The rain which began the day after the Greys' visit to Plashers Mead
went on almost without a break for a whole week. December with what it
could bring of deadness, gloom, and moisture came drearily down on
Wychford, and Pauline, as she sat high in her window-seat, lamented the
interminable soak.
"I can't think why Guy hasn't been near the Rectory lately," she
grumbled.
"I expect he's tired of us," said Margaret.
"You don't really think so," Pauline contradicted. "You're much, much,
_much_ too conceited to think so really."
Margaret laughed.
"You don't mind a bit when I call you conceited," Pauline went on,
challenging her sister. "I believe you're so conceited that you're proud
even of being conceited. Why doesn't Guy come and see us, I wonder?"
"Why should he come?" Monica asked, rather severely. "Perhaps he's doing
some work for a change."
"I believe he's hurt," Pauline declared.
"Hurt?" repeated her sisters.
"Yes, because you were both so frightfully critical of his room. Oh, I
_am_ glad that Mother and I aren't critical."
"Well, if he's hurt because I said he oughtn't to have an image of Our
Lady on his mantelshelf," said Monica, "I really don't think we need
bother any more about him. Was I to encourage him in such stupid little
Gothic affectations?"
"Oh, oh!" cried Pauline. "I think he's frightened of you, Monica dear,
and of your long sentences, for I'm sure I am."
"He wasn't at all frightened of me," Monica asserted. "Didn't you hear
him call me Monica?"
"And surely," Margaret put in, "you didn't really like those stupid mock
medieval curtains. No design, just a lot of meaningless fleurs-de-lys
looking like spots. It's because I think Guy has got a glimmering of
taste that I gave him my honest opinion. Otherwise I shouldn't have
bothered."
"No, I didn't like the curtains," Pauline admitted. "But I thought they
were rather touching. And, oh, my dears, I can't tell you how touching I
think the whole house is, with that poor woman squeezing her way about
that enormous kitchen furniture!"
Pauline looked out of the window as she spoke, and there at last was
Guy, standing on the lawn with her father, who was explaining something
about a root which he held in his hand. On the two of them the rain
poured steadily down. Pauline threw up the sash and called out that they
were to come in at once.
"I am glad he's.... Why, what's the matter, Margaret?" she asked, as she
saw her sister looking at her with an expression of rather emphatic
surprise.
"Really," commented Margaret. "I shouldn't have thought it was necessary
to soothe his ruffled feelings by giving him the idea that you've been
watching at the window all the week for his visit."
"Oh, Margaret, you are unkind," and, since words would all too soon have
melted into tears, Pauline rushed from the nursery away to her own white
fastness at the top of the house. She did not pause in her headlong
flight to greet her mother in the passage; nor even when she entangled
herself in Janet's apron could she say a word.
"Good gracious, Miss Pauline!" gasped Janet. "And only just now the cat
went and run between my legs in the hall."
Pauline's bedroom was immediately over the nursery; but so roundabout
was the construction of the Rectory that, to reach the one from the
other, all sorts of corridors and twisting stairways had to be passed;
and when finally she flung herself down in her small arm-chair she was
breathless. Soon, however, the tranquillity of the room restored her.
The faded blue linen, so cool to her cheeks, quieted all the passionate
indignation. On the wall Saint Ursula, asleep in her bed, seemed
inconsistent with a proud rage; nor did Tobit, laughing in the angel's
company, encourage her to sulk. Therefore, almost before Guy had taken
off his wet overcoat, Pauline had rushed down-stairs again, had kissed
Margaret, and had put three stitches in the tail of the scarlet bird
that occupied her tambour-frame. Certainly when he came into the
drawing-room she was as serene as her two sisters, and much more serene
than Mrs. Grey, who had just discovered that she had carefully made the
tea without a spoonful in the pot, besides mislaying a bottle of
embrocation she had spent the afternoon in finding for an old
parishioner's rheumatism.
Pauline, however, soon began to worry herself again because Guy was
surely avoiding her most deliberately, and not merely avoiding her, but
paying a great deal of attention to Margaret. Of course she was glad for
him to like Margaret, but Richard out in India must be considered. She
could not forget that promise she had made to Richard last June, when
they were paddling up-stream into the sunset. Guy was charming; in a way
she could be almost as fond of him as of Richard, but what would she say
to Richard if she let Guy carry off Margaret? Besides, it was unkind not
to have a word for her when she was always such a good listener to his
tales of Miss Peasey, and when they could always laugh together at the
same absurdities of daily life. Perhaps he had felt that Margaret, who
had been so critical over his curtains, must be propitiated--and yet now
he was already going without a word to herself; he was shaking hands
with her so formally that, though she longed to tease him for wearing
silk socks with those heavy brogues, she could not. He seemed to be
angry with her ... surely he was not angry because she had Hailed him
from the window?
