inconvenient----"
Hope died from Muriel's grey eyes. Four months at home had taught
her that argument, when not wicked, was futile. It meant not just
difference of opinion, but a way of making things difficult for Mrs.
Hammond, who had to see that the house ran smoothly.
"Well, dear, of course you must see how impossible it all is. I don't
know anything about this girl. I'm very busy just now, and surely she
must have other friends in England? It's a queer name. Is she French
or something?"
"Half French, half Irish, I think. I don't think that she has any
relatives in England. The nearest that I know of are the Powells at
Eppleford in Donegal." Muriel's voice was sullen with resignation. She
had turned from her mother and stood, smoothing out the creases from
the telegram, while an enchanting vision of Clare faded into the limbo
of impossibilities.
"Powells, at Eppleford? Surely, where have I heard that? Why, is this
the girl of whom Mrs. Hancock spoke, Lord Powell's niece?"
"Yes. Did she tell you about her?" sighed Muriel, still without hope
and rather wishing that her mother would close a painful conversation.
She had been good. She had not pressed Clare's claims. For her
mother's sake, no one should ever know how bitter a disappointment she
had swallowed down, there by the kitchen table.
"But, dear, you never told me that she was a particular friend of
yours. I thought that that Janet somebody or other----"
"Oh, Clare wasn't exactly my friend." These things could not be
explained even to somebody as sweet and beautiful as Muriel's mother.
"She was so lovely and so popular. She knew all the--all the people I
didn't know."
In spite of her resolute stoicism, Muriel gulped. Her mother looked
sharply at her averted face.
"You really want her so much, then?"
"Oh, mother!"
"Well, I must talk to your father. It just might be arranged. But I do
wish that you had told me about this before, dear. You make things so
difficult for me. Why didn't you tell me, dear?"
"There didn't seem to be anything to tell until now," said Muriel.
"I thought that she had quite forgotten me. She never answered my
letters; I thought that she hadn't liked me much."
"Dear, you mustn't be so--so backward. People will take you at your
own valuation, you know, and there is nothing more objectionable than
the pride that apes humility. Now run away. Have you done the flowers
yet? I thought not. And for goodness' sake tidy your hair, and tell me
when your father comes in."
"Then--then, will you ask him?"
"Yes, yes, I'll ask him, though I can't say what---- Why, my dear
child! What? Now don't crush my dress!"
For Muriel had flung her arms round her mother's waist in an ecstasy
of gratitude for her sympathetic understanding.
VIII
Because he wanted to drive the new chestnut mare, Mr. Hammond chose to
go to the station to meet Clare. Muriel could come too if she liked,
but the real reason was the mare. If there was one thing that Mr.
Hammond prided himself upon more than another, it was his knowledge of
horseflesh. The new mare was delicately perfect, from aristocratic
shoulder to quivering nostril. A network of soft veins trembled
beneath the shining velvet of her neck.
Muriel, terrified lest they should arrive too late, and always nervous
in the high dog-cart, watched her father draw the lash of the whip
lightly across the mare's back, playing it subtly as an angler plays
a fly. He flirted with the mare as another man might have flirted with
a pretty girl, chuckling because she was so daintily feminine and
capricious. He had forgotten Muriel and Clare.
"Father," she spoke softly, being more than a little afraid of him,
"we'll never be there in time." She watched for the curling smoke
between the chimneys.
"By Jove, what time did you say that your friend's train arrived?"
"3.45."
"Well, now, if I hadn't had to stop to tell Tom Bannister about that
order, we might just have done it. Maybe train'll be late."
But the train was not late, as trains never are except when you
need them to be punctual. A little stream of Marshington residents
had trickled out of the wicket-gate and separated up and down the
straggling length of Middle Street before Muriel and her father drew
up in the station yard. A shudder of apprehension stirred Muriel, who
for one awful moment feared lest Clare should never have arrived, or
lest, having arrived, she should have been offended that nobody was
there to meet her. How like Father not to bother just because he
thought Clare a child!
But when they appeared in the station, there at the end of the
platform, surrounded by three suit-cases, a roll of rugs, a side-saddle,
a hat box, a long, thin dachshund on a lead, and all the porters,
stood Clare. She turned and saw them. She came to meet them. More
beautiful and radiant than ever, in a grey travelling cloak, and a
little grey toque with a scarlet quill, she hurried forward with
outstretched hands to greet them, the dimples flickering in her cheek.
"You are Mr. Hammond, I am sure? But how good of you to come yourself
to meet me!" Her small _suède_ glove slipped into his capacious paw
and rested there a moment longer than was necessary, while she smiled
up at him, fearless, friendly, the least little bit in the world
amused. He was such an enormous father for funny little Muriel
Hammond! Muriel saw her father's big red face, first grave, then
surprised, then broadening out into a delighted smile. His blue eyes
twinkled.
"Well, now, Miss Duquesne, a nice sort o' welcome we gave you leaving
you like this all alone on the platform." He winked gaily at the
surrounding porters.
Muriel shrank back, a little hurt. They had greeted one another like
old friends, as though she did not count.
Then Clare saw her. "Muriel, my dear! How perfectly ripping to see
you again! My dear, it is good of you to have me. Behold me, a lone
creature lost in London, and the Harribels, with whom I was to stay,
all over measles and things."
"Very glad to have you, Miss Duquesne." Mr. Hammond rubbed a stiff
hand across his chin, a sure sign, as Muriel knew, that he was
pleased. "Now then, what about all this luggage, eh?"
Clare explained volubly. "Oh, I'm frightfully sorry, but, you see, I
had to bring all my things from Germany because I don't know when I'm
going back, and the side-saddle is because Jimmie Powell promised me a
mount when I go to Ireland. And Fritz was a most embarrassing gift
from a student. I was in such a hurry that I couldn't make up my mind
what to do with him, so I brought him all the way through the customs
and everything rolled up in the rugs, with my umbrellas. He hated it,
and I don't really care for him, and if there's a lost dogs' home
here, for goodness' sake let me dispose of him painlessly. Down, my
friend, down!"
"Oh, he's not a bad little tyke," commented Mr. Hammond with the eye
of a connoisseur. "But it's all this other stuff I'm thinking about.
Look here, Miss Duquesne, can you manage to-night with one of these
bag things and have the rest of the caboodle sent up to-morrow? My
man's sick or I'd have him come down for 'em now."
"Of course I'll manage. Only, wait a minute." Clare stood meditating
while the youngest porter wrestled valiantly with the dachshund, and
the others gazed with tolerant amusement at the eccentricities of this
young lady, who at least seemed to be worth a good tip. "Now the point
is," continued Clare, looking as though for enlightenment at the
youngest porter, "my night things are in that bag, but my yellow
dress, which I must wear this evening, is in this trunk."
Muriel was about to say, "Oh, don't trouble about that, because we
don't change at night," when she remembered that while Lord Powell's
niece was staying at Miller's Rise they were to have late dinner.
"I know," cried Clare. "A sudden inspiration. Can you wait just two
minutes? I'll take the dress from the trunk and put it into the case,
and then we'll be all right. Yes, go on holding the dog, please.
Muriel, _chérie_, take my gloves. Mr. Hammond, will you be an angel
and undo these straps for me?"
Muriel gasped horror-stricken. Even Clare could surely not take these
liberties with impunity. But Mr. Hammond seemed to have forgotten
the new mare and to be reconciled to his novel rôle of angel. He
knelt upon the platform, breathing heavily as he tugged at straps,
unfastened locks, and chuckled to himself while Clare dived into a
foam of tissue paper, billowing chiffon and frothing lace.
"There, just hold that a minute." Clare thrust a tray full of gossamer
_lingerie_ into the arms of the eldest porter, while she herself shook
out the cloudy folds of primrose chiffon.
It must have been this that proved too much for the patience of Fritz.
A fur-lined slipper fell from the tray, its fluffiness doubtless
reminiscent of happy days of rabbiting. With a bound he broke from
the hold of the youngest porter. A streak of yellow shot along the
platform. The fur-lined slipper vanished, Mr. Hammond dropped the lid
of the case, and the dachshund, free at last, forgot the tedium of his
late experience.
Clare, regardless of her laden arms, started in pursuit. Muriel
followed. Fritz, evading the ticket collector, dived under the
bookstall, then out again towards the wicket-gate just as a tall,
tweed-clad figure strolled leisurely on to the platform.
