CHIEFLY CONCERNING CICELY
I
Cicely, till the war broke out, accepted life very much as she found it,
although at school a glimmering had come to her that it wasn’t for all
girls the pleasant pilgrimage from cradle to altar, and thence in the
remote future to the grave, which a daughter of the House of Chandos
might naturally deem it. She and Arabella Tiddle had agreed that they
belonged to the Sunshiners, as Arabella put it—flowers in a parterre,
carefully tended and cherished. It must be awful, for instance, to be
like Miss Spong and Miss Minchin, assistant mistresses, labelled by
their pupils as “Spot” and “Plain.” Everybody knew that Miss Spong’s
father drank, even on Sundays; and Miss Minchin, it was generally
believed, worked hard during the “hols” as a typist. The whole school
had sustained an appalling shock when little Doris Reed mysteriously
vanished from a classroom and was never seen again. Her father, a
fraudulent bankrupt, had walked into a tunnel, preferring to meet an
express train rather than his infuriated creditors. All the details were
in the daily papers. One of Cicely’s friends, a queer, tall, scraggy
girl, interested herself in criminology, collecting clippings wherever
she might find them which set forth horrors. She was honourably known as
“Old Goose-flesh,” and possessed a perfectly thrilling brooch revealing
under crystal a tiny strand of a rope upon which a murderer had been
hanged!
Cicely, however, as a “Sunshiner,” turned her head from these shadows. A
tithe of her pocket-money was given in charity. One girl, chronically
hard up, borrowed five shillings which were never repaid. Ought this to
be regarded as part of the tithe? Arabella, with inherited business
instincts, answered in the affirmative. Eventually Cicely wrote to Dr.
Pawley about it, and he decided against Arabella. A fortnight later
Cicely received a box of chocolates which Arabella priced at ten
shillings. For a week at least Cicely wondered who had sent the
chocolates. She wrote an effusive letter of thanks to Brian, who sent
another box, expressing regret that he had not thought of sending the
first. Cicely, with a chocolate in her mouth, observed triumphantly:
“You see, Tiddy, out of evil comes good.”
“Yes; you’re fifteen bob up on the deal.”
From this happy conclusion there was no budging. Goodrich preached the
comfortable doctrine from the pulpit; experience confirmed it. Evil had
to be, because good oozed out of it. In the same philosophic spirit
Arabella’s father advertised the virtues of Tiddle’s Family Pellets. If
people didn’t suffer with dyspepsia Lady Tiddle wouldn’t wear pearls.
Cicely left school and returned to Upworthy with half a dozen delightful
vistas of fun and enjoyment in front of her. Hunting, tennis, balls,
jolly house parties, presentation at Court, and a London season. . . .
The outbreak of war closed all these avenues down which she and Arabella
had hoped to dance so joyously.
Lady Selina, moreover, refused to share Arthur Wilverley’s conviction
that the interests of high finance and industry would be paramount in
determining hostilities within a year. Her brother, Lord Saltaire, held
no such rosy views. Inspissated gloom settled upon that nobleman, not
without reason. His vast estates were heavily dipped; he had never been
able to lay by a penny-piece; the calls upon his ever-diminishing purse
were innumerable. He said to his sister:
“The burden of increased taxation will be back-breaking, my dear Selina.
We shall be hit harder than any other class. So I advise you to
economise. Cut down expenses to the irreducible minimum! That’s my first
and last word.”
Lady Selina sent for Gridley.
“Lord Saltaire,” she told her obsequious bailiff, “is reducing expenses
to the minimum. We must do the same.”
“Very good, my lady.”
She added, with an irritability rare with her:
“So pray don’t come bothering me about money. For the present, and for
some time to come, we must ‘carry on’—that, I am told, is the correct
expression—as best we may.”
“Certainly, my lady. In my humble opinion, the Hearl is right. I hope
your ladyship knows that I shall cut down everything.”
He spoke as if the prospect of cheeseparing afforded him intense
satisfaction, but Lady Selina didn’t notice that, and remarked:
“Yes, yes; you are a good, faithful soul. We must practise self-denial,
even in our charities.”
Much to her gratification, Cicely behaved like a perfect darling. It
made the fond mother miserable to think that her girl should have her
“coming out” burked by cruel fate. But Cicely kissed her and said:
“I shall enjoy my good time all the more when it does come, Mums.”
Lady Selina inclined her head mournfully. She entertained no delusions
on that point. Procrastination did not enhance the virgin joys of
“coming out.” Nevertheless, she confronted an abominable situation with
fortitude, making no protest when Cicely insisted upon becoming a V.A.D.
That meant the loss of more “bloom.” Balm descended upon her lacerated
tissues, you may be sure, when Cicely went to Wilverley Court. If dear
Arthur seized this great opportunity all would be well. Striving to
interpret the inscrutable ways of Providence, she seemed to discern the
Omnipotent Finger tracing Cicely’s future in gleaming letters upon a
dark background. Left alone in her big house, she denied herself cream,
and drastically reduced her establishment.
It will be admitted that Grimshaw, bursting with impatience to give
Upworthy a cleaner bill of health, had not chosen the most opportune
moment to further his plans.
II
We shall behold Cicely with clearer vision “on her own” at Wilverley.
She plunged eagerly into hard work, thereby winning an approving smile
from “Matron,” an uncompromising “pro,” not likely to favour a young
woman merely because she happened to belong to the “county.” Exalted
above “Matron” sat Mrs. Roden, Wilverley’s sister, who had married one
of the Quaker Rodens, a pillar of the Liberal Party, and as
indefatigable as his wife in what he considered to be “good works.”
