“A self-sacrifice that is thorough must never pause.”
“Sunday,” said Edith le Mentier, lazily swaying her parasol, “does my
religion for me. When I hear the sweet church bells chiming over the
cow-laden fields I say to myself this is a Christian country. Cows and a
church—certainly I, too, must be a Christian.”
“And your responsibility ends there?” asked Gladys, who with others of
the party was dressed to go to the little church across the fields.
“My responsibility, my dear, er—Miss Gladys—as you so deliciously call
it, is never at work in that sphere. No! I recognize it at my
dressmaker’s; I am crushed under it in shops; I frequently come face to
face with it in the choice of a cook. Beyond this,” Mrs. le Mentier put
out a dainty foot under a frilled petticoat, “beyond this I am a
rational being—that is, whenever it is possible I persuade some one
else to do my effort-making for me. Captain Hurstly, I want a footstool;
dear, delightful creatures, do go and do my praying for me; Sir Arthur,”
here she put her head graciously towards their slightly embarrassed
host, “is going to stay to keep me company.”
“Delighted, I am sure,” murmured Sir Arthur, handing Gladys’ prayer-book
which he had been carrying to the doctor, who stood grimly and
uncompromisingly silent. It was natural that after that Gladys and Dr.
Grant should walk together and Muriel find herself with Jack Hurstly.
Cynthia Grant, the doctor’s sister, had not yet returned from a visit to
the stables with Sir Alec. Muriel had not seen Jack for some time. He
was always large and masterful (in the most calmly protective meaning of
the word), but there was to-day a certain alertness and unobtrusive
eagerness in his manner that was new to her. They knew each other well
enough to be able to float off easily into commonplace chatter. It paved
the way for all the important things which lost their stiffness by being
set in a background of familiar banter.
“I’m having a holiday,” said Jack, smiling down at her oddly.
“You a holiday! You look terribly as if you needed it!” she laughed.
“I’ve been working rather hard, really,” he said.
“Fishing is over?” she asked.
“Oh, Miss Muriel, but I’ve had a harder job to tackle. I’ve been trying
to get the place at home in decent order—getting cottages built and all
that sort of thing.”
“You were always so practical,” she murmured.
“Because, you see, the place has been a little weedy lately, and as I am
to be off again soon I wanted to leave it in order before I went.”
“Hunting big game?” she suggested indifferently.
“Well—yes, rather. You see there’s been a little scrapping in India on
the frontier, and—well, I thought it would be rather jolly to have a
shot at the little beggars myself. You see the regiment being at
Aldershot a fellow hasn’t got much to do, and so I have
joined—temporarily, of course—a batch of men who are going out in
September. Do you wish me luck?”
“Your occupations,” said Muriel coldly, “always seem to me a little
brutal.” Then she glanced more kindly at him.
He was disconsolately grumbling, “Oh, I say now!” and cutting the heads
off the nettles with his stick. They were nearing the church.
“Oh, I hope, Jack,” she used the name with her old deliberate frankness,
looking him in the eyes, steadily and kindly, “that you will have the
best of luck. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you set to work
again, and make something of all that’s in you—all I know that’s in
you.”
He beamed with pleasure, though he was still a little puzzled at her
former sharpness. “It’s awfully good of you, Miss Muriel,” he said,
opening the gate; “and you—you must know that if I am worth anything at
all it’s all owing to you. And now that you say you believe in me,” he
drew a long breath, “I think I could do anything—anything in the world
to show you you’re not mistaken.”
Muriel said nothing. When they reached the porch she turned to him, and
not looking at him said slowly, “I am quite sure I am not mistaken,
Jack.”
The church was cold and dark after the bright sunshine in the fields. In
the church she remembered Gladys, and forgot to listen to the sermon.
She and the doctor walked back together and quarrelled all the way.
It was that still, impossible hour of Sunday afternoon when the
drowsiness of after lunch and the distance of five-o’clock tea combine
to make inaction of one sort or another absolutely essential. Sir Arthur
Dallerton, however, was uncomfortably wide awake. His protracted
conversation with his charming guest contributed not a little to the
unnatural keenness of his feelings, and with Sir Arthur Dallerton to
feel keenly was to be in more or less of a bad temper. He saw Muriel out
of his smoking-room window, and beckoned to her to come in.
“What are you doing, Muriel,” he asked severely, “at this time of the
afternoon?”
“Everybody is going out on the river after tea, so I was seeing about
the boats,” she said.
“That, Muriel, is the business of the gardener.”
“I like minding the gardener’s business,” said Muriel smiling.
“My dear,” said her uncle gravely, “If you would leave the gardener’s
business alone, and attend a little more to your own, I should be better
pleased.”
“What do you mean, uncle?” the girl asked, sitting down opposite him
with her wide-open, unembarrassed eyes.
“Of course I know that it makes no difference to you what I wish—that I
take for granted to begin with.”
She moved her head impatiently; she hated the way he had of opening any
discussion with injured personalities. He waited for a protest, and not
hearing one he continued with increased vehemence.
“You are now twenty-seven. You have had plenty of opportunities to
settle down in life. I have never attempted to force your hand——” A
look in the girl’s eyes suggested the prudence of this course. “I must
say I have been uncommonly generous in overlooking your extraordinary
schemes, but I never dreamed they excluded marriage. May I ask,
Muriel—I think I have a right to know—if all my hopes are to be in
vain simply through the obstinacy of an untrained, selfish girl? Do you,
Muriel—I insist upon knowing this—intend to marry?”
