THE PRICE
A sense of bustle and mild excitement pervaded Trenby Hall. The hounds
were to meet some distance away, and on a hunting morning it invariably
necessitated the services of at least two of the menservants and
possibly those of an observant maid--who had noted where last he had
left his tobacco pouch--to get Roger off successfully.
"My hunting boots, Jenkins!" he demanded as he issued from the library.
"And look sharp with them! Flask and sandwich-case--that's right." He
busied himself bestowing these two requisites in his pockets.
Nan, cool and unperturbed; joined him in the hall, a small, amused
smile on her face. She had stayed at Trenby long enough by now to be
well used to the cyclone which habitually accompanied Roger's departure
to the meet, and the boyish unreasonableness of it--seeing that the
well-trained servants invariably had everything in readiness for
him--rather appealed to her. He was like a big, overgrown school-boy
returning to school and greatly concerned as to whether his cricket-bat
and tuck-box were safely included amongst his baggage.
"You, darling?" Roger nodded at her perfunctorily, preoccupied with
the necessities of the moment. "Now, have I got my pipe?"--slapping
his pockets to ascertain. To miss his customary pipe as he trotted
leisurely home after the day's hunting was unthinkable. "Matches!
I've no matches! Here, Morton"--to the butler who was standing by with
Roger's hunting-crop in his hand. "Got any matches?"
Morton produced a box at once. He had been in Roger's service from
boyhood, fought side by side with him in Flanders, and no demand of his
master's had yet found him unprepared. Nan was wont to declare that
had Roger requested the Crown jewels, Morton would have immediately
produced them from his pocket.
Outside, a groom was patiently walking a couple of horses up and down.
Quivering, velvety nostrils snuffed the keen air while gleaming black
hoofs danced gently on the gravel drive, executing little side steps of
excitement--for no hunting day comes round but that in some mysterious
way the unerring instinct of the four-legged hunter acquaints him of
the fact. Further along clustered the pack, the hounds padding
restlessly here and there, but kept within bounds by the occasional
crack of a long-lashed crop or a gruff command from one of the whips.
Nan was always conscious of a curious intermingling of feeling when, as
now, she watched Roger ride away at the head of his hounds. The day
she had almost lost her life at the kennels recurred to her mind
inevitably--those moments of swift and terrible danger when it seemed
as though nothing could save her. And with that memory came
another--the memory of Roger flinging himself forward to the rescue,
forcing back with bare hands the great hound which had attacked her. A
quick thrill--the thrill of primitive woman--ran through her at the
recollection. No woman can remain unmoved by physical courage--more
especially if it is her own imperative need which has called it forth.
That was the side of Roger which she liked best to dwell upon. But she
was rapidly learning that he had other less heroically attractive
sides. No man who has been consistently spoiled and made much of by a
couple of women is likely to escape developing a certain amount of
selfishness, and Nan had already discovered that Roger was somewhat
inclined to play the autocrat. As he grew accustomed to her presence
in the house he settled down more or less tranquilly into the normal
ways of existence, and sometimes, when things went awry, he would lose
his temper pretty badly, as is the natural way of man.
Unfortunately, Nan's honest endeavours to get on better terms with her
future mother-in-law met with no success. Lady Gertrude had presented
an imperturbably polite and hostile front almost from the moment of the
girl's arrival at the Hall. Even at dinner the first evening, she had
cast a disapproving eye upon Nan's frock--a diaphanous little garment
in black: with veiled gleams of hyacinth and gold beneath the surface
and apparently sustained about its wearer by a thread of the same
glistening hyacinth and gold across each slender shoulder.
With the quickness of a squirrel Isobel Carson, demurely garbed as
befitted a poor relative, noted the disapprobation conveyed by Lady
Gertrude's sweeping glance.
"I suppose that's what they're wearing now in town?" she asked
conversationally of Nan across the table.
Roger looked up and seeing the young, privet-white throat and shoulders
which gleamed above the black, smiled contentedly.
"It's jolly pretty, isn't it?" he rejoined, innocently unaware that any
intention lurked behind his cousin's query.