George Roden was supposed to be in touch with the masses, although he
was a rich man. As an M.P. and a subordinate member of the Government,
he pulled many strings, being recognised as a peacemaker and
intermediary between Labour and Capital. His wife shared his views. In
and out of season Mrs. Roden preached solemnly the doctrines of
adjustment. She adjusted her own life and the lives of others,
particularly the lives of others. As an ardent democrat she contended
that all classes, not merely Labour, should be fairly treated in the New
Commonwealth at last to be discerned rising superbly above the troubled
waters. Fortunately, inasmuch as the good lady was something of a bore,
we are not much concerned with her or her excellent husband. But she
exercised influence upon Cicely at a moment when the girl was most
sensitive to outside impressions.
Mrs. Roden, after serious consideration, decided that Cicely was
destined to be the mother of Wilverley’s children. Motherhood may be
described as her _cheval de bataille_. Upon this charger she rode boldly
into the future, couching her lance against that dragon Infant
Mortality. Cicely’s physique, her feminine curves, her clear complexion
and candid eyes, fortified the conviction that she would nurse her
babies, and Mrs. Roden said so, with no squeamish reserves, to Wilverley
himself.
“Good heavens, Mary, what things you think of!”
Mrs. Roden replied austerely:
“I focus my thoughts, Arthur, on the essential. Large families will be
the crying need of the next decade.”
“I hope my kids won’t cry.”
“Pray don’t be flippant! I am honoured that you have given me your
confidence. Cicely is young, but I was nineteen when I married George. I
was a mother at twenty. I have never regretted it. I deplore years
wasted in bunny-hugging and fox trots. If this war trains young girls to
take themselves more seriously it will not have been waged in vain. I
shall talk to dear little Cicely.”
“Not—not about my babies?”
“You can leave all that to me.”
“Cicely, bless her! is a bit of a tomboy. I’m sure she would shrink
from—from—_you know_.”
Mrs. Roden enjoined silence, uplifting a large, capable hand.
“My dear Arthur, you have the disabilities of your sex. Never having
suffered from excess of modesty yourself, you imagine that young girls
are immaculately innocent and ignorant. Pray purge your mind of that!
They are nothing of the sort. They discuss everything nowadays with a
refreshing candour that is not the least significant sign of the times.
Now for a word of advice to you. If you want her, go for her—go for
her! Young girls fall easily in love with the first energetic bidder. I
take it you are the first?”
“I—I think so, Mary.”
“Then I repeat—go for her!”
Seldom indeed did Mrs. Roden use expressions even approximating to
slang. Wilverley saw that her interest was seriously engaged.
III
Mrs. Roden had been right in assuming Cicely to be neither immaculately
innocent nor ignorant of what she termed “essential facts.” She and
Arabella had discussed marriage and even motherhood quite naturally, but
not often, being mainly engrossed with tennis and hockey and, subsidiary
to these, their work in class. Arabella insisted that they must be near
the head of the procession and maintain an honourable position without
undue “mugging.” A good report, indeed, at the close of her school
career had transmuted thousands of pills into the pearls which Lady
Selina so admired.
Arabella, it will be remembered, had this strangle-hold over Cicely.
Lady Tiddle had graduated in life at a shoe factory. Arabella
acknowledged, with pardonable pride, that her second cousin on the
maternal side was a housemaid. Cicely was friendly with housemaids at
the Manor, but, in strict obedience to Lady Selina, never familiar with
them. Arabella pronounced this abstention to be a loss, not a gain. She
had talked very freely with the second cousin.
“They have an enormous bulge over us, Cis. You see, they get to know
men. Our information is second-hand. Lily”—that happened to be the name
of the second cousin—“has had a dozen boys on and off. She began when
she was fifteen. She’s as straight as they make ’em, you know, but dead
nuts on spooning.”
Cicely winced at this, although curiosity pricked her. Conscious that
she needn’t ask for details, because Arabella always supplied them, she
held her tongue. Arabella continued:
“Lily can make comparisons, weigh Tom against Dick, scrap both, and take
on Bill. I call that true liberty. I don’t see why an intelligent girl,
anxious to get the right sort of hubby, as, of course, we all are,
shouldn’t be engaged half a dozen times.”
“Tiddy——!”
“That’s my idea. Probably Father, who is becoming rather rankly
conservative since he was knighted, will put the kibosh on that, but
how, I ask, can you know what a man is really like till he has kissed
you?”
“What perfectly awful things you say!”
“All right! I’m a red poppy, and proud of it. You’re the wee
crimson-tippit daisy. Be a daisy if you like. I’ll call you—Dais.”
“Tiddy, please don’t! I’ll try not to be a daisy. You do give one ideas.
But kissing——! That is housemaidy, if you like.” She frowned and then
quoted triumphantly: “‘Her lips are common as the stairs.’ Ugh!”
Arabella laughed. Perhaps she wanted to shock a too aristocratic friend.
“Oh, well, Lily thinks no more of that than you do of brushing your
teeth.”
“I should have to brush my teeth, Tiddy, if any man dared to kiss me.”
Such talks, infrequent as they might be, stimulated imagination. Lady
Selina may have wondered why Miss Tiddle was chosen by Cicely as her
particular “chum.” Surely there were—others? But the others lacked
personality. Arabella imposed herself. Her liveliness, her audacity, her
humour—were irresistible.
Cicely’s first action on becoming a V.A.D. was to write to Miss Tiddle,
entreating her to join the staff at Wilverley. Sir Nathaniel Tiddle,
after a heartening glance at the peerage and “Who’s Who,” raised no
objection. Finally it was arranged that Arabella should “weigh in” with
the New Year.
Meanwhile, Cicely was seeing Arthur Wilverley every day.
IV
He “went for her” according to his own methods, not above criticism. The
“Ars Amatoria” of Ovid is hardly out of date, but that lively treatise
was not to be found in the Court library. Wilverley’s notion of courting
would have been termed by his sister—self-expression. The honest fellow
wanted Cicely to see him in all his moods and tenses before conjugation.
He talked unweariedly about Arthur Wilverley. Beware of branding him too
hastily as egoist or prig! He happened to be neither. Like his sister,
the welfare of others lay next his heart. At the same time it seemed to
be an imperative duty to reveal himself to his future wife.
