Sir Julian's desire for plain speaking was more amply gratified on the
following day even than he had anticipated. He had purposely made an
early appointment at the College, in order to discuss with Mark and the
Supervisor the question of the journey to Gloucester, but he was aware
that a curiously strong sensation of anxiety constituted an underlying
motive for his presence there.
There flashed across his mind the dim recollection of a conversation
in which he had taken part, with Mark Easter and Miss Marchrose, one
afternoon on the way from Salt Marsh to Culmhayes.
They had agreed in their estimate of the potency of an atmosphere. He
thought it was Miss Marchrose herself who had said that "the worst
times are when nothing at all has happened, and yet everything is
happening."
Prophetic, reflected Julian, half amused. He made his way slowly to
Mark Easter's room.
A feminine voice, lowered to that penetrating sibilance which most
infallibly attracts the attention which it is designed to escape,
reached his ears.
"----And she knew I was looking at her, too. I could tell she did, by
the way she coloured. You know. And I never said a word. Simply looked
at her, you know. 'Don't let me disturb you,' I said. Like that, quite
quietly."
Sir Julian pushed the half-open door. Miss Farmer and Miss Sandiloe
stood in close confabulation just inside the room.
"Oh, good morning, Sir Julian." They both looked much confused.
"Good morning," he said gravely. "Mr. Easter has not arrived yet?"
"No," said Miss Sandiloe, ever ready of speech, in spite of her
manifest discomfiture.
"No, he hasn't. He very often gets in rather later these mornings."
"I can wait," said Sir Julian. "It's not ten o'clock yet."
Miss Farmer began to sidle towards the door. Her companion followed
her, but was inspired to turn round and add an unnecessary rider to her
last observation.
"Mr. Easter is always here so late in the evenings now, too," she
remarked artlessly, as she went out of the room.
Sir Julian heard a nervous giggle as the door closed behind them both,
and he thought that Miss Farmer ejaculated something that sounded like,
"However you could, Sandiloe!"
"If Miss Marchrose has been up against _that_ sort of thing for the
last week...." was his unformulated thought.
A further example of "that sort of thing" confronted him in the
entrance hall, where he presently betook himself restlessly.
Three girls, all of them pupil-teachers of the College, with young
Cooper, the Financial Secretary, stood near the notice-board. Their
necks were craned forward, and their eyes, expressive of curiosity,
suspicion and a certain excitement, were unanimously following the
tall, slight figure of Miss Marchrose as she disappeared towards a
distant classroom.
"Good morning," said Sir Julian, with extreme abruptness, and in tones
not usually associated with a morning greeting.
Everyone jumped violently.
The three pupil-teachers disappeared with celerity, and Mr. Cooper
turned a brick-red countenance upon his chief.
"Just looking at the notice-board," he said, in an affable manner.
"There appears to be nothing on it," Sir Julian made rejoinder, with
equal obviousness, but in a voice that was not without point.
"Nothing at all," agreed Mr. Cooper, rather feverishly, and running a
hand across the green-baize square as though further to demonstrate its
bareness.
"I see you're in early, Sir Julian."
"I have an appointment with Mr. Easter, but I'm rather too soon. Fuller
is in class, I suppose?"
"Yes, Sir Julian. Let me see," Cooper produced his wrist-watch. "I'll
look at the time. Yes. He'll be in class for the next three-quarters of
an hour. Shall I send for him, Sir Julian?"
"No, thanks. I'm in no hurry. There's just the question of the place to
be opened at Gloucester. You've heard about it, haven't you, Cooper?"
"Oh, yes, Sir Julian. The whole staff has been much interested, and
very proud too, if I may say so. I'd even thought--I don't know if I
may venture----"
"Are you a candidate for the job of going down there next week?" Sir
Julian asked, smiling.
"Not myself," said Mr. Cooper. "I may even say, Sir Julian, that I
doubt if I could be spared at the moment. We have one or two French
scholars, and the accountancy is particularly heavy just now. Of
course, it's what you wish, Sir Julian, but I hardly think I could
leave at present, even for a day or two. But I was wondering whether I
might venture a suggestion."
"Certainly," said Sir Julian, rather astonished.
"It has occurred to me," remarked Mr. Cooper, with a certain
pompousness, "that Miss Marchrose would not be at all unfitted to do
what's required. And a little change might be rather a good thing for
her, in its way, Sir Julian."
"Indeed?"
"There's been a certain amount of feeling, I'm afraid, just lately."
"I should like details, if you please."
"One hardly likes to say anything," Mr. Cooper began, with great and
evident satisfaction. "She's a splendid worker, as you know, Sir
Julian, and the other young ladies took to her quite wonderfully from
the start. Quite foolish, one or two of them were about her. But
the fact is, if you'll excuse my mentioning it, she's been rather
indiscreet of late."
