TWO WOMEN
The travellers came home the first week of June. During the weeks that
had come and gone since Easter they had wandered about as the fancy took
them. Rome, Florence, Genoa, Venice. They followed a path of wonders;
but, somewhat to her father's dismay, Nelly did not prove the passionate
pilgrim he had expected. She looked on listlessly at the wonder-world.
Now that her first exaltation had died away it did not seem so simple a
matter to make others happy. There was no royal road, she discovered, to
the happiness of others any more than to her own.
Her father said to himself that Nell would be all right as soon as the
wedding was over. He had not come to the point of thinking yet that
marriage with Robin Drummond was not the way the Finger of God had
pointed out to him. It was impossible not to notice Nelly's listless
step and heavy eyes. The Dowager put down these things to ordinary
delicacy, something the girl would outgrow.
"She wants a husband's care," she said. "To be sure, my dear Denis, you
have done your best for her. But what, after all, could you know about
girls?"
"As much as Robin Drummond, ma'am," the General said, with a growl; and
was not placated by the Dowager's tolerant smile.
He was at once glad and sorry when the weeks were over. He dreaded, for
one thing, going back to London where Nelly might hear news of Godfrey
Langrishe. To be sure, he had acted entirely for her happiness, yet he
had an idea that Nell might be angry with him for keeping things from
her if she found out that Langrishe's regiment was engaged in the deadly
frontier war. He had been so used to being perfectly frank with her that
his reservation galled him.
He had studied with attentiveness the columns of such papers as had come
his way, dreading to find Langrishe's name among the casualties.
Hitherto it had not occurred, and for that he was deeply grateful. If
there had been news he must have betrayed it to Nelly by his eyes and
his voice.
"I wish we could have stayed longer," she said to him on the eve of
their departure from Italy.
"And I, Nell."
"Oh," she looked at him in wonder. "I thought you were keen to be gone."
"Is it likely?" he asked with playful tenderness, "that I should be
anxious to shorten the time in which you are mine and not Robin
Drummond's?"
They were alone, and she turned and put her head on his shoulder.
"I shall always be yours," she said. "And I think marriage and giving in
marriage a weariness of the spirit."
"Not really, Nell?" The General looked at her golden head in alarm, but
already she was reproaching herself.
"Never mind, dear papa," she said. "I didn't altogether mean it. Poor,
kind Robin! What a very ungrateful girl I am to you all!"
As soon as they got back the Dowager engaged her in a whirl of shops and
dressmakers, and for that the General was grateful. He resorted to
man[oe]uvres in those days to keep the newspapers out of Nelly's way
that revealed to himself hitherto unsuspected depths of cunning. He
opened the papers with a tremor. The orange and green and pink bills of
the evening newspapers stuck up where Nelly could see them, laid on the
pavement almost under her feet, brought his heart into his mouth. If
they could only tide over the dangerous time, and Nelly be married and
gone off on her leisurely honeymoon! Langrishe might almost fade out of
her mind, become at least a gentle memory, before anything could happen
to him: or the deadly little dragging war might be over and Langrishe
have carried out a whole skin.
It was the height of the season and Nelly had her social engagements as
well as the preparations for her wedding. As often as was possible Robin
Drummond put in an appearance, but the House was sitting and much of his
time was taken up. He looked rather more hatchet-faced than of old.
Once, sitting in the Strangers' Gallery of the House, the General heard
someone say as Robin was about to speak: "Who is that careworn-looking
young man?" Careworn, indeed! The General fumed and fretted over it, the
more because it fell in with a certain secret thought he had had once or
twice. Robin had always been somewhat too much of an old head on young
shoulders to please his uncle. To be sure, he had fed on Blue Books and
slept on statistics, yet his engagement to a lovely girl like Nelly
ought to have made him look happier. It was indecent in the
circumstances, that's what it was, that anybody, with the remotest
justification for the epithet, could call him careworn.
Once Robin on an afternoon when the House was not sitting called for his
cousin and carried her off in a hansom without saying where he was
taking her to. That was something of which the General heartily
approved. If Robin had done it oftener his opinion of him would have
gone up immensely. He rubbed his hands while he asked the Dowager what
Mrs. Grundy would say to such doings. "Supposing they made a runaway
match of it, ma'am, where should we be?" he asked cheerfully. To which
the Dowager replied that Robin would never think of anything so silly.
Why should he, when the wedding was fixed for the twenty-third and
everything ordered, even the bridesmaids' dresses and the wedding-cake?
"Perhaps for that reason," replied the General. But this was a dark
saying to the Dowager.
The visit that afternoon was to Mary Gray. Even Nelly had heard of the
book which Sir Michael Auberon had praised so highly, which the
newspapers had declared to be more interesting than any novel. She had
roused herself to be interested in the visit, to talk, to ask questions,
to look about her, as they drove into the east, instead of gazing
inwards with that introspective glance which had given her eyes of late
the beauty of mystery, making them larger and darker than they had been
in the old days.
She was exquisitely dressed, in a long cloak of cream lace over an
Indian muslin frock, and an airy hat of chiffon and feathers. She had
put on her best for her outing with Robin, her visit to Robin's friend.
It was one of the sweet things she was always doing, with an intention
in her own mind to make up for some lack or other which certainly her
lover had not felt. When she alighted in the busy street people stared
as though they had seen a white bird of Paradise; and coming into Mary
Gray's room with a basket of roses in her hand she looked like a bride.
