Driving home in the car Cassandra was conscious of contending emotions
which carried her back to nursery days; pleasure, excitement, an
underlying gnawing of guilt. So had she felt, stealthily playing in a
corner with a toy purloined from a sister's store, and yet, as she
assured herself, there was no need for compunction. She had invited
both Teresa and Dane; it was not her fault if the girl chose to refuse;
not her fault if the man was ungallant enough to accept. Yet the
feeling of guilt persisted. She looked curiously at Peignton to see if
he shared her discomfort, but never did a man look more serene and
unperturbed. Happy too! The thrill of pleasurable excitement which in
her case was a real, though secondary sensation, was, to judge by
appearance, all-pervading in his case. His eyes shone, the tired-out
look had disappeared; his lips smiled.
"What a good thing a good car is! I used to swear by walking, but the
time has come when I find it very agreeable to slip into a cushioned
seat, and be whirled where I would go. There's something mysteriously
fatiguing about decorating churches; haven't you found it so? Perhaps
it is the necessity of keeping quiet and forbearing from expressing
oneself as one otherwise would, when one is unexpectedly scratched or
bruised. In any case, I _am_ tired. And hungry! It is good of you to
offer to feed me."
Cassandra smiled with the comfortable assurance of one who takes perfect
meals as a matter of course. There was no consciousness of cold mutton,
no fear of a heavy pudding, to mar her enjoyment of an unexpected guest,
but having never experienced a housekeeper's anxiety, she failed to
appreciate the relief.
"I hope they will give you something fit to eat!"
"And afterwards... Will you show me your garden?"
"I have no special garden. I do nothing myself. I'm always making up
my mind to take over a little corner, but it takes a long time to make
up my mind. I don't want to dig and delve. I enjoy the flowers better
when I get them without any trouble. It would be simply an effort to
try to find an interest.--Do you believe in troubling to find an
interest, when it doesn't come naturally?"
"Yes," Dane said simply, and Cassandra stared at him with a feeling of
check. She had not expected that quiet "yes"; it carried with it a
finality which put an end to argument.
"I have had to do it, you see!" he added. "The thing which _did_
interest me became impossible, so I was obliged to find something else
to fill the gap."
Cassandra lay back against the cushions with an exaggerated sigh of
resignation.
"Oh, dear! here we are back at our Second Bests! I hate Second Bests,
and makeshifts of every description, and I don't recognise any
obligation to adopt them. If I can gain an interest only at the cost of
something it doesn't interest me to do, how can it be an interest at
all? I'm talking nonsense, but it's your fault... You are so painfully
philosophic... Does a land agency _really_ fill the gap left by the old
regiment, and its associations?"
"Nothing near it. But it helps. It is several degrees better than
nothing." Peignton spoke resolutely, but his face twitched, and
Cassandra was smitten with compunction.
"Ah! I shouldn't have said it. It was mean of me. When you are so
brave..." Her voice sank to a tenderness of which she was unaware, as
she asked the next question: "What was it? I never heard more than just
that you had a breakdown!"
"Lungs," he said simply. "I had a cough, and it stuck to me, and I lost
weight, but I never dreamt of anything serious. It was a bit of a--jar!
I was packed off home to a sanatorium, and came out at the end of six
months with a clean bill of health. I've been up to be vetted every few
months since. The last time it was a new fellow, and he could not spot
the weak place, so I'm all right, you see; it has just made me
physically a few years older than I really am. Given care, and an
outdoor life, I have as good a chance as another man."
"Oh, of course. So many people... It's _nothing_ now, compared with
what it used to be," Cassandra assented hurriedly. _That_ was the
reason of the subtly appealing look which had puzzled her from her first
meeting with this man! He had looked death in the face; had left the
mimic playing at arms, to fight a hand-to-hand battle with that grim
spectre through weary weeks and months. Such an experience could not
fail to leave its mark, however resolutely it might be ignored. She was
silent for some minutes, staring dreamily out of the window, while Dane
in his turn studied her face, and wondered in masculine innocence why
every woman did not wear chinchilla.
"How do you take it when such blows come?" she asked slowly at last.
"Do you rage or sulk? I suppose with ordinary human creatures it comes
down to one of the two. Only the saints are resigned, and I don't fancy
you--"
"No, indeed. Very far from it!" He laughed, then sobered quickly. "I
suppose I,--sulked! I got the credit for taking it uncommonly well, but
that was because I was too proud to fuss. Pity hurt. For my own
selfish sake it was easier to bluff it out, and pretend to be hopeful.