"It might be--if there were more of it," said Lady Gertrude icily. She
had not failed to notice earlier that Nan was wearing the abbreviated
skirt of the moment--though in no way an exaggerated form of
it--revealing delectable shoes and cobwebby stockings which seemed to
cry out a gay defiance to the plain and serviceable footgear which she
herself affected.
"It does look just a tiny bit daring--in the country," murmured Isobel
deprecatingly. "You see, we're used to such quiet fashions here."
"I don't think anything can be much quieter than black," replied Nan
evenly.
There for the moment the matter rested, but the next day Roger had
asked her, rather diffidently, if she couldn't find something plainer
to wear in an evening.
"I thought you liked the dress," she countered.
"Well--yes. But--"
"But your mother has been talking t0 you about it? Is that it?"
Roger nodded.
"Even Isobel thought it a little outré for country wear," he said
eagerly, making matters worse instead of better, in the blundering way
a man generally contrives to do when he tries to settle a feminine
difference of opinion.
Nan's foot tapped the floor impatiently and a spark of anger lit itself
in her eyes.
"I don't think my choice of clothes has anything to do with Miss
Carson," she answered sharply.
"No, sweetheart, of course it hasn't, really. But I know you'd like to
please my mother--and she's not used to these new styles, you see."
He stumbled on awkwardly, then drew her into his arms and kissed her.
"To please me--wear something else," he said. Although unformulated
even to himself, Roger's creed was of the old school. He quite
honestly believed that a woman's chief object in life was to please her
male belongings, and it seemed to him a perfectly good arrangement.
Not to please him, but because she was genuinely anxious to win Lady
Gertrude's liking, Nan yielded. Perhaps if she conceded this
particular point it would pave the way towards a better understanding.
"Very well," she said, smiling. "That especial frock shan't appear
again while I'm down here. But it's a duck of a frock, really,
Roger!"--with a feminine sigh of regret.
She was to find, however, as time went on, that there were very many
other points over which she would have to accept Lady Gertrude's
rulings. Punctuality at meals was regarded at Trenby Hall as one of
the laws of the Medes and Persians, and Nan, accustomed to the liberty
generally accorded a musician in such matters, failed on more than one
occasion to appear at lunch with the promptness expected of her.
In the West Parlour---a sitting-room which Lady Gertrude herself never
used--there was a fairly good piano, and here Nan frequently found
refuge, playing her heart out in the welcome solitude the room
afforded. Inevitably she would forget the time, remaining entirely
oblivious of such mundane things as meals. Then she would be sharply
recalled to the fact that she had committed an unforgivable sin by
receiving a stately message from Lady Gertrude to the effect that they
were waiting lunch for her.
On such occasions Nan sometimes felt that it was almost a physical
impossibility to enter that formal dining-room and face the glacial
disapproval manifest on Lady Gertrude's face, the quick glance of
condolence which Isobel would throw her--and which always somehow
filled her with distrust--and the irritability which Roger was scarcely
able to conceal.
Roger's annoyance was generally due to the veiled criticism which his
mother and cousin contrived to exude prior to her appearance. Nothing
definite--an intonation here, a double-edged phrase there--but enough
to show him that his future wife fell far short of the standard Lady
Gertrude had in mind for her. It nettled him, and accordingly he felt
irritated with Nan for giving his mother a fresh opportunity for
disapprobation.
They were all unimportant things--these small jars and clashes of habit
and opinion. But to Nan, who had been used to such absolute freedom,
they were like so many links of a chain which held and chafed her. She
fretted under them as a caged bird frets. Gradually, too, she was
awakening to the limitations of the life which would be hers when she
married Roger, realising that, much as he loved her, he was quite
unable to supply her with either the kind of companionship or the
mental stimulus her temperament craved and which the little coterie of
clever, brilliant people who had been her intimates in town had given
her in full measure. The Trenbys' circle of friends interested her not
at all. The men mostly of the sturdy, sporting type, bored her
ineffably, and she found the women, with their perpetual local gossip
and discussion of domestic difficulties, dull and uninspiring. Of the
McBains, unfortunately, she saw very little, owing to the distance,
between the Hall and Trevarthen Wood.
