PRICKLES
If you happen to have anything on your mind, it is impossible--or
practically impossible--to avoid thinking about it. Which, doubtless, is
so obvious a fact, it is barely worth stating.
The Duchessa di Donatello had something on her mind; it possessed her
waking thoughts, it coloured her dreams. And what that something was, is
also, perhaps, entirely obvious. Again and again she told herself that
she would not dwell on the subject; but she might as well have tried to
dam a river with a piece of tissue paper, as prevent the thought from
filling her mind; and that probably because--with true feminine
inconsistency--she welcomed it quite as much as she tried to dispel it.
Occasionally she allowed it free entry, regarded it, summed it up as
unsatisfactory, and sternly dismissed it. In three minutes it was welling
up again, perhaps in the same old route, perhaps choosing a different
course.
"Why can't I put the man and everything concerning him out of my mind for
good and all?" she asked herself more than once. And, whatever the reply
to her query, the fact remained that she couldn't; the thought had become
something of an obsession.
Now, when a thought has become an obsession, there is practically only
one way to free oneself from it, and that is by speech. Speech has a way
of clearing the clogged channels of the mind, and allowing the thought to
flow outwards, and possibly to disappear altogether; whereas, without
this clearance, the thought of necessity returns to its source, gathering
in volume with each recoil.
But speech is frequently not at all easy, and that not only because there
is often a difficulty in finding the right confidant, but because, with
the channels thus clogged, it is a distinct effort to clear them. Also,
though subconsciously you may realize its desirability, it is often
merely subconsciously, and reason and common sense,--or, rather, what you
at the moment quite erroneously believe to be reason and common
sense--will urge a hundred motives upon you in favour of silence. Maybe
that most subtle person the devil is the suggester of these motives. If
he can't get much of a look in by direct means, he'll try indirect ones,
and depression is one of his favourite indirect methods. At all events so
the old spiritual writers tell us, and doubtless they knew what they were
talking about.
Now, Trix was perfectly well aware that Pia had something on her mind;
she was also perfectly well aware that it was something she would have an
enormous difficulty in talking about. And the question was, how to give
her even the tiniest lead.
Trix had stated that she had guessed the colour of the soap-bubble; but
she hadn't the faintest notion where it had come into existence, nor
where and how it had burst. Nor had Pia given her directly the smallest
hint of its having ever existed. All of which facts made it exceedingly
difficult for her even to hint at soap-bubbles--figuratively speaking of
course--as a subject of conversation.
And Pia was slightly irritable too. Of course it was entirely because she
was unhappy, but it didn't conduce to intimate conversation. Prickles
would suddenly appear among the most innocent looking of flowers, in a
way that was entirely disconcerting and utterly unpleasant. And the worst
of it was, that there was no avoiding them. They darted out and pricked
you before you were even aware of their presence. It was so utterly
unlike Pia too, and so--Trix winked back a tear as she thought of it--so
hurting.
At last she came to a decision. The prickles simply must be handled and
extracted if possible. Of course she might get quite unpleasantly stabbed
in the process, but at all events she'd be prepared for the risk, and
anything would be better than the little darts appearing at quite
unexpected moments and places.
"The next time I'm pricked," said Trix to herself firmly, "I'll seize
hold of the prickle, and then perhaps we'll see where we are."
And, as a result perhaps of this resolution, the prickles suddenly
disappeared. Trix was immeasurably relieved in one sense, but not
entirely easy. She fancied the prickles to be hidden rather than
extracted. However, they'd ceased to wound for the time being, and that
certainly was an enormous comfort. Miss Tibbutt, with greater optimism
than Trix, believed all to be entirely well once more, and rejoiced
accordingly.
* * * * *
"Doctor Hilary has been over here rather often lately," remarked Miss
Tibbutt one afternoon. Pia and she were sitting in the garden together.
"Old Mrs. Mosely is ill," returned Pia smiling oracularly.
"But only a very little ill," said Miss Tibbutt reflectively. "Her
daughter told me only yesterday--I'm afraid it wasn't very grateful of
her--that the Doctor had been 'moidering around like 'sif mother was on
her dying bed, and her wi' naught but a bit o' cold to her chest, what's
gone to her head now, and a glass or two o' hot cider, and ginger, and
allspice, and rosemary will be puttin' right sooner nor you can flick a
fly off a sugar basin.'"
Pia laughed.
