At last, on the afternoon of a day when Hannah was more than usually
unbearable, Margaret determined to write to Miss Hunstan, asking if she
might really go and see her if she went to London. This was in her own
room over the porch--a little room, with a latticed window and a seat to
it, and an old-fashioned cupboard let into the wall.
"I will write at once," she cried, "this very minute." It gave her some
comfort even to see the address on the envelope, for she wrote that
first. When the letter was finished she felt as if she had taken a step
towards freedom: she put her elbows on the table, and, resting her face
in her hands, tried to imagine what freedom would be like, and all that
might come of it. And then, faint in the distance, as in a dream, she
heard the sound of a horse's hoofs. They were coming nearer and nearer
along the lane. She rose and looked out, but it was not possible to see
the rider, for in the summer-time the hedges were thick and green. It
was June now, and the honeysuckle and traveller's joy grew high.
"Mr. Garratt again, I suppose," she said to herself in despair. The
sound of the hoofs came nearer; they had come in at the gate, past the
duck-pond, and the outbuildings and the hayricks, and round the corner
of the garden. They stopped at the porch, and she heard the boy call
out, "I'm coming, sir," and run to take the horse. "He generally rides
round to the stable himself," she thought; but she had made up her mind
that it was Mr. Garratt, and determined to keep to her room all the
afternoon. There was a knock at the front door, though it was standing
wide open, and at that she started, for Mr. Garratt never knocked; he
just walked in as if he felt that one day he would be the master. Towsey
came out of the kitchen and shuffled through the living-place to the
porch.
"Is Mrs. Vincent at home?" Then there was no doubt at all.
"It is Mr. Carringford," Margaret said to herself, and her heart bounded
with happiness.
"And is Miss Vincent at home?" she heard him further ask, as Towsey
showed him into the best parlor. "Yes! Yes! She was at home," she
thought, and danced a fan-fan round her room; but she stopped
suddenly--suppose he had heard of Mr. Garratt? Oh, what a good thing Sir
George had gone, for now, after all, Tom mightn't know. She stopped
before her glass, and in a moment had taken down her hair, and smiled as
she saw the glint of gold in it, and twisted it up into quite a neat
knot. "And my lace collar," she said, and pinned it round her throat and
fastened it with a little heart-shaped brooch that her mother had given
her on her birthday; "and my best shoes, for these are shabby at the
toes." Then she was ready.
She stopped for a moment at the head of the stairs to look in at her
mother's room, of which the door stood open. It had a great, gaunt
wardrobe in it, and an old-fashioned bed with a high screen round one
side--the farther one from the door. She put her hand to her throat, for
something like a sob came to it--and yet she was so happy. Outside her
mother's door, still nearer to the stairs, there was a little room used
as a box place and hanging cupboard: her mother's best dress and a long
cloak that she wore in the winter, and many things not often used, were
stowed away there, or hung on hooks. She looked at them as if to mark
something in her memory, or because of an unconscious knowledge perhaps
of a day that had yet to come. As she went down the old, polished
staircase she heard Hannah moving briskly in the kitchen.
"She is getting some scones ready in case he stays to tea," Margaret
thought, and demurely walked into the best parlor. Her mother was
sitting in the chintz-covered arm-chair by the window, and Tom sat
facing her near the writing-table. He looked tall and strong as he
jumped up and went forward to greet her.
"How do you do?" he said. "Mr. Vincent told me I might come, you know,
and here I am--I heard he had gone." His voice was cordial enough, but
in the first moment Margaret knew that he was different--different from
the morning when he had said good-bye at the Langham, and talked of
coming to Chidhurst, and foretold that they would have another drive
round London together. He was a little more distant, she felt, as if he
thought less of her, as if he liked her less, as if he had heard of Mr.
Garratt and despised her. It chilled her; she had nothing to say after a
bare welcome, and Mrs. Vincent, thinking that, now Margaret had come,
Mr. Carringford would naturally talk to her, was silent, too. Then Tom
jerked out--
"When are you going to get a letter from Mr. Vincent?"
"We expect it every day now," Mrs. Vincent answered, and turned to
Margaret. "Mr. Carringford has ridden over from Hindhead," she said,
"and I've thanked him for the roses and told him I couldn't remember the
day when I'd had any sent me before."
"Miss Vincent and I made an expedition together--"
"Oh yes, we've often talked it over together."
Margaret wished her mother hadn't said that; it made the color come to
her face; but luckily Tom was not looking at her, and then Mrs. Vincent
added simply, in the half-countrified manner into which, for some
strange reason, her speech had relapsed since her husband's departure,
"You'll be tired after your ride, Mr. Carringford; you must stay for a
cup of tea."
"I should like to, if I may."
"And while it's getting ready Margaret could show you the garden, if
you'd care to see it." She said it with the native dignity that was
always impressive. It had its effect on Tom.
"I should like to see it very much," he said, and five minutes later he
and Margaret were walking down the green pathway of the Dutch garden.
Almost without knowing it, she took him through the garden gate towards
the wood, and across a green corner, through a tangle of undergrowths,
up to the great elms and beeches. They had hardly spoken on the way;
they felt constrained and awkward; but when they reached the top things
seemed to adjust themselves in their minds, and they looked at each
other for a moment, and laughed as if they thought it good to be
together again. Then Tom shook off his awkwardness; the boyish happiness
was on his face again, and she was almost satisfied. "I say, what a
wood!" he exclaimed.
