Mary came speeding home by the first train after receipt of the
telegraphic message, and arrived at the Cottage on the afternoon of the
following day.
A strange maid with a scared expression opened the door, and stared
aghast as the new arrival pushed past her into the dining-room.
The room was empty, and Mary stood upon the threshold looking round the
familiar scene, which seemed so strangely altered by her year's absence.
The blinds were drawn, but even in the half-lights its proportions
appeared shrunken, its furnishings shabby and poor. On the centre table
stood a bowl of spring flowers, and two or three store catalogues,
certain pages of which were marked with strips of writing paper. It
seemed to Mary that those books had lain in identically the same
positions on the morning on which she had left home, but then the marked
pages had been those of Trousseaux, and now... Instinctively she opened
the nearest volume, and shrank at the sight of monumental stones and
crosses.
The next moment the door opened, and Mrs Mallison entered the room.
From an upper room she had heard the sounds of arrival, and for the
moment the mother in her forgot everything but the fact that her child
had returned. She held out her arms, and smiled with twitching lips,
and Mary ran to her, and clung round her neck, with arms which seemed as
if they would never let go. It was not the thought of her father that
prompted that close embrace, it was the remembrance of a year of days
spent in establishments, a year of aimless hours, a year of living among
strangers, who cared nothing, noticed nothing! neither praised nor
blamed. She had tasted liberty, and liberty had been sweet, but there
was a great loneliness in her heart, and the clasp of mother arms were
as balm to a wound.
"Mother, Mother!" gasped Mary sobbing.
"Mary, Mary!" quavered Mrs Mallison in reply, then at last they drew
apart, regarding each other, with half-shy scrutiny. Mrs Mallison had
rushed into the orthodox fitments with a haste which seemed to Teresa
positively indecent, but it obviously soothed the widow to don her new
cap, and stitch muslin cuffs and collar on a black silk dress. The
result, taken in conjunction with a natural paleness of complexion, was
undoubtedly softening, and made a further appeal to Mary's heart.
"You look pale, Mother. You are not ill? Oh, don't be ill! We can't
spare you too!"
"No, no, my dear. I am quite well. It was a great shock... but there
was no nursing. It would have been worse if he'd been ill long. Sit
down, my dear... You must have some milk... He came down to breakfast
quite himself, but depressed. He had been depressed--" She saw Mary
wince, and hurried into explanations.--"About business... Not you, my
dear! He had got over that. So interested in your letters... Poor
Papa! investments had been bad, and he was led into speculation. I
never suspected.--He never confided in me. He knew that I should
object. Papa could be very self-willed. It's the way with these mild
characters; all of a sudden they get the bit in their teeth, and there's
no stopping them." She saw Mary wince again, and gave a peal to the
bell. "You must have some milk! Or tea? Shall I hurry up tea? Tea,
please, Mason, and don't toast the muffin until you've brought in the
tray. It was cold yesterday.--I was telling you, Mary, that he had had
bad news... opened a letter after breakfast and there it was.--He read
it through, and called out to me: `Margaret! Margaret!'..." The large,
complacent face shivered suddenly into tears. "It was years--years--
since he had called me that!"
Mary took out her handkerchief, and wiped her own eyes. She was sorry
for her mother, but the habit of thinking first of herself had grown too
strong to be overcome.
"Did he--did he speak of me?"
"My dear, there was no time. It fell on him at that very moment--the
stroke! He never spoke again. Those were his last words, `Margaret!
Margaret!'--as he used to call to me when we were young, before you
children were born."
There was evident solace in the remembrance, despite the tears which it
evoked. Mary made a futile effort to conjure up a picture of youthful
parents, loving each other, living in happy comradeship, and then
reverted to her mother's words of a few moments before.
"Bad news! Speculations?... How much had he lost?"
Mrs Mallison's hands twitched, she clasped them tightly upon her knee.
"He said--all! He said--ruin! It's too early yet to be sure. Mr
Maitland will make enquiries... I knew he had been selling out shares.
I thought it was to reinvest in some better security. Papa was always
close about business. If he speculated with the principal, and it has
gone, it will be"--the hands jerked once more--"ruin!"
"You will have five hundred a year, Mother," Mary said quietly. "Teresa
will marry, and you and I--we can be quite comfortable on five hundred a
year."
Mrs Mallison's eyes shot out a sideways glance, and beheld before her
the Mary of old, seated with bowed back and bowed head in her old chair
in the corner by the fire-place, and the year that had passed rolled
from her memory like a worrying dream.
"Of course," she said briskly, "we must remove. There will be no
necessity for so many rooms. If we put out the washing we can manage
quite nicely with one maid, and you to assist in the mornings. After
being idle for so long, you will enjoy making yourself of use."
"I think I shall," said Mary. And she meant it.