"My dear Tibby, he doesn't come to see Mrs. Mosely."
Miss Tibbutt looked up in perplexed query.
"He comes on here to tea, doesn't he?" asked Pia, kindly, after the
manner of one giving a lead.
"Certainly," returned Miss Tibbutt, still perplexed. "He would naturally
do so, since he is in Woodleigh just at tea time."
Pia leant back in her seat, and looked at Miss Tibbutt.
"Tibby dear, you're amazingly slow at the uptake."
Miss Tibbutt blinked at Pia over her spectacles.
"Please explain," said she meekly.
Pia laughed.
"Haven't you discovered, Tibby dear, that it's Trix he comes to see?"
"Trix!" ejaculated Miss Tibbutt.
"Yes; and she is quite as unaware of the fact as you are, so don't, for
all the world, enlighten her. Leave that to him, if he means to."
Miss Tibbutt had let her work fall, and was gazing round-eyed at Pia.
"But, my dear Pia, he's years older than Trix."
"Oh, not so very many," said Pia reassuringly. "Fifteen or sixteen,
perhaps. Trix is twenty-four, you know."
"And Trix is leaving here the day after to-morrow," said Miss Tibbutt
regretfully.
"London isn't the antipodes," declared Pia. "She can come here again, or
business may take Doctor Hilary to London. There are trains."
"Well, well," said Miss Tibbutt.
Trix appeared at the open drawing-room window and came out on to the
terrace. She paused for a moment to pick a dead rose off a bush growing
near the house. Then she saw the two under the lime tree. She came
towards them.
"Doctor Hilary has just driven up through the plantation gate," she said.
"I suppose he's coming to tea. His man was evidently going to put up the
horse."
The Duchessa glanced at a gold bracelet watch on her wrist.
"It's four o'clock," she said.
"He takes tea quite for granted," smiled Trix.
"I suppose," responded the Duchessa, "that he considers five almost
consecutive invitations equivalent to one standing one."
"Well, anyhow I should," nodded Trix. "What are you looking so wise
about, Tibby angel?"
Miss Tibbutt started. "Was I looking wise? I didn't know."
Trix perched herself on the table.
"Dale will clear me off in a minute," she announced. "I suppose you'll
have tea out here as usual. Till then it's the nicest seat. Oh dear, I
wish I wasn't going home to-morrow. That's not a hint to you to ask me to
stay longer. I shouldn't hint, I'd speak straight out. But I must join
Aunt Lilla at her hydro place. She's getting lonely. She wants an
audience to which to relate her partner's idiocy at Bridge, and someone
to help carry her photographic apparatus. Also someone to whom she can
keep up a perpetual flow of conversation. That's not the least
uncharitable, as you'd know if you knew Aunt Lilla. I think she must have
been born talking. But I love her all the same."
Trix tilted back her head and looked up at the sky through the branches
of the trees.
"I wonder why space is blue," she said, "and why it's so much bluer some
days than others, even when there aren't any clouds."
A step on the terrace behind her put an end to her wondering. Doctor
Hilary came round the corner of the house.
"I've taken your invitation for granted, Duchessa, as I happened to be
out this way," said he as he shook hands.
"Is old Mrs. Mosely still so ill?" asked Trix, sympathy in her voice.
Miss Tibbutt kept her eyes almost guiltily on her knitting. Pia, glancing
at her, laughed inwardly.
"She's better to-day," responded Doctor Hilary cheerfully. And then he
sat down. Trix had descended from the table, and seated herself in a
basket chair.
Dale brought out the tea in a few minutes, and put it on the table Trix
had vacated. The conversation was trivial and desultory, even more
trivial and desultory than most tea-time conversation. Miss Tibbutt was
too occupied with Pia's recent revelation to have much thought for
speech, Doctor Hilary was never a man of many words, the Duchessa had
been marvellously lacking in conversation of late, and Trix's occasional
remarks were mainly outspoken reflections on the sunshine and the
flowers, which required no particular response. Nevertheless she was
conscious of a certain flatness in her companions, and wondered vaguely
what had caused it.
"I'm going to Llandrindod Wells to-morrow," said she presently.
Doctor Hilary looked up quickly.
"Then your visit here has come to an end?" he queried.
Trix nodded.
"Alas, yes," she sighed, regret, half genuine, half mocking, in her
voice. "But most certainly I shall come down again if the Duchessa will
let me come. I had forgotten, absolutely forgotten, what a perfectly
heavenly place this was. And that doesn't in the least mean that I am
coming solely for the place, and not to see her, though I am aware it did
not sound entirely tactful."