"Fritz!" cried Clare. "Catch him, catch him!"
A long arm shot down. A sudden squawk announced the breaking of
Teutonic dreams of liberty, and Clare stood, her arms full of tissue
paper, a filmy nightdress, a single bedroom slipper, face to face with
Godfrey Neale.
Solemnly he held out to her a mangled slipper and an armful of
protesting, elongated dachshund.
"I think that these are yours," he said.
For a moment Muriel saw them stand in silence. Then, simultaneously,
they broke out into uncontrollable laughter.
IX
"Of course, if it had been your dog, Mu, it would have run into the
curate," Connie observed cuttingly.
"But I haven't got a dog," sighed Muriel.
Connie looked at her with pity. Really there were times when she
wondered whether Muriel was quite all there.
Mumps at Heathcroft had conspired with measles in London to throw
Connie once again into Clare's company. School had broken up early,
and Connie arrived at Miller's Rise two days after Clare's spectacular
descent upon her family. She failed to appreciate the honour.
"Never in my life did I see any one make so much fuss of a girl.
You're all daft. Mother's as set up as a pouter pigeon because she's
got Lord Powell's niece staying here, and Mrs. Neale brings Godfrey at
last to call--if you can say that it was a call. I wouldn't stand this
eleventh hour patronage from a duchess, let alone just Mrs. Neale, and
every one knows that she's crazy anyway. And look at Father! The way
he goes on as though he'd never seen a girl before."
"Connie, don't be horrid."
"Horrid yourself. You see if I'm not right. And Mother can't stand her
really, only she won't say anything before she's had a chance to show
her off to the rest of Marshington."
"That isn't true. You're being simply horrid because you think it's
clever, and you're jealous of Clare because Father takes a lot of
notice of her. It's only because she's a visitor. You're always so
unreasonable."
"Wait till she's been in the house a bit longer, and you'll see who's
unreasonable."
Muriel turned away and left Connie to her dark prophecies. There
were times when her younger sister exasperated her by a shrewd
interpretation of their parents' motives which Muriel rejected as both
unpleasant and untrue. Connie had no business to go about saying nasty
things about people, just to pretend that she knew more about Life
than Muriel who was grown up.
That conversation took place the day before Mrs. Hammond opened her
campaign. She was sitting before the dressing-table in her room,
finishing her morning toilet. She knew that in her dressing-jacket,
with her plump arms bare from the elbow, she looked girlish and very
charming. The silver in her hair gleamed like moonlight rather than
Time's theft of colour. She rather liked to see it spread softly
about her shoulders before she coiled it high upon her head.
From the dressing-room she could hear her husband whistling through
his teeth, as a stable boy whistles when he grooms a horse. Through
the open door she could see him standing before his shaving-glass,
brushing vigorously his wiry thatch of hair.
Mrs. Hammond set down her own brush and called softly:
"Arthur!"
The whistling stopped. Mr. Hammond put down his brushes and began to
flex and unflex his arms, then ran his hands down the firm line from
his arm-pits to his thighs.
"Hardly an ounce of spare flesh, by gosh," he remarked irrelevantly.
"Few chaps o' my age could say the same thing. Have you seen Ted
Hobson? great coarse-looking, over-fed fellow, he's grown. Lifts his
elbow a bit too often they say. Nothing like that for----"
"Arthur, you know I think that while Clare is here we ought to give a
dinner-party."
"Of course I don't object to a moderate tipple myself----"
A little pucker of thought appeared on Mrs. Hammond's forehead. "I
was thinking of just a few people, the Marshall Gurneys perhaps, and
Colonel Cartwright, and Mr. Vaughan now that Delia's away. Arthur! Are
you listening?"
"Yes, yes, my dear. Let 'em all come. Have a dozen dinner-parties for
all I care."
"And the Neales, Arthur. I returned her call yesterday, but she was
out with those everlasting dogs."
"Knows a good dog, the old lady. Yes, go ahead. Ask the Neales. Ask
the Prince of Wales. Ask the whole blooming royal family."
"Arthur, I do wish that you would take this seriously. You know
perfectly well that it's as much your duty as mine to do what you can
for the girls."
"Oho! It's the girls, is it? And what do you expect to get for them
out of all this fussification, eh?" He stood in the doorway now
between the two rooms, smiling down at her, his eyes twinkling with
amusement. "Are you going to marry Connie off to the vicar?"
"You needn't pretend to be stupid when you aren't," snapped Mrs.
Hammond. When she saw him in a good temper she could sometimes take a
holiday from her habitual patience.
She began to gather up her rings, and slip them one after the other on
to her white fingers. Here was the diamond half-hoop, her engagement
ring. Arthur had been generous but unoriginal. Here was the emerald
that he had bought during their honeymoon. Here, the ruby set between
two splendid pearls that he had bought her after that affair. She
twisted it round on her finger reflectively. Her gentle face hardened.
From the dressing-room she could hear her husband jingling pencils,
pennies and his watch, as he transferred them from the chest to his
pockets. "Does he still keep her photograph in his watch case?" she
wondered. That would be like Arthur, to repent extravagantly, and then
to keep one little trace of his misdeed to sigh over.
Mrs. Hammond was not a sentimentalist. She clapped the ruby ring down
on top of the emerald and diamond, and smiled faintly without too much
bitterness as she heard the faint whirring sound of Arthur winding up
his watch. It was his inevitable prelude to descent for breakfast.
"You'll order some more Burgundy, Arthur, won't you?"
"Better have a few bottles of fizz up while we're about it, hadn't
we?" Mr. Hammond was dressed and disposed to take the world and the
dinner-party more seriously. Like many middle-aged men he laid aside
maturity with his clothes, and looked like a schoolboy in pyjamas,
feeling like one too.
"Not champagne, I think, Arthur. We don't want to be thought
ostentatious. Things must be right."
Reluctantly he agreed. Though his taste in parties differed from hers,
he had to admit that in these things she was right. Although he
chaffed her, he paid this tribute of acknowledgment to the long years
of patient sowing of the social ground in Marshington until now at
last the Neales were ripe for harvest.
Half amused at the object of her ambition, pleased to allow her to
please herself if that did not interfere with his comfort, proud that
she was successful in the quest that she had undertaken, Arthur
Hammond went downstairs to order some more of the best Burgundy.
X
Dinner was over. It had succeeded so far beyond Mrs. Hammond's wildest
dreams. Mrs. Neale had talked dogs and horses with Mr. Hammond, and
Clare had been effectively subdued between Colonel Cartwright and the
curate. The colonel himself had lent a distinguished air of political
interest to the party, proving that these "confounded Radicals will be
the death of the country, Mrs. Hammond. All this talk of Home Rule and
Insurance and whatnot. What I say is that the people were happy enough
before Lloyd George began to give 'em eightpennyworth of conceit of
themselves." Mrs. Marshall Gurney, whose efforts to disengage Godfrey
Neale's attention from Muriel had been unavailing, had been forced to
console herself with the admirable saddle of mutton and the carnations
from Kingsport, ninepence each. And the _soufflé_ had been a dream,
and Connie looked quite nice in her blue dress, and, best of all,
something had happened to Muriel to startle her out of her usual dumb
nervousness. Godfrey Neale really seemed to be quite taken by her. Why
not? Mrs. Hammond looking down the charmingly appointed table smiled
to herself. Why not, indeed, why not?
Afterwards, when the men reappeared from their cigars and excellent
port, there was music in the drawing-room. As he entered, Godfrey
Neale looked hurriedly round the room for Clare Duquesne. He was
uneasy and puzzled. All through the interminable dinner he had
searched across the barrier of flowers for Clare's charming face, but
the ninepenny carnations had blocked his view. Once he heard her
laugh, full-throated and merry. And all the time Muriel's prim little
voice had told him tale after tale of Clare at school, Clare on the
Continent, Clare galloping wildly along the sands at Hardrascliffe on
a rough hackney, after a mad Saturday outing with a school friend's
brother. Godfrey felt somehow that he would not have liked that
brother, but he listened to the tales, greedy for more. Muriel,
delighted to find in a man such unexpected interest and sympathy,
unlocked to him the doors of her mind, and poured forth all the
wistful hero-worship hitherto suppressed for fear of ridicule.
