"Now, isn't it a pity for you to be going, dearie? When the place is doing
you so much good, and Susie back in another week, and all."
[Illustration: "'Now, isn't it a pity for you to be going,
dearie?'"]
Aggie folded up a child's frock with great deliberation, and pressed it,
gently but firmly, into the portmanteau.
"I must go," she said, gravely. "Arthur wants me."
Mrs. Purcell was looking on with unfeigned grief at her daughter's
preparations for departure. Aggie had gone down to Queningford, not for a
flying visit, but to spend the greater part of the autumn. She and Arthur
had had to abandon some of the arrangements they had planned together;
and, though he had still insisted in general terms on Aggie's two years'
rest, the details had been left to her. Thus it happened that a year of
the rest-cure had hardly rolled by before Aggie had broken down, in a way
that had filled them both with the gravest anxieties for the future. For
if she broke down when she was resting, what would she do when the two
years were up and things had to be more or less as they were before? Aggie
was so frightened this time that she was glad to be packed off to her
mother, with Willie and Dick and Emmy and the baby. The "girls," Kate and
Eliza, had looked after them, while Aggie lay back in the warm lap of
luxury, and rested for once in her life.
All Aggie's visits had ended in the same way. The same letter from home,
the same firm and simple statement: "Arthur wants me. I must go," and
Aggie was gone before they had had a look at her.
"John and Susie will be quite offended."
"I can't help it. Arthur comes before John and Susie, and he wants me."
She had always been proud of that--his wanting her; his inability to do
without her.
"I don't know," she said, "what he _will_ have done without me all this
time."
Her mother looked at her sharply, a look that, though outwardly
concentrated on Aggie, suggested much inward criticism of Aggie's husband.
"He must learn to do without you," she said, severely.
"I'm not sure that I want him to," said Aggie, and smiled.
Her mother submitted with a heavy heart.
"My dear," she whispered, "if you had married John Hurst we shouldn't have
_had_ to say good-bye."
"I wouldn't have taken him from Susie for the world," said Aggie, grimly.
She knew that her mother had never liked poor Arthur. This knowledge
prevented her from being sufficiently grateful to John for always leaving
his trap (the trap that was once to have been hers) at her disposal. It
was waiting to take her to the station now.
Aggie had only seen her sister, Mrs. John Hurst, once since they had both
married. Whenever Aggie was in Queningford, John and Susie were in
Switzerland, on the honeymoon that, for the happy, prosperous couple,
renewed itself every year.
This year it was agreed that, when the Hursts came up to Islington for the
Grand Horse-Show in the spring, they were to be put up at the Gattys' in
Camden Town.
Aggie was excited and a little alarmed at the prospect of this visit.
Susie was accustomed to having everything very nice and comfortable about
her, and she would be critical of the villa and its ways. And, then, it
would be awkward seeing John. She smiled. It always had been awkward
seeing John.
But when the spring came a new terror was added to Aggie's hospitable
anxiety, a new embarrassment to the general awkwardness of seeing John.
After all, the Hursts put up at a hotel in town. But Susie was to come
over for tea and a long talk with Aggie, John following later.
Aggie prepared with many tremors for the meeting with her sister. She made
herself quite sick and faint in her long battling with her hair. She had
so little time for "doing" it that it had become very difficult to "do"
and when it was "done" she said to herself that it looked abominable. Her
fingers shook as they strained at the hooks of the shabby gown that was
her "best." She had found somewhere a muslin scarf that, knotted and
twined with desperate ingenuity, produced something of the effect that she
desired.
Up-stairs in the nursery, Catty, very wise for six years old, was minding
the baby, while the little nervous maid got tea ready. Aggie sat in the
drawing-room waiting for her sister. Even as she waited she dared not be
idle. There was an old coat of Arthur's that she had been lining, taking
advantage of a change to milder weather; it was warmer than the one he was
wearing, and she was afraid to let it go another day lest the wind should
turn round to the northeast again. In such anxieties Aggie moved and had
her being. For the rest, she had given the little maid a lesson in the
proper way of showing Mrs. John Hurst into the room when she arrived.
