XXIX

When that young woman saw him her cheek exhibited the prettiest,

pleased, surprised red he had ever observed there, though far from

unacquainted with its living tides, and she stood smiling at him with

the outer dazzle in her eyes, still making him no motion to enter. She

only said, "Oh Peter!" and then, "I'm all alone."

"So much the better, dear Biddy. Is that any reason I shouldn't come

in?"

"Dear no--do come in. You've just missed Nick; he has gone to the

country--half an hour ago." She had on a large apron and in her hand

carried a small stick, besmeared, as his quick eye saw, with

modelling-clay. She dropped the door and fled back before him into the

studio, where, when he followed her, she was in the act of flinging a

damp cloth over a rough head, in clay, which, in the middle of the room,

was supported on a high wooden stand. The effort to hide what she had

been doing before he caught a glimpse of it made her redder still and

led to her smiling more, to her laughing with a confusion of shyness and

gladness that charmed him. She rubbed her hands on her apron, she pulled

it off, she looked delightfully awkward, not meeting Peter's eye, and

she said: "I'm just scraping here a little--you mustn't mind me. What I

do is awful, you know. _Please_, Peter, don't look, I've been coming

here lately to make my little mess, because mamma doesn't particularly

like it at home. I've had a lesson or two from a lady who exhibits, but

you wouldn't suppose it to see what I do. Nick's so kind; he lets me

come here; he uses the studio so little; I do what I want, or rather

what I can. What a pity he's gone--he'd have been so glad. I'm really

alone--I hope you don't mind. Peter, _please_ don't look."

Peter was not bent on looking; his eyes had occupation enough in Biddy's

own agreeable aspect, which was full of a rare element of domestication

and responsibility. Though she had, stretching her bravery, taken

possession of her brother's quarters, she struck her visitor as more at

home and more herself than he had ever seen her. It was the first time

she had been, to his notice, so separate from her mother and sister. She

seemed to know this herself and to be a little frightened by it--just

enough to make him wish to be reassuring. At the same time Peter also,

on this occasion, found himself touched with diffidence, especially

after he had gone back and closed the door and settled down to a regular

call; for he became acutely conscious of what Julia had said to him in

Paris and was unable to rid himself of the suspicion that it had been

said with Biddy's knowledge. It wasn't that he supposed his sister had

told the girl she meant to do what she could to make him propose to her:

that would have been cruel to her--if she liked him enough to

consent--in Julia's perfect uncertainty. But Biddy participated by

imagination, by divination, by a clever girl's secret, tremulous

instincts, in her good friend's views about her, and this probability

constituted for Sherringham a sort of embarrassing publicity. He had

impressions, possibly gross and unjust, in regard to the way women move

constantly together amid such considerations and subtly

intercommunicate, when they don't still more subtly dissemble, the hopes

or fears of which persons of the opposite sex form the subject.

Therefore poor Biddy would know that if she failed to strike him in the

right light it wouldn't be for want of an attention definitely called to

her claims. She would have been tacitly rejected, virtually condemned.

He couldn't without an impulse of fatuity endeavour to make up for this

to her by consoling kindness; he was aware that if any one knew it a man

would be ridiculous who should take so much as that for granted. But no

one would know it: he oddly enough in this calculation of security left

Biddy herself out. It didn't occur to him that she might have a secret,

small irony to spare for his ingenious and magnanimous effort to show

her how much he liked her in reparation to her for not liking her more.

This high charity coloured at any rate the whole of his visit to

Rosedale Road, the whole of the pleasant, prolonged chat that kept him

there more than an hour. He begged the girl to go on with her work, not

to let him interrupt it; and she obliged him at last, taking the cloth

off the lump of clay and giving him a chance to be delightful by

guessing that the shapeless mass was intended, or would be intended

after a while, for Nick. He saw she was more comfortable when she began

again to smooth it and scrape it with her little stick, to manipulate it

with an ineffectual air of knowing how; for this gave her something to

do, relieved her nervousness and permitted her to turn away from him

when she talked.