Godfrey, completely oblivious of her, sunned himself in the wonder of
Clare's swift vitality. Only when Muriel had left the past for the
future did he check her with abrupt, almost discourteous questioning,
afflicted suddenly again with his worst kind of stammering. She had
faltered then, played with her fork, and looked up at him with wide,
wondering eyes. So, for a moment, he had seen, not Clare, but Muriel,
facing her as for the first time and noticing her solemn childish
face, her mobile mouth, and the questioning trustfulness of her slow,
quiet glance.
In a moment she had answered his question, and each lost the sense of
the other in the concentration of their thoughts on Clare.
At first, on looking round the drawing-room, he did not see her;
then she became clear to him, withdrawn from the circle round the
fireplace, sitting with head erect against a heavy background of dark
curtains. The gloom of the unlit window-bay had quenched the glowing
crimson of her dress, but its folds of still brocade flowed round her
like the drapery in a Pre-Renaissance drawing. The dress covered her
arms, but left her shoulders bare, so that her clasped hands lay
together on her lap like a pale flower, and the faint glimmer of her
perfect shoulders moved him to sudden anger against the shadow that
robbed him of the purity of their line.
Why did she wear that queer outrageous dress? Why had she never spoken
to him before dinner, but only smiled demurely as she bowed? What
right had she to come straight from Ostend and Naples to Marshington,
where the girls were all dull and stiff? Besides, she was fast. That
ridiculous exhibition at the station. That was just the sort of thing
that Godfrey hated. And his mother disliked her, though as usual she
said nothing, and--well, altogether Godfrey felt that he had good
reason to be angry with Clare Duquesne.
He pushed his way through the chairs to the window seat, disregarding
Mrs. Hammond's gentle invitation and Phyllis Marshall Gurney's pallid
smile. He sat down on the narrow window seat beside her, making
himself as uncomfortable as possible out of spite against her. There
was a wretched draught.
"Are you going to sing, Miss Duquesne?" he asked.
His usually friendly voice bristled with his grievance.
Clare looked up at him in surprise. "Who told you that I sang?"
"Miss Hammond told me during dinner that you are going to be a
professional singer. Are you?"
Clare laughed, still sitting upright with her hands lying on her
wine-red dress. He could only see the profile of her face.
"That is as may be. It is not so easy as I had thought to become a
great prima donna. They want me to work. I detest working." She
shrugged her bare, smooth shoulders. "Life is too short for spending
its best years in stuffy German parlours singing scales that no one
but an old professor wants to hear." Suddenly she turned upon him her
full loveliness. "Why do you ask?"
"I--I----" Godfrey Neale himself was at a loss for words, feeling
gauche as any country bumpkin.
"Do you disapprove?" Clare continued cheerfully.
"Yes," he said, unreasoningly rude. "I do. Decidedly. You, singing for
the public, for just any ass----"
She opened her dark eyes very wide. "But why not? Not all the public
are asses. Besides, my mother does it. She acts."
"Oh, I did--didn't mean that. I mean, it seems somehow such a waste."
"Waste? _Comme vous êtes drôle! Ils sont tous fous, les anglais_." She
laughed again, teasing him, knowing how much he hated for her to speak
French, partly because it was a foreign language, partly because he
dreaded more than anything in the world that she should make a fool of
him. "Why a waste? Is it not better to sing for the many than for the
few?"
"No, no. It is not." He fumbled indignantly with his ideas, only
knowing that he could not bear the thought of her, standing on show
for any fool to gape at, any ill-bred, foreign fool, greasy Germans,
nincompoop Frenchmen, Italians--ugh!
"How very English you are, Mr. Neale. That proprietary instinct. You
want everything for yourself, land, ladies, music. You would like to
put up a notice on me like you put up on your woods. 'Trespassers will
be prosecuted.'"
"When did you see my woods?"
"Hush, I want to hear Mr. Smallwood sing."
Godfrey could not sing. He disliked fellows who chirruped inanely in
drawing-rooms; but he had to sit there, consoling himself by watching
Clare's intent, uplifted face.
"O flower of all the world, O flower of all,
I see thee in my garden and I dare
To love thee, and though my deserts be small,
Thou art the only flower I would wear."
"O flower of all the world," thought Godfrey, seeing only Clare's
glowing dress, her hands, her perfect arms.
"I dare to love thee," triumphed Dennis Smallwood's pleasant baritone
voice.
Clare Duquesne was going back to Germany, to flirt with dapper little
German officers. A good thing that she was going. Godfrey knew her
type.
"A rotten song, that, isn't it?" he growled. "Smallwood plays a decent
game of tennis. I wish that he'd stick to it."
"He sings rather well. Ah! _Mon Dieu!_"
"What is it?" Godfrey was all solicitude.
"Nothing. Except that our friend Connie is going to sing, and I--I
have heard her before."
Her whisper soothed the young man's ruffled feelings. He did what all
the evening he had been intending not to do. This connection with the
Hammond _ménage_ had gone far enough. He said:
"Look here, do you ever care to ride, Miss Duquesne?"
"When I have a mount," she answered.
"When the birds go north again!" shrilled Connie.
"I wondered if perhaps, I've got rather a jolly little mare, a perfect
lady's hack. My mother was going to ride her, but she hasn't been
awfully fit, and hasn't been riding much. It would be a perfect
charity if you would be good enough to exercise her. If you could come
up one afternoon."
Clare smiled demurely. "Well, if Mrs. Hammond does not object, we
might all come up one afternoon."
"All?"
"Well, you can hardly expect me to go alone, surely?"
He saw that it was not possible, but a new scheme was at work in his
mind.
"Look here, I'll get the mater to ask up the Hammond girls one
afternoon next week, if you'll sing to us to-night."
Clare frowned. "You see," she confided, "I've received not exactly
orders but intimations that I am to keep in the background to-night.
I'll sing when I go to tea with your mother."
"You'll sing to-night," said Godfrey. He was determined now that she
should do so, not so much because he wanted to hear her, as because he
wanted her to do something just because he willed it. "Just wait until
Connie has sent those birds north again, and then you shall sing."
She shook her head, but as Connie left the piano, Godfrey rose.
"Mrs. Hammond," he said, "we have had a great stroke of luck. I have
persuaded Miss Duquesne to sing."
So Mrs. Hammond had to be delighted, and Clare followed Muriel to the
piano, and whispered to her. Muriel nodded once or twice, a frown of
responsibility upon her face. She was a good accompanist, and had
played for Clare many times at Heathcroft.
Mr. Hammond, leaning back in his chair, winked at Colonel Cartwright.
"Now we shall have a treat," he said.
Muriel began to play. Her soft dress faded into the white walls of the
room. Her hair was a brooding shadow above her earnest face. But about
Clare was nothing pale nor shadowy. Her vivid dress had caught all
light and colour from the room, and held them, glowing with barbaric
splendour. She stood, not stooping over her music like the Marshington
young ladies, but by herself in front of the piano, her head lifted
proudly with the triumphant power of undaunted youth.
The accompaniment paused. The last chord hung for a moment poised
above the waiting stillness. Across the room Clare looked full into
the expectant face of Godfrey Neale.
Then she sang.
She had chosen Mignon's song, and at first she sang plaintively the
cry of the lost maiden. But, at the end of the verse, with the
sweeping melody of the refrain, she released the full power of her
voice.
"Kennst du es wohl? Dahin! Dahin!
Möcht' ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter, ziehn."
Mrs. Hammond pulled herself together. She could not understand German.
Neither, she was thankful to reflect, could Arthur or the girls; but
of one thing she was certain. No one could have sung with such
impassioned appeal a song that was completely proper.
She decided that Clare must sing no more.
Directly the song was over, she rose amid the spontaneous applause
that for once replaced the conventional thanks of Marshington "musical
at homes."
"Thank you so much, Clare, dear. That was very nice. And how clever of
you to remember all that German by heart. You must have worked very
hard. And now, Arthur, did you say that you were going to carry the
colonel and Mr. Neale off to bridge? Mr. Vaughan, you play, don't
you?"
So Godfrey heard Clare sing no more, but at the end of the evening,
when the company met again to say good-bye, she smiled up at him.
"Well," she said, "and when are we coming to tea?"
