LETTERS AND MRS. ARBUTHNOT
Trix was sitting in a summer-house in the garden of an hotel at
Llandrindod Wells. She was reading a letter, a not altogether
satisfactory letter to judge by the wrinkling of her brows, and the
gravity of her eyes.
The letter was from the Duchessa di Donatello, and ran as follows:
"My Dear Trix:
"I am glad you had a comfortable journey, and that Mrs. Arbuthnot had not
been pining for you too deeply. It is a pity her letters gave you the
impression that she was feeling your absence so acutely. Possibly it is
always wiser to subtract at least half of the impression conveyed in both
written and spoken words. Please understand that I am speaking in
generalities when I say that we are exceedingly apt to exaggerate our own
importance to others, and their importance to us.
"Talking of exaggeration, will you forget our conversation on your last
evening here? I exaggerated my own trouble and its cause. Rather
foolishly I let your remarks influence me, and sought an explanation, or
rather, attempted to ignore appearances, and return to the old footing.
The result being that not only did I find that there was no explanation
to be given, but that I got rather badly snubbed. As you, of course, will
know who administered the snub, you can understand that it was peculiarly
unpleasant. I had endeavoured to ignore the fact that he was my social
inferior, but he reminded me of it in a way it was impossible to
overlook, and showed me that he deeply resented what he evidently looked
upon as a somewhat impertinent condescension on my part.
"The theories, my dear Trix, which you set forth in the moonlight under
the lime trees, simply won't hold water. For your own sake I advise you
to abandon them forthwith. Blood will always tell; and sooner or later,
if we attempt intimacy with those not of our own station in life, we
shall get a glimpse of the hairy hoof. I know the theories sound all
right, and quite beautifully Christian--as set forth in the
moonlight,--but they don't work in this twentieth century, as I have
found to my cost. You had better make up your mind to that fact before
you, too, get a slap in the face. I assure you you don't feel like
turning the other cheek. However, that will do. But as it was mainly
through following out your theories and advice that I found my pride not
only in the mud, but rubbed rather heavily in it, I thought you might as
well have a word of warning. Please now consider the matter closed, and
never make the smallest reference to that rather idiotic conversation.
"Doctor Hilary was over here again yesterday. He enquired after you, and
asked to be very kindly remembered to you. I should like Doctor Hilary to
attend me in any illness. He gives one such a feeling of strength and
reliance. There's absolutely no humbug about him.
"Much love, my dear Trix,
"Yours affectionately,
"Pia Di Donatello."
Trix read the letter through very carefully, and then dropped it on her
lap.
"It wasn't Doctor Hilary!" she ejaculated. "So who on earth was it?"
She sat gazing through the opening of the summer-house towards the
garden. It was the oddest _puzzle_ she had ever encountered. Who on earth
could it have been? And why--since it wasn't Doctor Hilary--had Pia
jumped to the conclusion that she--Trix--knew who it was?
It wasn't Mr. Danver, that was very certain. "Social inferior" put that
fact out of the question. But then, what social inferior had been mixed
up in the business? Or--Trix's brain leapt from point to point--had Pia's
trouble nothing whatever to do with the mad business at the Hall? Had she
and Pia simply been playing a quite amazing game of cross-purposes that
evening? It would seem that must have been the case. Yet the recognition
of that fact didn't bring her in the smallest degree nearer the solution
of the riddle. Again, who on earth was it? What social inferior was
there, could there possibly be, at Woodleigh, to cause Pia a moment's
trouble? Every preconceived notion on Trix's part, including the colour
of the soap-bubble, vanished into thin air, and left her contemplating an
inexplicable mystery.
Whatever it was, it had affected Pia pretty deeply. It was absurd for her
to say the incident was closed. Externally it might be, in the matter of
not referring to it again. Interiorly it had left a wound, and one which
was very far from being easily healed, to judge by Pia's letter. It had
not been written by Pia at all, but by a very bitter woman, who had
merely a superficial likeness to Pia. That fact, and that fact alone,
caused Trix to imagine that she had been right when she told Tibby--if
not in so many words, at least virtually speaking--that love had come
into Pia's life. Love embittered alone could have inflicted the wound she
felt Pia to be enduring. And yet the wording of her letter would appear
to put that surmise out of the question. Truly it was an insolvable
riddle.