"It's father's and mine; we call it our cathedral."
"Good! good!" he answered. "When are you coming to London again?"
She clasped her hands and looked at him. "I don't know, but I want to go
again dreadfully. Do you think I could go by myself?"
"Well, no! But you might come up and stay with the Lakemans. You must
make haste about it if you do, for they're going to Scotland at the end
of July. Only another month, you know. By-the-way, I rather think you'll
see them here first. Stringer can't get away again till the middle of
August except for week-ends, and then he has to go to Folkestone; he has
a sister there--ill. But the Lakemans told me a day or two ago that they
were coming here for a Saturday to Monday; he had offered them the
house."
"When?"
"I don't know when, but pretty soon, I expect. Farley is coming, too; he
has taken a theatre, and is going to produce a legendary thing this
autumn, 'Prince of--something', it is called."
"Will there be a princess in it?"
"I expect so. Why?"
"When Miss Hunstan came out first she walked on the stage holding up a
princess's train."
"They generally begin in that way, you know. By-the-way, Stringer said
that you were walking about the fields with a friend--was it anybody
particular?"
"It was Mr. Garratt."
"Who is Mr. Garratt?"
"He used to be a house agent at Petersfield. He's at Guildford now. He
has just taken a house there."
"A married gentleman?"
"No," she laughed; "that's why he comes. He doesn't come for me," she
added, hurriedly, but he didn't understand her.
"Any success?" he asked, quickly--"of course not."
"Not yet; Hannah won't encourage him."
He mistook her tone altogether, and walked to the edge of the crown and
looked out at the view.
"That's rather hard lines" he said; "but it doesn't matter if you make
it up to him, of course. I say, it's magnificent up here," he went on;
"do you ever bring Mr.--what is he called?--Garratt up here?"
"No," she answered, quickly.
"Well, you took him across the field?"
"I met him by accident, and Hannah was very angry--" she began, but
stopped in sheer confusion.
"You seem to be rather afraid of Hannah," he said, for it simply never
occurred to him that there should be any question of love-making between
Mr. Garratt and Hannah. Margaret was such a nice girl, he thought; it
was a pity she should flirt, for perhaps, after all, it was only a
flirtation with a local house-agent; it put her on another level
altogether from the girl he had known in London. And so talk was not
very easy between them again, since each felt a little indignant with
the other. "Are you going to be here all the summer?" he asked, when
they returned to the garden.
"I suppose so," she answered, "unless I go to London. I want to do that
more than anything in the world."
"A romantic elopement with the gentleman we have been discussing?"
"Oh, how can you! He is nothing to me; he knows that--it is Hannah."
She looked downright beautiful when the color came to her face, he
thought, and wished Mr. Garratt at the bottom of the sea.
"When is your father coming back?" he asked, and his tone was
constrained.
"We don't know till we get his letter," she said, impatiently; something
was wrong with this interview, and it seemed impossible to set it right.
"You must tell the Lakemans when they turn up; then I shall hear."
Tea was ready when they returned--a generous tea, set out as usual in
the living-room. Tom took his place next to Mrs. Vincent and talked to
her gayly, while his eye wandered over the table with the satisfaction
of a school-boy. Margaret remembered how he had talked of going into the
House of Commons; but he didn't look a bit like a politician, she
thought, he was so splendidly young, and he and she had understood each
other so well in London. But now he seemed to be bound hand and foot to
the Lakemans, and he thought she cared for that horrid Mr. Garratt.
"I like big tea and jam," he said. "Do you ever come up to London, Mrs.
Vincent?"
"No," she answered; "but sometimes I have thought that I should like to
go with Margaret while her father is away."
"Did you think that, mother dear?" Margaret asked, in surprise.
"Better come and stay with me. I could take you both in."
Hannah was pouring out the tea, grasping the teapot with a firm hand,
putting it down with determination on the tray when the cups were
filled. "Mother is better where she is," she said, without looking up.
"Towsey, there is no slop-basin on the table. I hold with staying at
home, Mr. Carringford, though I've sometimes thought I'd like to go up
myself for the May meetings."
"May meetings? Of course--I know. I thought you meant races at
first--but it is Exeter Hall you are thinking of? I'm afraid Mr. and
Miss Vincent didn't go there when they were in town."
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Carringford."
"Good Lord, what an ogress!" he thought. "They had a pretty good time,
though," he said, aloud.
"Margaret has told me about it so often," Mrs. Vincent said, and Tom,
turning to look at her while she spoke, realized suddenly that this
mother of Margaret, who had grown old and gray, was beautiful. He looked
round the living-room; his eyes lingered on the black beams and the
great fireplace and the red-tiled floor; it made a peaceful picture, he
thought, in spite of the ogress.
"Did she tell you about Miss Hunstan?" he asked. "It was rather lucky
coming across her."
"She told me all about her," Mrs. Vincent answered, "and how you went to
her rooms and put the flowers into the pots. It made me hope--that, and
what my husband told me--that some day you would come and see us here."
"Thank you," he said, simply.
"Who is Miss Hunstan?" asked Hannah.