Roger Lumsden had been home a week. Alwynne, save at meals, had seen
little of him, and that little she did not intend to like. There was a
memory of a passage of arms at their first meeting which rankled.
Roger had been inquiring when the Compton holidays began. Alicia
hesitated--
"Let me see--the play's Tuesday week----"
"Wednesday week," put in Alwynne.
"Tuesday----"
"No, Wednesday," Alwynne persisted. "Because, you know, Mr. Bryant is so
afraid that Gertrude Clarke won't be out of the 'San.' He says he can
never coach up another Alkestis in the time. Besides, there isn't any
one. He's been tearing his hair."
Alicia laughed.
"She knows more about it than I do, Roger! She's been half living there,
haven't you, Alwynne?"
Roger turned to her with a smile and the first touch of personal
interest that he had shown.
"Jolly place, isn't it? You teach, don't you? I wonder how it strikes
you!"
But he was a stranger and Alwynne was nervous. She answered flippantly,
as she always did when she was not at her ease--
"Oh, I can't get over their dresses! Appalling garments! Imagine that
poor girl trying to rehearse Alkestis in a pea-green potato sack! It
must be delicious. And their hair! Doesn't anybody ever teach them to do
their hair?"
He eyed her thoughtfully, from her carefully dressed head to her
shining shoe-buckles, and shrugged his shoulders.
"Is that all you see?" said Roger dispassionately, and withdrew
interest.
Alwynne grew hot with annoyance. Idiot! All she saw.... As if she had
meant anything of the kind.... One said things like that.... One just
said them.... Especially when one was nervous.... Taking a remark like
that seriously.... Oh well, if he liked to think her a fool--let him!
Silly prig!
She endeavoured to put him out of her mind. But his mere existence
disturbed her. She was not accustomed to tobacco, for instance ... and
it was disconcerting to find him in her favourite corner of the library
or occupying the writing-table that no one had seemed to use but
herself. He appeared to have forgotten that he had snubbed her and was
unquenchably friendly. She found herself being pleasanter than she
intended, but she made it a point of honour never to agree with him.
That, at least, she owed herself.
She watched him furtively, alert for justification of her ill-humour.
She told herself that it would be easier to be nice to him if everybody
else did not fuss over him so.... It was ridiculous to see how Jean,
especially, brightened at the sight of him.... He was good to her,
certainly: she was argumentative, without being shrewd, but he never
lost patience, as Alwynne, in secret was inclined to do. Even Alicia, so
stoutly the head of her household, submitted every difficulty, from an
unexpected legacy to a dearth of eggs. And he would sit down solidly and
think the matter out. And his advice, from a flutter in rubber to pepper
in the chicken pail, would be followed literally, and generally, Alwynne
admitted, with success.
But she jibbed furiously when the sisters began to consult him about her
personal affairs.
"Roger, don't you think that Alwynne----?"
But here Roger was invariably offhand and non-committal. Curiously,
however, this attitude, correct as it was, did not appease Alwynne. But
she was forced, at least, to admit that he could, on occasion, be
tactful.
The last week of the term had begun. Alicia, at breakfast behind the
coffee urn, was making her plans.
"It's a busy week. The Swains want us to go to lunch, Jean, only we
haven't a day before Sunday, have we? At least--there's Tuesday; it's
only the dress-rehearsal. I can get out of that. Alwynne can represent
me." She nodded benevolently.
There was a slight pause. Roger, glancing up, stared openly. Alwynne had
turned as white as paper. Her words came stickily.
"Cousin Alice, I can't. I mean--I'd rather--I don't want to go much, if
you don't mind."
Alicia blessed herself.
"But, my dear! Why not? I thought you'd be looking forward----Oh, I
suppose you've watched it so often, already."
"No--I haven't seen it; I'm afraid rehearsals bore me----" Alwynne broke
off with an attempt at a light laugh.
"But you've been up to Compton so much," Alicia's tone was reproachful.
"I should have thought you would have been sufficiently interested----"
"Oh, I am! Only--you see I've got letters to write--to Elsbeth----"
"Well, you've got all the week to write in! Are you so afraid of being
bored? Compton wouldn't be flattered. We rather pride ourselves on our
acting, you know! My dear, we're expected to go--must give the
performers some sort of an audience to get them into training for the
night. You ought to understand, of all people! Don't you ever give plays
at your school?"
Alwynne was silent, but prompted by an instinct she could not have
explained, she turned to Roger, stolid behind his eggs and bacon. She
said nothing, but she looked at him desperately. He gave an
imperceptible nod. He had been watching her intently.