Mrs. John Hurst arrived a little late. She came in unannounced (for her
appearance had taken the little maid's breath away); she came with a
certain rustle and sweep which was much more important than anything Susie
had ever done in the old days when Aggie was the pretty one.
Aggie was moved at seeing her. She uttered a cry of affection and delight,
and gave herself to Susie's open arms.
"Darling!" said Mrs. John Hurst. "Let me have a good look at you."
She kissed her violently, held her at arm's-length for a moment, and then
kissed her again, very gently. In that moment Aggie had looked at Susie,
and Susie at Aggie, each trying to master the meaning of the other's face.
It was Susie who understood first. Prosperity was very becoming to Susie.
She was the pretty one now, and she knew it. Marriage had done for her
what maidenhood had done for her sister, and Susie was the image of what
Aggie used to be.
But Aggie herself! Nothing was left now of the diminutive distinction that
had caused her to be once adored in Queningford. Susie was young at
two-and-thirty, and Aggie, not three years older, was middle-aged. Not
that there were many wrinkles on Aggie's face. Only a deep, crescent line
on each side of a mouth that looked as if it had been strained tight with
many tortures. It was as if Nature had conceived a grudge against Aggie,
and strove, through maternity, to stamp out her features as an individual.
"Oh yes," said Aggie, to break the intolerable tension of that look, "it's
one of your old ones, turned and trimmed to make it look different."
"Poor darling," said Susie; but what she thought was that it did look
different.
Luckily Mrs. John Hurst was full of the Horse-Show. She could talk of
nothing else. It was the Horse-Show that had made her late. She had waited
for the judging. John would look in as soon as he could get away. Gownboy
had carried off the gold cup and the gold medal again, and the judges had
been unjust, as usual, to John (John, grown prosperous, had added
horse-breeding to sheep-farming.) Ladslove had only been highly commended.
Ladslove was Rosemary's foal.
"You remember Rosemary, Aggie?"
Aggie remembered neither Rosemary nor her foal. But she was sorry for
Ladslove. She was grateful to him, too, for holding Susie's attention and
diverting it from all the things she didn't want her to see. She was
afraid of Susie; afraid of her sympathy; afraid of her saying something
about Barbara (_she_ couldn't speak of little Bessie, Susie's only child,
who had died three years ago). Above all, she was afraid of Susie's
inquisitive tongue and searching eyes.
She flung herself into fictitious reminiscences of the Queningford stud.
She couldn't have done worse.
"Oh, Aggie," said her sister, "you _do_ mix them up so."
"Well," said poor Aggie, "there are so many of them, I can't keep count."
"Never mind, dear." Aggie's words recalled Susie to her sisterly duties.
"I haven't asked after the children yet. How many are there? _I_ can't
keep count, either, you know."
Aggie turned away, found the old coat she had been lining, and spread it
on her lap. Susie's eye roamed and rested on the coat, and Aggie's
followed it.
"Do excuse my going on with this. Arthur wants it."
Susie smiled in recognition of the familiar phrase. Ever since he had
first appeared in Queningford, Arthur had always been wanting something.
But, as she looked at the poor coat, she reflected that one thing he had
never wanted, or had never asked for, and that was help.
"Aggie," she said, "I do hope that if you ever want a little help, dear,
you'll come to me."
Susie, preoccupied with the idea of liberality, could not see that she had
chosen her moment badly. Her offer, going as it did, hand-in-hand with her
glance, reflected upon Arthur.
"I don't want any help, thank you," said Aggie. "Arthur's doing very well
now. Very well, indeed."
"Then," said Susie, "why on earth do you break your back over that
stitching, if there's no need? That's not my notion of economy."
Susie was a kind-hearted woman, but eight years of solid comfort and
prosperity had blunted her perceptions. Moreover, she had an earnestly
practical mind, a mind for which material considerations outweighed every
other.