Once more she re-read the letter, but it didn't help her in the smallest
degree. There was only one small ounce of comfort in it. It wasn't Doctor
Hilary who had caused the wound. Pia had merely tried to pick a quarrel
with him, as she had frequently tried to pick one with herself and Tibby,
because she was unhappy. If only Trix knew what had caused the
unhappiness. And Pia thought she did know. If she wrote and told her now
that she hadn't the smallest conception of what she was talking about, it
would in all probability rouse conjectures in Pia's mind as to what Trix
_had_ thought. That, having in view her promise, had certainly better be
avoided.
Should she, then, ignore Pia's letter, or should she reply to it? She
weighed the pros and cons of this question for the next ten minutes, and
finally decided she would write, and at once.
Returning, therefore, to the hotel, she indited the following brief
missive:
"My dear Pia,--
"The incident is closed so far as I am concerned. But I don't mean to
give up seeking my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I dare say most
people would call it an imaginary quest. Well then, I like an imaginary
quest. It helps to make me forget much that is prosaic, and a good deal
that is sordid in this work-a-day world.
"Please remember me to Doctor Hilary when you see him. Best love, Pia
darling,
"Trix."
Three days later Pia wrote:
"My dear Trix,
"The rainbow vanishes, and the sordidness and the prosaicness become
rather horribly apparent, especially when one finds oneself obliged to
look at them after having steadily ignored their existence.
"Yours affectionately,
"Pia."
To which Trix replied:
"My dear Pia,
"My rainbow shines after every shower, and is brightest against the
darkest clouds. When I look towards the darkest clouds I wait for the
rainbow.
"Yours,
"Trix."
And Pia wrote:
"My dear Trix,
"What happens when there is no longer any sun to form a rainbow?
"Yours affectionately,
"Pia."
And Trix wrote:
"Wait till the clouds roll by, Jenny, wait till the clouds roll by."
And Pia wrote:
"My dear Trix,
"Some people wait a lifetime in vain,
"Yours affectionately,
"Pia."
And Trix wrote:
"Darling Pia,
"You're twenty-eight. Trix."
After which there was a cessation of correspondence for a time, neither
having anything further to say on the subject, or at all events, nothing
further they felt disposed to set down in writing.
Trix spent her mornings, and the afternoons, till tea time, in her Aunt's
company. After that, Mrs. Arbuthnot being engrossed in Bridge till
bedtime, Trix was free to do exactly as she liked. What she liked was
walking till it was time to dress for dinner, and spending the evenings
in the garden.
Even before her father's death, Trix had stayed frequently with her aunt.
Her mother had died when Trix was three years old and Mrs. Arbuthnot, a
widow with no children of her own, would have been quite ready to adopt
Trix. But neither Mr. Devereux, nor, for that matter, Trix herself, were
in the least disposed to fall in with her plans. Trix was merely lent to
her for fairly lengthy periods, and it had been during one of these
periods that Mrs. Arbuthnot had taken her to a farm near Byestry, in
which place Mr. Devereux had spent most of his early years.
In those days Mrs. Arbuthnot's one hobby had been photography. People
used to say, of course unjustly, that she never beheld any view with the
naked eye, but merely in the reflector of a photographic apparatus. Yet
it is entirely obvious that she must first have regarded it in the
ordinary way to judge of its photographic merits. Anyhow it is true that
quite a good deal of her time was spent beneath the folds of a black
cloth (she never condescended to anything so amateurish as a mere kodak),
or in the seclusion of a dark room.
Veritable dark rooms being seldom procurable on her travels, she
invariably carried with her two or three curtains of thick red serge,
several rolls of brown paper, and a bottle of stickphast. The two last
mentioned were employed for covering chinks in doors, etc. It cannot be
said that it was entirely beneficial to the doors, but hotel proprietors
and landladies seldom made any complaint after the first remonstrance, as
Mrs. Arbuthnot was always ready to make handsome compensation for any
damage caused. It is to be feared that at times her generosity was
largely imposed upon.
In addition to the red curtains, the brown paper, and the stickphast, two
large boxes were included in her luggage, one containing all her
photographic necessaries, and they were not few, the other containing
several dozen albums of prints.
Of late years Bridge had taken quite as large a place in her affections
as photography. Not that she felt any rivalry between the two; her
pleasure in both pastimes was quite equally balanced. Her mornings and
early afternoons were given to photography. The late afternoons and
evenings Mrs. Arbuthnot devoted to Bridge.
