A LITTLE MORE THAN KIND
Edmund Grosse felt more tolerant of Billy at Groombridge Castle than
elsewhere. At Groombridge he was looked upon as a kindly weakness of
Lord Groombridge's, who consulted him about the stables and enjoyed his
jokes. This position certainly made him more attractive to Edmund, but
he was not sorry that Billy, who seldom troubled a church, went there on
Easter Sunday morning and left him in undisturbed possession of the
terrace.
The sun was just strong enough to be delightful, and, with an
interesting book and an admirable cigar, it ought to have been a goodly
hour for Grosse. But the fact was that he had wished to walk to church
with Rose, and he had quite hoped that if it were only for his soul's
sake she would betray some wish for him to come. But if she didn't, he
wouldn't. He knew quite well that she would be pleased if he went, but
if she were so silly and self-conscious as to be afraid of appearing to
want his company--well and good; she should do without it.
He had been disappointed and annoyed with Rose during their walk on the
evening before. The simple, matter-of-fact way in which they had been
jogging along in London was changed. At first, indeed, she had been
natural enough, but then she had become silent for some moments, and
afterwards had veered away from personal topics with a tiresome
persistency. He half suspected the truth, that this was due to a
careless word of his own which had betrayed how suddenly he had given up
his intention to spend Easter on the Riviera. If she had jumped to the
conclusion that this change was because Edmund had learnt at the
eleventh hour that Rose would be at Groombridge, she had no right to be
so quick-sighted. It was almost "Missish" of Rose, he told himself, to
be so ready to think his heart in danger, and to be so unnecessarily
tender of his feelings. She might wait for him to begin the attack
before she began to build up fortifications.
He was at the height of his irritation against Rose, when the three
other ladies came out on the terrace. Lady Groombridge instantly told
Mrs. Delaport Green that she knew she wished to visit the dairy, and
hustled her off through the garden. Edmund rose and smiled, with his
peculiar, paternal admiration, at Molly, whose dark looks were at their
very best set in the complete whiteness of her hat and dress. Then he
glanced after the figures that were disappearing among the rose-bushes.
"The party is not in the least what your chaperone expected; indeed, we
can hardly be dignified by the name of a party at all, but you see how
happy she is. She even enjoyed dear old Groombridge's prosing last
night, and she has been very happy in church, and now she is going to
see the dairy. The only thing that troubles her is that Lady Groombridge
has not allowed her to change her gown, and a well-regulated mind cannot
enjoy her prayers and a visit to cows in the same gown. Now suppose,"
he looked at Molly with a lazy, friendly smile, "you put on a short
skirt and come for a walk."
A little later they were walking through the woods on the hills beyond
the Castle. Perhaps he intended that Rose, who had stayed to speak to
the vicar, should find that he had not been waiting about for her
return.
"I would give a good deal to possess the cheerful philosophy of Mrs.
Delaport Green," he said, as, looking down through an opening in the
trees, they could see that little woman with her skirts gracefully held
up standing by while Lady Groombridge discoursed to the keeper of cows,
who looked sleek and prosperous and a little sulky the while.
"You would be wise to learn some of it from her," Edmund went on. "Isn't
this nice? Let us sit upon the ground, as it is dry, and feel how good
everything is. You like this sort of thing, don't you?"
Molly murmured "Yes," and sat down on a mossy bank and looked up into
the glorious blue sky and then at a tuft of large, pale primroses in the
midst of dark ground ivy, then far down to the fields where a group of
brown cows, rich in colour, stood lazily content by a blue stream that
sparkled in the sunlight. Edmund was not hard-hearted, and Molly looked
very young, and a pathetic trouble underlay the sense of pleasure in her
face. There was no peace in Molly's eyes, only the quick alternations of
acute enjoyment and the revolt against pain and a child's resentment at
supposed blame.
Pleasure was uppermost at this moment, for so many slight, easy, human
pleasures were new to her. She sat curved on the ground, with the ease
and suppleness of a greyhound ready to spring, whereas Sir Edmund was
forty and a little more stiff than his age warranted.
"But when you do enjoy yourself I imagine it's worth a good many hours
of our friend's sunny existence. Oh, dear, dear!" For at that moment the
dairy was a scene of some confusion; two enormous dogs from the Castle
had bounded up to Lady Groombridge, barking outrageously, and one of
them had covered her companion with mud.
"She is saying that it does not matter in the least, and that the gown
is an old rag, but I'm sure it's new on to-day, and it's impossible to
say how much has not been paid for it."