All the way home in his mother's stuffy little brougham, Godfrey
forgot Clare and talked about the roof to be repaired on the
Thaskholme cottages, and the agent at Mardlehammar; but as he ran up
the shallow steps of the Weare Grange he suddenly saw Clare standing,
the delicate contour of her face outlined against the curtain, her
provocative smile teasing him.
"Damned pretty little minx," he told himself, determined that he would
not be caught so soon. And, as he undressed, the song which he found
himself whistling, with a cheerful disregard for time or tune, was not
Clare's song, but Dennis Smallwood's.
"O flower of all the world, O flower of all."
XI
During the morning, Connie had hoped that it would rain; but wind and
weather never favoured her. She walked mutinously along the muddy
road, splashing in and out of puddles in the vain hope that she might
thus leave her mark upon Clare's polished boots. How exactly like
Clare, to be walking booted and habited along the road to the Weare
Grange to ride with Godfrey Neale, while Connie, who adored horses,
was only going to tea with his mother.
"And she's mad," reflected Connie bitterly.
"It was nice of him to send for the saddle," remarked Clare. "I
thought that I should have to walk there carrying it on my head like
the ladies walk in Palestine."
"What?" said Connie wearily. "Have you been there too?"
Muriel laughed nervously. It was difficult to keep the peace.
"We've never been allowed to ride since Father's accident," she
said. "Years ago he let his favourite horse down on the road from
Kepplethorpe market. It was badly hurt, I think, and he had two ribs
broken. But he was frightfully angry with it for failing him, so he
never said anything to anyone, though he must have been in great
pain. He just walked back to the house and got his gun, and went back
and shot it. He fainted afterwards, and was brought home and was
frightfully ill for ages, and when he got better he sold all his
hunters and wouldn't let any of us ride again. But he loves driving."
"Ah, poor Mr. Hammond," murmured Clare, but without much interest, for
the road had turned, and to the right the hedge was broken by tall
gates of delicately wrought ironwork, as fragile in appearance and
as strong in reality as the barrier that enclosed the Neales from
Marshington. Beyond the gates, half a mile of straight, shining road
led to the grey square house. There was no park, but in the fields
between the house and highway fine elms and chestnuts spread their
naked boughs above the great Weare cattle, grazing with slow serenity
on the vivid grass.
"So this is the Weare Grange," observed Clare. "What a delightful
house! But, _Dieu_, how dull to live here all the year round."
But to Muriel the place was magic. She could not believe that real
people moved behind those solemn windows. The still winter day, the
cold light of the pale sun, the mouldering stonework of the terrace,
were all part of a waking dream. A thrush, starting suddenly from a
wet bough, shook down the rain-drops on to her face. She woke from her
dream. This was the Weare Grange. She and Connie and Clare were going
there to tea. This was the amazing adventure which the gods had
brought her.
She did hope that Connie would behave.
The bell of the Weare Grange was one of the most powerful defences of
that social fortress. It had a round, rusty head, and a long, stringy
neck. Muriel put up her hand (and incidentally her new glove) and
pulled. There was a harsh screeching sound. The neck extended three
good inches from the wall. She let it go. Nothing happened. She pulled
again. No faintest tinkle reached her ears.
"Let me try," said Connie.
"No, no, it may have rung."
They waited on the shallow steps, smudged with bird droppings and the
multitudinous paw-marks of the dogs. Muriel's courage began to trickle
away more rapidly than it had come. No wonder that only the Marshall
Gurneys from all Marshington had dared to call upon the Neales. That
bell was in itself a social snub.
"You're no good. Let me try," urged Connie. She thrust Muriel aside,
pressing her knee against the wall, and tugged at the bell with both
hands. A grinding, screeching sound, followed by a far-off tinkle,
rewarded her just as a cheerful-faced young manservant appeared in
answer to Muriel's second ring.
He took Muriel unprepared.
"Er--er--is Mrs. Neale at home?"
There was a blurred vision of vast hall, a confusion of shy greetings,
the departure of Godfrey and Clare to the stables, and the fortress
was entered.
"Once we really get started it will be easier," Muriel told herself.
It was not so. Mrs. Neale had dragged herself away from her kennels
and rabbit-hutches at her son's request, but even her devotion to him
could not make her genial to the Hammond girls. She disliked the whole
affair, and only the knowledge that she could not stop it had brought
her to face Muriel and Connie, seated in her great eighteenth-century
drawing-room, across the wreckage of her afternoon.
She attacked Muriel first.
"Do you ride too?" she asked.
"No, I'm afraid I don't."
"I often used to meet your father with the Weare Valley hounds."
Muriel nodded dumbly.
There was a pause.
"Your sister ride?"
Connie made no answer. She was looking through the long windows, from
which she could see Clare and Godfrey cantering side by side along the
level green of the wet grass.
Mrs. Neale turned again to Muriel.
"You like dogs?"
"Not very much."
"Cats?" flashed Mrs. Neale.
"Fairly, when they're clean."
A withering glance. "Perhaps you like goldfish?"
"Fairly. Yes. I mean I do rather," confessed the hapless Muriel.
Enchanted castles are apt to conceal an ogress or two. Mrs. Neale felt
disposed to let the Weare Grange live up to its reputation. Between
her abrupt boredom and Muriel's timidity, the afternoon appeared
interminable to Connie. She hated the white and draughty drawing-room.
She hated the small gilt clock ticking in the corner. She hated
the mixture of ceremony and discomfort, of wealth and squalor that
characterized the house shared by Godfrey and his mother. The place
seemed to be getting at her, making her feel vulgar and schoolgirlish.
The thought of Clare and Godfrey riding together in the winter
sunshine maddened her with jealousy.
But it was Muriel who relieved the situation.
After a longer pause than ever, she looked round the room and saw a
single photograph on a table near the fire-place.
"Is that Mr. Neale when he was a little boy?" she asked in desperation.
That was enough for Mrs. Neale. Upon one subject alone could she
be trusted to break her habitual silence, and Muriel's ingenuous
questioning went direct to her heart. From the drawing-room to the
smoking-room, from the smoking-room to the long gallery marched the
procession of three, recapitulating pictorially and photographically
the stupendous progress of Godfrey Neale from the nursery to
Oxford, and from Oxford to the mastership of the Weare Grange and
Mardlehammar. Connie, stumbling behind the other two, tripping over
dogs and carpentering tools, grew full and more full of passionate
resentment. When the riders appeared again by the terrace, so warm,
so happy, so pleased with life and with themselves, Connie, who was
neither warm nor happy, nor pleased, could bear it no longer.
"Well," snapped Mrs. Neale, with her stiff smile that seemed to creak
from lack of use. "Good ride?"
"Ripping. Golden Girl went like a bird, and Miss Duquesne is a real
sp--sportswoman."
Connie pushed her way past Muriel down the terrace steps.
"Mr. Neale, can I try?"
"Oh, Connie," began Muriel's shocked voice.
"Do you ride, Miss Hammond? I'm so sorry. I thought that you didn't. I
would have found you a mount," lied Godfrey.
"I used to ride a lot before Father had his accident and would not let
us any more."
The story was well known in Marshington, where picturesque incidents
were not common. Here was a trouble that Mrs. Neale could understand.
"If she really wants to, let her have a trot down the drive while I
order tea."
"Connie, you can't. You can't really," protested Muriel. To have
stormed successfully the Neale citadel, to have come creditably
through the ordeal of the drawing-room, and then for Connie to behave
like this, was too bad.
But Connie was determined. The dogged look which Mrs. Hammond knew
well upon her husband's face had descended upon Connie.
As for Godfrey, he had no desire to ride with a lumpish schoolgirl
after that wonderful afternoon, and yet even he felt a slight
compunction at the way in which he had used the two Hammond girls. He
knew the glacial atmosphere of his mother's drawing-room.
"But she hasn't a habit or anything," Muriel pleaded.
"That doesn't matter. I have often ridden without," laughed Clare.
"Here, take my whip."
She held Golden Girl for Godfrey, while he went to tie his own horse
to a ring on the terrace wall. She watched him loosen Blue Boy's
girths and tie one end of the reins round the ring.
"Aren't you going to ride?" asked Connie.
But even for his conscience' sake Godfrey would not risk the breaking
of the yellow mare's knees.
"No, I think I shall walk this time."