It was, therefore, with a cry of delight that she welcomed Sandy, who
arrived in his two-seater shortly after Roger had ridden off to the
meet. Lady Gertrude and Isobel had already gone out together, bent
upon some parochial errand in the village, so that Nan was alone with
her thoughts. And they were not particularly pleasant ones.
"Sandy!" She greeted him with outstretched hands. "You angel boy! I
wasn't even hoping to see you for another few weeks or so."
"Just this minute arrived--thought it about time I looked you up
again," returned Sandy cheerfully. "I met Trenby about a mile away and
scattered his horses and hounds to the four winds of heaven with my
stink-pot."
"Yes," agreed Nan reminiscently. "Why does your car smell so
atrociously, Sandy?"
"It's only in slow movements--never in a presto. That's why I'm always
getting held up for exceeding the speed limit. I'm bound to let her
rip--out of consideration to the passersby."
"Well, I'm awfully glad you felt moved to come over here this morning.
I'm--I'm rather fractious to-day, I think. Do you suppose Lady
Gertrude will ask you to stay to lunch?"
"I hope so. But as it's only about ten-thirty a.m., lunch is merely a
futurist dream at present."
"I know. I wonder why there are such enormous intervals between meals
in the country?" said Nan speculatively. "In town there's never any
time to get things in and meals are a perfect nuisance. Here they seem
to be the only breaks in the day."
"That," replied Sandy sententiously, "is because you're leading an idle
existence. You're not doing anything--so of course there's no time to
do it in."
"Not doing anything? Well, what is there to do?" She flung out her
hands with an odd little gesture of hopelessness. "Besides, I am doing
something--I learned how to make puddings yesterday, and to-morrow I'm
to be initiated into soup jellies--you know, the kind of stuff you trot
around to old women in the village at Christmas time."
"Can't the cook make them?"
"Of course she can. But Lady Gertrude is appalled at my lack of
domestic knowledge--so soup jellies it has to be."
Sandy regarded her thoughtfully. She seemed spiritless, and the
charming face held a gravity that was quite foreign to it. In the
searching winter sunlight he could even discern one or two faint lines
about the violet-blue eyes, while the curving mouth, with its
provocative short upper lip, drooped rather wearily at its corners.
"You're bored stiff," he told her firmly. "Why don't you run up to
town for a few days and see your pals there?"
Nan shrugged her shoulders.
"For the excellent reason that half of them are away, or--or married or
something."
Only a few days previously she had seen the announcement of Maryon
Rooke's marriage in the papers, and although the fact that he was
married had now no power to wound her, it was like the snapping of yet
another link with that happy, irresponsible, Bohemian life which she
and Penelope had shared together.
"Sandy"--she spoke impetuously. "After I'm--married, I don't think I
shall ever go to London again. It would be like peeping into heaven.
Then the door would slam and I'd come back--here! I'm out of it
now--out of everything. The others will all go on singing and playing
and making books and pictures--right in the heart of it all. While I
shall be stuck away here . . . by myself . . . making soup jellies!"
She sprang up and walked restlessly to the window, staring out at the
undulating meadowland.
"I'm sick of the sight of those fields!" she exclaimed almost
violently. "The same deadly dull green fields day after day. If--if
one of them would only turn pink for a change it would be a relief!"
Her breath caught in a strangled sob.
Sandy followed her to the window.
"Look here, Nan, you can't go on like this." There was an unaccustomed
decision in his tones; the boyish inflection had gone. It was a man
who was speaking, and determinedly, too. "You've no business to be
everlastingly gazing at green fields. You ought to be turning 'em into
music so that the people who've got only bricks and mortar to stare at
can get a whiff of them."
Nan gazed at him in astonishment--at this new, surprising Sandy who was
talking to her with the forcefulness of a man ten years his senior.