Cicely was rather impressed at first.
And it is not unreasonable to affirm that he might have got her _au
premier coup_ had Grimshaw remained in Poplar. Comparisons between
Grimshaw and Wilverley became inevitable. Cicely was not unversed in
such mental exercises. At school young ladies of the ripe age of fifteen
were invited to compare, in parallel columns, Napoleon with Wellington,
Gladstone with Disraeli, Thackeray with Dickens. The prize-winning
contributions were published in the school magazine, typed and edited by
the overworked Miss Minchin.
Cicely wrote as follows to her dearest Tiddy:
“I do wish you were here, because I’m dying to talk to you about Arthur
Wilverley. I’m sure you will think him rather a dear. Anyway, he’s been
ever so nice to me. No chocs! He’s not that sort. Plenty of good,
sensible talk, which is flattering, isn’t it? I sometimes think that
he’s practising on me, trying on sentences which he means to use in
public. He’s our star landlord in these parts, and makes poor Mother
gasp when he tells her what she ought to do at Upworthy. Of course, he’s
frightfully rich. Have I mentioned Mr. Grimshaw to you?” (O Cicely——!)
“He’s Dr. Pawley’s new partner, and _very_ clever. But this cleverness
doesn’t stick out of him, thank goodness! Arthur and he took a fancy to
each other when they first met, because they have a lot in
common—better rural conditions, and all that. I told both of them that
it was no use hustling and bustling Mother. Mr. Grimshaw bottles himself
up; Arthur uncorks himself. Already I seem to know everything he has
done and is going to do. I’m afraid that you will say he’s not wildly
exciting. Nothing subtle about him. He strikes me as being immensely
‘safe.’ One couldn’t imagine him letting anybody down, or letting
himself down. Mr. Grimshaw is better-looking. He might come to grief if
things went very wrong with him. Or he might climb to giddy heights.
“Mother is pinching a bit—no cream! She says it’s fattening. Most of
our neighbours are pinching for patriotic reasons, but some of them like
it. This hateful war shows us all up. Mrs. Roden (Arthur’s sister) is a
_scream_! You will love pulling her leg. It’s rather against Arthur that
he can’t see how funny she is——”
A postscript was added:
“Mr. Grimshaw has dark, disconcerting eyes. I’m afraid he’s very poor.”
To this artless epistle Miss Tiddle replied by return of post.
“I wish I were at Wilverley,” she wrote, “because your letter is a dead
give-away. You’re working up a ‘pash’ for this young man with the
disconcerting eyes!!! And I’ll bet my string of pearls against a
boot-lace that he’s a better chap than your Arthur, who doesn’t appeal
to me at all. I see by the peerage that he’s nearly forty, and probably
getting bald. Why does he talk to you? Why not write to me as a pal
should? Before you get this, he may have proposed, without a word of
warning from me. And likely as not you’ll blush and say ‘yes,’ because,
obviously, the whole thing has been a put-up job. My tip is: flirt
sweetly with both of them, and _don’t commit yourself_! I have three
affairs on—no end of a rag! If necessary, I’ll have a go at your
Arthur. Try him out! I expect he’s too fat, mentally and physically, for
my taste. But I’d sacrifice myself for you. I shall look forward to
meeting Mr. Grimshaw. If he’s poor and clever, he’ll reach up and help
himself to the needful, with you dangling at the end of the pole as a
prize.
“My lady-mother is pinching too. We no longer dine the people we don’t
like. But we shall freeze on to our footmen till public opinion wrenches
them from us. . . .”
This letter constrained Cicely to collate her virginal thoughts with
Miss Tiddle’s vulgar words. Vulgar, be it noted, is used as
“vernacular.” Shakespeare might have described Miss Tiddle’s prose as
“naked as the vulgar air.” Lady Selina might have used the adjective in
its commoner acceptation. It would have shocked her inexpressibly had
she been told that her child was “working up a pash” for anybody, even
if he were a young duke with all the gifts of the gods. Cicely, however,
knew her “Tiddy,” and took no offence. But . . . was she thinking too
much of this man with the disconcerting eyes? Did he stand, square to
the four winds of heaven, between herself and Arthur? She asked herself
the question when she was engaged in preparing a pailful of
disinfectant. One would prefer to envisage the nymph in a fragrant
rose-garden, plucking the dewy blossoms, inhaling with them the sweet
freshness of morning. . . . Cicely had just finished scrubbing the floor
of the dispensary; the pungent odour of carbolic assailed her pretty
nose. And it served well enough, better perhaps than any rose, to kill
the parasitic sentimental growths which so often clog and obscure a
maiden’s true understanding of herself.
What was Grimshaw to her?
Being still a child in many ways, she applied the nursery test. If she
were in a boat with the two men, and the boat upset, and it were
possible for her to save one of the two, which one would be saved?
Her lively imagination, unduly stimulated by Tiddy’s prose, beheld the
two appealing faces mutely beseeching her for life and love. She
hesitated. The heads sank, to bob up again. She positively shivered with
indecision. Then she laughed. The prescient Tiddy had hit the mark.
Arthur was . . . well, not thin. He suggested floating. If he turned on
his broad back and stopped struggling, he would float. But Grimshaw
would sink . . .!
The test sufficed. Cicely filled her pail, and carried it demurely into
a ward.
V
She knew by this time why Arthur talked to her with such flattering
insistence. Tiddy would call it “window dressing.” Was it flirting to
listen attentively, to appraise the wares, to smile demurely, to watch
him inflate with the deliberate intention of deflating him later on? At
this point, her thoughts became nebulous. If she knew Arthur better, she
might like him more. When did liking turn into a warmer sentiment?
She went home for a week-end before Christmas.
Immediately she realised that her mother’s first kiss included a
benediction. Lady Selina held her hands, gently pressing them. Then,
with an exclamation of dismay, she examined them, noting broken nails,
roughness of skin, and faint stains which defied Scrubbs’ Ammonia.
