His afternoon the Squire, in his capacity of churchwarden, spent an hour
with the Vicar in his study, and then joined us for tea on the lawn. It
was a hot, airless, summer afternoon, and we were all rather silent and
disinclined to eat, and I felt my eyes wandering to the big grey car
which stood waiting outside the gate and wishing--many things!
I wished that I had a car of my own. I wished I had my dear old Dinah,
on whose back I had been wont to roam the country-side. So long as
Charmion and the garden had absorbed my attention I had been contented
enough, but now an overwhelming restlessness seized me. I was tired of
the slow movement of my own feet. I longed to move quickly, to feel the
refreshing rush of air on my cheeks once more. I wished the
woman-hating, unappreciative Ralph Maplestone, had been a kind,
considerate, understanding, put-your-self-in-her-place sort of man, who
would have offered his time, and his car, and his services as chauffeur.
"Delphine, would you like to have a run in the car for a couple of hours
or so before dinner?"
We jumped on our chairs, Delphine and I, automatically, like
marionettes, the one from pleasure, the other from surprise. Had he
seen? Had he noticed? The light blue eyes stared coolly ahead. For
pure callous indifference their expression could not have been beaten.
Coincidence! Nothing more.
"Oh, Ralph, you dear! How angelic of you! I should love it of all
things. It's so close and stuffy in this garden. It will be perfectly
delicious to have a blow. Which way shall we go?"
"If you are not in a hurry we might get as far as the ponds." He
paused, frowned, glanced hesitatingly towards me. "Perhaps Miss
Wastneys--Is there any special place you would like to see?"
"Dearest!" the Vicar's voice broke gently into the conversation, "I'm
sorry, but was not it this afternoon you arranged to meet Mrs Rawlins
at the `Hall,' to discuss the new coverings for the library books? I
think you said half-past five. It is nearly five now. You would not
have time."
"I can send down word that I can't come. I'll meet her to-morrow at the
same time."
"I think not." The Vicar's face set; his voice did not lose its gentle
tone, but it was full of decision. "I think not. Mrs Rawlins is a
busy woman, and she has a long distance to come. You would not wish to
inconvenience her for the sake of a trifling pleasure!"
Delphine gave him a look, the look of a thwarted child, flushed to the
roots of her hair, and turned hastily aside. Open rebellion was
useless, but it spoke in every line of her body, every movement of the
small, graceful head. I was sorry for her, for being young and feminine
myself, I could understand how dull was the claim of linen covers for
injured bindings, compared with that swift, exhilarating rush. I looked
at the Vicar, and began pleadingly, "Couldn't I--"; then the Squire
looked at me, pulled out his watch, and said sharply:--
"Ten minutes to five. Hurry up, Delphine! If you put on your hat at
once you can have half an hour. It will freshen you up for your duties.
I'll land you at the `Hall,' and"--he switched his eyes on me with a
keen, gimlet-like glance--"take Miss Wastneys a little further while you
are engaged."
I blinked, but did not speak; Delphine frowned; the Vicar said happily,
"That will do well. That will do very well! Now, darling, we shall all
be pleased!"
Deluded man! Two less-pleased-looking females it would have been
difficult to find, as we made our way to the house, and up the narrow,
twisting staircase. Delphine was injured at the prospective shortness
of her drive; I was appalled at the length of mine. Why had he asked
me? Why hadn't I refused, and what--oh! what should we ever find to
say?
"It's always the same thing; if a bit of pleasure comes along, there's
bound to be a committee meeting in the way! Half an hour! Pleased,
indeed! I've always been longing for Ralph to take me drives, and now
that he has been disappointed like this, the very first time, is he
likely to try again? Of course, Evelyn" (tardy sense of hospitality!)
"I am glad for you to have the change. It's awfully good of him."
"Quite heroic, isn't it?" I said tartly, as I turned into my room. No
doubt the poor man was disappointed, but she need not have rubbed it in!
I leave it to psychologists to decide whether or no there was any
connection between my natural annoyance at the slight, and the fact that
I went to the trouble of opening a special box in order to put on my
best and newest motor bonnet and coat; but there it is, I did do it, and
they were all the more becoming for the accompaniment of flushed cheeks
and extra bright eyes. The colour was a soft dove grey, the bonnet a
delicious concoction of drawn silk, which looked as if it had begun life
meaning to adorn a Quaker's head, and had then suddenly succumbed to the
fascinations of a pink lining and a wreath of tiny pink roses. When
Delphine came into the room a moment later, she stopped short on the
threshold, and gasped with astonishment.