Connie stood before the mare. Somehow she seemed to have grown
miraculously taller. The saddle upon which her rider must sit was
miles up in the air. The chestnut head tossed restlessly. Even
Clare's caressing fingers could not quell the baleful frenzy of the
rolling eye.
Godfrey returned.
"Now, put your foot on my knee, Miss Hammond, and hold the reins so,
and the saddle here. I shall count one, two, three, up. When I say
up, you must jump. Don't worry about the stirrup. That comes later."
Connie obeyed the directions. Golden Girl seemed to grow before her
like Alice in Wonderland after she had eaten the magic cake. Was it a
cake she ate? Connie could not remember. She could hardly see the sky,
or Clare, or Godfrey. A huge yellow mare blotted out heaven and earth.
"One, two, three, UP!" called Godfrey. "Oh, but you must jump, Miss
Hammond."
"So sorry. I wasn't quite ready," lied Connie. "Will you count again?"
"One, two, three, JUMP!"
Connie jumped. Unluckily the mare jumped also, and Connie landed back
into a puddle sending a shower of water over Godfrey's perfect
breeches.
"Oh, Connie, give it up. Don't make a fool of yourself," whispered
Muriel. Then she remembered her own school-days, and the rock. "Look
how you are splashing poor Mr. Neale."
"That's all right," said Godfrey heroically. After all it was the
Hammond girl who was making a fool of herself, not he. "Now then,
we'll try again."
Connie jumped. A strong hand seemed to lift her up, up into the cold
clear air. She jumped with such a will that she almost seemed to fall
on to the other side of the mare, but not quite. There she was,
mounted at last, while Godfrey Neale placed her muddy boot in the
stirrup, and Clare arranged her short serge skirt.
"Ah, now that is excellent," said Clare. "Hold the reins so, and press
your left knee well against the pommel. Sit square and face the
horse's head."
"You and your horse's head!" laughed Connie. "You talk as though I'd
never been up before."
But for all her defiant gaiety, she felt that indeed she hardly had.
Golden Girl was different from the old, lop-lobbing pony. When she
thrust down her disquieting head, there seemed to be little enough
between Connie and the gravel drive. Still there she was. She looked
patronizingly down at the group below, at Mrs. Neale, grimly amused,
at Clare laughing back at her, at Muriel, white-faced and anxious.
"I'm ready," she said.
They began to walk sedately down the drive. Now that Golden Girl was
actually moving, Connie found it less alarming. Indeed, she told
herself, it was good beyond all dreams of goodness. The great house
gaped at her from a score of long, blank windows. On the steps stood
Clare, now only a spectator in the drama, and by the side of the mare
walked Godfrey Neale, Connie's companion for as long as she could keep
the mare's head turned away from the house down the long drive.
"You all right?" he asked.
"Rather. Don't bother to hold the reins, please. I'm really quite used
to it."
Dubiously he let her go. Just to show her independence, she touched
the mare lightly with her whip. It started.
"Steady, steady, old girl. Ride her on the snaffle, Miss Hammond. Her
mouth's awfully sensitive. She won't stand the curb."
Curbs and snaffles were all the same to Connie. These slippery,
writhing strips of leather slid through her hands as the mare tossed
her head. She struggled to arrange them to her satisfaction. In
another minute Mr. Neale might say, "Don't you think that we had
better turn?" and back they would go to that awful drawing-room and
to Clare's easy triumph.
Connie sat straight, her red, wind-blown head high. The reins slipped
in her left hand, but her right held Clare's riding-crop. She would
show them that even if she could not ride like Clare she too was a
sportswoman.
Again she flicked her whip. The mare broke into an uneasy trot,
shaking Connie up and down in the unfamiliar saddle.
"Hold hard," called Godfrey, stretching out his hand for the slack
rein.
"It's all right. This is splendid," cried Connie and, with set teeth,
gave the mare another cut.
The mare shuddered. For one moment Connie felt the earth rise to meet
her. Then she was suddenly jolted down into the saddle. The shaking
trot gave place to a rhythmical rise and fall, the wind brushed past
her, touching her wide bright eyes, her flying hair, and Connie was
away at full gallop down the drive.
"Stop her," cried Clare, running down the terrace steps. "Stop her,
you idiot. The mare's bolting."
"It's all right. The gate will stop her," Godfrey called. For all his
swiftness he could not reach her now.
"It won't. We left it open. Don't you remember?"
"Oh, damn!" Connie mattered less to Godfrey than the mare, but both
were serious propositions.
He stopped now. Clare, running, was nearly up to him. He faced her on
the drive. There was nobody else in the world then but Clare and
Godfrey, looking for some solution of the problem into each other's
eyes. Muriel, hurrying behind Clare, felt this even then.
Without a word, Clare ran back to Blue Boy.
"Quick. You must catch her before she reaches the road," she said,
tugging at the knotted strap.
"The girth's not fastened," cried Muriel, who knew just enough to see
this.
Godfrey never listened. He was mounted, had turned, and was off along
the drive in pursuit of Connie's flying figure.
The yellow mare was going hard, making for the gate at the south end
of the drive. Godfrey, seeing this, swerved suddenly to the right.
"Where's he going? The gate's not there," cried Muriel, running
blindly along the drive. Clare followed, picking her way delicately
among the chalky puddles. Then she stopped, watching the stooping
figure on the great black horse.
"He's going to take the hedge. And he said that he'd never found a
horse to leap it yet! Bravo, the sportsman!" she breathed. Her eyes
shone. A smile of excitement parted her lips. The dimple flickered
on her cheek.
Muriel gasped. "To jump? With his girth unfastened, and only one
rein?" She nearly sobbed. "He'll never do it."
"He will. He will. Did you ever see such riding?"
Above the blackness of the hedge, against the transparent, water-coloured
shimmer of the sky, the great horse and his rider thrust up suddenly a
black silhouette. They hung for a moment thus, poised between earth
and sky, then disappeared.
"Ah, good," whispered Clare, with a little sigh of pure enjoyment.
"But they'll be killed," moaned Muriel.
"Not they," laughed Clare.
The two girls walked in silence down the drive. By the gate the
hoof-marks swerved to one side, cutting deeply into the turf, as
though Connie had made one desperate effort to pull up. Then they
went on again, along the rough, chalk road.
"They've gone a long way," remarked Clare imperturbably. "Your sister
is having a good run for her money."
"Oh, Clare, don't joke. What if they are killed?"
"Killed? Nonsense. Why, here they are!"
Over the brow of the rising ground they came, Godfrey leading both the
horses, Connie by his side, limping a little, spattered with mud from
head to foot, her hair wild, her cheeks flaming.
"I didn't fall off," she announced jubilantly. "Not until right at the
very end. Oh, it was glorious. I galloped, and Mr. Neale galloped. We
had a race, hadn't we, Mr. Neale? Did you see him jump the hedge? Oh,
Muriel, you do look queer. Your eyes are popping out of your head.
Were you frightened? I wasn't frightened a bit, although we went at
a terrific rate right down the field."
"I was," laughed Godfrey. "I was in a blue funk."
Clare looked at him. "How high is that fence?"
"I don't know. N--nothing much." It confronted them then, laced thick
and high with blackthorn, a nasty obstacle under the best conditions.
"With a loose girth and one rein," half-whispered Clare. "That was
great riding, Mr. Neale."
They walked back to the house together, Connie chattering all the way.
She was upborne upon the wings of triumph. She had conquered her fear,
conquered Muriel's prudishness, and Clare's attractions, and the
indifference of the Weare Grange. She was happy.
Muriel saw her happiness with a sudden heartache, for she saw also
what Connie did not see.
She saw that this adventure was not even their adventure. It was
Clare's and Godfrey's--Clare's because she had taken upon herself the
command of rescue, Godfrey's because her whisper of praise had fallen
upon him like an accolade. Connie had been merely a pretext for
Godfrey to perform deeds of daring before Clare. At tea-time, though
with remorseful attention Godfrey handed to Connie cakes and little
biscuits such as she loved, it was Clare to whom, in the intervals of
his duties as a host, he turned and smiled.
XII
There was an unwritten rule at Miller's Rise that one bathed at night,
not in the morning. Morning baths consumed the washing-up water, and
even if they did not they had not been the custom, and so were not
approved. Muriel, who accepted all domestic theories with reverence,
frowned anxiously as, on her way to her mother's room, she heard
Clare's voice upraised in ablutionary song behind the bathroom door.
