‘THEY SAY----’
But the thunder-shower soon broke, the blue sky showed beyond.
Tears, Marjorie Bartrand shed none. What sorrows had she of her own,
what sweetheart, philandering or otherwise, to weep for? In regard
of Geoffrey’s unknown wife, her brief-lived cynicism shifted, ere
Cassandra had been gone an hour, into most genuine, most girl-like
pity. After an outburst of temper, however scornful or unjust, there
was ever in Marjorie’s heart a pungent and fiery fidelity which led her
back, straight as magnet to steel, to her better self.
That she should be disappointed in Geoffrey’s character was, she told
herself, inevitable. What is there in any man that one should not, on
close acquaintance, be disappointed in him? She had thought, judging
from frank and plainly given confidences, that she knew, to a minute,
how her tutor’s time was passed here in Guernsey. A little hospital
work daily, Geff having met an old college friend in the house surgeon;
a little study for his next Cambridge exam.; a good deal of boating; a
good many walks round the island; three days a week, his reading with
herself at Tintajeux. The picture had been a clear, a pleasant one in
Marjorie’s sight. And now matter so alien as this of fashionable fine
ladies, midnight domestic scenes, idlers speculating right and left,
must come, unwelcome and ugly blots, on the canvas.
She was disappointed in Geoffrey, personally. She felt, with the
certainty of her age, that she could not work under him again with the
bright unblemished interest of the past days. The change of feeling
should be made up, Marjorie determined, by kindness shown to his wife.
On Mrs. Arbuthnot she pledged herself to call to-morrow. Meantime, yes,
during the forenoon lesson, she would assume a sterner manner towards
this recreant husband, this sober-mannered student who, after all one
hoped of him, was so little raised at heart above the pitiful vanities
of his sex.
And in the first place her own waist-ribbon must be summarily returned.
This was Marjorie’s resolve when her head rested on its pillow. The
waist-ribbon which, for fear of wounding Geoffrey’s feelings (his
wife’s, perhaps, vicariously), she had suffered her tutor to keep,
must be returned. Looking upon him in this new--alas! to Marjorie’s
experienced mind, this too familiar--character of a philanderer, she
could imagine him, married though he was, exhibiting that bit of ribbon
among his companions as a trophy. ‘A gift, don’t you know, bestowed on
one by a fair hand that shall be nameless.’ Or he might show it among
the idle fine ladies--oh, the hot shame at Marjorie’s sleepy heart--the
idle ladies in whose train he followed, while his wife, ignorant of
Euclid or Greek, but not _devoid of human nature_, shed tears, not one
single drop whereof the man was worthy, at home.
Marjorie Bartrand fell asleep in a state of the most pointed and
virtuous indignation. Morning brought her back, as it brings back all
of us, not to accidental emotion, but to the common habit of life.
Her habit was to rise, the moment her eyes unclosed, open her window,
and gladly welcome the new day. She did so now. Standing in her white
night-dress, the elastic air blowing on her face, she looked across a
corner of the orchard to the spot where Geoffrey, the crescent moon
shining, plucked the briar roses above her reach. Away in the distant
fields she saw the Reverend Andros, as he walked to and fro with firm
slow step among his men. On her dressing-table lay an algebra paper,
always her hardest work, which she intended resolutely to ‘floor’
before her tutor’s coming.
How sweet life was, thought the little girl, how full of fine things
that no man’s hand can take from us! Might it not be wisdom, even in a
Mrs. Geoffrey Arbuthnot, as she had committed the error of marriage, to
make the best of it--enjoy the sun that shone, the wind that blew, by
day, and look upon sleep, not weeping, as the state for which nature
designs our race at midnight!
After a swim in the bay, a brisk run up to the manoir, Marjorie,
with hunger befitting her years, kept her grandfather in excellent
countenance at his breakfast, a solid country meal at which broiled
fish, ham and eggs from the farmyard, home-made rolls and Guernsey
buttered cake predominated. Then she went to the schoolroom, and, long
before a figure she watched for rose above the moor’s horizon, had got
the better of her paper.
Her wits were at their brightest this morning. Geoffrey Arbuthnot, for
the first time since they had known each other, threw out a few crumbs
of praise when the reading closed. Crumbs of plain household bread, be
it understood--no sugar, no spice--but that caused Marjorie’s heart to
beat, the blood to leap swiftly into her mobile, all-confessing face.
Geff watched her with admiration he sought not to hide. They had been
working under the cedars, as was their custom in these fair summer
forenoons. A solitary beam of sunlight pierced the thick and odorous
shade. It fell full on Marjorie, looking more like a child than usual
in an unadorned cotton frock, and with her silky raven hair spread out
to dry, unconfined by comb or ribbon, over her shoulders.
‘The endowments of life certainly don’t go to those who need them
most.’ Geff gave utterance to the truism with the want of preface that
was his habit. ‘Many a pale-faced, hard-working village schoolmistress
would have her path smoothened by possessing a tenth part of your
brains. While for you----’
The words were leaving his lips in blunt fidelity. They were not well
considered words, perhaps. Which of us can stand on mental tiptoe
every hour of the twenty-four? But they were about as innocent of
premeditated flattery as was ever speech offered by man to civilised
woman.
Marjorie interrupted him shortly; dormant indignation against poor
Geff as a frequenter of idle society, a midnight reveller, a careless
husband, flaming forth on him, lightning wise.