“Oh, dear!”
“Honourable scars, Mums.”
“The whole world is topsy-turvy. I hear you are called ‘Shandy.’”
“Matron calls me Chandos, and the V.A.D.S Shandy. What does it matter?
I’m as hard as nails, and frightfully hungry. I hope you have a topping
dinner.”
“Everything you like, darling. We shall be quite alone. Stimson is
single-handed. This is a season of fasting and prayer, but you shan’t
fast here.”
Cicely hugged her, exuberantly glad to be at home again, but sensible of
a change that tugged at her heart-strings. The old graciousness
remained, the erect figure, the well-poised head, all the tiny
authoritative gestures. But the smooth eyelids drooped more heavily,
hiding anxious eyes. The right word came to her later, when they sat
together in Lady Selina’s room.
_Forlorn_ . . .!
What a word to apply to her mother! Always, she had thought of that
mother as self-sufficing. Lady Selina, of course, was accustomed to
being alone. She liked to entertain at due intervals—a Chandos
tradition; she paid occasional visits; she spent periodic weeks at an
old-fashioned hotel in London, in a cul-de-sac, where a gentlewoman
could sleep between lavender-scented sheets, and almost believe that she
was in the country.
_Forlorn_ . . .!
Several reasons jumped into Cicely’s mind: maternal anxiety about Brian,
a reduced establishment that forbade entertaining, her own absence from
home at a time, possibly, when a devoted mother had set her heart upon
“doing things” with her and for her. Without hesitation, she said
abruptly:
“Would you like me to stay at home, Mums?”
Evidently, Lady Selina had considered this. She answered quickly:
“No. We must all do our duty, child.”
“You look so forlorn.”
It was impossible to keep back the insistent word. Lady Selina frowned.
“Forlorn? I didn’t know that I looked forlorn, whatever I may feel at
times. There are—moments . . .” She sighed, and then said with her
usual energy: “But they pass. You are a sympathetic creature, Cicely. I
ought to be ashamed of looking or feeling forlorn when I have two such
good children. And so many good friends. They have been very
considerate.” She paused, faintly smiling. “You know, dear, even Mr.
Grimshaw leaves me in peace.”
Cicely hoped that she was not blushing, as she murmured:
“Heavens! Why shouldn’t he?”
“I anticipated pesterings. A man with his ideas . . . Thousands of
pounds! And now, when we all have to think in pence. He is certainly
clever. Our people like him. I have given him some shooting. The
partridges we had at dinner were shot by him. I see very little of him.
Does he go to Wilverley?”
She shot a glance at Cicely, who thanked her stars that she was able to
answer truthfully:
“Never!”
Lady Selina brightened. Not for a king’s ransom would she have pleaded
dear Arthur’s cause. To do so, however delicately, might invite
disaster. And it would be equally indiscreet to “run down” a too
attractive, impecunious young man. She decided that a little faint
praise was much safer.
“By the way, he is _not_ one of the Grimthorpe Grimshaws. But he will do
very well, and in due time step into dear Dr. Pawley’s shoes.”
“His list slippers.”
Lady Selina blinked, and then shied away from rebuke, a notable
abstention. Cicely continued hastily:
“Mr. Grimshaw is a gentleman. Nothing else matters.”
“His grandfather, I am told, was a China merchant, whatever that may
mean. As for ‘gentleman,’ I am inclined to think my dear father defined
the now odious word properly.”
“What was his definition?”
“He contended that the word had nothing to do with moral attributes. A
‘gentleman,’ in his opinion, was a man neither directly nor indirectly
connected with trade.”
Cicely opened her lips, and then closed them. She could score heavily by
asking whether the son of an ironmaster could, under this definition, be
termed a gentleman. But she reflected that her mother would retort that
the ironmaster had been created a peer of the realm. Lady Selina went on
blandly:
“Your grandfather once ‘turned down,’ as you put it, a clever young man
who applied to him for the post of private secretary. He presented
himself at dinner in a made-up tie.”
“Heavens!”
“I think my father was quite right. A gentleman never offends in small
matters. I deplore the fact that your friend Arabella pronounces G-I-R-L
‘gurl.’ How do you pronounce it?”
Cicely smiled.
“It depends upon whom I’m talking to, Mums. I shouldn’t say ‘gurl’
before you. I suppose you’d have a fit if I asked for a ‘serviette’
instead of a ‘napkin’?”
“It would nearly kill me,” replied Lady Selina solemnly.
“Arabella nearly died when she heard an old duchess pronounce ‘yellow’
‘yaller.’”
“That used to be the proper pronunciation, my dear.”
Cicely held her tongue.
Lady Selina, as usual, blamed the school. A girl brought up at home
would not venture to criticise, even allusively, her elders. She was
aware that Miss Tiddle criticised the Author of her Being! Cicely
hastily changed the talk, describing, not without sprightliness, her
adventures and misadventures as a V.A.D. Incidentally she mentioned
Wilverley, conscious at once that the atmosphere became charged with
electricity. Lady Selina, at mere mention of his name, purred with
pleasure. To stroke her fur the right way became a temptation hard to
resist. Cicely, however, succeeded in pleasing her mother without
committing herself. That, at least, was her happy conviction when she
went to bed. Snug in bed, and congratulating herself upon a strategy
that Tiddy might have disdained, she heard a soft tap upon the door.
Lady Selina, majestic in a brocaded dressing-gown, entered. Cicely was
astonished and moved. Such visits were rare. Lady Selina fussed over
her, tucked her up, and kissed her fondly, whispering:
“You are my own little girl. You mustn’t worry about me. As I said,
there are moments when this unhappy world seems upside down. I ask
myself where I am. But I have the greatest confidence in you, darling.
That is such a comfort—to be sure of those you love. Sleep well, and
have breakfast in bed if you want to.”