Ever since the episode of the ride a week before, Muriel had been
worried by her mother's attitude to Clare.
Mrs. Hammond was polishing her nails when Muriel came in. It was their
custom to hold a little conference in Mrs. Hammond's room before
breakfast if Mr. Hammond had left the house early upon business.
"Well, dear? You dressed? Are you tired after last night?" Mrs.
Hammond's nails shone like polished pink glass as she held them up to
the light. "Muriel, that wasn't Clare whom I heard just now in the
bathroom, was it? Didn't Annie take her some hot water? Surely you
told her that we----"
"I expect it was because of the dance last night. It was too late to
bath when we came in." Recently, Muriel always seemed to be explaining
Clare's actions to her mother. It was a duty that she hated.
"I think it unnecessary. Clare is evidently a little selfish, or else
inconsiderate. This house is not a hotel."
Wasn't it? For a moment of bitterness, Muriel wondered whether to
Clare it was much more. She crossed to the window, and stood looking
out into the rain-soaked garden.
"Muriel," her mother's voice continued from the dressing-table, "do
you know how long your friend intends to stay?"
"Her father comes to England on the 24th." Muriel knew what would
follow.
"Oh." There was another pause. Muriel could hear the soft brush, brush
of her mother's nail pad. "Well, of course that's all right. We can
manage, I suppose, though of course it comes rather hard on me now
that I am so busy over Christmas and everything. Still, if Clare likes
to take us as she finds us, I dare say that we shall get through.
Still I had thought that perhaps she would have been able to---- Oh,
and that reminds me, about Saturday night, dear, at the Warings'.
There is no need when we go out like that for Clare to push herself
forward in that way. She is only our visitor, after all, and that
time Mrs. Waring particularly wanted to hear how Connie's singing had
improved. There was no _need_ for a stranger to monopolize the whole
programme."
"But they kept asking Clare to sing."
"Naturally, they had to say something out of politeness, but nobody
meant her to go on and on like that. However, I should not have
mentioned even that if it had not been for last night."
Muriel could feel the stiffening of her mother's figure before the
looking-glass. She, too, braced herself for battle.
"I--I don't know what you mean, mother."
"Now you know perfectly well what I mean. Clare is a very nice girl in
a way, and up till now it has been quite a pleasant visit. I have
managed to keep things running smoothly. But I realize that, with her
continental upbringing, she has rather different standards from those
which we think proper in Marshington. How many dances did she have
last night with Godfrey Neale?"
Then Muriel knew that Clare would have to go.
"Oh, five or six perhaps. But----"
Between the mist-shrouded valley and the sodden lawn, Muriel could see
a vision of Clare and Godfrey as they had danced together, of Clare's
laughing face, of her strong young arm pressed firmly against his
black coat, of the swing and balance of their turning figures. She
caught her breath.
"Well," remarked Mrs. Hammond, "that may be all right for Ostend, but
when you consider the position that Godfrey holds in Marshington----"
The dancing figures swayed towards Muriel. So near they came, they
almost warmed her with their glowing happiness. She pressed her small,
cold hands against the window-sill, and gazed out towards the dripping
trees.
"Just come and fasten my dress, dear. No, the bottom hooks first.
Clare's very selfish. She wants everything for herself."
Was she? Was she? Muriel, fastening hooks and eyes at complicated
angles knew that in spite of last night, in spite of everything, she
had a fierce desire for Clare to stay. What if she did dance with
Godfrey Neale? Who else could match her for charm and for daring? Yet,
even while Muriel told herself that this was as it should be, she
remembered the dragging hours of the Kingsport dance, while she sat by
the wall and the couples passed her, the girls' dresses swinging out
against her knees. She remembered how she had tried to compose her
face into an interested yet indifferent smile above her fan, as though
she did this sort of thing because she liked it, not because her
mother's valiant efforts to fill her programme were unavailing.
That fear of being left out was horrible.
"If Clare does go," thought Muriel, "that won't make Godfrey look at
me."
She went downstairs to order breakfast. "If Clare doesn't go, Godfrey
will never look at anyone else." Why care whom Godfrey looked at, whom
he knew? Why did she feel this silent force of her mother's will
coming between her and the most glorious friendship that she could
ever know? Who cared if Clare danced every dance with Godfrey
Neale--not that she would, because she said that he bored her just a
little when he was not riding or dancing or doing something with his
body?
If only all the people whom she loved would care for one another and
not make her feel disloyal because she could not share in their
distastes, how simple life would be!
As she ran downstairs, Muriel heard her mother meet Clare on the
landing.
"Well, Clare, good morning. How are you after last night? Not tired?
That's right. I'm so glad. _So_ nice you looked too!"
XIII
Clare went; the winter dances came, and Muriel's programme still
remained half empty. Connie returned to Heathcroft. Aunt Beatrice came
to stay and went. Muriel continued to be grown up. Her hair sat more
securely on her shoulders now. She grew accustomed to the whiteness of
her neck above an evening frock. She paid calls with her mother; she
dusted the drawing-room. She went to church assiduously, seeking in
the Early Service for an emotional satisfaction that she could find no
other way. She bought and read shilling copies of the classics. She
began to study Astronomy with the help of three second-hand textbooks
and a toy telescope, but here she found herself handicapped by lack of
instruments and tuition. She did the Nursing Club accounts for her
mother, who was at this time much occupied by charitable works.
She took piano lessons with Fräulein Heissler every Wednesday in
Kingsport. The days passed quickly enough, and yet something seemed to
be lacking. Then, in April, came Clare's letter.
Muriel dear, it may amuse you to hear that I am going to be
married. His name is Ferdinando Alvarados. He is a Spaniard, but
he lives mostly in South America, where it is gloriously warm and
you live on oranges and play the guitar. I am not going to have
a career, thank Heaven, but I'm going to try being very rich
instead. Félix and Mamma are disappointed but resigned, and Ferdie
is the most amusing thing God ever made. I adore him and am very
happy. Needless to say, he thinks that I am the loveliest thing in
the world, which just shows his good taste. When are you going to
get married? How is dear, quaint Marshington? Did I ever write to
thank you for the good time that you gave me there? I don't
believe I did. Forgive me. I never was brought up properly, as I
think that your mother saw. If you ever see Mr. Neale now, tell
him that I never met a nicer mount than Golden Girl. My cousin's
gees in Ireland were nothing to her.
Yours to eternity,
CLARE.
The letter came the day before the Conservative Club Picnic. Politics
in Marshington were of particularly acute interest that year. Mrs.
Marshall Gurney, it is true, held the presidency of the Club for the
third time running, but when Mrs. Hobson was elected treasurer Mrs.
Waring had to replace Mrs. Parker as the secretary.
"Whatever the men may choose to do," said Mrs. Parker, justly
indignant, "I will not countenance the introduction of just anyone
on our committee. Hobson himself may be a very decent man and a
good Conservative. But we never have had a publican's wife on the
committee, and if I can stop it we never will. Even if the Duchess
of Northumbria goes in for indiscriminate toleration, in Annabelle
Marshall Gurney that sort of thing is pure affectation. One might as
well be a Radical, like all the Nonconformist clerks in Marshall
Gurney's office."
So Mrs. Parker left the committee, and Mrs. Waring reigned in her
stead. Mrs. Hammond, who had only recently decided to show an interest
in politics ("The new Conservative candidate was such a nice man"),
after some mental struggle resolved not to follow Mrs. Parker into the
wilderness, although she had once been a useful ally, but declared
herself a supporter of Democracy and Mrs. Marshall Gurney.
It was therefore particularly distressing that the day before the
picnic Mr. Hammond should have announced himself to be unwell, and
have retired to bed.
"Oh, well, dear," Mrs. Hammond told Muriel, "you will just have to go
alone."
"Oh, no, Mother. I should hate to do that. Do let me stay and look
after Father, you know that there's nothing really wants doing. You go
instead."
"It's quite impossible." Mrs. Hammond picked up her husband's
supper-tray. "I like to think that you can enjoy yourself. Go along,
dear, and have a good time. I shall manage."
Muriel knew that her mother had wanted to go. She knew that, as far as
Mr. Hammond was concerned, the maids could have administered to his
wants. But she had slowly come to realize that the passion which had
once led Mrs. Hammond to commit her single social indiscretion could
still draw her aside from that concentration on her position which had
once or twice moved Muriel to vague uneasiness.