"As for being 'out of it,' as you say," he went on emphatically. "If
you are, it's only by your own consent. Anyone who writes as you can
need never be out of it. If you'd only do the big stuff you're capable
of doing, you'd be 'in it' right enough--half the time confabbing with
singers and conductors, and the other half glad to get back to your
green fields and the blessed quiet. If you were like me, now--not a
damn bit of good because I've no technical knowledge . . ."
In an instant her quick sympathies responded to the note of regret
which he could not keep quite out of his voice.
"Sandy, I'm a beast to grouse. It's true--you've had much harder
luck." She spoke eagerly, then paused, checked by a sudden piercing
memory. "But--but music . . . after all, it isn't the only thing."
"No," he returned cheerfully. "But it will do quite well to go on
with. Let's toddle along to the piano and amuse each other."
She nodded, and together they made their way to the West Parlour.
"Have you written anything new?" he asked, turning over some sheets of
scribbled, manuscript that were lying on the piano. "Let's hear it."
Rather reluctantly she played him a few odd bits of her recent
work--the outcome of dull, depressing days.
Sandy listened, and as he listened his lips set in an uncompromising
straight line.
"Well, I never heard more maudlin piffle in my life!" was his frank
comment when she had finished. "If you can't do better than that,
you'd better shut the piano and go digging potatoes."
Nan laughed rather mirthlessly.
"I don't know what sort of a hand you'd make at potato digging,"
pursued Sandy. "But apparently this is the net result of your musical
studies"--and, seating himself at the piano, he rattled off a caustic
parody of her performance.
"Rank sentimentalism, Nan," he said coolly, as he dropped his hands
from the keys. "And you know it as well as I do."
"Yes, I suppose it is. But it's impossible to do any serious work
here. Lady Gertrude fairly radiates disapproval whenever I spend an
hour or two at the piano. Oh!"--her sense of humour rising uppermost
for a moment--"she asked me to play to them one evening, so I gave them
some Debussy--out of sheer devilment, I think"--smiling a little--"and
at the end Lady Gertrude said politely: 'Thank you. And now, might we
have something with a little more tune in it?"
Sandy shouted with delight.
"After all, people like that are awfully refreshing," he said at last.
"At times," admitted Nan. "All the same," she went on dispiritedly,
"one must be in the right atmosphere to do anything worth while."
"Well, I'm exuding as much as I can," said Sandy. "Atmosphere, I mean.
Look here, what about that concerto for pianoforte and orchestra which
you had in mind? Have you done anything to it yet?"
She shook her head.
"Then get on to it quick--and stick at it. Don't waste your time
writing the usual type of sentimental ballad-song--a degree or two
below par."
Nan was silent for a few minutes. Then:
"Sandy," she said, "you're rather like a dose of physic--wholesome but
unpalatable. I'll get to work to-morrow. Now let's go and forage for
some food. You've made me fearfully hungry--like a long sermon in
church."
Christmas came, bringing with it, at Roger's suggestion, a visit from
Lord St. John, and his presence at the house worked wonders in the way
of transforming the general atmosphere. Even Lady Gertrude thawed
beneath the charm of his kindly, whimsical personality, and to Nan the
few days he spent at the Hall were of more value than a dozen tonics.
She was no longer shut in alone with her own thoughts--with him she
could talk freely and naturally. Even the under-current of hostile
criticism of which she was almost hourly conscious ceased to fret her
nerves.
Insensibly Lord St. John's evident affection for his niece and quiet
appreciation of her musicianship influenced Lady Gertrude for the time
being, softening her attitude towards her future daughter-in-law, even
though it brought her no nearer understanding her. Isobel, alertly
capable of adapting herself to the prevailing atmosphere, reflected in
her manner the same change. She had long since learned to keep the
private workings of her mind locked up--when it seemed advisable.
"I'm glad to see you in what will one day be your own home, Nan," said
Lord St. John. They were sitting alone together in the West Parlour,
chatting in the cosy intimacy of the firelight.
"I'd rather you saw it when it _is_ my own home," she returned with a
rueful smile. "It will look very different then, I hope."
"Yet I'm glad to see it now," he repeated.
There was a slight emphasis on the word "now," and Nan glanced up in
surprise.