The maid brought in the tray at that moment, the subject was necessarily
dropped. Probably a fortune of ten thousand pounds has never changed
hands so swiftly and silently! From that hour to the day of her death,
Mrs Mallison showed no sign of realising that she was living on her
daughter's money, not her own.
The tea was poured out, the muffin was brought in, piping hot, under its
silver cover, before Teresa made her appearance, and Mary, staring with
blank eyes at a tall, thin girl, with pale cheeks and listless eyes,
felt that this was not the Teresa of yore, but a stranger with whom she
had no acquaintance.
The sisters embraced, in silence, and with a listlessness as pronounced
on one side as the other. There was no sign in Teresa's manner of the
remorseful affection which her letter had expressed. "She looks--like
me!" said Mary to herself, and her eyes strayed to her sister's left
hand. The flash of diamonds showed that there was no avowed breach with
Dane, though the mystery of the deferred marriage was still to be
solved. Mary found no clue thereto in her mother's continued monologue,
though it was discursive enough to take in the whole countryside.
"Teresa will be glad to have you back--so much to do... The bell has
been ringing all day long. Lovely flowers! A wreath of lilies from the
Court. And there will be the cards... We shall have to draw one out.
There _were_ no kind enquiries, so we can't thank for them. It was so
sudden; only a few minutes. He called out for me--I went to him, and
held his poor head. Teresa said I was kind. Of course I was kind! He
called me `Margaret,' and then--in a minute... wasn't it only a minute,
Teresa? he was gone!... Poor Henry! Poor Papa! The shock was too
much... `Mrs and the Misses Mallison return warm thanks for kind
sympathy in their sad and sudden bereavement,' something like that...
They have a book at the stationer's, with a selection drawn out. I've
seen them at the end of the Christmas mottoes. We'll telephone... The
Vicar will be in again presently. Most attentive. He enquired for you,
Mary. I said we had wired. He felt quite sure you would come. Mrs
Evans sent a cross. Mrs Beverley's were coloured. Pale pink roses,
and a note with them. Very feeling, I must say. Being an orphan
herself, she can understand. Only cards from the Court. We've seen
nothing of them this last year. The Squire's mother died, so they don't
entertain, and Lady Cassandra and Mrs Beverley are always together. Of
course, as I tell Teresa, she's so much younger. Teresa is looking
thinner, Mary, isn't she? Quite slim. You haven't altered, my dear. I
see no difference. I thought perhaps you'd have changed your hair.--No!
Papa didn't speak of you specially; he hadn't time, but he spoke of his
children,--something about ruining me and the children--he thought of
us, not himself. I said to him, whatever he had done, he had done it
for the best. Mr Hunter said the same thing this morning. He came in
to offer to help. He is looking after the--er,... arranging for
Thursday. Quite simple, I told him, but _good_. I could not bear to
skimp for Papa. The dressmaker's coming at six..." Her face quivered
and a stray tear rolled slowly down her cheek. "He looks so
peaceful!... Afterwards--you must come up..."
Mary shrank. She did not want to see the still, changed effigy of what
had been; she wanted to remember her father as the quiet man who had
kissed her on the doorstep, and said: "My dear, I hope you may have a
pleasant time," but she had not the courage to refuse. She looked
appealingly at Teresa, and saw a sudden wave of feeling sweep over the
pale face. From without came the sound of wheels, a heavy, lumbering
sound which to Chumley ears announced the advent of one of the venerable
station flies. The next moment the bell rang, and a man's footstep was
heard in the hall. "The Vicar!" murmured Mrs Mallison, but Mary knew
it was not the Vicar; the look on her sister's face announced too surely
the name of the new-comer.
There came a pause, while the new maid was escorting the visitor into
the drawing-room, and came back to announce his name.
"Captain Peignton."
Teresa took the words out of her mother's mouth.
"Ask him to come here."
She rose from her seat, and stood waiting, so calm, so dignified, so
arresting in her slim young pallor, that Mrs Mallison's reproaches died
on her lips. She rose in her turn, and stood beside her daughter with
an unconscious air of protection, and then Dane entered, and the
long-dreaded, long-prayed-for meeting had taken place.
He came forward, eager, sympathetic, his own embarrassment forgotten in
affectionate concern. Looking at him as he entered, one divined that
his impulse was to kiss and caress, as he had been accustomed to do in
the early days of his engagement, but that impulse received a check at
the sight of the two waiting figures,--Mrs Mallison in her widow's
trappings, and beside her, the white silent girl. Dane shared Mary's
dazed feeling of meeting a stranger, as he shook Teresa's limp hand,
which yet had strength enough to hold him at arm's length. He heard her
voice enquiring as to the comfort of his journey, offering him tea and
cakes; there was in it a note of detachment which he had never before
heard when she was addressing himself.
