It is three months since we came to Pastimes, and until last week the
days have slipped by happily and peacefully enough, but without any
happenings worthy of record. We returned the Vicar's call, and were
asked to tea to meet ourselves, when Mrs Merrivale took the opportunity
to ask me the address of my dressmaker! Two staid dames, who lived in
small villa residences, left cards at the door, an attention which we
duly returned in kind. The important people in the neighbourhood have
left us severely alone, whirling past our gates to pay assiduous calls
on General Underwood. He is the local hero, and we are the hard-hearted
strangers who did _Something_--nobody knows precisely _what_--but
_Something_ mean, and underhand, and altogether unwomanly about a lease,
and so forced the poor dear General to endure draughts and cold rooms,
and seriously retarded his progress towards health! It's no use
pretending that I am not sorry about it, for I _am_; but all the same,
they have been happy months. Charmion has seemed so much brighter and
more contented, and that itself means much to me, and we have been as
happy as bees in our beloved garden, bullying our one man into preparing
what he considers absolutely mad effects, and working with him to keep
him up to the mark. We have flagged one path, and turfed over another,
raised some beds, and sunk others, and contrived a really glorious
hot-weather arbour, a good six yards in diameter, and open on three
sides, to secure plenty of fresh air and an absence of flies.
Charmion has hardly gone out of the gate, except to church on Sundays,
but I take a constitutional every day, and scour the country-side.
My first encounter with the Squire came off about the third week we were
here, and my imaginings were wrong in all but two unimportant points.
Mrs Maplestone wears voluminous sables and clothes of antique cut; but
they look quite charming and appropriate, for--she is antique herself!
She is the Squire's mother, not his wife. He hasn't got a wife; never
has had one, and never will. Hates all women and their ways. Avoids
feminine society, and has never been known to pay a girl five minutes'
attention in his life! Such is the village verdict as repeated to me
through Bridget, who has a _flair_ for gossip, and is one of those
wonderful people who cannot walk half a mile along a solitary country
lane, without hearing, or seeing, or mentally absorbing some interesting
item about the lives of her fellow-creatures!
Every night when she brushes my hair she recounts these items to me, and
I pretend to be uninterested, and listen with all my ears.
In any case, Mr Maplestone seems very kind and attentive to his mother.
I met them (as fancy painted!) when I was coming home from a trudge
along the damp lanes, and was looking considerably blown and
dishevelled. They were getting out of their car just outside the gates
of Uplands--a most malapropos position!--but without the least
hesitation he lifted his hat, and bowed, so that I was spared the
troubled uncertainty which I had imagined.
I can't say he looked _amiable_, but at least he was polite, and I was
so relieved that I bowed back with quite a broad smile. Mrs Maplestone
looked at me more in sorrow than in anger. I suppose she was thinking,
"So young and so unkind!" An hour later, from an upstairs window, I saw
the car whizzing homewards along the road. It did not stop at our gate.
I rather wished it would.
After that we were constantly meeting. There seemed a fate in it. If I
darted into the post office to buy a penny stamp, he was there buying
tobacco. (You _do_ buy tobacco in village post offices!) If I cut
across fields and sat on a stile to rest, he came whistling from the
opposite direction, and I had to get up to let him pass. If in leaving
the house I turned to the right, I met him advancing to the left. If I
turned to the left, behold he was striding manfully to the right! Each
meeting was the result of absolute chance, but Mistress Chance can play
curious pranks at times, and it really seemed as though she was taking a
mischievous delight in bringing about these unwished-for encounters. We
always bow ceremoniously to each other; he always frowns, and I always
smile. Theoretically I am annoyed and indignant; but at the critical
moment the comical side of the situation sweeps over me, and out flashes
the smile before I can force it back. It is so absurd to see a big
grown man sulking like a child! Quite a good thing he does not intend
to marry. His wife would have a nerve-racking time.
Well, as I said before, three months have passed by. Spring has turned
into summer, and every day the garden brings fresh, delightful
surprises. Uninteresting green sprouts burst into unexpected bloom; the
rock garden is a blaze of purple and gold; blackened stems of creepers
have disappeared beneath festoons of leaves and flowers.
Charmion and I wear muslin dresses, and eat our meals in the arbour, and
lie in hammocks in the little orchard, and rejoice in every moment of
the long sunshiny days. Down at the bottom of our hearts, I think we
both have a feeling that this is just a little rest by the way. It
won't last; we don't even wish it to last. Life is too strenuous to
pass in a summer garden; but we needed a rest and it is very, very good
for a change. We pack boxes of flowers and send them to the hospitals,
and every Saturday afternoon we invite parties of working girls from the
nearest towns. They arrive in weird garments, very loud as to colour,
and befeathered as to hats, and the village worthies look askance at
them, shrug their shoulders, and think small beer of us for entertaining
such odd guests.
For three months our lives have been indeed the "annals of a quiet
neighbourhood," and then suddenly, last week, something happened!
I said suddenly--I might have said instantaneously, without any
exaggeration. The position was this. Scene, a sloping roadway just
outside the village area. The stage set with the three principal
figures. Enter from left wing, General Underwood, reclining in his
bath-chair, being taken for a short ride by his affectionate kinsman,
Robert Maplestone. Enter from right wing, Evelyn Wastneys, bearing for
home. So far, so good. A similar encounter has happened many times
before, but this time the sight of my white-robed figure seemed to upset
the Squire's equanimity. He stopped the chair, and turned his head over
his shoulder, looking backward over the road along which he had come.
It afterwards transpired that the General's valet had been left behind
to finish some small duty, and was momentarily expected to follow. At
that moment he did appear, and involuntarily Mr Maplestone lifted his
hands to wave an imperious summons.
I have said that the road is sloping; just at this point it is very
sloping indeed, therefore the bath-chair darted forward, and spun
downward with incredible speed. I have a kaleidoscopic picture in my
brain which seems to consist of a lot of waving arms--the poor General's
arms waving for help, the Squire's arms sawing the air as he raced in
pursuit, further back in the road the valet's arms thrown to the sky in
an agony of dismay, while down towards me, ever faster and faster, spun
that runaway chair.
I had to stop it somehow! There was no one else to do it, so it was "up
to me" to do my best. There was no time to be nervous, no time even to
think. I stood braced in the middle of the road, and caught at the
steering handle as it flashed by. My weight was light, and the General
was heavy. I expected to have to hold hard, but what really happened
was startling and unexpected, for the steering handle whirled straight
round, struck me a severe blow on the arm, and--toppled me right over on
to the foot of the chair! I sat down heavily on the General's feet, and
the front wheel tore whirling streamers from the bottom of my skirt.
The chair swayed, jerked, slackened its speed; two strong hands
stretched out and checked it still further; a second pair of hands
gripped hold, and brought it to a stand.
Now came the moment when I ought to have been acclaimed, and overwhelmed
with grateful acknowledgments as an heroic rescuer, who had risked her
own life to save a feeble and suffering old man; but not at all! Quite
the contrary! No sooner was his flight safely stopped than the General
turned and roared at me with furious voice:--
"You sat on _my feet_! You are sitting on my _feet_!--I, with the gout!
Get up! _Get up_!"