"Why now particularly?" she asked, smiling. "Are you going to
cold-shoulder me after I'm married?"
Lord St. John shook his head.
"That's very likely, isn't it?" he said, smiling. "No, my dear, that's
not the reason." He paused as though searching for words, then went on
quietly: "The silver chord is getting a bit frayed, you know, Nan. I'm
an old man, and I'm just beginning to know it."
She caught her breath quickly and her face whitened. Then she forced a
laugh.
"Nonsense, Uncle David! Kitty always declares you're the youngest of
us all."
His eyes smiled back at her.
"Unfortunately, my dear, Time takes no account of a juvenile spirit.
His job is with this body of ours. But the spirit," he added
dreamingly, "and its youthfulness--that's for eternity."
"But you look quite well--_quite_ well," she insisted. And her manner
was the more positive because in her inmost mind she thought she could
detect a slight increase of that frail appearance she had first noticed
on Penelope's wedding-day.
"I've had hints, Nan--Nature's wireless. So I saw Jermyn Carter a few
weeks back--"
"What did he say?" She interrupted swiftly.
"That at my age a man mustn't expect his heart to be the same as in his
twenties."
A silence fell between them. Then Nan's hand stole out and clasped
his. She had never imagined a world without this good comrade in it.
The bare thought of it brought a choking lump into her throat, robbing
her of words. Presently St. John spoke again.
"I've nothing to grizzle about. I've known love and I've known
friendship--the two biggest things in life. And, after all,
since . . . since she went, I've only been waiting. The world, without
her, has never been quite the same."
"I know," she whispered.
"You Davenant women," he went on more lightly, "are never loved and
forgotten."
"And we don't love--and forget," said Nan in a low voice.
St. John looked at her with eyes that held a very tender comprehension.
"Tell me, Nan, was it--Peter Mallory?"
She met his glance bravely for a moment.
"Yes," she answered at last, very quietly. "It was Peter." With a
sudden shudder she bent forward and covered her face with her hands.
"And I can't forget," she said hoarsely.
A long, heavy silence fell between them.
"Then why--" began Lord St. John.
Nan lifted her head.
"Why did I promise Roger?" she broke in. "Because it seemed the only
way. I--I was afraid! And then there was Penelope--and Ralph. . . .
Oh, it was a ghastly mistake. I know now. But--but there's
Roger . . . he cares . . ."
"Yes. There's Roger," he said gravely. "And you've given him your
word. You can't draw back now." There was a note of sternness in the
old man's voice--the sternness of a man who has a high creed of honour
and who has always lived up to it, no matter what it cost.
"Remember, Nan, no Davenant was ever a coward in the face of
difficulties. They always pulled through somehow."
"Or ran away--like Angèle de Varincourt."
"She only ran from one difficulty into the arms of a hundred others.
No wrong can be righted by another wrong."
"Can any wrong ever be really righted?" she demanded bitterly.
"We have to pay for our mistakes--each in our turn." He himself had
paid to the uttermost farthing. "Is it a very heavy price, Nan?"
She turned her face away a little.
"It will be . . . higher than I expected," she acknowledged slowly.
"Well, then, pay up. Don't make--Roger--pay for your blunder. You
have other things--your music, for instance. Many people have to go
through life with only their work for company. . . . Whereas you are
Roger's whole world."
With the New Year Lord St. John returned to town. Nan missed him every
minute of the day, but she had drawn new strength and steadfastness
from his kindly counsels. He understood both the big tragedies of
life--which often hold some brief, perfect memory to make them
bearable--and those incessant, gnat-like irritations which uncongenial
fellowship involves.
Somehow he had the faculty of relegating small personal vexations to
their proper place in the scheme of things--thrusting them far into the
background. It was as though someone drew you to the window and,
ignoring the small, man-made flower-beds of the garden with their
insistent crop of weeds, the circumscribed lawns, and the foolish,
twisting paths that led to nowhere, pointed you to the distant
landscape where the big breadths of light and shadow, the broad
draughtmanship of God, stretched right away to the dim blue line of the
horizon.