_PART II_
LEASAN PARSONAGE
§ 1
February was nearly over when Peter came back from his Algerian
honeymoon, and found Starvecrow waiting to receive him. It was the mild
end of a rainy day, with the air full of yellow sunshine, which was
reflected in the floods of the Tillingham marshes. The house was faintly
bloomed with it, and its windows shone like golden pools. Peter caught
his first glimpse from the top of Brede Eye hill, and his heart grew
warm in the chill English dusk as no African sun had made it. “Look!” he
said to Vera, and pointed over the top of Conster’s firs at the grey and
golden house with its smoking chimneys—for the first time the smoke of
his own fires was going up from Starvecrow.
The car—the splendid Sunbeam which Vera’s parents had given as their
wedding-present—swept down into the valley, over the Tillingham bridge,
and up Starvecrow’s twisting drive, reflecting the rushing hazels and
apple-trees in the mirror of its polished sides. Without noise or jar it
stopped outside the porch—“Wait for the man, dear,” said Vera, but Peter
was out, staring enraptured at his own front door. He had a foolish,
ridiculous feeling that he wanted to carry her across the threshold, but
was deterred by the appearance of a smart parlourmaid, also by Vera’s
obvious unpreparedness for so primitive an entrance.
So he contented himself with kissing her in the delightful drawing-room
that led out of the hall. A large wood fire burned in the open
fireplace, and bright cretonnes were in rather sophisticated contrast to
oak beams and pure white walls. The house had been thoroughly
overhauled, and amazing treasures had come to light in the way of Tudor
fireplaces and old oak. It seemed to Peter that it was now more like a
small country house than the farmhouse of his love and memory, but
certainly these things were more appropriate than the Greenings’ rather
ramshackle furniture, Victorian wallpapers and blackleaded grates.
“Isn’t it lovely?” breathed Vera, crouching down by the fire and warming
her delicate hands.
“Yes, it is,” said Peter—“and so are you.”
He put his hand on her little close-fitting hat and tilted back her head
till her full, rather oriental lips were under his. He loved her long,
satisfying kisses, so unlike the uneasy ones of most English girls—he
told himself that it was this Eastern quality in her love, inherited
through the Jewish blood of her fathers, which had made the last few
weeks so wonderful.
A minute later the parlourmaid brought in tea, and they had it together
beside the singing hearth. There was no light in the room except the
dancing glow on beams and walls, the reflections from polished silver
and lustre-ware. Vera did not talk much, for she was tired, and after
tea she said she would like to go up to her room and lie down before
dinner. Peter offered to go with her and read her to sleep—he could not
bear to be away from her very long—but Vera said she would rather be
quiet, in which no doubt she was wise, for the gods had not given Peter
the gift of reading aloud.
Well, perhaps it was all to the good that she did not want him, because
he would have to go up to Conster some time this evening, and he would
rather go now than after dinner, when he could be sitting on the
hearthrug at Vera’s feet keeping their first watch together by their own
fire. So though he was feeling a bit fagged himself after the journey,
he put on his overcoat again and went out into the early darkness which
was thick with a new drizzle.
Starvecrow was lost in the night, except for a golden square which was
Vera’s room, and the distant sulky glow of a lantern among the barns.
Only a gleaming of puddles and the water in the ruts showed him the farm
drive—which had remained a farm-drive in spite of the Asher’s wish that
it should become an avenue; for, as he pointed out to them, his traffic
of wagons would do for nothing more genteel. As he reached the bottom,
the distant murmur of a car, far away in the network of lanes between
Starvecrow and Vinehall, made him unaccountably think of Stella.
Queer ... it must be just a year since he had seen her last. How many
things had happened since then, and how seldom he thought of her
now—poor little girl!... And yet he had loved her—there was no good
making out that he hadn’t—and he had been grief-stricken when she had
gone away—thought a dozen times of calling her back and letting
Starvecrow and the rest go hang.... It merely showed that Mary was
right, and love, like everything else, could die. Would his love for
Vera die?—why not, since his love for Stella had died?—But his love for
Vera was so warm and alive—So had his love for Stella been once. Oh,
damn! he was getting into a melancholy mood—it must be the effect of the
journey. Thank God! here he was at Conster and wouldn’t have much more
time for the blues, though the thought of seeing his family again did
not give him any overwhelming pleasure.
§ 2
He found his father and mother and two sisters in the drawing-room, and
it seemed to him that their greeting had a queer, uneasy quality about
it, a kind of abstraction—as if their thoughts were centred on something
more engrossing than his return. When he had gone his round of kisses
and handshakes, Lady Alard seemed suddenly to express the real interest
of the party by crying in a heartbroken voice——
“Peter! what _do_ you think has happened?”
“What?” cried Peter sharply. He had a vision of a foreclosing mortgagee.
“It’s Mary!” wailed Lady Alard—“Julian is divorcing her.”
“Mary!”
Peter was genuinely shocked—the Alards did not appear in the divorce
court; also his imagination was staggered at the thought of Mary, the
fastidious, the pure, the intense, being caught in the coarse machinery
of the state marriage laws.
“Yes—isn’t it utterly dreadful? It appears he’s had her watched by
detectives ever since she left him, and now they’ve found something
against her—at least they think they have. It was that time she went
abroad with Meg Sellons, and Charles joined them at Bordighera—which I
always said was unwise. But the worst of all, Peter, is that she says
she won’t defend herself—she says that she’s done nothing wrong, but she
won’t defend herself—she’ll let Julian put her away, and everyone will
think she’s—oh, Peter, this will finish me—it really will. When I got
Mary’s letter I had the worst attack I’ve had for years—we had to send
for Dr. Mount in the middle of the night. I really thought——”