But inside--I went through a pretty fair imitation of hell in those
first few weeks!"
In Cassandra's low croon of sympathy sounded all the warmth of her Irish
heart; her eyes were liquid with sympathy.
"And then? Afterwards... How soon did you--"
"Pull myself together? Oh, I dunno! As soon as I--began to pull round,
I suppose!" He shrugged his shoulders. "Not much credit in that, was
there? I _sulked_, as you put it, so long as everything seemed over,
but when I saw I was going to live on, I was obliged to rouse myself to
see what could be done. That's natural! The more one has lost, the
more important it is to make the most of what remains. I couldn't enjoy
my life in the way I intended, but I was determined to enjoy it all the
same."
"And have you?"
"Rather! Look at me now. Having a rattling time. I've never enjoyed
things more in my life than during the last few weeks."
"Church decorations included!" Cassandra enquired with malice prepense.
She wanted to see if he would look self-conscious at what was meant to
be a veiled reference to his connection with Teresa, but he looked at
her with the frankest of smiles and said: "Yes; didn't you?" and it was
she, not he, who suffered from embarrassment.
At lunch Bernard was unaffectedly pleased to see the unexpected guest,
and throughout its course talked to him persistently on topics which
left Cassandra out in the cold. She was evidently accustomed to be thus
ignored, for her dreamy eyes showed that her thoughts were far away, and
she replied so absently to Dane's tentative attempts to draw her into
the conversation, that he was not encouraged to persevere. She awoke to
sudden sharp consciousness, however, when Bernard began making
suggestions for the afternoon, taking for granted that his guest was
ready to accompany him wherever he should suggest to go. "I've been
wanting to drive round Boxley for some time. You come along and give me
your advice," he said finally, and again Cassandra knew a revival of
youthful days in the tingle of anger, the incredulous load of
disappointment, which like a real physical weight pressed upon her
heart. It was ridiculous, it was absurd, it was quite ludicrously out
of proportion, to feel so torn about so small a thing, but she _was_
torn. It was in her at that moment to blaze into anger, to speak loud
protesting words, to push aside her plate and dash from the room. All
the different impulses which had torn the girl Cassandra when defrauded
of a promised treat of the nursery surged up suddenly in the breast of
the woman who sat in silent dignity at the head of her table, smiling
her unruffled, society smile.
Bernard, of course--Bernard never took her into consideration;
but,--_What would Peignton say_?
What he said was the easiest, most natural of explanations.
"Thanks very much. Another time I'd be delighted, but this afternoon
Lady Cassandra has promised to show me the gardens. Perhaps we could
fix a day for next week?"
The Squire knitted his eyebrows, and looked from his guest to his wife,
back again from his wife to his guest. Plainly he was concerned,
plainly also he was concerned for his guest's sake, not that of his
wife.
"That's very good of you," he said slowly, "but er--the whole afternoon?
Rather a fag, isn't it? You could have a walk round after lunch, and
we'd start at three."
"Thanks, but it's against my principles to divide good things. We'll do
Boxley next week, if you'll give me the chance."
The Squire looked at his wife again and smiled, a good-natured smile.
He was obviously content that she should be amused, provided that he
himself had no trouble in the matter.
"That's all right, then," he said. "We'll leave it at that. Cass will
be quite pleased to have someone to talk to. Won't you, Cass?"
"Very pleased!" said Cassandra gravely. It was beyond her at that
moment to make pretence, but the earnestness of her face had the effect
of launching her husband on an old grievance.
"It's your own fault, you know; your own fault! I'm always talking to
you about it. She won't make friends, Peignton! Lived within a couple
of miles of Chumley all these years, and hasn't a single friend. Says
there's no one to know. Rubbish! Don't tell me... Lots of 'em, if she
took the trouble to find out. Too proud, that's the size of it, and
they know it, and it gets 'em on the raw. She's made herself jolly
unpopular, that's what she's done. You can't deny that you have made
yourself unpopular!"
"I am quite the most unpopular woman in the neighbourhood," Cassandra
said, with the sideways tilt of the chin which Dane was beginning to
recognise. "It's humiliating, but I can't see that I am to blame. I
bore the Chumley people, and they bore me, and if I'm to be bored at
all, I so very much prefer to do it for myself. I don't complain of
being alone."