"But, dear Alwynne----" Jean was chirruping her version of Alicia's
remarks when Roger's calm voice interrupted--
"I say, Alicia! I thought you and Jean were coming with me! I can't go
on the night itself. Of course you must come. Go to your lunch on
Sunday--I'll look after Alwynne. But I'm not going up to Compton without
you. Spoil all the fun."
"Of course, if Roger wants us----" began Jean quickly.
"Oh, I didn't want to miss it," retreated Alicia hastily. "I only
thought the Swains----But of course Sunday would do."
"I met old Swain yesterday," said Roger, "travelled up to town with him.
He was very full of his daughter's engagement."
"Engagement!" Alicia and Jean swooped to the news, like gulls to a
falling crust. It kept them busy till breakfast was over.
And Roger returned to his eggs and bacon with never a glance at Alwynne.
Alwynne, half an hour later in her own room, fighting certain memories,
arguing herself fiercely out of her weakness, had yet time to puzzle her
head over Roger Lumsden. How quick he had been--and how kind.... Or had
he noticed nothing? Had that adroit change of subject been accidental?
That was much more likely.
She dismissed him from her mind. She wished she could dismiss all the
thoughts that filled her mind as easily.
Alwynne was grateful enough to Roger, however, when Tuesday came and he
set out for Compton, an aunt on either arm: but on Sunday she had to pay
for her non-attendance. Hurrying down, a little late, to lunch, she was
half-way through her usual apologies before she realised that neither
Jean nor Alicia were in their places. Of course--they were going to the
Swain's.... Their nephew, however, waiting gravely behind his chair,
admitted her excuses with a little air of acknowledging them to be
necessary that ruffled her at once, though she had promised herself to
be pleasant. After all, she was staying, as she had told herself several
times already, with Jean and Alicia. Once more she applied herself,
quite unsuccessfully, to snubbing his air of host. Roger listened to her
in some amusement; her ungracious ways disturbed him no more than the
rufflings and peckings of an angry bird, and her charming manner to his
aunts and occasional whim of friendliness to himself, had prevented him
from pigeon-holing her definitely as a pretty young shrew. He was
inclined to like her, for Jean and Alicia had confessed themselves
absurdly taken with the girl, and he was accustomed to be influenced by
their judgment; but the touch of hostility that usually showed itself in
her manner to him puzzled as much as it amused him.
He enjoyed baiting her, yet he thought, carelessly, that it was a pity
she should have inaugurated guerilla warfare. She looked as if she could
have been pleasant company for his spare time if she had chosen.
However, he would have little enough spare time, for the next few weeks,
anyhow ... he had promised Jean to set to work seriously at the
renovation of her garden.... He should be thankful for a visitor
requiring neither escort nor attention.
Yet, naturally, her independence piqued him. He eyed her swiftly, as she
sat at his right hand. She was a curious girl, he thought, to be so
pretty and well-dressed, and yet so self-sufficing. Girls, apparently of
her type, (he thought of his American cousins) usually needed a good
deal of admiration to keep them contented.
She did not look altogether contented, though ... there were lines and
puckers at the corners of her large eyes, that were surely out of
place ... nineteen, wasn't she? She had had a breakdown, of course ...
rather absurd, for such a child.... Jean had hinted a guess at some
trouble.... A love affair, he supposed. That would account for her
thorniness, her occasional air of absence and depression, that
contrasted with her usual cheerfulness.... Yet that curious whim the
other day--what had it meant? More than a whim, he imagined--her very
lips had grown white.... He was quite sure that he had helped her out of
a hole.... She might at least show a certain decent gratitude.... He
wondered what she was thinking about, sitting there so silently ... she
was generally talkative enough ... pretty quarrelsome, too. He supposed
she was having a fit of the blues.... He had better talk to her,
perhaps....
Alwynne, eating her wing of chicken, was merely and sheerly shy. She was
garrulous enough with women, but she did not in the least know how to
talk to men. Therefore and naturally she was full of theories. She had
vague ideas that they had to be amused as babies have to be amused, but
confronted with the prospect of a prolonged _tête-à-tête_, without
Alicia or Jean to retire upon, she had nothing whatever to say. Yet she
had been taught by Elsbeth to consider a lack of table-talk as a lack of
manners, and was irritated with herself for her silence, and still more
irritated with Roger for his.
She met his belated attempts at a conversation none too graciously--was
bored by the boat-race, and would have nothing to say to the weather;
though she thawed to his catalogue of copses and plantations in the
neighbourhood, where certain wild flowers she had not yet discovered
might be found.