She had not wanted to go, and her spring hat had not come yet from
Kingsport, and the morning of the picnic had been strained and
harassed at home because of Father, and Mother's disappointment, and
the rest of it. By the time that she arrived at the yard from whence
the picnic was to start in hired waggonettes she was wishing that she
never need have come.
There stood Mrs. Marshall Gurney with a bunch of primroses on her
sables, and Mrs. Waring, looking elegantly worried as she stooped with
her _lorgnette_ over a bunch of papers, and Mrs. Hobson, fussing
backwards and forwards between the gate and the already laden
waggonettes. Everybody looked terribly smart and confident and self
absorbed. The space between Muriel and the waggonettes was painfully
wide. She wanted to shrink away on to her seat and be forgotten.
"Any room in the last waggonette?" called Mrs. Marshall Gurney.
"Quite full up," returned Mrs. Hobson, with the metallic crispness of
one who may have a Yorkshire accent but knows that she is as good as
many of those who haven't.
"Any room in your carriage, Phyllis?"
But Phyllis Marshall Gurney regretted that she had promised to keep
the only seat available in her carriage for somebody else, and blushed
deeply as she said it. Muriel was almost ready to retire defeated,
when Delia Vaughan called to her from the first carriage. Grateful but
embarrassed, Muriel went forward, and climbed in among the knees and
new tweed skirts of the élite of Marshington. She counted them
surreptitiously, Adelaide Waring and a cousin, Dennis Smallwood, Nancy
Cartwright, Bobby Mason and Delia. A man for every girl except
herself. Wise by experience, she sighed, thinking of the long day
before her. At Heathcroft, if you had no partner, you could at least
walk with the last couple in the crocodile. At Marshington it seemed
that you could only sit and look forlorn among the sandwiches.
The waggonettes waited.
"Are we never going to start?" asked Adelaide.
Mrs. Marshall Gurney and her committee were conferring hurriedly.
"Did anybody see Mr. Neale on the way down?"
Nobody had enjoyed that honour.
"I suppose that he _is_ coming?"
From every waggonette Muriel could feel the tension of anxiety. A
Primrose Picnic without Godfrey Neale would be like lamb without mint
sauce. Phyllis Marshall Gurney's pretty face grew pale beneath her
pink hat.
"Ah, here the conquering hero comes," laughed Nancy, who was still
secure in the pose of _enfant terrible_. "It's more effective to be
late, isn't it?"
Godfrey Neale strolled into the yard. His breeches were beautiful, his
smile the most disarming, his confidence superb. Phyllis Marshall
Gurney gripped more tightly the hand-rail of her waggonette. Delia
Vaughan nodded carelessly. Godfrey made his apology to the waiting
committee, and moved towards the carriages.
Muriel calculated rapidly. If he joined the waggonette in which she
sat he would make the numbers of males and females equal. She held her
breath.
Godfrey hailed Miles Buchanan in the last carriage, exchanged a
greeting with Phyllis Marshall Gurney in the second, and then climbed
up beside Delia Vaughan in the first. The carriages rattled down the
village street into a world glittering and green. In every meadow the
grass stretched upright blades like thirsty tongues to drink from the
dripping trees; but the clouds had broken and blew about a radiant
spring sky like wind-tossed feathers.
"It's going to be fine," observed Adelaide complacently. "I'm glad
that I put on my new light tweeds."
"Stunning," commented Dennis, exhibiting his well-shaped leg. "What
about my own light tweeds?"
Everybody seemed to be in high spirits. After all, the drive would not
be so bad, thought Muriel. She could watch the grey, flat road unwind
like ribbon behind the waggonette. She could see the clay-red furrows
of the ploughed land, and she could hear the cry of sea-birds circling
behind and around the plough. Some magic lingered in the fresh spring
air.
Lunch was pleasant enough too, although she found herself seated on an
unsteady log between Mrs. Hobson and Colonel Cartwright, who had
motored to the woods. He at least was bent upon enjoyment. As an old
campaigner he insisted upon showing every one how to do everything,
from lighting a fire with two matches, to opening ginger-beer bottles
with a walking-stick.
"Dangerous things, picnics," he declared to Muriel, determined to show
her how to be jolly too.
Anxious to learn, she said sedately:
"Why, Colonel?"
He winked at her. "Ah, the spring, and a young man's fancy, happy
hours and woodland bowers, and chaperons asleep under the trees."
"I don't think that that sounds very dangerous," said Muriel politely,
and received a light flutter of laughter from the party as a reward
for her _naïveté_.
But she was soon to learn where for her the danger lay.
After lunch Adelaide's cousin, Mr. Weathergay, said to Nancy:
"There's a jolly old church, I hear, at Ribbleswaite, that seems the
sort of thing one ought to see. Won't you show it to me?"
And Nancy giggled that churches weren't much in her line, but she
wouldn't mind a walk.
Then Miles Buchanan bore off Freda Mason, and her two brothers
wrangled for the right to escort Mrs. Farrell, a charming girl, who
was staying with the Warings. The company scattered into couples and
quartettes. Muriel still sat on her log, playing with a strand of
long coarse grass, and hating picnics.
She saw neither the budding woods nor the delicate cream of primroses
upon the banks. She saw only the ignominy of her own position, and
with averted head she dug her fingers into the soft turf as couple
after couple vanished through the trembling curtain of foliage. She
was glad that her mother was not there to see her shame, and yet this
probably only meant a short respite, because Mrs. Waring was certain
to betray, as she had done before, the curious solitude of Mrs.
Hammond's daughter.
From the other side of the abandoned meal she could hear Delia's
careless voice:
"Well, you can lie and smoke in the sun if you like, Godfrey. The
grass is wet, and you are growing fat from idleness, but I don't care.
I, the only Socialist among you, am going to celebrate Primrose Day
properly and pick primroses. Coming too, Muriel?"
No wonder that Delia was unpopular, monopolizing Godfrey all through
lunch, and then abandoning him to smoke his pipe alone. The sheer
wanton waste of it appalled Muriel. She shook her head.
"No, thank you," she said, shivering a little at her courage. To have
gone with Delia would have been to put an end to her misery, but it
would also have been a confession of defeat.
Delia went, and Muriel was left alone upon her log. Bobby Mason,
defeated by his brother in the contest for Mrs. Farrell, was
pretending to do something scientific to the fire, and Mrs. Marshall
Gurney was directing the repacking of the luncheon baskets. She looked
round the clearing, then beckoned Bobby majestically to her side.
"Go and make yourself agreeable to the Hammond girl, for goodness'
sake," she commanded. "We want to hold a committee meeting here."
Muriel could feel the young man approaching her. She guessed why he
had come. She was half crying with shame and weariness.
"Like to see the jolly old church, Miss Hammond?"
Dumbly she nodded. They too went.
The young birches curtsied round them. A delicate earthy scent of
ferns and leaf mould and wet grass rose to their nostrils. Muriel saw
and felt nothing, but she heard Bobby Mason say:
"Been to Burley Woods before, Miss Hammond?"
"No. Have you?"
"Er--no."
There was a pause.
"Going to play golf this year, Miss Hammond?"
"No. I don't think so. Are you?"
"No--er, in the office you know. Men like myself haven't much time."
"I suppose not."
The silence grew more gloomy.
Muriel rehearsed to herself the coming interview with her mother.
"And what did you do, dear?"
"Oh, I went for a walk to see an old church with Bobby Mason."
"Oh. That was nice, I expect. That boy's coming on, I think. They say
that he's doing very well in his father's office," followed by a swift
look at Muriel's face, and a reflection that the Masons were quite
successful timber merchants even if the boys were reputed to be a
little brainless.
Muriel did so much want to make her mother happy.
The silence oppressed them like a heavy weight. It grew fecund with
other silences. They walked through the springing woods.
It was like that all the afternoon.
Then, when they had returned to the clearing and had finished tea,
Delia returned. Godfrey Neale had gone to find her and they appeared
together. Her eyes shone. Her thin cheeks glowed with colour. An
elfish, secretive smile of happiness quivered on her lips, and her
hands were full of primroses and great sprays of beech leaves.
"Did you have a good time?" asked Phyllis Marshall Gurney wistfully.