"Oh, yes, you do. Not in words, perhaps. There are a jolly lot of ways
in which a woman can rub it in," cried the Squire with a shrewdness at
which Cassandra laughed with unruffled good-nature.
"Poor Bernard! Have I rubbed it in? Never mind! Grizel Beverley is
going to prove a host in herself, and Captain Peignton is giving me a
whole afternoon, and I've been at the church for over an hour,
decorating, and talking prettily to the other helpers. Things are
looking up. Who knows! I may be quite sociable by the end of another
year!"
But the Squire refused to be cajoled.
"Lots of 'em!" he repeated pugilistically. "Lots. All those houses,
and a woman in each. Don't tell me! What's the matter with Mrs
Mawson? What's the matter with Miss Mawle? What's the matter with the
Baxters, or the Gardiners, or Mrs Evans?"
"I like Mrs Evans. I think I almost _love_ the real Mrs Evans,"
Cassandra said thoughtfully. "I have always a feeling that if I were in
trouble the real Mrs Evans would understand. But one so seldom gets a
glimpse of her!"
"Don't understand what you are talking about. Who else do you get a
glimpse of?"
"The Vicar's wife," said Cassandra, and rising from the table put an end
to the discussion.
After lunch the two men sat together smoking and talking, but before the
end of half an hour Peignton grew restless, and cast about in his mind
for an excuse to escape. Would Lady Cassandra come for him, or was he
supposed to search for Lady Cassandra? In any case the best of the day
was passing, and it was folly to waste time indoors. He strolled to the
window, caught sight of a woman's figure among the bushes on the nearer
lawn, and lost no time in following. It was Cassandra, as he had
surmised, Cassandra in a knitted coat and cap of a soft rose colour
which matched the flush on her cheeks; her hands were thrust into her
pockets, and she nodded welcome to him with a girlish air. No girl
could have looked younger, or fresher, or more free from care, and she
felt as free as she looked. The guilty feeling of the morning had
disappeared, she had forgotten Teresa Mallison, and her claims, while
her husband's scepticism of the fact that any man should choose to spend
an afternoon with her for his own enjoyment, had stirred up latent
founts of coquetry. Peignton should enjoy himself! She had not yet
forgotten how to charm a man. She would charm him now so that his
afternoon in the spring garden should be a time to be remembered. She
need not have troubled. Grave or gay, nothing that she could have said
or done could possibly have failed to charm Peignton. But of that fact
she was, as yet, as ignorant as himself. The south windows of the Court
opened on to a stone terrace from which two separate flights of steps
gave access to a succession of gardens, sloping down to the wide stretch
of park. At the head of each stairway, and against the house in the
spaces between the windows stood stone vases filled with the gayest of
spring flowers. The fragrance of them filled the air, their colours
flared gloriously against the dull grey background, and threw into
striking contrast the green severity of the Dutch garden immediately
beneath. Here, later on in the year, the beds would exhibit gay
specimens of the latest development in carpet gardening, but in the
meantime they were bare, and the quaintly cut trees and shrubs had a
grim, almost funereal austerity. Lower down came a rose garden, with
pergolas leading in four separate avenues to a centre dome. In summer
the rose garden was a fairyland of beauty, but its time was not yet.
The gardeners were busy pruning and training, cleverly inserting new
branches among the old. Peignton noticed that though Cassandra gave the
men a pleasant greeting, she did not pause for any of the questioning,
the propositions, the consultations as to how and where, which true
garden lovers find irresistible under such circumstances. She led the
way to the lily beds, the ferneries, the herbaceous borders, and the
sunk garden, all slumbering in the promise of beauty to come, last of
all to the rockery, already ablaze with the gold of alyssum and the
purple of aubretia, the little pockets between the stones filled with
every variety of spring bulb: daffodils of yellow, white, and orange,
flaring tulips, early hyacinths, and many-coloured anemones.
After the unbroken greenery of the higher terraces, the rockery appeared
a riot of colour, as if the very spirit of spring had chosen it for an
abode. The air was sweet with fragrance, the sloping banks formed a
protection against the breeze; it seemed an ideal position in which to
pause and rest.
"Where," Dane asked tentatively, "does one sit?"
"Wherever one can. On the least bumpy stone within reach," Cassandra
replied. She seated herself in illustration upon a boulder covered with
a cushion of shaded moss, and immediately began snipping leaves from a
shrub of scented verbena, the which she inhaled with languid enjoyment.