* * * * *
One exceedingly wet afternoon, tea being recently concluded, Trix in her
bedroom was surveying the weather from the window.
She was debating within her mind whether to don mackintosh and souwester
and face the elements, or whether to retire to a far corner of the
drawing-room with a novel, as much as possible out of earshot of the
Bridge players. She was still in two minds as to which prospect most
appealed to her mood, when Mrs. Arbuthnot tapped on her door, and
immediately after sailed into the room. It is the only word applicable to
Mrs. Arbuthnot's entry into any room.
She was a large fair woman, very distinctly inclined to stoutness. In her
youth she had been both slender, and quick in her movements; but
recognizing, and rightly, that quickness means a certain loss of dignity
in the stout, she had trained herself to be exceedingly deliberate in her
actions. There was an element of consciousness in her deliberation,
therefore, which gave the impression of a rather large sailing vessel
under weigh.
"Trix, dearest," she began. And then she perceived that Trix had been
observing the weather.
"You were not going out, were you, dearest? I really think it would
hardly be wise. It is blowing quite furiously. I know it is rather dull
for you as you don't play Bridge. Such a pity, too, as you understand it
so well. But I have a suggestion to make. Will you paste some of my
newest prints into the latest album? There is a table in the window in my
room, and a fresh bottle of stickphast. Not in the window, I don't mean
that, but in my trunk. And Maunder can find it for you." Maunder was Mrs.
Arbuthnot's maid.
Trix turned from the window. Of course Mrs. Arbuthnot's request settled
the question of a walk. She had really been in two minds about it.
"Why, of course," she said. "Where are the prints?"
Mrs. Arbuthnot brightened visibly.
"They're inside a green envelope on the writing-table. You'll find a
small pair of very sharp scissors there too. The dark edges are so
unsightly if not trimmed. You're sure you don't mind, dearest? It really
will be quite a pleasant occupation. It is so dreadfully wet. And Maunder
will give you the stickphast. There is clean blotting-paper on the
writing-table too, and Maunder can find you anything else you want. Well,
that's all right. Maunder is in my room now. She will be going to her tea
in ten minutes, so perhaps you might go to her at once. And she is sure
to be downstairs for at least an hour and a half, if not longer. Servants
always have so much to talk about, and take so long saying it. Why, I
can't imagine. It always seems to me so much better not to waste words
unnecessarily. So you will have the room to yourself, till she comes to
put out my evening things. And I must go back to the drawing-room at
once, or they will be waiting Bridge for me. And Lady Fortescue hates
being kept waiting. It puts her in a bad temper, and when she's in a bad
temper she is extraordinarily erratic as to her declarations. Though, for
that matter, she is seldom anything else. I don't mean bad-tempered, but
seldom anything but erratic. So, dearest, I mustn't let you keep me any
longer. Don't forget to ask Maunder for the stickphast, and anything else
you want. And the prints and the scissors----"
"Yes, I know," nodded Trix cheerfully, "on the writing table. Hurry, Aunt
Lilla, or they'll all be swearing."
"Oh, my dearest, I trust not. Though perhaps interiorly. And even that is
a sin. I remember----"
Trix propelled her gently but firmly from the room. Doubtless Mrs.
Arbuthnot continued her remembrances "interiorly" as she went down the
passage and descended the stairs.
Ten minutes later, Trix, provided with the stickphast, the green
envelope, the scissors, and the clean blotting-paper, and having a very
large album spread open before her on a table, was busily engaged with
the prints. They were mainly views of Llandrindod Wells, though there
were quite a good many groups among them, as well as a fair number of
single figures. Trix herself appeared chiefly in these last,--Trix in a
hat, Trix without a hat, Trix smiling, serious, standing, or sitting.
For half an hour or so Trix worked industriously, indefatigably. She
trimmed off dark edges, she applied stickphast, she adjusted the prints
in careful positions, she smoothed them down neatly with the clean
blotting-paper. At the end of that time, she paused to let the paste dry
somewhat before turning the page.
With a view to whiling away the interval, she possessed herself of a
sister album, one of the many relations stacked against a wall, choosing
it haphazard from among the number.
There is a distinct fascination in photographs which recall early
memories. Trix fell promptly under the spell of this fascination. The
minutes passed, finding her engrossed, absorbed. Turning a page she came
upon views of Byestry, herself--a white-robed, short-skirted small
person--appearing in the foreground of many.