"What was the matter with Guy?" she asked when he was gone, and, when
everybody looked at her sharply, Pauline felt herself on fire with
blushes, made a wild stitch in the tail of the scarlet bird, and then
rushed away to look for the lost embrocation, refusing to hear when they
called after her that Mother had been sitting on it all the afternoon.
The windows along the corridors were inky blue, almost turning black, as
she stared at them, half frightened in the unlighted dusk; outside, the
noise of the rain was increasing every moment. She would sit up in her
bedroom till dinner-time and write a long letter to India. By
candle-light she wrote to Richard, seated at the small desk that was
full of childish things.
WYCHFORD RECTORY, OXON. _Tuesday_.
MY DEAR RICHARD,--Thank you for your last letter, which was very
interesting. I should think your bridge was wonderful. Will you
come back to England when it's finished? There is not much to tell
you except that a man called Guy Hazlewood has taken Plashers
Mead. He is very nice, or else I should have hated him to take the
house you wanted. He is very tall--not so tall as father, of
course--and he is a poet. He has a very nice bobtail and a
touching housekeeper who is deaf. Birdwood likes him very much; so
I expect you would, too. Birdwood wants to know if it's true that
people in India--oh, bother, now I've forgotten what it was, only
he's got a bet with Godbold's nephew about it. Guy--you mustn't be
jealous that we call him Guy because he really is very nice--has
just been in to tea. Margaret is a darling, but I wish you'd take
my advice and write more about her when you write. Of course I
don't know what you do write, and I'm sure she really is
interested in your bridge, but of course you must remember that
she's not used to the kind of bridges you're building. But she's a
darling and I'm simply longing for you to be married so that I can
come and stay with you when I'm an old maid which I've quite made
up my mind I'm going to be. Guy has been gardening with Father a
good deal. Father says he's _fairly_ intelligent. Isn't Father
sweet? He drank your health at dinner the other night without
anybody's reminding him it was your birthday. I think Guy likes
Monica best. I don't think he cares at all for Margaret except of
course he must admire her--Margaret is such a darling! Oh, a merry
Christmas because it will be Christmas before you get this letter.
Percy Brydone and Charlie Willsher came to dinner last month. They
were so touching and bored.
Lots of love from Your loving
PAULINE.
Don't forget about writing to Margaret more about herself.
Pauline put the letter in its crackling envelope with a sigh for the
unformed hand in which it was written. Nothing brought home to her so
nearly as this handwriting of hers the muddle she was always apt to make
of things. How it sprawled across the page, so unlike Monica's that was
small and neat and exquisitely formed, or Margaret's that was decorated
with fantastic and beautiful affectations of manner. It was obvious, of
course, that her sisters must always be the favorites of everybody, but
it had been rather unkind of Guy to avoid her so obviously to-day.
Richard had always realized that even if she were impulsive and foolish
she was also tremendously sympathetic.
"For I really am sympathetic," she assured her image in the glass, as
she tried to make the light-brown hair look tidy enough to escape
Margaret's remonstrances at dinner. If Guy were hopelessly in love with
Margaret, how sympathetic she would be; and she would try to explain to
him how interesting an unhappy love-affair always made people. For
instance, there was Miss Verney, whom everybody thought was just a
cross old maid; but if they had only seen, as she had seen, that cracked
miniature, what romance even her cats would possess! She must take Guy
to see Miss Verney or bring Miss Verney to see Guy; a meeting must
somehow be arranged between these two, who would surely be drawn
together by their misfortunes in love. Guy was exactly the person whom
an unhappy love-affair would become. It would be so interesting in ten
years' time, when she would be nearly thirty and old enough to be Guy's
confidante without anybody's interference, to keep back the inquisitive
world from Plashers Mead. No doubt by then Guy would be famous; he
always spoke with such confidence of fame. Monica and Margaret would
both be married, and she would still be living at the Rectory with her
father and mother. Pauline, as she pictured the future, saw no change in
them, but rather sacrificed to the ravages of time her own appearance
and Guy's, so that at thirty she fancied both herself and him as already
slightly gray. The gong sounded from the depths of the house, and
hastily she snatched from her wardrobe the first frock she found; it
happened to be a white one, more suitable to June than to December, with
a skirt of many flounces all stiffly starched. After rustling down
passages and stairs she reached the dining-room just as the others were
going in to dinner.
"Pauline, how charming you look in that frock!" her mother exclaimed.
"Why, it's like Summer just to see you!"
Pauline was very happy that night because her mother and sisters petted
her with the simple affection for which she was always longing.
The next day seemed fine enough to justify Mrs. Grey, Margaret, and
Monica in making an expedition into Oxford to see about Christmas
presents; and in the afternoon, while Pauline was sitting alone in the
nursery, Guy was shown in by Janet. Pauline felt very shy and blushful
when she met him so intimately as this, after all her plans for him on
the night before. He, too, seemed ill at ease, and she was sadly
positive he missed Margaret. The sense of embarrassment lasted until
tea-time, when Janet came in to say that the Rector, hearing of Mr.