"Go on," said Julian in level tones, as Cooper waited, apparently for
some sign of encouragement.
"The fact is, to put the whole matter in a nutshell, some of them have
got talking. You know what that means, especially with one or two
rather excitable young ladies."
There was a pause, during which Julian recollected Mr. Cooper's
old-time predilection for the society of Miss Sandiloe.
"She hasn't made any secret of liking Mr. Mark Easter's society very
much, and she's given him a good deal of hers. That's all it amounts
to," said Mr. Cooper, with a great effect of frankness.
"He has found her useful for some of the extra work."
"No doubt, Sir Julian. That's all it is. But she's in that office of
his nearly as often as she's in her own, and then they've been late a
good many evenings and stayed on here working after the College was
supposed to be closed. It was also known, Sir Julian, that the present
Mrs. Douglas Garrett--Miss Easter that was--used to ask Miss Marchrose
to her brother's house a good deal while she was home."
"We are not in the least responsible for what the staff may do out of
hours."
"Certainly not, Sir Julian. And of course we all know and like Mr.
Mark Easter, and I've no doubt that he's never said a word to her that
we mightn't all have heard. But somehow," said Mr. Cooper, with a
fatalistic expression, "somehow, the staff have got talking."
"It doesn't concern them in any way whatever."
"Those were my very words," Mr. Cooper replied impressively, "my very
words, when one of the young ladies approached me on the subject. This
is an affair which concerns no one but Mr. Mark Easter, I said, and
you may be sure that he will deal with it in the best manner possible.
In fact, I said, if this unfortunate young lady has forgotten the
circumstances of the case, we may be quite sure that Mr. Easter will
himself take an early opportunity of reminding her."
Mr. Cooper's tone implied that no more triumphantly satisfactory
_dénouement_ could be hoped for.
"And do you suppose that he has done so?" enquired Sir Julian, from
sheer curiosity to hear Mr. Cooper's reply.
Cooper shook his head from side to side.
"I couldn't say at all, Sir Julian. There's been a very uncomfortable
state of things prevailing for the last few days, altogether. I
couldn't put a finger on any one thing not to give a name to it, but
there's constraint, Sir Julian, and we all feel it. This has always
been such a friendly little party, that one can't help noticing, like."
"I shall be greatly obliged, Cooper," said Sir Julian with
deliberation, "if you would check this tittle-tattling, as far as
possible. It is extraordinarily objectionable."
Cooper looked far from hopeful.
"She'll have to pull herself up, as it were, or else leave altogether,
Sir Julian. Otherwise I don't see what's to prevent the staff from
getting talking."
Sir Julian perceived that no amount of words would remove from Mr.
Cooper his conviction of the inevitability of the calamity which he
described as the "getting talking" of his fellow-workers.
"I shall think the matter over. Certainly we can't have this sort of
atmosphere in the place. It's upsetting everyone."
"That is so, Sir Julian. It's the talk that's doing the harm," said Mr.
Cooper solemnly.
"Certainly it is. I hope there will be no more of it."
Sir Julian's hope was uttered for rhetorical purposes merely. His never
very sanguine outlook had been in no way illuminated by the eloquence
of Mr. Cooper.
"Don't let me keep you any longer, Cooper; I know you're busy."
"Thank you, Sir Julian. If you'll excuse me. My watch--ten minutes
past--then I'll go straight to Classroom III--up the stairs."
Mr. Cooper hurried away, taking two steps at a time.
Sir Julian's discussion with Mark was completed rapidly enough.
"I'm quite ready to see this Gloucester affair through," said Mark,
looking out of the window. "Fuller doesn't seem anxious to take it on."
"Can you spare the time?"
"Easily."
"To-day is Friday. What about Monday?"
"Right."
Mark said nothing more. The tiny furrow between his eyes had deepened a
very little.
They spoke of business for a little while and then Sir Julian left Mark
in solitary possession of the small office.
As he came away he encountered Miss Marchrose.
Her observation was worthy of Mr. Cooper.
"I'm going to the High Speed room," she said, with evident nervousness.
"Are you giving another test there?"
"Oh, no. We're very slack at present. The last lot have gone out, and
we mostly have beginners. But I want to put some things away."
She was quite evidently defending herself against some unspoken
accusation.
As she turned away, she looked back at Sir Julian, again with that
suggestion of wishing to say something further.
"What is it?" he asked, almost involuntarily.
"Nothing," said Miss Marchrose, her voice catching in her throat.
Sir Julian walked away slowly.
"Sir Julian!" she said, rather breathlessly.
He turned at once.
"Are you--are you just going?"
"I am in no hurry."
He reflected for an instant and then decided to take her wishes for
granted.
"You will find me in the annexe. There's no hurry, so take your time
about putting the papers away. I'll wait for you there," said Sir
Julian calmly.