Trix smiled at the representations. It really was rather an adorable
small person. It was so slim-legged, mop-haired, and elfin-smiled. It was
seen, for the most part, lavishing blandishments on a somewhat ungainly
puppy. One photograph, however, represented the small person in company
with a boy.
Trix looked at this photograph, and suddenly amazement fell full upon
her. She looked, she leant back in her chair and shut her eyes, and then
she looked again. Yes; there was no mistake, no shadow of a mistake. The
boy in the photograph was the man with the wheelbarrow, or the other way
about, which possibly might be the more correct method of expressing the
matter. But, whichever the method, the fact remained the same.
Trix stared harder at the photograph, cogitating, bewildered. Below it
was written in Mrs. Arbuthnot's rather sprawling handwriting, "T. D.,
aged five. A. G., aged fourteen. Byestry, 1892."
Who on earth was A. G.? Trix searched the recesses of her mind. And then
suddenly, welling up like a bubbling spring, came memory. Why, of course
A. G. was the boy she used to play with, the boy--she began to remember
things clearly now--who had tried to sail across the pond, and with whom
she had gone to search for pheasants' eggs. A dozen little details came
back to her mind, even the sound of the boy's voice, and his laugh, a
curiously infectious laugh.
Oh, she remembered him distinctly, vividly. But, what--and there lay the
puzzlement, the bewilderment--was the boy, now grown to manhood, doing
with a wheelbarrow in the grounds of Chorley Old Hall, and, moreover,
dressed as a gardener, working as a gardener, and speaking--well, at any
rate speaking after the manner of a gardener? Perhaps to have said,
speaking as though he were on a different social footing from Trix, would
have better expressed Trix's meaning. But she chose her own phraseology,
and doubtless it conveyed to her exactly what she did mean. Anyhow, it
was an amazing riddle, an insoluble riddle. Trix stared at the
photograph, finding no answer to it.
Finding no answer she left the book open at the page, and returned to the
sticking in of prints. But every now and then her eyes wandered to the
big volume at the other end of the table, wonderment and query possessing
her soul.
Maunder appeared just as Trix had finished her task. Helpful,
business-like, she approached the table, a gleam spelling order and
tidiness in her eye.
"Leave that album, please," said Trix, seeing the helpful Maunder about
to shut and bear away the book containing the boy's photograph.
Maunder hesitated, sighed conspicuously, and left the book, occupying
herself instead with putting away the stickphast, the scissors, the now
not as clean blotting-paper, and somewhat resignedly picking up small
shreds of paper which were scattered upon the table-cloth and carpet. In
the midst of these occupations the dressing-gong sounded. Maunder pricked
up her ears, actually almost, as well as figuratively.
Ten minutes elapsed. Then Mrs. Arbuthnot appeared.
"What, finished, dearest!" she exclaimed as she opened the door.
"Splendid! How quick you've been. And I am sure the time flew on--not
leaden feet, but just the opposite. It always does when one is pleasantly
occupied. Developing photographs or a rubber of Bridge, it's just the
same, the hands of the clock spin round. And I've won six shillings, and
it would have been more if it had not been for Lady Fortescue's last
declaration. Four hearts, my dearest, and the knave as her highest card.
They doubled us, and of course we went down. I had only two small ones. I
had shown her my own weakness by not supporting her declaration. Of
course at my first lead I led her a heart, and it was won by the queen on
my left. A heart was returned, and Lady Fortescue played the nine. It was
covered by the ten which won the trick. She didn't make a single trick in
her own suit. It is quite impossible to understand Lady Fortescue's
declarations. And did you put in all the prints? They will have nearly
filled the last pages. I must send for another album. Are these they?"
She crossed to the open volume.
"No," said Trix, "that's an old volume. I was looking at it. Who's the
boy in the photograph, Aunt Lilla?"
Mrs. Arbuthnot bent towards the page.