He walked about the room and sat down; got up and looked at Nick's

things; watched her at moments in silence--which made her always say in

a minute that he was not to pass judgement or she could do nothing;

observed how her position before her high stand, her lifted arms, her

turns of the head, considering her work this way and that, all helped

her to be pretty. She repeated again and again that it was an immense

pity about Nick, till he was obliged to say he didn't care a straw for

Nick and was perfectly content with the company he found. This was not

the sort of tone he thought it right, given the conditions, to take; but

then even the circumstances didn't require him to pretend he liked her

less than he did. After all she was his cousin; she would cease to be so

if she should become his wife; but one advantage of her not entering

into that relation was precisely that she would remain his cousin. It

was very pleasant to find a young, bright, slim, rose-coloured kinswoman

all ready to recognise consanguinity when one came back from cousinless

foreign lands. Peter talked about family matters; he didn't know, in his

exile, where no one took an interest in them, what a fund of latent

curiosity about them he treasured. It drew him on to gossip accordingly

and to feel how he had with Biddy indefeasible properties in

common--ever so many things as to which they'd always understand each

other _a demi-mot_. He smoked a cigarette because she begged him--people

always smoked in studios and it made her feel so much more an artist.

She apologised for the badness of her work on the ground that Nick was

so busy he could scarcely ever give her a sitting; so that she had to do

the head from photographs and occasional glimpses. They had hoped to be

able to put in an hour that morning, but news had suddenly come that Mr.

Carteret was worse, and Nick had hurried down to Beauclere. Mr. Carteret

was very ill, poor old dear, and Nick and he were immense friends. Nick

had always been charming to him. Peter and Biddy took the concerns of

the houses of Dormer and Sherringham in order, and the young man felt

after a little as if they were as wise as a French _conseil de famille_

and settling what was best for every one. He heard all about Lady Agnes;

he showed an interest in the detail of her existence that he had not

supposed himself to possess, though indeed Biddy threw out intimations

which excited his curiosity, presenting her mother in a light that might

call on his sympathy.

"I don't think she has been very happy or very pleased of late," the

girl said. "I think she has had some disappointments, poor dear mamma;

and Grace has made her go out of town for three or four days in the hope

of a little change. They've gone down to see an old lady, Lady St.

Dunstans, who never comes to London now and who, you know--she's

tremendously old--was papa's godmother. It's not very lively for Grace,

but Grace is such a dear she'll do anything for mamma. Mamma will go

anywhere, no matter at what risk of discomfort, to see people she can

talk with about papa."

Biddy added in reply to a further question that what her mother was

disappointed about was--well, themselves, her children and all their

affairs; and she explained that Lady Agnes wanted all kinds of things

for them that didn't come, that they didn't get or seem likely to get,

so that their life appeared altogether a failure. She wanted a great

deal, Biddy admitted; she really wanted everything, for she had thought

in her happier days that everything was to be hers. She loved them all

so much and was so proud too: she couldn't get over the thought of their

not being successful. Peter was unwilling to press at this point, for he

suspected one of the things Lady Agnes wanted; but Biddy relieved him a

little by describing her as eager above all that Grace should get

married.

"That's too unselfish of her," he pronounced, not caring at all for

Grace. "Cousin Agnes ought to keep her near her always, if Grace is so

obliging and devoted."

"Oh mamma would give up anything of that sort for our good; she wouldn't

sacrifice us that way!" Biddy protested. "Besides, I'm the one to stay

with mamma; not that I can manage and look after her and do everything

so well as Grace. But, you know, I _want_ to," said Biddy with a liquid

note in her voice--and giving her lump of clay a little stab for

mendacious emphasis.

"But doesn't your mother want the rest of you to get married--Percival

and Nick and you?" Peter asked.

"Oh she has given up Percy. I don't suppose she thinks it would do. Dear

Nick of course--that's just what she does want."