Hazlewood's arrival, had decided to have tea in the nursery.
"Oh, what fun!" cried Pauline, clapping her hands. "Janet, do give him
the mug with 'A PRESENT FOR A GOOD BOY' on it!"
"Dear me, Miss Pauline, what things you do think of, I do declare. Well,
did you ever? Tut-tut! Fancy, for your father, too!"
Nevertheless Janet sedately put the mug on the tray. When she was gone
Pauline turned to Guy and said:
"I'm sure Father thinks he ought to come and chaperon us. Isn't he
sweet?"
Presently the Rector appeared, looking very tall in the low doorway. He
nodded cheerfully to Guy:
"Seen Vartani? You know he's that pale, blue fellow from Nazareth. Very
often he's a washy lilac, but this is genuinely blue."
"No, I don't think I noticed it--him, I mean," said Guy, apologetically.
"Oh, Father, of course he didn't! It's a tiny iris," she explained to
Guy, "and Father puts in new roots every year...."
"Bulbs, my dear, bulbs," corrected Mr. Grey. "It's one of the Histrio
lot."
"Well, bulbs. And every year one flower comes out in the middle of the
Winter rain and lasts about ten minutes, and then all the Summer
Birdwood and Father grub about looking for the bulb, which they never
find, and then Father gets six new ones."
They talked on, the three of them, about flowery subjects while the
Rector drank his tea from the mug without a word of comment on the
inscription. Then he went off to write a letter, and Guy, with a
regretful glance at the room, supposed he ought to go.
"Oh no! Stay a little while," said Pauline. "Look, it's raining again."
It was only a shower through which the declining sun was lancing silver
rays. As they watched it from the window without speaking, Pauline
wondered if she ought to have given so frank an invitation to stay
longer. Would Margaret have frowned? And how odd Guy was this afternoon.
Why did he keep looking at her so intently as if about to speak, and
then turn away with a sigh and nothing said?
"I do love this room," said Guy at last.
"I love it, too," Pauline agreed.
"May I ask you something?"
"Yes, of course."
"You spoke to Margaret the other day about some one called Richard. Do
you like him very much?"
"Yes, of course. Only you mustn't ask me about him. Please don't. I've
promised Margaret I wouldn't talk about him. Please, please, don't ask
me any more."
"But leaving Margaret out of it, do you like him ... well ... very much
better than me, for instance?"
Guy used himself for comparison with such an assumption of carelessness
as might give the impression that only by accident did he mention
himself instead of the leg of the table, or the kitten.
"Oh, I couldn't tell you that. Because if I said I liked you even as
much, I should feel disloyal to Richard, and he's the best friend I've
got. Oh, do let's talk about something else. Please do, Mr. Hazlewood."
"Oh, look here, I'm going!" exclaimed Guy; and he went instantly.
Pauline felt unhappy to think she had hurt his feelings; but he should
not expect her to like him better than Richard. If Richard were married
to Margaret, it might be different; but suppose that Margaret fell in
love with Guy? Pauline felt her heart almost stop beating at the
notion, and she made up her mind that if such a calamity befell it would
be entirely her fault. The idea that she should so betray Richard's
confidence made her miserable for the rest of the evening. Yet, though
she was unhappy about Richard, it was always the picture of Guy hurrying
from the nursery and his reproachful backward look that was visibly
before her mind. And in the morning, when she woke up, it was with a
strange unsatisfactory feeling such as she had never known before.
Yesterday came back to her remembrance with a great emptiness, seeming
to her a day which had somehow never been properly finished. Here was
the rain again raining, raining; and the old prospect of dreary weather
that would not change for months.
A week went by without any sign of Guy. There were no amusing evenings
now when he stayed to dinner; there were no delightful days of planting
bulbs in the garden; there was nothing indeed to do but visit bedridden
old ladies to whom fine or bad weather no longer mattered. Yet nobody
else except herself seemed at all unhappy about it. Actually not one of
the family commented upon Guy's absence.
"I really am afraid that Margaret _is_ heartless," said Pauline to her
image in the glass. "She doesn't seem to care a bit whether he is here
or not."
Then suddenly the weather changed. The country sparkled with hoar-frost,
and everybody forgot about the rain, asking if ever before such weather
had been known for Christmas. Guy was invited to dinner at the Rectory,
and Pauline forgot about her problems in the pleasure that the jolly
afternoon brought. Self-consciousness under the critical glances of
Monica and Margaret vanished in the atmosphere of intimacy shed by the
occasion. She could laugh and make a great noise without being reproved,
and Guy himself was obviously more at home than he had ever been. There
seemed a likelihood that now, once again the progress of simple
friendship would advance undisturbed by the complications of love, and
Pauline was glad to be able to assure herself that Guy did not that
afternoon display the slightest sign of a hopeless passion for Margaret.