Molly laughed; she felt as sure that Sir Edmund was right as if she
could hear every word the little woman was saying.
"Well, _that_ you will allow is humbug!"
"Yes, I think I will this time, and I believe, too, that the philosophy
has collapsed. I'm sure she's a mass of ruffled feathers, and her mind
is full of things that she will hurl at the devoted head of her maid
when she gets in. You can only really wound that type of woman to the
quick by touching her clothes. There now, is that severe enough?"
"Why do we always talk of Mrs. Delaport Green?" asked Molly.
"Because she is on trial in your mind and you are not quite sure whether
she suits."
"I might go further and fare worse," said Molly.
"Is there no one you would naturally go to?" asked Edmund.
"There is the aunt who brought me up, Mrs. Carteret, and I'd rather--"
She paused. "There is nothing in this world I would not rather do than
go back to her."
Molly's face was completely overcast; it was threatening and angry.
"Poor child!" said Edmund gently.
"I wonder," said Molly, "if anybody used to say 'poor child' when I was
small. There must have been some one who pitied an orphan, even in the
cheerful, open-air system of Aunt Anne's house, where no one ever
thought of feelings, or fancies, or frights at night, or loneliness."
Edmund looked at her with a sympathy that tried to conceal his
curiosity.
"Was it possible," he wondered, "that she really thought she was an
orphan?"
"It's dreadful to think of a very lonely child," he said.
"But some people have to be lonely all their lives," said Molly.
Sir Edmund was touched. She had raised her head and looked at him with a
pleading confidence. Then, with one swift movement, she was suddenly
kneeling and tearing to pieces two or three primroses in succession.
"Some people have to say things that can never be really said, or else
keep everything shut up."
"Don't you think they may make a mistake, and that the things can be
said--" He hesitated; he did not want to press her unfairly into
confidence; "to the right person?" he concluded rather lamely.
"Who is to find the right person?" said Molly bitterly; "the right
person is easy to find for people who have just ordinary cares and
difficulties, but the people who are in real difficulties don't easily
find the right person. I doubt if he or she exists myself!"
She turned to find Edmund Grosse looking at her with far too much
meaning in his face; there was a degree and intensity of interest in his
look that might be read in more than one way.
Molly blushed with the simplicity suited to seventeen rather than to
twenty-one. She was very near to the first outpouring in her life, the
torrent of her pent-up thoughts and feelings was pressing against the
flood-gates. It seemed to her that she had never known true and real
sympathy before she felt that look. She held out her hands towards him
with a little unconscious gesture of appeal.
"I have had a strange life," she said; "I am in very strange
circumstances now."
But Edmund suddenly got up, and before she could speak again a slight
sound on the path showed her that some one was coming.
Rose, finding every one dispersed, had taken a walk by herself in the
wood. She was glad to be alone; she felt the presence of God in the
woods as very near and intimate. Her mind had one of those moments of
complete rest and feeding on beautiful things which come to those who
have known great mental suffering in their lives, and to whom the world
is not giving its gaudy preoccupations. So, walking amidst the glory of
spring lit by a spiritual sunshine, Rose came round a little stunted
yew-tree to find Molly kneeling on the ground ivy, and Edmund standing
by her. Molly rose in one movement to her full height, as if her legs
possessed no jointed impediments, and a fiercely negative expression
filled the grey eyes. Rose's kind hand had unwittingly slammed the
flood-gates in the moment they had opened; and Edmund, seeing that
look, and feeling the air electric, suddenly reverted to a belief in
Molly's sense of guilt towards Rose.
For the fraction of a second Rose looked helplessly at Edmund, and then
held out a little bunch of violets to Molly.
"Won't you have these? There; they suit so well with your gown."
With a quick and very gentle touch she put the violets into Molly's
belt, and smiled at her with the sunshine that was all about them.
Molly looked a little dazed, and the "Thank you" of her clear low voice
was mechanical.
"I was just coming for a few minutes' walk in the wood."
Rose's voice was very rich in inflection, and now it sounded like a
caress.
"But I wonder if it is late? I think I have forgotten the time, it is
all so beautiful."
She laid her hand for a moment on Molly's arm.
"It is very late," said Edmund with decision, but without consulting his
watch on the point.
They all moved quickly, and while making their way back to the Castle
Rose and Edmund talked of Lord and Lady Groombridge, and Molly walked
silently beside them.