose to confess your dishonour to your husband; and though
circumstances are so cruel that you are compelled to recall all now, it
can only be for the sake of impressing upon yourself the necessity of
dignified self-effacement. If you are ever compelled to meet him it will
be as a married woman and the mother of children, the wife of the man
who will, practically speaking, be his upper servant.'
'Then it really is the same Lucius?'
'It is the same Mr. Danby.'
'And he is at Lafer?'
'Not at all, as you know, for Severn would have named it had he been.
There are a good many preliminaries to be gone through in the case of a
Miss Marlowe. Cynthia was aware of that. She came home to smooth the
way. The Admiral was very much ruffled.'
'I should think he intended it to fall through so soon as they had
separated by her coming home.'
'He did not cause the separation. She knew what was due to him and to
herself----'
'Why, she surely has not thought more of her own dignity than of
Lucius?' said Mrs. Severn, with one of her low laughs.
'Her own dignity!' repeated Mrs. Hennifer. 'She has done what was right,
Clothilde, whether by instinct or deliberation I don't know. She has
acted wisely. The Admiral sees her quiet determination and respects it.
He is becoming reconciled, and Cynthia will soon have her way.'
'Very deep of her,' said Mrs. Severn; 'I should think you will have been
struck by the new phase of her character. You would not have thought she
had such management, would you? So he has not come over and contrived
to see her?'
Mrs. Hennifer's boiling indignation admitted only of ejaculatory
refrains.
'Contrived to see her?'
'Well, I mean is he risking nothing? It all seems to me a preposterously
cool transaction. Of course he knew she was an heiress?'
'_Heiress! Transaction!_ My word, Clothilde, I could shake you! Cynthia
is not a girl to be met in a lane,' cried Mrs. Hennifer breathlessly.
'The next thing you will assert is that he is going to marry her for
the purpose of being near you. Preposterous! You don't understand.
He did not know she was an heiress when he proposed to her. You will
have to make up your mind not to call him Lucius and also to stay at
home. So you went to the Mires again after I had been here that day?
Highly creditable! And how long did you mean to stay there this time?
You never will be satisfied until you have created a scandal. I don't
suppose Mr. Danby knows where you are or anything about you, and cares
less, I should think. I wonder you haven't thought of writing to inform
him of the interesting and agreeable facts. Ah! but I suppose you don't
know his address? Well, he'll be at Lafer soon.'
'I should not think of writing to him there.'
'I should think not indeed. I don't advise you even to ask him for mercy
by not acknowledging you to Severn's face. Leave it to him. He'll soon
respect Severn sufficiently to wish not to humiliate him. But you surely
have not seriously thought of writing to him at all?'
Mrs. Severn smiled, and a faint colour flickered into her face for a
moment.
'I did,' she said; 'I confess to the folly. You know I went to the Mires
again--you have heard? I began a letter to him that day to tell him
where I was. It seemed best that he should know. I wrote it on the moor,
and I was startled by--some one coming for me. I slipped it into a book
I had taken to read, and in the hurry I dropped it and never thought of
it again for weeks.'
'Letter and all? I should think you have wondered if they have ever been
found.'
'I have indeed. But I daren't say a word about them.'
'And what has possessed you to be telling me the truth, eh? You're not
in the habit of telling the truth, Clothilde.'
'You are very hard upon me,' she murmured.
'God knows I don't wish to be,' Mrs. Hennifer burst out, with a voice
that suddenly trembled. 'Be hard upon yourself. It seems to me,
inconceivable though it be, that you are trifling with memories on
which it is sheer wickedness to dwell. You trifled with him once; for
Heaven's sake don't trifle with yourself.'