"Goodness!" Her face flushed, she stared with wide, bright eyes;
admiring, critical, disapproving, all at once. "Evelyn, what a get up!
I never saw anything like it. You look--you look--"
"Well! How do I look?"
There was an edge in my voice. She felt it, and softened at once, in
her quick lovable fashion.
"You look a duck! Simply a duck. But, my dear, it's too good! Why
waste it here? Any old thing will do for these lanes. There's time to
change!"
"I don't intend to change," I said obstinately, and at that very moment
there sounded an imperious whistle from below. Without another word we
marched downstairs and out to the front gate, where the two men stood
waiting beside the car. Automatically their eyes rolled towards my
bonnet; the Vicar smiled, and bent his head in a courtly little bow,
which said much without the banality of words. The Squire had no
expression! Whether he approved, disapproved, or furiously disliked, he
remained insoluble as the Sphinx. Oh, some day--somehow--some one--I
hope, will wake him into life, and whoever she is, may she shake him
well up, and ride rough-shod over him for a long, long time before she
gives in! He _needs_ taking down!
After a faint--very faint--protest, Delphine took her seat in front,
while I sat in solitary state inside, leaning back against the cushions
with an outward appearance of ease, but inwardly uncomfortably conscious
of a heart which beat more quickly than necessary. This was all very
well, but what next? What was to happen when the half-hour was up, and
Delphine went off to her library books and left us alone?
Could I sit still where I was? It would seem absurd, not to say
discourteous. Would he ask me to change seats? Would he expect me to
suggest it? Suppose he did? Suppose he didn't? And when we were
settled, what should I find to say? My mind mentally rehearsed possible
openings. "How beautiful the country is looking."
"English villages are so charming."
"How was the General when you saw him last?" On and on like a whirligig
went the silly, futile thoughts, while before me the two heads wagged,
and nodded, and tossed, and a laughing conversation was kept up with
apparently equal enjoyment on both sides. Delphine had a child's
capacity for enjoying the present; even when the car pulled up and she
alighted before the door of the "Parish Hall," the smile was still on
her face. The little treat had blown away the cobwebs; she was
refreshed and ready, if not precisely anxious, for work.
"Thanks awfully, Ralph. That was as good as a hundred tonics! I do
think a car is a glorious possession." Then she looked at me and nodded
encouragingly. "Now it is your turn! It's ever so much more fun in
front. Ralph will be quite proud of sitting beside your bonnet!"
So after all neither of us said it, and I should never have the
satisfaction of knowing if he had meant--
He opened the door, and I meekly got out and took the other seat. What
was the use of making a fuss? Delphine disappeared behind the oak door,
the engines whirled, and we were off again, steaming out of the village,
and down the sloping road which led to the lovely sweep of the heath,
the speed steadily increasing, until we were travelling at a good forty
miles an hour. Four milestones flashed past before either of us spoke a
word; then in desperation I made a beginning.
"She needs change, doesn't she? It's quite touching to see how it
cheers her up."
"She?" he repeated. "Who?" He turned his eyes on me as he spoke, and
they were absolutely, genuinely blank. Astounding as it appeared, he
really did not know.
"Delphine, of course! Who else could I mean?"
"Oh-oh. Yes, I had forgotten all about her."
He might have been talking of a fly that for a moment had buzzed by his
side. The cruel indifference of his manner stung me into quick retort.
"Yet you seemed very kind--you _were_ very kind to her a few minutes
ago. Do you always forget so quickly?"
A movement of his hand reduced the speed of the engine. We had left the
village far behind, and the wide high road stretched before us like a
brown ribbon, sloping gently up and down the grassy slopes. For miles
ahead there was not a soul in view. Ralph Maplestone stared at me and I
stared back at him. Seen close at hand, his plain face had an
attraction of its own. It looked strong and honest; its tints were all
fresh and clean, speaking of a healthy, out-of-door life. No little
child had ever clearer eyes. They didn't look so stern as I had
believed.
"What have I to remember? Delphine came for a drive; I'm glad she
enjoyed it, but it is over. Why should I think of her any more?"
"Oh, no reason at all!" I said testily. I felt testy, as if from a
personal injury. "Only when one has a friend, it is agreeable to
believe that out of sight is not immediately out of mind. But, of
course, I am a woman. Women's memories are proverbially longer than
men's."
The speed slackened still further. Now we were rumbling along at a
speed which made conversation easy. The blue eyes gave me another keen
glance.
"Women burden their memories with a thousand trivialities. Men brush
them aside, and keep to the few that count. In the big things of life
they are less forgetful than women!"