He was more in his mood and demeanor of last month, and diverted them
greatly with an account of struggling to explain to Graves, the
deaf-and-dumb gardener, what he wanted done in the garden.
"But didn't Birdwood help you?" they asked, laughing.
"Well, Birdwood showed me what I ought to do," said Guy. "But it seemed
such a rough method of information that I hadn't the heart to adopt it.
You see, as far as I could make out, it consisted of pulling up a
cabbage by the root, hitting Graves on the head with it, and then
nodding violently. That meant 'clear away these cabbages,' Or if
Birdwood wanted to say, 'Plant broccoli here,' he dug Graves in the ribs
with the dibbler and rubbed his nose in the unthinned seedlings."
"What does Miss Peasey say?" asked Pauline, who was in a state of the
highest amusement, because deaf-and-dumb Graves was one of the villagers
who lived under her particular patronage.
"Well, at first Miss Peasey was rather huffed, because she thought
Graves was mocking her by pretending to be deaf. Now, however, she comes
out and watches him at work and hopes that next Spring there'll be a
little more variety in the garden."
The sunny, sparkling weather lasted for a few days after Christmas; and
one morning Pauline, walking by herself on Wychford down, met Guy.
"I wondered if I should see you," he said.
"Did you expect to see me, then?"
"Well, I knew you often came here, and this morning I couldn't resist
coming here myself."
Pauline felt a sudden impulse to run away; and yet most unaccountably
the impulse led her into walking along with Guy at a brisk pace over the
close-cropped glittering turf. Round them trotted Bob in eddies of
endless motion.
"Listen," said Guy. "I'm sure I heard a lark singing."
They stopped, and Pauline thought that never was there so sweet a
silence as here upon the summit of this green down. Guy's lark could not
be heard. There was not even the faint wind that sighs across high
country. There was nothing but gorse and turf and a turquoise sky
floating on silver deeps and distances above the Winter landscape.
"When the gorse is out of bloom, kissing's out of fashion," he said,
pointing to a golden spray.
Pauline had heard the jingle often enough, but spoken solemnly like this
by Guy on Wychford down, it flooded her cheeks with blushes, and in a
sort of dear alarm the truth of it declared itself. She was startlingly
aware of a new life, as it were demanding all sorts of questions of her.
She felt a shyness that nearly drove her to run away from her companion,
and yet at the same moment brought a complete incapacity for movement of
any kind, an incapacity too that was full of rapture. She longed for him
to say something of such convincing ordinariness as would break the
spell and prove to her that she was still Pauline Grey; while with all
her desire for the spell to be broken, she was wondering if every moment
she were not deliberately offering herself to enchantment.
"Have you ever felt," Guy was asking, "a long time after you've met
somebody, as if you had suddenly met that person again for the first
time?"
Pauline shook her head vaguely. Then with an effort she recaptured her
old self and said, laughing:
"But then, you see, I never think about anything."
"Sleeping beauty, sleeping beauty," said Guy.
And with an abrupt change of manner he began to throw sticks for Bob, so
that the lucid air was soon loud with continuous barking.
"I wonder if we shall ever meet again on Wychford down?" said Guy, as
together they swung along the rolling highroad towards the village.
A horse and trap caught them up before Pauline could answer the
speculation, and Mr. Godbold, as he passed, wished them both a very good
morning.
"Godbold seems extraordinarily interested in us," Guy remarked, when for
the third time before he turned the corner Mr. Godbold looked back at
them.
"Oh, I wonder...." Pauline began, expressing with her lips sudden
apprehension.
"You mean he thought it strange to see us together?"
"People in the country...." she began again.
"Why don't you hurry on alone?" Guy asked. "And I'll come in to Wychford
later."
"Don't be stupid. What do the Wychford people matter? Besides, I should
hate to do anything like that."
She was half angry with Guy for the suggestion. It seemed to cast a
shadow on the morning.
When Pauline got back home she told them all about her meeting with Guy;
nobody had a word of disapproval, not even Margaret, and the faint
malaise of uncertainty vanished.
After tea, however, Mrs. Grey came in, looking rather agitated.
"Pauline," she began at once, "you must not meet Guy alone like that
again."
"Oh, darling Mother, you _are_ looking so pink and flustered," said
Pauline.
"No, there's nothing to laugh at. Nothing at all. I was most annoyed.
Four of the people I visited actually had the impertinence to ask me if
you and Guy were engaged."
Pauline went off into peals of laughter and danced about the room; but
when she was alone and thought again of what the gossips were saying,
she suddenly realized it was not altogether for Richard's sake that she
had dreaded the idea of Guy's falling in love with Margaret.