Mrs. Severn moved uneasily. There was a palm-leaf fan near, and she took
it up and held it against her brows. Mrs. Hennifer, with every faculty
upon the alert, and energy of observation as much as of suspicion, was
convinced that her lip trembled. Her eyes were downcast. Her face,
however, remained pale and calm. It was impossible to judge of her
phase of feeling. And at that moment, as though to baffle any effort
on Mrs. Hennifer's part to do so, she slid her feet to the ground and
rose, then rearranged herself at the darker end of the settee. Mrs.
Hennifer, noting each movement with a jealousy for Cynthia that was
almost fierce, reluctantly admired while she mistrusted. The profile of
her face and throat against the wainscot was like a bas-relief in ivory;
every gesture had a slow and self-abandoned grace. She prayed while she
watched her.
'It has struck me that he might go to see the Pitons,' said Mrs. Severn;
'I suppose he returned to Jersey after Miss Marlowe left. If he went
there Ambrose would probably tell him all. I know Anna told him of the
engagement when she wrote when Miss Marlowe was going there.'
'A most excellent opportunity, and I hope Ambrose would make the best
use of it. In that case he is _au fait_ with everything, and we need not
distress ourselves,' said Mrs. Hennifer decisively.
After this they sat for some time in silence.
'Clothilde, are you very fond of your children?' said Mrs. Hennifer
at last, half unconscious of the question evolved from such a rush
of rambling thought, that whatever had been uttered must have seemed
inconsequent.
'I suppose so. They are handsome. I am always thankful they are not
plain.'
'You'll miss Anna, or rather, perhaps, they will.'
'Anna cannot be spared yet. I think Mr. Borlase a very selfish and
inconsiderate man, but I was really too vexed to tell him so. I told
Anna, however.'
'Does Mr. Severn say she cannot be spared?'
'John? You know what John is--crazy for people to be happy, as he calls
it. He said he should have her when he wanted her. It is I who have
the common sense. I told him I could not spare her until Antoinette
was old enough to take her place; and I told Anna Mr. Borlase might
die and leave her a widow without a farthing. I do think, when John
has given her a home all these years, she ought to make us the first
consideration. But every one seems very hard to convince.'
She got up as she spoke and moved to the piano. While turning over some
music she said in a low voice of bell-like clearness, 'Miss Marlowe
was here the other day telling us about her visit to the Pitons at
Rocozanne. I thought from her manner you had not told her then about me.
Have you since?'
Mrs. Hennifer started to her feet, throwing the book she held on to the
table with a vigour that startled even Mrs. Severn. It made her look
round hastily.
'Clothilde,' she said, 'how can you torture me? This is torture. Don't
you know I love Cynthia Marlowe with my whole heart--a thousand times
more than ever I loved you with a foolish creature's adoration of your
mere superficial beauty? It pierces me to the quick to think she should
ever have a moment's pain of mind. Don't you think that if the Admiral
knew her future husband had been jilted by you, he might not tolerate
the match? And her heart might break with the misery of it all; the
Admiral may live twenty years! And how am I to tell her--and yet how
am I to let it go untold?' Her voice sank, and she added this more to
herself than aloud.
'Oh! she must know,' said Mrs. Severn in a matter-of-fact tone.
Mrs. Hennifer looked at her quickly.
'You either won't see it from another's point of view, or you want to
break it all off,' she said.
'No, no! Only we shall meet, and he will betray something.'
'You rarely leave Old Lafer, Clothilde.'
'Still I do go into Wonston occasionally, and I dine at the Hall,
and the Marlowes call upon me. You know, Mary, every one knows I am
something different to John. And Lucius may already know I am here.'
Mrs. Hennifer considered a moment.
'One thing is certain,' she said drily, 'you must cure yourself of your
old habit of calling him Lucius, and in order that you shall clearly
understand their confidence in each other _he_ shall tell her who you
are.'
For an instant their eyes met. Mrs. Severn's bore a darting glance of
defiant appeal, and her whole figure seemed to tremble.
But whatever her fear she conquered it, and putting her arm through Mrs.
Hennifer's proposed that they should go into the garden.