Cicely did not sleep too well. She lay awake for at least an hour,
feeling strangely restless and uncomfortable. And she woke up many
times, tingling with an exasperation which she tried in vain to resolve
into elements. She wished both Wilverley and Grimshaw at Timbuctoo; she
wished that she was like Tiddy, who could “take on” three suitors as a
“rag”; she almost wished she had been born of humbler parentage. Tiddy
assured her that the old order was “down and out,” never to rise again.
Admittedly, Tiddy knew nothing of the old order. And Cicely dimly beheld
a new disorder, with blatant voices and not too clean linen, that might
exercise a greater tyranny than any aristocracy of rank and starched
shirts. For the moment, she ultimately decided, she knew what she
wanted—to be left alone.
VI
She woke up delightfully surprised to find herself in her own pretty
room, and with no desire for breakfast in bed. Snow had fallen during
the night. Looking out of her window, she could see the conventional
Christmas landscape. Nature seemed to have tidied everything for the
great festival. Upon the previous afternoon Cicely noticed that the
gardens had lost something of their trim appearance. Leaves rotted upon
the paths and lawns. Rabbits had dared to invade the topiary garden! The
snow covered leaves and fallen timber. Presently Lady Selina appeared,
scattering crumbs for the friendly robins. Cicely greeted her gaily.
“You slept well, my darling?”
“Like a top.”
“Capital.”
They smiled at each other, Cicely reflecting that tops didn’t really
sleep. They spun round and round, just as she had during her vigils, and
went into a sort of silly trance. And then they fell flatly down. Cicely
had experienced all this and more; so she told the exact truth and
pleased her mother at the same time. As a matter of fact, she detested
lying, even white-lying. At school, lying, or any form of feminine
deceit or guile, had been voted by the leaders of public opinion—bad
form. Women, in the past, had been driven to subterfuge by brutal MAN.
The New Woman, educated like a public-school boy, must tell the truth,
and flaunt it if necessary, like an Oriflamme.
Mother and daughter attended Divine Service. Cicely perceived Dr. Pawley
in his pew, but Mr. Grimshaw was conspicuously absent, a fact which
distracted Cicely’s thoughts from the Liturgy. The small church was full
as usual, although many of the younger men had already joined up, not
without some pressure from the parson and the lady of the manor. The
more aged and infirm, in receipt of doles, quite understood that regular
attendance “paid.” Backsliders were overlooked when Lady Selina offered
her “oblations” at the Midsummer and Christmas bun-festivals. Just
before Christmas beef-time the attendance was remarkable.
After church Dr. Pawley accounted satisfactorily for the absence of his
colleague, who, it seemed, had spent the night with a child suffering
horribly from croup.
“He never spares himself, good fellow,” said Pawley. “In this case he
insisted on sparing me.”
Lady Selina inclined her head. The thought came to Cicely, to be
dismissed as disloyal, that her mother had not seemed too well pleased
when listening politely to Dr. Pawley’s praises of his partner. Did she
resent the young man’s ever-increasing popularity in the village? Lady
Selina strolled back to the Manor, saying nothing. In the old days Dr.
Pawley was often invited to luncheon on Sundays. Cicely said presently:
“Are you expecting Dr. Pawley to luncheon, Mums?”
“No. Stimson has enough to do as it is. Besides, it would be difficult
to leave out Mr. Grimshaw.”
“But why leave him out?”
Lady Selina shrugged her shoulders, saying carelessly:
“On ne s’entend pas avec tout le monde.”
Cicely felt as if she had been slapped. It was the first time that her
mother had deliberately chosen to indicate the social chasm between
herself and a G.P. Cicely, off her guard, said indiscreetly:
“Mother!—Mr. Grimshaw is Brian’s friend. I—I don’t understand.”
Lady Selina may have regretted a slip of the tongue. In her softest
voice, she replied:
“My dear child, I have been extremely civil to Brian’s friend. But there
are—limits! I regard Dr. Pawley as an exception that proves the rule
never broken by my dear father, for example.”
“What rule?”
“I dislike dotting my ‘i’s. However . . . the rule is quite simply this:
Solicitors and doctors, by reason of their callings, which impose upon
us, willy-nilly, an intimacy of a peculiarly personal and often
unpleasant character, must be received with formal courtesy upon
occasion. But the fact that they are paid as attendants, so to speak,
justifies us in keeping them at a discreet distance. Your grandfather
used to say: ‘How can I enjoy my glass of port when my doctor is
watching me drink it, after having strictly forbidden it?’ In the same
way, although your friend’s father, Sir Nathaniel Tiddle, may be an
exceptionally worthy person, I should not care to sit at table with him,
because he is a pill-manufacturer. How white the world is this morning!”
Cicely bit her lips in the effort to keep silence. Also, she realised
the fatuity of further argument. It seemed to her monstrous that
anybody, particularly a mother, should not want to sit at table with a
man who had spent a long, wearisome night in attendance upon a croupy
child. She said, with an inflection of acerbity:
“Yes; but I always think of snow as Nature’s whitewash.”
“What an idea!”
“Well, it is my idea. I thought this morning that it covered ever so
cleverly the rotten leaves which I smelt yesterday. I can’t smell them
now or see them, but they’re there just the same.”
Lady Selina eyed her pensively, murmuring:
“Really, child, your liver must be out of order.”
VII
During the afternoon Cicely met Grimshaw. Whether by accident or design
will never be known. She told her mother, just before Lady Selina was
composing herself for a nap, that she intended to pop round the village,
but she popped no farther than Mrs. Rockram’s. That excellent woman
received her with effusion, congratulating the young lady heartily upon
her colour. Cicely’s cheeks certainly exhibited a deeper damask, and her
eyes were sparkling. Mrs. Rockram, honest soul, made no attempt to
disguise her interest in what might be happening at Wilverley, and her
broad hints and innuendoes nearly drove Cicely from a delightfully warm
kitchen. She guessed, of course, that Mrs. Rockram voiced the gossip of
the village. Tiddy, she reflected, would have been immensely amused. A
Chandos merely achieved exasperation tempered by patience. Nevertheless,
she was sensible that Wilverley had become immensely remote, and its
lord a mere vibrant blur upon the horizon.