But it was impossible for Alwynne to be silent long, and by the time
they had adjourned to the drawing-room, the pair were talking easily
enough. Roger did not find himself bored. He had, from the beginning,
recognised that she was no fool, that her remarks owed their comicality
to her phrasing of them, and that essentially they were shrewd, her
acrobatic intellect swinging easily across the gaps in her education.
The gaps were certainly there. He would marvel at her amazing ignorance,
only to be tripped up by her unexpected display of authoritative
knowledge. Gradually he began to analyse and discriminate, to see that
she was naturally observant. Her remarks on life as she knew it, were as
illuminating as original. She had humour and a nice sense of caricature.
But when she, as it were, hoisted herself on the shoulders of the women
about her, and from that level peered curiously at an outer, alien
world, her insight failed her, her views grew distorted and merely
grotesque. He thought he guessed the reason. She was no longer gazing,
critical and clear-eyed, at known surroundings, but, still supported by
the opinions of the women of her circle, was seeing what she had
expected to see, what she had been told by them that she would see.
For all her air of modern girl, her independence, her store of book
experience, she was comically conventual in her curiosities and
intolerances, in her prim company manners and uncontrollable lapses into
unconventionality. She had an air of not being at her ease; yet he
guessed that it was merely the unaccustomed environment that disturbed
her poise. He could see her handling surely enough a crowd of
schoolgirls. He was equally certain that she ruled through sheer, easy
popularity. She had dignity in spite of her whimsies, but he could not
imagine her intimidating even a schoolgirl.
But most of all her attitude to himself amused him. She had a certain
veiled antagonism of manner, that was allied to the antagonism of the
small child to any innovation. She talked to him readily enough (and he,
for that matter, to her) yet she was always on the defensive,
inquisitive yet wary. He felt that if she had been ten years younger,
she would have circled about him and poked.
A stray phrase explained her to him.
They had discussed the latest raid. At Alwynne's age and period all
conversational roads led to the suffrage question, and he had found her
re-hash of Mona Hamilton's arguments sufficiently entertaining. He
guessed a plagiarism of the matter, but the manner was obviously her
own. She was full of second-hand indignation over the conduct of a
certain Cabinet Minister.
"He won't even see them!" she explained grievously. "Not even a
deputation from the constitutional section! Just because some women are
fools--and burn things----" The pause was eloquent. "It's so utterly
unreasonable," declaimed Alwynne. "But of course men are unreasonable,"
said Alwynne, pensively reflective.
"Are they?"
"All I know are, anyhow."
He considered her ingenuous countenance--
"If it's not a delicate question--how many do you know?" said Roger
softly.
She looked at him, mildly surprised.
"Hundreds! In books, that is."
"Oh--books! I meant real life."
"Surely a page of Shakespeare is more real than dozens of real people's
lives."
"Side issue! I'm not to be deflected. How many men do you know, in real
life, well enough to discuss the suffrage with?"
"I'm always kept at school the day the vicar comes to tea," she said
suggestively.
"Who else?"
She saw his drift, but defended herself, smiling.
"The assistants are most intelligent at the circulating library."
"Who else?"
"There were music masters at school. I didn't mean _you_ were
unreasonable," she deprecated.
He began to laugh, openly, mischievously, delighting in her
discomfiture.
"Anyhow, I know a lot about women," said Alwynne heatedly.
He eyed her respectfully.
"I'm sure you do. But we were talking of men. And on the whole--you
make me a polite exception--as a result of your wide knowledge, your
complicated experience of Us--as a class--you consider that we are
unreasonable?"
But he spoke into space. Alwynne had retired, pinkly, to a sofa and a
novel. But he thought, as he settled to his own reading, that he heard a
strangled chuckle. Alwynne, caught napping, always tickled Alwynne.
Over the top of his book, he considered her bent head approvingly. He
liked her sense of fun. It was not every girl who could appreciate the
smut on her own nose ... quite a pretty nose too ... indeed the whole
profile was unexceptionable.... He noticed how well the patch of sky and
the slopes of Witch Hill framed it ... and her hair ... it regularly
mopped up the sunlight! He felt that he wanted to take the great heavy
rope and twist it like a wet cloth till the gold dropped out on to the
floor in shining pools.
He supposed she would be called a beautiful woman.... He had always
looked upon a beautiful woman as an improbable possibility, like a
millionaire or an archbishop--whom you might meet any day, but somehow
never did.... Yet he was in the same house with one--and she his
semi-demi cousin.... Yes--she was certainly beautiful....