‘For me, Marjorie Bartrand, living on rose leaves in Tintajeux
Manoir--oh! I should be equally charming with brains or without them,
should not I? Thank you immensely for the compliment, sir. If I could
change places I would rather be the village schoolmistress, plainly
doing her day’s work for her day’s wages, than live idly on all the
rose leaves, all the flatteries, the world could heap together.’ Then
lifting her eyes, a look in them to pierce a guilty man’s soul, ‘At
what time should I be likely to find Mrs. Arbuthnot at home?’ she asked
him with cold directness. ‘I shall drive in to Miller’s Hotel. I shall
call on Mrs. Arbuthnot this afternoon.’
A flush of undisguised pleasure went over Geoffrey’s face. All these
days he had hoped that some offer of the kind would come from Marjorie,
not doubting that in this small island rumours of Dinah’s beauty,
perhaps of Dinah’s troubles, must have reached as far as Tintajeux.
‘I am afraid Mrs. Arbuthnot is to be found at home at most hours.’
‘So I am told.’
‘Dinah goes out too little in this fine June weather.’
‘Mrs. Arbuthnot must amend her ways. To-day is our Guernsey rose show.
There will be military bands playing, dandies promenading,’ said Miss
Bartrand witheringly, as she glanced at Geff’s undandified figure,
‘fine ladies thinking and talking of everything under God’s sun save
the roses. Some of Mrs. Arbuthnot’s friends will surely tempt her to
join the gay crowd in the Arsenal?’
‘Dinah has no friends. I mean, we have been too short a time in
Guernsey to look for many callers. In the matter of visiting-cards,
ladies, I am told, are prone to be sequacious.’
So did Geff, with single-minded good-will, seek to round off the edges
of Dinah Arbuthnot’s isolation, of Gaston’s neglect.
‘And yet they say,’ cried Marjorie, her heart palpitating well-nigh to
pain, ‘that Mrs. Arbuthnot’s husband has acquaintance without stint.’
‘You must not believe half “they” say, when men and women’s domestic
concerns are the theme of conversation. Mrs. Arbuthnot’s husband
chanced to meet accidentally with a Doctor and Mrs. Thorne here. The
lady was a friend of former student days in Paris. It was the kind of
meeting,’ added Geff apologetically, ‘in which a man has no choice but
to renew an acquaintance, and----’
‘And Linda Thorne, of course, has called upon Mrs. Arbuthnot?’
The question came like a sword-thrust from Marjorie Bartrand.
‘I ... I am afraid ... not yet,’ answered Geoffrey, with hesitation.
Gaston’s careless conduct in regard of Dinah was just the one subject
that could occasion straightforward Geoffrey’s tongue to stammer.
‘Ah! Linda Thorne has not called on Mrs. Arbuthnot. That lowers one’s
opinion,’ mused Marjorie, ‘not too high at any time, of Linda Thorne.’
‘When you meet Dinah you will see that she is a woman to care little
for the common run of morning callers.’
‘I shall endeavour, just the same, to make her care for me.’
Marjorie’s tones were icy, a swell of curiously mixed feeling was in
her breast.
‘Endeavour will not be needed. I never made too sure,’ said Geff
modestly, ‘that you would pay this visit. But I know that Dinah, in her
heart, is more than prepared to bid you welcome.’
He rose, visibly reluctant, from the cool greensward. Then, with a
sense that some subtle, intangible change had crept into his relations
with his pupil, Geff prepared to take his leave.
But perilous stuff had yet to be dislodged from Marjorie Bartrand’s
conscience. She would not call upon the wife while that bit of Spanish
ribbon, a loan made in a moment of foolish high spirits, remained
unchallenged in the husband’s possession.
‘I hope you have taken care of something I lent you, sir. A piece of
coloured ribbon tied round those flowers I sent, the first evening
grandpapa and I had the pleasure of knowing you, to Mrs. Arbuthnot.’
‘To Mrs. Arbuthnot! This is rough on a man,’ cried Geff. ‘Why, Miss
Bartrand, you must have forgotten. Those flowers were given to me.’
‘Don’t make too certain of that.’
‘But I am certain. I can see you as you stood in the strip of moonlight
by the water-lane, wishing me good-night. Your last words were, “the
flowers are for yourself--your better self.”’
‘The ribbon, at least, was given to no one,’ retorted Marjorie,
changing colour under his gaze. ‘It was lent to hinder you from
breaking your neck. You meant to climb the Gros Nez cliffs if you
could. To do that a real good Guernsey man needs his hands, both of
them, and I thought it a pity----’
‘The real good Guernsey night should be disfigured by a stupid stranger
leaving the world too tragically. I thank you heartily,’ went on Geff,
as the girl blushed deeper and deeper. ‘I measured the extent of your
sympathy to an inch at the time.’
A ring of absolute independence was in his voice; a suspicion lurked
there, too, of hardly restrained laughter. For the situation was taking
hold of him. Let us see, thought Geoffrey, in this feather-light matter
of keeping or not keeping a morsel of sash ribbon, how far the small
shrew could be tamed? Let us see which of the two should fitly, in the
end, be styled conqueror?
So he thought: by no means forecasting that this feather-light matter
of keeping a morsel of sash ribbon might be the pivot on which his
life’s fortunes should one day turn.