“I am sorry you insist, uncle,” said Muriel very quietly, though two
bright spots of angry color burned in her cheeks, “because I am afraid I
can give you no satisfactory answer to your hopes. It is very
improbable—if you really wish to know—that I shall ever marry.”
“What about Jack Hurstly?”
“I do not know to what you refer.”
“I thought your objection to him was that he didn’t stick to his
profession. He’s sticking to it fast enough now.” Muriel winced. “And,”
he continued with more hope of success, “he’ll probably get potted by a
native, and then perhaps you’ll be satisfied. You women who talk the
most about cruelty are always the ones to send us poor devils to our
graves.”
“I have never had any objection to Jack Hurstly, and I have none now,
but I certainly am not going to marry him. If he gets killed in India,
as you thoughtfully suggested, it will perhaps prove to you that he is
beyond your matrimonial schemes. I do not believe anything else would,”
said Muriel, now thoroughly aroused. She looked lovely when she was
angry: the gray eyes blazed and widened, the firm chin became
inexorable, and her nostrils dilated like a spirited horse. Her uncle,
who had an eye for beauty, appreciated her appearance, but was too vexed
to remark on it.
“Gad! you have the temper of a devil!” he grumbled in reluctant
admiration; “but if you won’t have Jack Hurstly, you won’t. And on the
whole you might do better. What I want you thoroughly to understand is
I’ll have no monkey business with that young doctor. I didn’t ask him
down here, or you either, for any such purpose. If you had liked Jack
Hurstly, well and good. I wouldn’t have opposed the match. He’s got
blood, and he’s got money, and I have nothing against him. But I have
set my heart on one thing if you won’t have him.” He stopped a moment.
“Muriel,” he said, “you know my heart is weak, and it’s very bad for me
to be opposed.”
Muriel smiled; the scene lost its strain; the gay voices of idlers on
the lawn came in through the windows with the after-dinner grace of the
“wise thrushes” in the shrubbery. They all sounded so restful and
contented. But she—must she battle till her life’s end? Tears of
self-pity rose to her eyes. Her uncle supposed them to be signs of
softening grace.
“My child,” he said, “Sir Alec Bruce is a good man, and he loves you.”
“He has a good income and a good family,” suggested the girl
maliciously.
Sir Arthur waved them aside grandly. “I have set my heart upon the
match,” said; “my life is risked by a disappointment.”
Muriel crushed her hands together nervously. “And what about my life?”
she said at last. “But I suppose that doesn’t matter,” and ignoring her
uncle’s wrathful exclamation she stepped out of the French windows and
joined the idlers on the lawn. Sir Arthur waited a few moments for a
heart attack to come on, but as nothing happened he also went into the
garden. But a few moments had dissipated the group, and only Cynthia
Grant remained with a bull-dog and a cigarette. She looked extremely
unsympathetic, and grumbling under his breath something far from
complimentary about advanced young women he returned to the house. A
moment later Dr. Grant joined his sister on the lawn. The bull-dog,
appropriately named “Grip,” looked wistfully from one to the other. He
knew it was impossible to be at the feet of both at the same time, and
so with chivalrous courtesy he curled himself up once more by his
mistress’s side and listened with heavily absorbed eyes to the following
conversation.
“Do you really mean to do it?” asked Cynthia curtly.
“If I hadn’t, why should I have come here?” replied her brother, giving
short puffs at his pipe. “You know I feel awfully out of this sort of
thing—an abominably lazy lot.” Grip, who with the magnificent patience
of the strong had long been putting up with an inquisitive and
infuriating fly, now relieved his feelings with a successful snap.
Cynthia laughed bitterly. “You won’t get her so easily as that,” she
said by way of illustration. “And why should I want you to? Has it never
occurred to you, my dear brother, that I might prefer you better
unmarried. It’s a slackening sort of thing at best for a man, and we’ve
always roughed it together, haven’t we, Geoff? Pretty cosily, too, I
think.”
“You might get married yourself,” he said gloomily. The girl
suggestively lit a cigarette.
“I don’t think so, Geoff,” she said with a queer little laugh. “Has it
never occurred to you that I’m thirty, and you’ve never been
particularly keen on it before?”
“I’m not now—but I think it’s a good thing for a girl.”
“You mean for a man, don’t you?” He looked at her quietly.
“You’re not like yourself to-day, Sis,” he said gently. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re trying to marry Muriel Dallerton. She’s in love with Jack
Hurstly, whom she’s trying to marry to that emotional little Gladys
thing. Meanwhile, unless they are all very careful, Edith le Mentier
means to play her own game with them all.”
“How do you know Miss Dallerton’s in love with Hurstly?” asked the
doctor, savagely ignoring the rest of the remarks. She turned on him
with mocking eyes.
“She is interested in his conversation,” she said, and they both burst
out laughing. Grip placed his head massively on her hands and looked
both question and reproach at her. “His business, Grip,” she said, “is
to get perfectly rested, not to tread on lazy people’s corns, and to see
as much as possible of the right young lady. As for me, Grip”—she
dropped some inconveniently heated ashes on his pink nose, which made
him shake his head and blink severely like a shocked old lady—“where do
I come in? Well, I have my own little game to play. And here’s dear
Edith in a fresh pink gown. Let’s go and meet her—she’s so fond of us
both. And you——” she looked back with a whimsical tenderness at her
brother, “just go down to the river and find your young lady, only for
Heaven’s sake don’t glare at her like that!”