"And when do you suppose you will be coming again?" asked Doctor Hilary
with a fine assumption of carelessness, not in the least lost upon the
Duchessa.
"Before Christmas I hope," replied she in Trix's stead. "Or, indeed, at
any time or moment she chooses."
Doctor Hilary looked thoughtful, grave. A little frown wrinkled between
his eyebrows. He pulled silently at his pipe. The Duchessa was watching
him.
"Alas, poor man!" thought she whimsically. "He was about to seize
opportunity, and behold, fate snatches opportunity from him. Oh, cruel
fate!"
And then she beheld his brow clearing. He knocked the ashes from his
pipe, and began feeling in his pocket for his pouch to refill it.
"He's relieved," declared the Duchessa inwardly, and somewhat astounded.
"He's so amazingly diffident, and yet so utterly in love, he's
relieved."
Of course she was right, she knew perfectly well she was right. Well,
perhaps courage would grow with Trix's absence. For his own sake it was
to be devoutly trusted that it would.
Doctor Hilary took his tobacco pouch from his pocket, and with it a small
piece of paper. He looked at the paper.
"The name of a new rose," he said. "Michael Field, the new under-gardener
at the Hall, gave it to me. He tells me it is a very free flowerer, and
has a lovely scent. Do you care to have the name, Duchessa?" He held the
slip of paper towards her.
The Duchessa looked carelessly at it. Trix was looking at the Duchessa.
"No, thank you," she replied. "We have plenty of roses here, and Thornby
can no doubt give me the name of any new kinds I shall want."
Now it was not merely an entirely unnecessary refusal, but the tone of
the speech was nearly, if not quite, deliberately rude. It was a terribly
big prickle, and showed itself perfectly distinctly. There wasn't even
the smallest semblance of disguise about it.
Doctor Hilary put the paper and his tobacco pouch back into his pocket.
"I must be off," he said in an oddly quiet voice. "I've one or two other
calls to make."
Miss Tibbutt walked towards the house with him,--to fetch some more
knitting, so she announced. Trix suspected a little mental stroking.
"What's the matter, Pia?" asked Trix calmly, leaning back in her chair.
"The matter?" said Pia, the faintest suspicion of a flush in her cheeks.
"You were very--very _snubbing_ to Doctor Hilary," announced Trix, still
calmly. Inwardly she was not so calm. In fact, her heart was thumping
quite loudly.
"My dear Trix," replied the Duchessa coldly, "I have an excellent
gardener. I do not care for recommendations emanating from a complete
stranger."
"There was no smallest need to snub Doctor Hilary, though," said Trix
quietly. The queer surprise on his face had caused a little stab at her
heart.
The Duchessa made no reply.
"Pia, what _is_ the matter?" asked Trix again.
"I have told you, nothing," responded the Duchessa.
Trix shook her head. "Yes; there is. You're unhappy. You've been--you can
tell me to mind my own business, if you like--you've been horribly
prickly lately. You've tried to hurt my feelings, and Tibby's, and now
you've tried to hurt Doctor Hilary's. And he didn't deserve it in the
least, but he thought, for a moment, he did. And it isn't like you, Pia.
It isn't one bit. Do tell me what's the matter?"
"Nothing," said Pia again.
"Darling, that's a--a white lie at all events."
Pia coloured. "Anyhow it's not worth talking about," she said.
"Are you sure it isn't?" urged Trix. "Couldn't I help the weeniest bit?"
The Duchessa shook her head.
"Darling," said Trix again, and she slipped her arm through Pia's.
"I'm all one big bruise," said Pia suddenly.
Trix stroked her hand.
"It is entirely foolish of me to care," said the Duchessa slowly. "But I
happen to have trusted someone rather implicitly. I never dreamed it
possible the person could stoop to act a lie. I would not have minded the
thing itself,--it would have been absurd for me to have done so. But it
hurt rather considerably that the person should have deceived me in the
matter, in fact have acted a deliberate lie about it. I am honestly doing
my best to forget the whole thing, but I am being constantly reminded of
it."
Trix sat up very straight. So that was it, she told herself. How idiotic
of her not to have guessed at once,--days ago, that is,--when she herself
had made her marvellous discovery. It was now quite plain to her mind
that Pia must have made it too. It was Doctor Hilary whom she believed to
be the fraud, the friend whom she had trusted, and who had acted a lie.