He waited barely five minutes.
She came into the room, very erect, with tension in every line of her
face and figure, and a little dent coming and going at the corner of
either nostril.
She shut the door quietly behind her.
"Sit down," said Sir Julian, placing a chair for her, so that she could
lean both arms on the table, and steady a certain tremulousness of
which he suspected the existence.
In order to give her time, he slowly and carefully took out and lit a
cigarette. He was conscious of a sensation of surprise in the midst
of his mingled annoyance and compassion. He had not expected her to
acknowledge defeat so quickly, and he wondered whether some element of
which he knew nothing had been introduced into the invisible contest
against her.
"I think I shall have to ask you to accept my resignation," she said at
last, in a sort of rush.
"I'm sorry," said Sir Julian carefully.
"I've spoken to Mr. Fuller about it, but he--he was a little bit
difficult."
"I can quite believe it."
"I couldn't get him to accept my resignation at all," she said, smiling
rather forlornly.
"Fuller is not easily defeated."
She interpreted his thought rather more accurately than he desired, in
her quick rejoinder.
"And I _am_. I haven't been able to cope with the last few days at all.
Do you remember how we talked about atmosphere one afternoon before
Christmas?"
"On the way back from Salt Marsh? I was thinking about it not so very
long ago."
"Then," said Miss Marchrose slowly, "you knew about--this place?"
Sir Julian made no pretence at not having understood her.
"I know that it has afforded a rather poignant example of the very
thing we discussed that afternoon," he replied.
"I thought you knew," she said, pushing her hair away from her forehead
with a rapid, nervous movement. "But you see _I'm_ in the dark. No one
has said a single word to me. I'd so much rather they did."
"Yes, I can understand that. But you see no one is in a position to
say a word to you, except--officially--Mr. Fuller as Supervisor."
"Then why hasn't he?" Miss Marchrose demanded, a sudden colour flooding
her pale face.
Sir Julian said nothing, for the conclusive reason that he could think
of absolutely nothing to say.
"He told me to-day that my services had been perfectly satisfactory,
and that he didn't want me to leave."
"I know he doesn't."
"In that case," said Miss Marchrose, "I must place my resignation with
you direct, Sir Julian."
"Have you definitely decided to resign?"
"I'm afraid so," she said, again colouring suddenly.
Sir Julian once more kept silence from a helpless sense of the
impossibility of any discussion, although intuition told him that
she was more or less blindly in search of a safety-valve for her
perplexities.
She remained in her chair for a minute or two, looking down at the
table, and only a very slight, involuntary movement of her fingers
betrayed the tension of waiting.
Sir Julian paid the penalty sooner or later exacted of all those
whose perceptions are acute, in realising with vividness her sense of
bafflement as he remained mute.
With a sort of remnant of the pluck that he had always credited her
with, she rose at last and said, "Thank you very much, Sir Julian,"
quite steadily.
He rose also and opened the door, and she went out.
Sir Julian remained more than ever convinced that some very forcible
factor, of which he was still unaware, had entered the lists against
her, and definitely defeated her.
"It's no business of mine," he reflected to himself, almost violently.
Nevertheless, he had more to hear upon the subject that same afternoon.
He met Alderman Bellew, whose discursive comments were not to be stayed.
"Easter's a very nice chap, you know," said the Alderman sapiently. "I
don't like the idea of this young woman making a fool of him. He's not
been looking himself for the last day or two. Didn't you think him a
bit off colour at the General Meeting yesterday, now? I can assure you
that he didn't look himself, to me. He looked"--the Alderman lowered
his voice in a very impressive and mysterious manner--"he looked
_worried_."
Sir Julian felt inclined to ejaculate, "You don't say so!" at this bit
of penetration, but the Alderman went on:
"It's not to be wondered at, either. I don't know whether you've
noticed a sort of disturbance lately in the College--something in the
air?"
"I know what you mean," Sir Julian said truthfully, but noncommittally.
"Exactly. Just what Lady Rossiter was speaking of the other day. Well,
now that sort of thing won't do, will it? It upsets the staff--upsets
the work--upsets that chap Fuller, badly. Took it very much to
heart, didn't he? I suppose he thinks it reflects upon his credit as
Supervisor, when things go wrong with the staff. However, it's all
quite easily put right, when all's said and done."
Such not being the comfortable conviction of Sir Julian, he waited for
further enlightenment.
"The girl can go."
"Oh," said Sir Julian. "Yes. The girl can go, of course."
"It needn't affect her references in any way," said the Alderman,
apparently made uneasy by something in Sir Julian's tone.
"Certainly not."
"There's no harm in the girl, I daresay, though I don't like what I
hear of those antecedents of hers."