Now, at least, she wore the pilgrim air. She looked curiously about the
unlikely place which housed the wonderful woman as she set down her
roses, then back at Mary herself. Mary had come to meet her with
outstretched hands. Her bright look at Robin Drummond was full of
sympathetic admiration, of felicitation. She kissed Nelly warmly. She
was not an effusive person, and nothing had been further from her
thoughts than kissing, but her heart went out at once to this charming
girl.
"_How_ good of you to come to see me!" she said, pressing Nelly's hands
in hers. "Into the east, too! And you must be so busy just now."
"I have been longing to see you," Nelly responded. "Robin has talked so
much about you." At that moment Nelly had no doubt that he had talked.
"And I wanted to see you here, in your ordinary life. Robin says you
will not be here much longer--that there will be an official position
found for you. And it was here that 'Creatures of Burden' was written!"
"Nearly all here," Mary said, smiling down at the young enthusiast.
Robin Drummond stood aside, in one of his characteristically awkward
attitudes, his hat in his hand, watching them. He was not thinking
sufficiently of himself to feel awkward, although he looked it. He was
thinking of those two dear women, as he called them to himself,
objurgating himself for his unworthiness to be the kinsman and lover of
one, the friend of the other.
He had never seen Nelly look like that before. Her air of worship was
charming. Now she let Mary Gray's hands fall while she went swiftly to
the table on which she had deposited her beautiful red roses. "I brought
them for you," she said, offering them to Mary Gray.
"How delicious! How sweet of you!"
The smell of the roses was in the room. It might have been the aura of
the two exquisite women, he thought. Nelly had come in carrying a little
whiff of scent that went with her, as much a part of her as the soft
rustling of her garments. He closed his eyes and there came to his
memory, sweet and sharp, the odour of wild thyme. Not a second of time
had passed when he opened them again. Mary was still praising her roses.
She was holding them to her face, leaning towards Nelly as she did so.
Her expression was more than kind: it was tender. She put down her
basket of roses and took Nelly's hands between hers. For a moment she
held them against her breast before she relinquished them. She spoke
with a little tremor in her voice. Why was it that Robin Drummond
thought suddenly of the nightingale who leans his breast upon a thorn?
In an instant the thrill in the atmosphere had passed. She was bustling
about to make them tea, if her soft, quiet movements could be called
bustling. She brought a kettle from the unpainted deal cupboard which
housed her utensils of every day. She disappeared for a few seconds and
returned with the kettle full of water and set it on the gas-stove. She
pushed the papers away from one end of the table and covered it with a
dainty tea-cloth. She brought out cups and saucers of thin Japanese
porcelain, some sugar, a loaf and butter, a box of biscuits. While she
set her table she went on talking and smiling at them. The kettle began
to sing on the fire.
"Ah!" she said, with a sudden thought. "The milkman will not call for an
hour yet. What are we to do?"
"Let me go and forage," said Drummond eagerly.
"The nearest dairy is a good bit off."
"Trust me to find one."
When he had gone the two girls sat down and looked at each other. No
wonder she was beloved, Mary thought to herself, gloating over Nelly's
golden head, her blue eyes with the dark lashes, her lovely colouring,
her innocent mouth. She had a poor opinion of her own beauty and rarely
looked in a glass, but she was none the less generous to beauty in
others.
"And you are very happy?" she asked.
She had an inclination to put her arms about Nelly Drummond as though
she were a beautiful child. She was so glad Robin had remembered to
bring her at last. It had been strange and lonely when he had ceased to
come as he had been used to. It had been so pleasant to look up when his
tap came at the door and to see his plain, pleasant face looking at her
with a friendly smile. She had grown used to his visits all that winter
through; and when they had ceased abruptly she had missed them more than
she cared to acknowledge to herself. She had an impulse to take Nelly's
hand to her breast and hold it there for comfort.
"And you are very happy?" she said again.
She was prepared for a happy girl's outpourings. What she was not
prepared for was the sudden shadow that fell on Nelly's face, the
weariness, as though she had been brought back to the thought of
something disagreeable. A sudden wintriness went over her charming face.
The eyes drooped, the lips trembled and were steadied with an effort.
"I ought to be very happy," she said. "Everyone is good to me. I have
the dearest old father in the world and Robin is so kind and good. I
ought to be very happy and to make other people happy."
But she was not happy! Mary stared at the golden head with incredulity.
For the moment Nelly's mask--a transparent one enough at best--with
which she faced the world was down. No happy girl had ever spoken so,
looked so. And it wanted only a few weeks to her marriage!
Mary, no more logical than women less intellectual than she, felt as her
first impulse a coldness, chilling her heart that had been so warm
towards the girl Robin Drummond had chosen. The chill must have reached
Nelly's delicate apprehension, for she looked up in a startled way.
"Robin promised me your friendship," she began.
"And, to be sure, it is yours," Mary Gray said, still wondering at the
inexplicable thing that Robin Drummond's promised wife could have secret
cause for unhappiness. She had no further inclination to caress the girl
for whom she had been passed by. "We are going to be great friends," she
said with a cold sweetness.
Then the kettle boiled over and created a diversion. While Mary was
still mopping up the pool it had made on the floor Sir Robin returned.
His voyage of discovery had not been in vain. He had indeed chartered a
hansom to make it, and had brought back fascinating things in the way of
cream and tea-cakes and other dainties. As he came in he glanced at the
two whom he hoped to see friends. A shadow rested on Nelly's face. He
saw nothing amiss with Mary Gray as she went to and fro, busy with the
little meal, and had no fault to find with her words as they parted.
"We are going to be great friends, Miss Drummond and I," she said.
But the note of the nightingale that leans his breast on the thorn, the
note of self-sacrifice and yearning tenderness had gone out of her
voice.