The whole oddness of Pia's behaviour became suddenly perfectly clear to
her. Tibby had told her that it had begun on her return to Woodleigh.
Well, that must have been when she first found out. How she'd found out,
Trix didn't know. But that was beside the mark. She evidently had found
out.
Trix's mind ran back over various little incidents. She remembered the
snub administered to Father Dormer the evening after her arrival. The new
under-gardener had been the subject of conversation then, of course
reminding Pia of the Hall. And she had snubbed Father Dormer, as she had
snubbed Doctor Hilary a few minutes ago. All Pia's snubs and sudden
prickles came back to her mind. They all had their origin in some
inadvertent remark regarding the Hall.
Yes; everything was as clear as daylight now. Pia had learnt of this
business in some roundabout way that did not allow of her speaking openly
to Doctor Hilary on the subject, so she saw merely the fraud, and had no
idea that it was, in all probability, an entirely justifiable one, and
that at all events no one had told any deliberate lie. Of course Pia was
disturbed and upset. Wouldn't she have been herself, in Pia's place? And
hadn't she felt quite unreasonably unhappy till Mr. Danver had assured
her that Doctor Hilary had not spoken a single word of actual untruth?
Oh, poor Pia!
Now, it was not in the least astonishing that Trix's mind should have
leapt to this entirely erroneous conclusion. For the last fortnight it
had been full of her discovery. The smallest thing that seemed to bear on
it, instantly appeared actually to do so. And everything in her present
train of thought fitted in with astonishing accuracy. Each little
incident in Pia's late behaviour fell into place with it.
She did not stop to consider that, if this were the sole cause of Pia's
trouble, she--Pia--was unquestionably taking a very exaggerated view of
it. It never occurred to Trix to do so. If she had considered the matter
at all, it would have been merely to realize that Pia's attitude towards
it was remarkably like what her own would have been. She would have
known, had she attempted analysis of the subject, that she herself was
frequently troubled about trifles, or what at any rate would have
appeared to others as trifles, where any friend of hers was concerned.
Her friends' actions and her own, in what are ordinarily termed little
things, mattered quite supremely to her, most particularly in any
question regarding honour. The smallest infringement of it would be
enough to cause her sleepless nights and anxious days. Therefore, without
attempting any analysis, she could perfectly well understand what she
believed Pia's point of view to be. And her present distress was, that,
in view of her promise, she could do nothing definite to help her.
She could not show her Doctor Hilary's standpoint in the matter, since it
was not permissible for her to give the smallest hint that she was
acquainted either with it, or with the whole business at all. She could
not even hint that she believed Doctor Hilary to be the person concerning
whom Pia was troubled. She could only take refuge in generalities, which,
with a definite case before her, she felt to be a peculiarly
unsatisfactory proceeding. Yet there was nothing else to be done. It was
more than probable that Pia was in the same kind of cleft stick as
herself, and that therefore direct discussion of the matter was out of
the question.
Still stroking Pia's hand, Trix spoke slowly.
"Pia, darling, what I am going to say will sound very poor comfort, I
know. But it's this. Isn't it just possible that you could give the--the
person concerned the benefit of a doubt? Even if it seems to you that he
has acted a lie, and therefore been something of a fraud, mayn't there be
some extraordinarily good reason, behind it all, that circumstances are
preventing him from explaining? Such queer things do happen, and
sometimes people have to appear to others as frauds, when they really
aren't a bit. If you were ever really friends with the person--and you
must have been, or you wouldn't care--I'd just say to myself that I would
trust him in spite of every appearance to the contrary. Perhaps some day
you'll be most awfully sorry if you don't. And isn't it a million times
better to be even mistaken in trust where a friend is concerned, than
give way to the smallest doubt which may afterwards be proved to be a
wrong doubt?"
Pia was silent. Then she said in an oddly even voice,
"Trix do you _know_ anything?"
Trix flushed to the roots of her hair. Pia turned to look at her.
"Trix!" she said amazed.
"Pia," implored Trix, "you mustn't ask me a single question, because I
can't answer you. But do, do, trust."
Pia drew a long breath.
"Trix, you're the uncanniest little mortal that ever lived, and I can't
imagine how you could have guessed, or what exactly it is you really do
know. But I believe I am going to take your advice."