“I didn’t come here to talk about Wilverley,” she said.
“No, no, suttingly not. But I’m such an old friend, Miss Cicely, so
you’ll forgive me, won’t you? I held you and Master Brian in my arms
when you wasn’t two hours born. I mind me how Master Brian yowled when
he was bathed, and I says to Rockram, I says: ‘You mark me, Thomas
Rockram, that young man’ll never like water’—and he never did.”
Cicely laughed.
“You tell me about Upworthy. Is there much sickness?”
“Nothing to worry about. Mr. Grimshaw sees to that, he do. And now that
we’re a-going to lose him——”
“What——?”
“Haven’t you heard, miss?”
“Not a word.”
Mrs. Rockram became interjectional. “Well, I never did!—Maybe, I’ve no
call to!—But there!—I did suppose my lady would know!” Boiled down,
her tale amounted to no more than this. A certain Dr. Babbington
Somebody-or-other had offered Mr. Grimshaw some post in France. Cicely
having grasped this as a fact, said:
“And Mr. Grimshaw has accepted the appointment?”
“Well, no, miss. Not to say—accepted. Leastways, he give me to
understand only yesterday that he ’adn’t answered the letter, but he’ll
go. Me and Rockram is of the same mind about that.”
“But why should he go?”
“Because, dearie, ’e’s wanted here. In my long life, I’ve never known a
man to be out o’ the way when ’e wasn’t wanted, or reely in it when he
was. Mr. Grimshaw’ll leave us, just because we can’t do without him.”
Cicely couldn’t cope with this. She said, with some tartness:
“Mr. Grimshaw is Dr. Pawley’s partner. From my knowledge of him, he’s
the last man to leave a partner in the lurch.”
Whereupon Mrs. Rockram became so interjectional that we cannot attempt
to follow her.
Cicely left the cottage, to find Grimshaw snowballing on the Green with
some of the village children. He came towards her, laughing, looking, so
she thought, like a jolly boy.
“How are you, Miss Chandos?”
Cicely wasted no time.
“What is this story about your leaving us?”
His face became slightly impassive as he replied:
“The good Mrs. Rockram has been indiscreet, I see.”
“But—are you going? And where? Do, please, satisfy my curiosity.”
“Are you curious?”
“Of course I am.”
“That’s very friendly and kind of you. Yes; I have been offered a rather
important billet in a French Field Hospital. Between ourselves, the
French Medical Staff were caught napping. It mustn’t leak out, but their
arrangements have proved wholly inadequate. Doctors and nurses are badly
wanted. I happen to speak French fairly well. I took a Paris degree.
Babbington-Raikes has written to me——”
“Oh!”
He hesitated, becoming a boy again.
“I—I should really like to know what you think about it.”
“How absurd!”
Irritation betrayed itself. Partly because she found herself in a false
position. During the previous vigils she had wished to be left alone.
Providence, apparently, had granted that wish, so far as Grimshaw was
concerned. He would leave Upworthy, never to return. If he cared——!
Already, like Arthur Wilverley, he seemed remote. His voice floated to
her as from a distance.
“I am sincere. I have talked the matter over with Dr. Pawley. His health
is much improved after his long holiday. He can carry on, so he says.”
Cicely said shortly:
“Of course he _says_ that.”
“Do you mean, Miss Chandos, that in your opinion it’s my duty to stay
here?”
Quite unreasonably—as she admitted to herself afterwards—Cicely became
conscious of exasperation. At the moment, naturally enough, she was
unable to analyse her emotions. Inasmuch as she wanted Grimshaw to stay
for her personal motives, inasmuch also as she knew that such men must
be sorely needed elsewhere, his grave question kindled civil war in her
own heart. Taken at a disadvantage, she temporised:
“My opinion doesn’t count.”
“But it does,” he assured her.
Man and maid looked at each other with troubled eyes, each dismally
conscious of spaces to be bridged, of bristling obstacles to be
surmounted. In each, moreover, was the somewhat inchoate conviction that
this horrible war imposed itself as paramount. Individuals were
engulfed. The best leapt, like Curtius, into the abyss. And dominating
this paralysing faith in the necessity of personal sacrifice was the
instinct to obey without questioning, to scrap self at any cost. Cicely
divined that Grimshaw must do his duty, and that he would do it,
ultimately, even if she urged him to stay in Upworthy. To test him, to
make certain of his quality, she said slowly, almost with defiance:
“And if I believed that, if—if I gave an opinion—which—which I
don’t,” she hastened to add, “what weight could it have against your
own?” As he remained silent, she continued vehemently: “No, no; you will
act for yourself. Nothing else is possible.”
“I suppose not.”
“I venture to guess that you have made up your mind, Mr. Grimshaw.”
“Not quite.”
Torn within, he presented an impassive face to his interlocutress. His
voice seemed to Cicely colder. An older woman would have read him
easily. Unhappily, too, for both of them, they were standing on the
village green within sight of inquisitive eyes. Alone in Mrs. Rockram’s
snug parlour, in front of a warming fire, Grimshaw might have spoken and
put his fate to the touch. The snow, the grey-white landscape, the
approaching shades of evening, chilled speech. But never had Cicely
appeared so sweet to him, so desirable. To go from her without a word
ravaged him. To speak with entire frankness meant trouble, a burden
placed upon slender shoulders. Was it possible to give her a glimpse of
his feelings? Could one cold-dispelling ray shoot from his heart to hers
before they parted? Physically speaking, hands and feet were growing
icy.
She shivered.
Instantly he recognized the inexorable power of environment. He spoke
with professional incisiveness:
“I beg your pardon for keeping you here. It is bitterly cold. We are in
for a sharp frost.”
She held out her hand.
“I return to Wilverley to-morrow.” Her voice softened delightfully.
“This may be—Good-bye. And if it is, good luck to you.”