"My dear Susie, your notion of economy would be the same as mine, if you
had had seven children."
"But I haven't," said Susie, sadly. She was humbled by the rebuff she had
just received. "I only wish I had."
Aggie looked up from her work with a remorseful tenderness in her tired
eyes. She was sorry for poor Susie, who had lost her only one.
But Susie had already regretted her momentary weakness, and her pride was
up. She was a primitive woman, and had always feared lest reproach should
lie upon her among the mothers of many children. Besides, she had never
forgotten that her John had loved Aggie first. Aggie, with her seven
children, should not set her down as a woman slighted by her husband.
"I haven't had the strength for it," said she; and Aggie winced. "The
doctor told John I mustn't have more than the one. And I haven't."
Poor Aggie hardened her face before Susie's eyes, for she felt that they
were spying out and judging her. And Susie, seeing that set look,
remembered how badly Aggie had once behaved to her John. Therefore she was
tempted to extol him.
"But then," said she, magnificently, "I have my husband." (As if Aggie
hadn't hers!) "Nobody knows what John is but me. Do you know, there hasn't
been one unkind word passed between us, nor one cross look, ever since he
married me eight years ago."
"There are very few who can say that." Aggie tried to throw a ring of
robust congratulation into her flat tones.
"Very few. But there's no one like him."
"No one like you, either, I should say."
"Well, for him there isn't. He's never had eyes for any one but
me--never."
Aggie cast down her eyes demurely at that. She had no desire to hurt Susie
by reminding her of the facts. But Susie, being sensitive on the subject,
had provided for all that.
"Of course, dear, I know, just at first, he thought of you. A fancy. He
told me all about it; and how you wouldn't have him, _he_ said. He said he
didn't think you thought him gentle enough. That shows how much you knew
about him, my dear."
"I should always have supposed," said Aggie, coldly, "he would be gentle
to any one he cared for."
She knew, and Susie knew, she had supposed the very opposite; but she
wished Susie to understand that John had been rejected with full
realization of his virtues, because, good as he was, somebody else was
still better. So that there might be no suspicion of regret.
"Gentle? Why, Aggie, if that was what you wanted, he's as gentle as a
woman. Gentler--there aren't many women, I can tell you, who have the
strength that goes with that."
Aggie bent her head lower yet over her work. She thought she could see in
Susie's speech a vindictive and critical intention. All the time she had,
Aggie thought, been choosing her words judicially, so that each
unnecessary eulogy of John should strike at some weak spot in poor Arthur.
She felt that Susie was not above paying off her John's old scores by an
oblique and cowardly blow at the man who had supplanted him. She wished
that Susie would either leave off talking about John, or go.
But Susie still interpreted Aggie's looks as a challenge, and the hymn of
praise swelled on.
"My dear--if John wasn't an angel of goodness and unselfishness--When I
think how useless I am to him, and of all that he has done for me, and all
that he has given up--"
Aggie was trembling. She drew up the coat to shelter her.
"--why it makes my blood boil to think that any one should know him, and
not know what he is."
Aggie dropped the coat in her agitation. As she stooped to pick it up,
Susie put out an anxious arm to help her.
Their eyes met.
"Oh, Aggie, dear--" said Susie. It was all she _could_ say. And her voice
had in it consternation and reproach.
But Aggie faced her.
"Well?" she said, steadily.
"Oh, nothing--" It was Susie's turn for confusion. "Only you said--and we
thought--after what you've been told--"
"What was I told?"
Horror overcame Susie, and she lost her head.
"Weren't you told, then?"
Her horror was reflected in her sister's eyes. But Aggie kept calm.
"Susie" she said, "what do you mean? That I wasn't told of the risk? Is
that what you meant?"
"Oh, Aggie--" Susie was helpless. She could not say what she had meant,
nor whether she had really meant it.
"Who _should_ be told if I wasn't? Surely I was the proper person?"