Here Alwynne, who had not been entirely absorbed, looked up and caught
his eye. Neither quite knew how to meet the other's unexpected scrutiny.
Roger, less agile than Alwynne, stared solemnly until she looked away.
Alwynne gave a little inaudible sigh. She was boring him, of course....
It was pretty obvious.... Yet he had been quite nice all through
lunch.... It was a pity.... She wondered if he wanted to read, or if she
ought to go on talking? She racked her brains for something to say to
him. It was not so easy to talk if he would not do his share.... She
supposed she had talked too much about the suffrage.... Men never liked
to be contradicted.... She glanced at him swiftly, and met his look once
more, and once more he stared, till her dropping lids released him.
Then he lit his pipe.
She shrugged her shoulders.
She thought it very rude of him to leave off talking.... Silence was
oppressive unless you knew people well.... It snubbed you.... Especially
when you had been, as Alwynne feared she had, holding forth a trifle....
She supposed he had put her down as a talkative bore.... Elsbeth always
said that strangers thought her enthusiasms were pose ... as if it
mattered what strangers thought! She hated strangers.... She was always
fantastic with new acquaintances.... It was the form her shyness took.
If Roger chose to think she was posing.... It didn't affect her
anyway.... She was only too glad to be able to read in peace.... Hang
Roger!
She settled herself to her reading.
For five long minutes they both read steadily. But Alwynne's book was
not interesting; she began to flutter the pages, her thoughts once more
astray.
It was rather a shame of The Dears to desert her ... to leave her to
entertain a strange man who didn't like her.... It made her look a
fool.... She hated boring people.... If she bored their precious nephew
as much as the book on her lap bored her!... She wondered why, with all
the library to choose from, she had pitched on it. Of course, it was
Roger's suggestion.... Well, she didn't think much of his taste.... Or
perhaps he imagined it was the sort of stuff to appeal to her? She flung
up her chin indignantly, to find his serious and critical eyes once more
concerned with her. She met them with a raising of eyebrows--a hint of
cool defiance. It was Roger's turn to retire into his book.
He was an odd sort of a man.... She wondered what Clare would think of
him? As if Clare would bother her head.... But then he wasn't Clare's
cousin. But Clare would be out in the woods after the wild hyacinths....
Somebody had said it was blue with them in the little wood behind the
house.... She must send Clare a boxful to-morrow ... or to-day? She
supposed there was an evening post.... It was a pity to waste such a
heavenly afternoon....
She stole yet another glance at Roger; he was evidently engrossed at
last. It would not be rude? After all, what did it matter? He wasn't too
polite himself! She drove her book viciously down the yielding side of
the Chesterfield, swished to the open French window, and so out. The
gravel crunched moistly beneath her thin shoes; she could feel every
pebble. She glanced back into the drawing-room. All quiet. But by the
time she had changed, the man might have come out.... She would change
afterwards.... The smooth lawn sloped invitingly--beyond lay the rose
walk and the wood, little Witch Wood that she had never yet explored,
just because it was always at hand.
She picked up her silken skirts and took to her heels.
It was exactly half an hour later that Roger's book also grew dull to
the point of imbecility. He shut it with a bang, stirred the sun-drowned
fire, and knocked out his pipe against the shining dogs. Then he too
walked out on to the terrace.
He wondered where the girl had got to. Then he frowned. Little
half-moons dinted the wet yellow path and the stretch of grass beyond
it. It was very careless, cutting up the turf like that.... If there was
one thing he hated.... Of course she was town-bred ... could not be
expected to realise the sacredness of a lawn.... But he must certainly
tell her.... He might as well find her and tell her at once.... Then he
laughed. Alwynne's high heels had betrayed her. The tracks led straight
to the wood. So that was the lure.... He remembered saying that the
hyacinths would probably be out....
He wondered if she knew her way.... It wasn't a large wood.... Perhaps
he had better go and see ... and warn her off the lawn coming back? He
hesitated. His eyes fell on Jean's forgotten bodge, lying by the
border. If the hyacinths were out, she would need a basket.... She had
not taken one.... Trust her to forget such a detail.... She would be
glad of it though.... He tipped out the weeds into a neat pile and
jumping the narrow bed, ran down in his turn, towards the wood.
Alicia and Jean, home to tea, were annoyed to find the fire out.
The gardener, rolling the lawn next day, thought as ill of hobnailed
boots as of high French heels.