“Thanks.”
With that Cicely sped homeward, a very unhappy maid, leaving an equally
unhappy man to his thoughts. Neither had understood the other; each had
trodden the well-worn path of convention and good-breeding, no longer
that gentle, pleasant exercise so commended and approved by the past
generation. Cicely told herself that he didn’t care; he was more doctor
than man. At the very last he had envisaged her as a possible patient
laid low by influenza. . . . Perhaps—her cheeks glowed at the
thought—he had guessed something. Deliberately he might be setting the
seas between them! Otherwise, surely he would have hinted at a return to
Upworthy. . . .
Grimshaw went back to his sitting-room and piled logs upon a dull
smouldering heap of cinders. Borrowing Mrs. Rockram’s bellows, he blew
these into a roaring fire, sat down, lit his pipe, and glared at the
leaping flames. He was sensible of failure to his marrow. He accused
himself of cowardice. He cross-questioned himself inexorably. Pride had
governed him; he had kow-towed to the code imposed by the lady of the
manor; he had missed his chance. Lord Wilverley would not miss his
chance.
VIII
Alone with her mother, at tea-time, Cicely mentioned casually her visit
to Mrs. Rockram and her meeting with Grimshaw upon the village green.
Lady Selina nodded with Olympian majesty when she heard of the
Babbington-Raikes letter, saying blandly:
“Under the unhappy circumstances, I could not expect Mr. Grimshaw to
waste his undoubted talents and energies in Upworthy.”
Cicely said hastily:
“He seemed to ask for—for _our_ opinion, and of course I replied that
he would do what seemed right.”
Lady Selina smiled maternally:
“Very proper, my dear. And Dr. Pawley is so much stronger. Really, he
doesn’t need a partner now.”
She sipped her tea, hardly missing the cream. Cicely observed with
irrelevance:
“I often wonder why Dr. Pawley never married.”
“Ah, well, I could enlighten you, child, about that.”
“Do, please!”
Whereupon Lady Selina unfolded a romantic tale with a gusto in the
telling of it not wasted upon her listener. Pawley was presented as a
young, ardent man, whimsical, attractive, and something of a cavalier.
As a rider to hounds, he had won the friendship of the late Squire of
Upworthy. Cicely was well aware of this, a fact that tickled her humour.
With a full appreciation of the part played by fox-hunting in the making
of the nation, she learnt also, not with surprise, that a bold horseman
had captivated the interest of a daughter of the county, now a rotund
matron, the wife of a baronet who lived a dozen miles away. Lady Selina
was describing vividly, with corroborative detail, the process of
transmuting mere interest into love, when Cicely interjected rather
sharply:
“I understand—the affair was nipped.”
Lady Selina hated interruptions.
“Don’t nip me, my dear. What happened can be put adequately without
using slang. Common sense prevailed. Your dear father, indeed, had a
finger in the pie. . . .”
“Pressure!” exclaimed the young lady. “I should have thought,” she
added, “that Dr. Pawley would not have yielded to pressure.”
“Which shows, my dear, that you don’t know him. At any rate, he did the
wise and honourable thing. None of us, high or low, can afford to ignore
public opinion. In this case, everything turned out for the best. Dr.
Pawley’s straightforward conduct served to establish his position. When
the facts became known, the best houses opened their doors to him.”
“But he lost a partner.”
“That loss turned into a substantial gain. I have often thought that
celibacy is best for doctors and clergymen. If they marry, they should
choose helpmeets. But I can understand, also, that such a man as my dear
old friend, having loved truly a young lady of quality—she had very
great charm and distinction, I can assure you—would not care to look
elsewhere. And here again his fidelity to an ideal has endeared him to
all of us.”
Lady Selina sighed. Cicely murmured pensively:
“I wonder what Tiddy would say.”
“I can imagine what your friend would say, Cicely, and I am glad that
she is not here to say it. _Noblesse oblige_ happens to be a phrase
which the daughter of Sir Nathaniel Tiddle couldn’t be expected to
understand.”
“She understands it right enough, and she’s jolly glad that it doesn’t
apply to her. In ten days she comes to Wilverley.”
“Really!”
Lady Selina looked down her nose, and the shape of it may have
encouraged her to remark:
“You know, child, that this friendship of yours with a rather
unrestrained and undisciplined young woman is a certain anxiety to me.
However . . .!”
With a gesture that might have become the mother of the Gracchi, Lady
Selina dismissed Miss Tiddle.
But, till Cicely returned to duty the girl was lapped in tenderness and
solicitude. Let no man assume too hastily that design lurked beneath
soft glances and rare caresses. At any moment a few pencilled words upon
a telegram might apprise Lady Selina of the loss of a son. Because such
fear impended, she clutched desperately at her daughter, striving to
hold in her masterful grasp the essential possession, strangely
conscious that the spirit eluded her, that flesh and blood obscured the
real Cicely. It was hardly credible that her girl did not think as she
did upon matters supremely affecting conduct. Yet she dared not break
down virginal reserves with direct questions. And she could remember
that between herself and her mother there had been the same queer
intermittencies of sympathy, the thus-far-and-no-farther limit that
blighted full-blooming confidence.
You may be sure that she rejoiced unaffectedly at Grimshaw’s departure
from Upworthy, meaning to speed him on his way with gracious smiles,
hoping and praying that he would never return. During the five minutes
that she devoted each night to prayer and introspection, she decided
that Providence had deigned to stretch forth a delivering Hand. With
fervent faith she beheld clearly the Divine Intention.
Cicely had not inherited this clarity of vision.
She went back to Wilverley a much-bewildered maid, almost at the mercy
of circumstances and surroundings, feeling strangely invertebrate and
listless. For the moment we may compare her to a cog on a machine. Being
a true Chandos she intended to do her work efficiently. That would
suffice till—till Tiddy came. Tiddy would revitalise her. Meanwhile,
she contemplated with some dismay the certainty of talk not with but
from the tremendous Mrs. Roden.