"'A. G., aged fourteen.' Let me see. Why, of course that was Antony Gray,
Richard Gray's son. But I never knew his father. He--I mean the boy--was
staying in rooms with his aunt, Mrs. Stanley. She was his father's
sister, and married George Stanley. Something to do with the stock
exchange, and quite a wealthy man, though a bad temper. And his wife was
not a happy woman, as you can guess. Temper means such endless friction
when it's bad, especially with regard to things like interfering with the
servants, and wanting to order the kitchen dinner. So absurd, as well as
annoying. There's a place for a man and a place for a woman, and the
man's place is not the kitchen, even if his entry is only figurative. By
which I mean that Mr. Stanley did not actually go to the kitchen, but
gave orders from his study, on a sort of telephone business he had had
fixed up and communicating with the kitchen. So trying for the cook's
nerves, especially when making omelettes, or anything that required
particular attention. She never knew when his voice wouldn't shout at her
from the wall. A small black thing like a hollow handle fixed close to
the kitchen range. Quite uncomfortably near her ear. Worse than if he
himself had appeared at the kitchen door, which would have been normal,
though trying. And Mr. Stanley never lowered his voice. He always spoke
as if one were deaf, especially to foreigners who spoke English every bit
as well as himself. Mrs. Stanley gave excellent wages, and even bonuses
out of her dress money to try and keep cooks. But they all said the voice
from the wall got on their nerves. And no wonder. And then unpleasantness
when the cooks left. As if it were poor Mrs. Stanley's fault, and not his
own. She once suggested they should give up their house and live in an
hotel. He couldn't have a telephone arrangement to the kitchen there. But
he was more unpleasant still. Almost violent. And he died at last of an
attack of apoplexy. Such a relief to Mrs. Stanley. Not the dying of
apoplexy, which was a grief. But the quiet, and the being able to keep a
cook when he had gone." Mrs. Arbuthnot paused a moment to take breath.
"Do you know what became of the boy?" asked Trix.
Mrs. Arbuthnot considered for an instant.
"I believe he went abroad. Yes; I remember now, hearing from Mrs. Stanley
just before she died herself, poor soul--ptomaine poisoning and a dirty
cook, some people seem pursued by cooks, figuratively speaking, of
course,--that her brother had lost all his money and died, and that
Antony had gone abroad. We are told not to judge, and I don't, but it did
seem to me that Mrs. Stanley ought to have made him some provision, if
not before her death, at least after it. By will, of course I mean by
'after'! which in a sense would have been before death. But you
understand. Instead of which she left all her money to a deaf and dumb
asylum. No doubt good in its way, but not like anything religious, which
would have been more justifiable, though she was a Protestant. And
teaching dumb people to speak is always a doubtful blessing. They have
such an odd way of talking. Scarcely understandable. But perhaps better
than nothing for themselves, though not for others. Though with a
penniless nephew and all that money I _do_ think--But, as I said, we are
told not to judge."
"And you don't know what became of him after that?" asked Trix.
Mrs. Arbuthnot looked almost reproachful.
"My dearest, how could I? Mrs. Stanley in the family grave with her
brother,--she mentioned that particularly in her will, and not with her
husband, I suppose she could not have had much affection for him,--I
could not possibly hear any more of the young man. There were no other
relations, and I did not even know what part of the world he was in. Nor
should I have thought it advisable to write to him if I had, unless it
had been a brief letter of consolation as from a much older woman, which
I was. But even with age I do not think a correspondence between men and
women desirable, unless they are related, especially with Mrs. Barclay's
novels so widely read. Not for my own sake, of course, as I do not think
I am easily given to absurd notions. But one never knows what ideas a
young man may not get into his head. And now, dear child, I must dress.
Maunder has been sighing for the last ten minutes, and I know what that
means. And you'll be late yourself, if you don't go."
Much later in the evening, Trix, in a far corner of the drawing-room with
a novel, found herself again pondering deeply on her discovery.
She was absolutely and entirely certain that the man with the wheelbarrow
was none other than Antony Gray, the boy with whom she had played in her
childhood. She remembered now that his face had been oddly familiar to
her at the time, though, being unable to put any name to him, she had
looked upon it merely as a chance likeness. But since he was Antony Gray,
what was he doing at Chorley Old Hall?
Her first impulse had been to write to the Duchessa, tell her of her
certainty, and ask her to find out any particulars she could regarding
the man. She had abandoned that idea, in view of the fact that she would
have to say where she had met him, which would very probably lead to
questions difficult to answer.
One thing she would do, however, and she gave a little inward laugh at
the thought, when she was next at Byestry, if she saw him again, she
would ask him if he remembered the pond and the pheasants' eggs. It would
be amusing to see his amazed face.