Delia nodded. She was standing to eat her tea, for the rest had
finished. A thick slab of cake replaced the primroses, and she and
Godfrey swooped upon the last of the tartlets.
Muriel climbed into the waggonette, and sat still, hating Delia.
Somewhere in the woods that day had lurked happiness and beauty and
gay liberty. Delia, who cared for no one, who was selfish, had been
free to find them. And Godfrey Neale had followed her unsought.
She was talking to him now, softly under cover of the rattling of the
wheels, only Muriel with an effort could hear stray fragments of their
conversation. Delia was scolding him about some girl.
"My dear Godfrey, you are as tenacious of your rights over a practical
stranger as you are over your own tenants. The girl probably forgot
you months ago."
The carriage jolted on. Bobby smoked moodily. His duty for the day had
been done. Adelaide chatted with her cousin. Delia was talking again.
"You think too much of your unconquerable charm. You won't be fit to
speak to until quite three women have refused to marry you."
Godfrey pulled placidly at his pipe. He appeared to enjoy her
lecturing, as people do who prefer to have their personality
criticized rather than ignored.
Muriel thought that she understood. "They're talking about Clare," she
said to herself. "And he doesn't know that she's engaged." She felt
glad that she knew something which neither Delia nor Godfrey knew. She
was no longer powerless, but armed. She could, if she would, make a
difference to the lives of these two Olympians. She, Muriel, could one
day say to Godfrey Neale, "Do you know that my friend, Clare Duquesne,
is going to be married?" He would take notice of her then.
She still felt proud, though chilled and stiff, as she climbed out of
the waggonette, and said good-bye to Mrs. Marshall Gurney.
When Delia Vaughan suggested, "I'm going your way. Shall we walk
together?" she answered with indifference, as though she were
accustomed to such offers.
"Well, and how do you like living at Marshington?" asked Delia as they
left the yard.
"Very much, thank you," she answered primly.
"Good, what do you do with yourself all day?"
"I help my mother. We have been very busy with the Nursing Club
lately. And I sew a good deal. And I study music and astronomy."
"Music and astronomy?" The vicar's daughter looked at her in genuine
surprise. "How delightfully mediæval that sounds! But why astronomy?
You can't study it in Marshington properly, can you? Do you mean it
seriously? Are you going to college or somewhere?"
Muriel shook her head. "Oh, no. I could not go away. My mother and
father need me at home. I just do a little reading on my own."
Delia looked wonderingly at her small, secret face. "Look here," she
began, "you can't go on like that, you know. If you are really keen on
a thing, and it's a good thing, you ought to go and do it. It is no
use waiting till people tell you that you may go. Asking permission is
a coward's way of shifting responsibility on to some one else. Reading
at Marshington! It's only a sort of disguise for the futility of life
here. I know. I've tried it."
She was warming up to her favourite topic. Her dark eyes glowed above
the trailing boughs of beech. Muriel, unaccustomed to exhibitions of
strong feeling, looked coldly at her.
"Do you seriously intend to stay here all your life?" asked Delia. "To
wash dishes that the next meal will soil, to arrange flowers that will
wither in a week, to walk in fear and trembling of what Mrs. Marshall
Gurney will say, although you know quite well that she hasn't got the
intelligence to say anything worth saying?"
Intelligence? Muriel remembered how once she had suggested to Aunt
Beatrice that she would like to go to college, and Aunt Beatrice had
replied, "Well, dear, it isn't as if you were as clever as all that,
is it?" And reluctantly Muriel, with the memory of the elusive
mathematics prize before her, had had to admit that she was not as
clever as all that.
"We can't all be clever," she said, without much joy in the thought.
"Clever? who said that we all had to be clever? But we have to have
courage. The whole position of woman is what it is to-day, because so
many of us have followed the line of least resistance, and have sat
down placidly in a little provincial town, waiting to get married. No
wonder that the men have thought that this is all that we are good
for."
Muriel looked at her with grave distaste. She knew what her mother had
to say about the suffragettes.
"Because I happened to be an idealist," remarked Delia, with the
solemnity of twenty-two addressing eighteen, "Marshington could never
forgive me. It could not forgive me for thinking my education
incomplete unless I sought it beyond the councils of Marshington
matrons. I happened to think that service of humanity was sometimes
more important than respectability. I valued truth more highly than
the conventional courtesies of a provincial town, while Marshington
spends half its time in sparing other people's feelings in order that
it may the more effectually ruin their reputations."
Muriel remembered hearing what Delia had said to Mrs. Cartwright over
the Nursing Club accounts. She felt interested but uncomfortable. She
had never been to a college debating society, and was unaccustomed to
hearing what she called rudeness defended on principle. Also, she
distrusted all this talk, feeling that she could be an idealist, too,
without making so much fuss about it.
"But of course," continued Delia, "women in Marshington are not
expected to have Ideals, only sex."
Muriel knit her brows. Sex conveyed to her merely a synonym for
gender, masculine, feminine or neuter. She sought for more familiar
ground.
"I certainly am not going to college, because my mother needs me at
home. I am not unhappy here. Some of us have to stay at home. I have
my duty too," she added stiffly.
Delia looked at her, a queer sidelong glance below her long lashes.
Then she laughed a little. "And I am being properly called to order
for pursuing my selfish ambitions while you are following the path
of virtue?"
They had come to the Vicarage gate, and stood below the budding trees.
"Well, well," smiled Delia, "I hope that you will be happy. I suppose
that it's no good arguing. But for goodness' sake stay with your eyes
open. Remember, there's only one thing that counts for a girl in
Marshington, and that is sex success. Turn and twist how you will, it
comes to that in the end. The whole of this sort of life is arranged
round that one thing. Of course it's an important thing, but it's not
the only one. If that's what you are after, stay by all means, and
play the game. But if you can't play it well, or if you really care
for anything else, clear out, and go before it is too late."
She opened the gate of the Vicarage garden, and stood for a moment
looking down at Muriel.
To her surprise Muriel answered her gravely, with a wistful obstinacy
that stiffened her slim, small figure as though for some great act of
courage.
"It's all right to talk, Miss Vaughan, but we all have to do what we
think right, haven't we? And some of us can't choose. We have to take
life as it comes. I don't see why I shouldn't be doing just as much my
duty here as you where you are." Then, feeling that she was not being
very explicit, she added, "I hope that you will be very happy at
Cambridge."
"Thank you," said Delia with equal gravity. Then quite suddenly she
laughed. "That's the second time you've snubbed me, Muriel, you
strange child. Good-bye. Don't hate me too much."
She held out her hand, then with a flutter of bright green leaves she
had vanished, lithe as a wood nymph, queer, graceful, and confusing.
Muriel walked home, thinking of Clare and Godfrey, Delia and college,
and the meaning of sex-success.
When she arrived home, she found her mother coming from her father's
room with an empty tray. The happy, satisfied expression that her face
wore rarely transfigured her. She looked charming as a girl when she
smiled at her daughter and said: "Well, dear, did you have a good
time?" And Muriel replied, "Yes, thank you, mother. Bobby Mason took
me to see the old church at Ribbleswaite."
That night she stood before her bedroom window and pulled back the
curtains that Mrs. Hammond liked her to keep drawn. ("It looks so bad,
dear, to see an uncurtained bedroom window. Even if people can't see
anything, they always think that they can.") There were no stars in
the deep sky, but from the darkness of the garden rose the thin and
unmistakable breath of the spring. Muriel stood with outstretched arms
holding back the curtains.
Down there in the valley lay the wonderful, perilous, grown-up world,
holding its carnival of adventure and romance.
She pitied Connie, a child who was still at school.
She pitied Delia, who was, after all, still at college, which was only
a kind of glorified school.
She thought of herself, holding the key to Godfrey Neale's happiness
or sorrow, she alone, who knew that Clare was going to be married. She
was sorry for Godfrey, who, she was sure, had fallen in love with
Clare; but the thought of her power was more exciting to her than
pity.
Oh, lovely, rich, full, adventurous life, teeming with experience,
glowing with beauty, hurry, hurry, hurry! Let me come to you and learn
your secret, in your strange carnival of love and tears!
The soft wind fanned her cheeks as though it were the breath of life
itself. She sank upon her knees, holding out her arms to the heavy
darkness of the sky.
Down in the valley, the lights of Marshington winked at her, one by
one.