That good lady eyed her critically.
“Too much Christmas,” she said trenchantly.
Out of sight and hearing of her august mother, Cicely often amused
herself by understudying Tiddy. So she replied calmly:
“Yes; I overrate myself. Plum-pudding and mince-pies. What can you
expect when a poor girl is hungry and greedy?”
Mrs. Roden smiled grimly. Cicely’s spirit did not displease her. The one
thing needful in a world to be regenerated by WOMAN was spirit.
“We missed you, my dear. Arthur was quite depressed. How is your
mother?”
“Just the same.”
“Wonderful woman! The world is in the melting-pot, but she doesn’t
change. Sometimes I envy her. Amazing powers of detachment.”
“And attachment. She was sweet to me, Mrs. Roden. I—I hated to leave
her alone in that big house.”
“You know that you are wanted here.”
As if this statement exacted emphasis, Wilverley came in, unmistakably
joyous, holding out two hands. And he happened to be looking his best in
riding-kit, exuding energy and goodwill, so delighted to see Cicely that
his genial tones betrayed him as lover and would-be conqueror. She felt
herself whirled away upon a flood of eager questions, which taken
collectively embodied the supreme question. Mrs. Roden tactfully
retired.
“He is going to propose now,” thought Cicely. “How can I prevent him?”
They were in the big library filled with superbly-bound tomes that were
never read, bought wholesale, with true decorative instinct, by the
first Lord Wilverley. Opulence characterised the room from floor to
ceiling. Cicely sank into the carpet and into an arm-chair, almost
overpowered by the sense of luxury and comfort. A violent temptation
assailed her. Why not float with the current instead of against it? The
excitement of any change from apathetic and dull conditions beguiled
her. All of us know how the Great War engendered excitement. Possibly
women were more susceptible to a craving for action than men. Action was
forced upon men.
She heard Wilverley’s sincere voice repeating what his sister had
affirmed, but with an emphasis not to be denied.
“I have missed you horribly.”
“But you hardly ever saw me.”
“You were here, in my house. When you left it seemed empty to me. Now
that you have come back——!”
He broke off abruptly, waiting, perhaps, for some encouraging glance.
Cicely stared at the carpet. Her cheeks were slightly flushed. Although
she wished to procrastinate, she was sensible that this big man, so
close to her, so alive with energy, was presenting himself insistently.
A strong mind was modifying and reconstructing hers. All that he
represented seemed to force itself upon her notice. If he won her, she
would be regarded as his most precious possession. He stood, first and
last, for—_Security_. The time and attention that he gave to the
humblest of his dependents would be hers inalienably. He would be
faithful and true to his marriage vows. She would be enshrined in a
velvet-lined casket.
Safe harbourage!
How much it means to women! And particularly to women of imaginative
temperament, who, like homing birds, are gifted with the sense of
direction. Cicely’s imagination had carried her afield. In Miss Tiddle’s
agreeable company she had explored highways and byways, wandering down
the latter with the comforting reflection that she could leave them at a
moment’s notice. Girls who indulge in such mental vagabondage are more
likely to return to the highways than the unimaginative, who may fly the
beaten track suddenly. With Miss Tiddle Cicely had dared to enter
(metaphorically) the Divorce Court; she had flown upon imaginative wings
into drawing-rooms where Mrs. Grundy refuses to go, where derelict wives
bewail their mistake in marrying the wrong men.
To such a girl as Cicely the broad high road appears to be the only way.
All the women of kin to her, with one notable exception, had stuck
religiously to the main thoroughfare which stretches from Mayfair to
John o’ Groat’s. And these kinswomen, taking them by and large, appeared
to be happy and contented. The notable exception, who was never
mentioned, remained an unseen object lesson of how not to do it!
Wilverley went on:
“The loneliness of a big house is rather disconcerting, Cis.”
He had never called her “Cis.”
“Even when it is a hospital?” she asked.
“The strange faces make it the more so. You must have noticed lately
that I have talked a lot about myself. I wanted you to know me. I want
desperately to know you, but somehow you are not very self-revealing.”
“Is anybody?”
If she could divert the talk into an impersonal channel procrastination
might be achieved. Wilverley refused the bait.
“I have tried to be so to you. Tell me, Cis, do you see me as I am, a
plain enough fellow who wishes with all his heart that he was more
attractive?”
“I think I see you,” she admitted, after an instant’s hesitation.
“I have not studied the arts that please women.”
His modesty was so disarming that her face relaxed. She replied frankly:
“Really and truly I distrust those arts.”
Such kindliness informed her voice that he plunged.
“You are going back to your drudgery tonight. And I am up to my eyes in
work also. So forgive me if I beat no bushes. You are too clever not to
know what I want. Will you be my wife?”
“I—I don’t know,” she faltered.
His face fell, but he recovered quickly. He muttered disconsolately:
“What a muddle I’ve made of this!” And then a happy inspiration came to
his rescue. He said awkwardly: “You see, dearest, it’s a first attempt,
but you encourage me to hope that it may not be the last. May I try
again?”
Cicely said desperately:
“I do feel such a fool. I—I don’t know my own mind, Arthur. It’s
humiliating to say so.”
“Nothing of the sort. Let us mark time. I believe I fell in love with
you when you were a tiny. Perhaps you will laugh at me when I tell you
that I sneaked a hanky of yours before you put your hair up.”
“Arthur! . . . I hope it was a nice one. Did—did you have to send it to
the wash?”
“Oh, no,” he reassured her.
They laughed, and the strain was over. Perhaps—who can say?—an
experienced courtier might have achieved less. Henceforward Cicely
beheld Wilverley in a more romantic light.
“When I try again,” he said shyly, “I shall show you the hanky.”
“I am like my hankies,” Cicely replied, “more ornamental than useful.”
Soon afterwards she went upstairs to the room which she was to share
with Miss Tiddle. As she put on her uniform she thought to herself:
“I wonder what Tiddy will think of him.”