As he drank his tea, and listened to the hum of Mrs Mallison's
reiterated reminiscences, Dane was conscious of a feeling of flatness
and disappointment. The year's absence from Chumley had wrought the
inevitable result. He loved Cassandra none the less, but the eyes that
had been blinded by passion could now discern that he had been saved
from a great wrong, and if life still appeared grey and barren, he
acknowledged that he had escaped the harder fate of attaining his desire
at the cost of bitterness of soul. And throughout the months of
struggle, this girl's tenderness had enveloped him, an unfaltering
tenderness, undaunted by neglect. It was only during the last few
months that Dane had begun to realise the healing quality of that
tenderness, to count the days until the arrival of the weekly letter, to
find himself mentally repeating its phrases; slowly, but surely, his
wounded heart had been opening to take comfort in Teresa's love, and
when suddenly she was plunged into trouble, he had hurried to her, with
a genuine impulse of tenderness. In imagination he had seen her face
lighten with joy, had felt her arms around his neck.--It was the most
startling thing in the world to find Teresa _cold_!
When tea was over Mary lifted her gloves and veil murmuring some
unintelligible words, whereupon Teresa rose so quickly as to give the
idea that she was glad of the excuse.
"I will come with you! Your room is not quite ready. You must come to
mine." She turned to Dane holding out her hand with a flickering smile.
"You will excuse me, Dane. We are so busy... The Vicar is coming in
later, and Mr Hunter, and the dressmaker... There's so much to be
done... We will see you again?"
She turned away, without waiting for a reply, and Dane reseated himself
in silence. To say that he was surprised, but feebly expresses his
sentiments; he was stunned, he could hardly persuade himself that he had
heard aright. He looked eagerly at Mrs Mallison, seeking a clue from
her, and beheld a kindred surprise, mingled with an unmistakable
complacence. Obviously the mother approved of her daughter's reserve,
and felt a natural satisfaction in his rebuff, but before the silence
had continued long enough to become awkward, she remembered her duties
as hostess, and vouchsafed an explanation:
"Mary arrived just before tea... They have not seen each other for a
year.--So much has happened..."
"Of course. Just so... I quite understand," Dane said vaguely. Then,
after a moment's pause, "Teresa looks thin!" he added anxiously. "This
has been a great shock to her."
"M-yes!" Mrs Mallison said. Just the one word, yet Dane found himself
flushing guiltily, and realising that he was _meant_ to realise that no
shock, however great, could alter a girl's physique, as Teresa had
altered since he had seen her last. He dropped the subject, and tried
another.
"I came as quickly as I could after getting the news. I hoped I might
be in time to help. What arrangements,... can I help you to make
arrangements?"
"Thank you very much, but everything is settled. Mr Hunter is looking
after everything. I expect him this evening to talk over details. The
day after to-morrow, at twelve o'clock. Will it be possible for you to
stay?"
Again Dane was conscious of shock, followed by a pang of something
curiously like irritation. Hunter? How did Hunter come to be on such
intimate terms? Then he remembered that Hunter was a doctor, and felt a
rising of spirits. Of course! Quite natural! Hunter had been in
attendance.
"Of course I shall stay. I hope I may be of some use to you later, on.
I'm glad you had someone on the spot. Hunter is the young doctor, isn't
he? Extraordinarily kind, these doctor fellows on occasions like
these!"
"M-yes," said Mrs Mallison once more, and there rose before Dane's eyes
a picture of Teresa, in a white dress, dispensing garden tea, with a
tall young figure assiduously waiting upon her. Once more he realised
that that "M-yes!" was meant to imply that more than mere professional
interest was at stake.
The sound of a bell jingled through the quiet house, and Dane rose from
his chair. Of old he had been as a son in this house, treated with
affection and familiarity, but at this moment he felt an intruder, whose
presence was merely an inconvenience, taking up time which should have
been bestowed elsewhere. He held out his hand, and said:
"At what hour to-morrow will it be most convenient for me to call to see
Teresa?"
"I will ask her," Mrs Mallison said, and left the room, to return with
astonishing quickness. Evidently there had been no hesitation about the
reply; evidently also the maternal judgment approved.
"Teresa says she will be glad if you will excuse her to-morrow. There
is so much to do. She would rather leave her own affairs until after
the funeral. Perhaps you will come in to tea on Thursday."
"Thank you. I will come in after tea. About five o'clock. I am
staying at the hotel. Please let me know if there is anything I can
do."
He kept his voice resolutely controlled, but his anger showed in
sparkling eye, and a rising of colour over cheek and brow. Mrs
Mallison regarded these signs with a natural satisfaction. It was not
in feminine human nature to resist one parting thrust.
"One day," she said suavely, "cannot matter, when you have waited so
long!"