"Just avoid stalks, and you are all right. Saxifrages _like_ being sat
on; they are even grateful if you stamp upon them with strong boots, so
you need feel no scruples." She held the lemon leaf poised in air,
studying his face with curious eyes. "You are rather given to scruples,
aren't you? Your conscience is very active!"
"I'm afraid it is," Dane said regretfully, as he in his turn selected an
impromptu seat. "My people were all Friends, so it's an inheritance. A
Nonconformist conscience has a terrible persistence; there's no living
it down. It's been a handicap to me many times, obtruding itself when
it wasn't wanted. One doesn't seem to have much personal connection
with one's conscience. It seems so entirely independent of will, that
there's no kudos attached to having a lively one, or no blame if he's
quiescent. Mine happens to be of the persistent kind, and particularly
long-lived. He was a worry to me in the nursery; he's a worry to-day.
I don't think--" he paused for a moment, as if judicially weighing his
words--"I don't think I've ever been able to do wrong with any real
satisfaction!"
They looked at each other and laughed, but Cassandra hastily lowered her
eyes, affecting to bend over a further bed in search of a new fragrance.
In reality she was afraid that her eyes might show the tenderness of
her heart. The man's expression as he looked at her had been so full of
goodness and honesty that the hidden impulse had been to stretch out her
own hand and touch his, to stroke it, and hold it close, and say such
fond words as women will, when their hearts are touched. "You dear
thing! You dear thing! what harm have _you_ done? _Your_ conscience
may sit at ease!" ... With a fellow-woman one would have carried out
the impulse, but convention forbade such sincerities between a man and a
woman unconnected by blood. Convention decreed that genuine feeling
should be disguised.
"Can't you?" said Cassandra lightly. "Oh, _I_ can! I sinned gloriously
in short frocks, with never a thought of consequences. My chum sister
was my partner in wickedness, we planned all our rebellions together,
but when it came to the bit, she missed half the fun. I could bury
everything in the joy of the moment, and forget there was such a thing
as to-morrow... She had no sooner done the deed, than she began to be
visited by qualms. I didn't object as much as I might have done, for if
the sin was edible--and it generally was.--there was so much the more
left for me. She used to sit and shiver, and say: `Cass, you'll be ill!
What _will_ Mother say?' while I ate up her share."
"And were you ill?"
"I forget," said Cassandra, and looked at him with a rebel's eyes. "But
I ate my cake!"
Before he had time to answer, suddenly, impetuously she had sprung to
her feet, and darted round a corner of the rockery to shelter behind a
clump of shrubs. Peignton followed, alert but mystified, but the
explanation came swiftly enough. From the raised path which curved
through the park to the entrance of the house came a familiar whirr, and
the next moment there sped into sight a large grey car carrying two men
on the box, and within the tonneau one large, elderly dame. From the
distance it was not possible to distinguish her face, but Cassandra
recognised her all the same, and groaned aloud.
"Mrs Freune... from Bagton. What _shall_ I do?"
"They'll look for you?"
"She'll make them. They'll ask the gardeners. They'll say I'm here."
"Let's run away!"
She looked at him and her eyes danced, but the instincts of hospitality
put up a fight. "It's a long drive! Twelve miles. She'll want tea."
"Does she stay long?"
"Hours. And talks politics into the bargain."
"Lloyd George?"
"Yes. And the German Invasion. There's no avoiding it."
"But it's a crime! On an afternoon like this, when the sun is
shining... You can't go..."
"She's driven twelve miles."
"Twelve miles in a good car! What's that? She'll enjoy her tea all the
more for waiting... Couldn't we--?"
Cassandra came a step nearer, her voice sank to the thrilling note in
which of old she had concocted mischief in the schoolroom.
"Listen! ... there's a summer-house near the north gate. It has a
locked cupboard with things for tea. I keep them there for my especial
use... If we ran down this path quickly... before she arrives--"
"We could have tea there together? For goodness' sake, let's fly!"
"But your conscience? The Nonconformist conscience? Are you sure you
could enjoy--?"
"She's your visitor, not mine. I have no scruples. Only give me the
chance!"
"On your head be it!" cried Cassandra, and bending low, darted between
the shrubs towards a winding path which led in the opposite direction
from the house. Peignton followed with eager steps.