Sir Julian was perfectly well aware that Miss Marchrose's antecedents,
so far as Alderman Bellew's knowledge of them was concerned, rested
upon the slender fabric of the hints thrown out by Lady Rossiter on
the subject. He therefore remained unresponsive, and Alderman Bellew
presently, with an air of rather puzzled reluctance, abandoned the
subject.
"It's no business of mine," Sir Julian told himself with increasing
vehemence, as his perception grew of the strength of the league that
was so successfully fighting the shadow of a possibility.
Even Culmhayes was pervaded by unrest.
Edna was silent all through dinner, except when the servants were in
the room, when she discoursed in an elevating way about the first
breath of spring, and a tiny twitter which she said that she had heard
in the beech-wood that afternoon.
Sir Julian heard about the twitter towards February or March every
year, and received the news of it with modified enthusiasm only.
As soon as they were alone, Edna drew a long breath, flung her head
back, and said with a sort of restrained ardour:
"Julian, whom do you suppose I met this afternoon in the beech-wood?"
"The first squirrel of the year," suggested Sir Julian, with perfect
indifference.
"I am not laughing."
"Neither am I. Do you mean a human being, or a harbinger of spring?"
"I met Mark," said Lady Rossiter very gravely.
Sir Julian peeled a walnut attentively.
"It seemed--I say it in all reverence--like an answer to prayer, for I
had prayed over it all. Julian, I was miserable. I could see all the
tangle and perplexity so clearly, and yet I felt bound and helpless. I
could do nothing to help or to hinder."
Julian reflected detachedly that his wife did herself less than justice.
"And then I met Mark. And I knew as soon as I saw him that it was my
opportunity for helping. It is so curious, when one has formed the
habit of looking for little opportunities, how the big one is sure to
come sooner or later. Mark wanted help badly, Julian."
Lady Rossiter waited for a moment, during which her husband remained
motionless, and then went on speaking in slow, even tones.
"I believe in courage, as you know, most intensely. It is so difficult,
sometimes, to break through our conventional reserve. It was so to-day.
But I spoke. Mark has no woman in his life."
"I can hardly agree with you, in the circumstances," muttered Julian
grimly, but his wife disregarded the interruption.
"And there are times when a man wants a woman to whom he can speak
freely. Oh, I didn't hurt his chivalry in any way--I respect it far
too much. Nothing was put into words between us, practically--but
everything was implied."
"At the moment, Edna, I prefer words to implications, as I am very much
more likely to understand them. What did you say to Mark?"
"Very little," said Edna, with a dignified simplicity that failed
entirely to convince Sir Julian of the accuracy of her statement.
"But, thank God, I believe I have made certain that there will be no
_débâcle_ such as one could not help dreading. I was in terror that
that unfortunate girl should try to force an issue."
Sir Julian realised, with a slight shock of surprise, that his wife's
estimate of Miss Marchrose's capabilities of enterprise were identical
with his own. Edna, he reflected, did not yet know that Miss Marchrose
had, to all intents and purposes, most unmistakably hauled down her
colours when she had tendered her resignation to him that morning.
"How are you to prevent her from forcing an issue?" he asked.
"It's so simple. Mark is going away on business, and he leaves on
Saturday instead of on Monday. A week makes a long break, Julian, in a
case like this, and she will either understand why he has gone without
being told, or she will find her position intolerable, and leave the
College. Even if she stays on--though I think it impossible that
she should--they will begin again on a very different footing. Mark
understands now."
"Understands what, in Heaven's name?"
Edna raised her eyebrows and made a significant gesture. "Mark goes
to-morrow?"
"Yes. Thank Heaven, I made him see that there is greater courage in
turning one's back, sometimes, than in facing a danger. Every day
that passes, as these last days have passed, the risk of an explosion
becomes greater. It's like skating over a volcano."
"Nobody ever does skate over volcanoes," said Julian, almost
automatically. His mind was working rapidly.
Mark was turning his back.
As Edna had said, it might be the greater courage.
There would be no crisis. Nothing had happened and nothing would
happen. A crisis, indeed, must have spelt disaster, Sir Julian told
himself mechanically, all the while with a sense of having somehow
missed a clue. The next moment he had found it.
His original instinct with regard to Miss Marchrose had been right. She
had in all probability known whither she was drifting, and she had been
prepared to face the rapids gallantly. But Mark ... Julian dropped his
metaphors and envisaged crude facts--Mark, after all, had himself been
responsible for the determining factor that alone could have vanquished
her courage utterly.
Fully alive to an awkward situation, Mark Easter had inevitably
conveyed to the girl, whom Sir Julian, more than ever, qualified as an
incurable romanticist, the illimitable difference in their scales of
relative values.
And it was that certainty that, reaching her in the atmospheric tension
of the last few days, had defeated Miss Marchrose.