GOING TO RAIN!
The departure of the Norton Wards and Sir Christopher on Monday morning
left Arthur alone with the family party at Hilsey Manor. To live alone
with a family is a different thing from being one of a party of
visitors. The masks are off; the family life is seen more intimately,
the household politics reveal themselves to the intelligent outsider.
During the days which intervened between his own arrival and that of
Oliver Wyse, Arthur's eyes were opened to several things; and first of
all to the immense importance of Judith Arden in the household. He soon
found himself wondering how it got on at all in the winter, when she was
not there; he had not yet known his cousins through a winter. She was in
touch with all three of them; her love for animals and outdoor things
made her in sympathy with the little girl; her cheerfulness and zest for
enjoyment united her with Bernadette; her dry and satiric humour, as
well as her interest in books, appealed to Godfrey's temper. Thus she
served, as she herself had hinted to Arthur, as an intermediary, an
essential go-between; she was always building bridges and filling up
chasms, trying to persuade them that they had more in common than they
thought, trying to make them open their hearts to one another, and
distributing herself, so to say, among them in the way best calculated
to serve these ends. Arthur soon observed with amusement that she aimed
at distributing him also fairly among the family--now assigning him to
Margaret, now contriving for him a walk with Godfrey, then relinquishing
him to Bernadette for a while, and thus employing him, as she employed
herself, as a link; their common liking for him was to serve as a bond
of union. It was the task of a managing woman, and he would have said
that he hated managing women. But it was impossible to hate Judith; she
set about her task with so much humour, and took him into her confidence
about it not so much in words as by quick amused glances which forbade
him to resent the way she was making use of him. Very soon he was
sympathising with her and endeavouring to help in her laudable endeavour
after family unity.
She still persevered in it, though she had little or no hope left, and
was often tempted to abandon the struggle to preserve what, save for the
child's sake perhaps, seemed hardly worth preserving. Though she
actually knew nothing of how matters stood between Bernadette and
Oliver--nothing either of what they had done or of what they meant to
do--though she had intercepted no private communication, and surprised
no secret meetings, she was sure of what Oliver wanted and of what
Bernadette felt. The meaning of the change that puzzled Esther Norton
Ward was no riddle to her; the touch of love had awakened the instinct
to coquetry and fascination; feelings long latent and idle were once
more in activity, swaying the woman's soul and ruling her thoughts.
Judith had little doubt of what the end would be, whether it came
clandestinely, or openly, or passed from the one to the other, as such
things often did. Still, so long as there was a chance, so long as she
had a card to play----! She played Cousin Arthur now--for what he was
worth. After all, it was for his own good too; he was a deeply
interested party. When she saw that he understood her efforts, though
not how urgent was the need of them, and was glad to help, her heart
went out to him, and she found a new motive for the labours she had been
tempted to abandon.
She got no help from Godfrey Lisle. He was sulking; no other word is so
apt to describe his attitude towards the thing which threatened him.
Though he did not know how far matters had or had not gone, he too had
seen a change in his wife; he had watched her covertly and cautiously;
he had watched Oliver Wyse. Slowly he had been driven from indifference
into resentment and jealousy, as he recognised Bernadette's feelings. He
tried to shut his eyes to the possibility of a crisis that would call
for all the qualities which he did not possess--courage, resolution,
determination, and perhaps also for an affection which he had lost, and
an understanding which he had never braced himself to attain. Since he
could not or dared not act, he declared that there lay on him no
obligation. He hated the idea, but it was not his. It was
Bernadette's--and hers the responsibility. He "declined to believe it,"
as people say so often of a situation with which they cannot or are
afraid to grapple. He did believe it, but declining to believe it seemed
at once to justify his inaction and to aggravate his wife's guilt. Thus
it came about that he was fighting the impending catastrophe with no
better weapon than the sulks.
At first the sulks had been passive; he had merely withdrawn himself,
gone into his shell, after his old fashion. But under the influence of
his grudge and his unhappiness he went further now, not of set purpose,
but with an instinctive striving after the sympathy and support for
which he longed, and an instinctive desire to make the object of his
resentment uncomfortable. He tried to gather a party for himself, to win
the members of the household to his side, to isolate Bernadette. This
effort affected his manner towards her. It lost some of its former
courtesy, or at least his politeness was purely formal; he became
sarcastic, disagreeable, difficult over the small questions of life
which from time to time cropped up; he would call the others to witness
how unreasonable Bernadette was, or to join him in ridiculing or
depreciating her pursuits, her tastes, or her likings. Sometimes there
was an indirect thrust at Oliver Wyse himself.
Being in the wrong on the main issue generally makes people anxious
to be in the right in subsidiary matters. Bernadette, conscious of
the cause of her husband's surliness, met it with perfect
good-nature--behaved really like an angel under it, thought Judith with
one of her bitterly humorous smiles. Arthur, a stranger to the cause of
the surliness--for though he had given Oliver Wyse a thought or two on
his own account, he had given him none on Godfrey's score--was troubled
at it, and proportionately admired the angelic character of the
response. His chivalry took fire.
"What's the matter with the old chap?" he asked Judith. "He's downright
rude to her sometimes. He never used to be that."
"Something's upset him, I suppose--some little grievance. I don't think
she minds, you know."
"I mind, though, especially when he seems to expect me to back him up.
I'll soon show him I won't do it!"
"You'd much better not mix yourself up in it--whatever it is. It won't
last long, perhaps."
"I can't stand it if it does. I shall have it out with him. The way
Bernadette stands it is perfectly wonderful."
Another halo for the fair and saintly head! Judith jerked her own head
impatiently. The natural woman longed to cry out: "Don't you see how
clever the minx is?" Sometimes the natural woman was tempted to wish
that Oliver Wyse would swoop down, carry off his prey, and end the whole
situation.
But there was to be a little more of it yet, a little more time for the
fascination of the new manner and the halo of imputed saintliness to
work. Oliver Wyse had interrupted his visit by reason of the illness of
an old uncle, to whom he had owed his start in life and whom he could
not neglect. It had proved rather a long business--Bernadette read a
passage from Sir Oliver's letter to the company at breakfast--but the
old man was convalescent at last, and Sir Oliver would be able to leave
him in three or four days more, if all went well.
"So, if I may, I'll settle provisionally to be with you next Friday,"
said the letter. It went on--and Bernadette also went on composedly--"So
there ought to be nothing in the way of our making the motor excursion I
suggested one day in the following week, if you've a mind for it then."
She folded up the letter, laid it beside her, took a sip of coffee, and
caught Judith's eyes regarding her with what seemed like an amused
admiration. Her own glance in return was candid and simple. "I'm afraid
I forget what his excursion was to be, but it doesn't matter."
"I haven't had my excursion yet," Arthur complained. "The fact is we've
done hardly anything since I came."
"Well, you shall have yours to-morrow, if it's fine," Bernadette
promised.
"For how long does Oliver Wyse propose to honour us?" asked Godfrey,
glowering and glum at the other end of the table.
"I really don't exactly know. A week or so, I should think."
Godfrey grunted surlily. "A week too much!" the grunt plainly said. He
turned to Arthur. "Yes, you'd better get your excursion while you can.
When Wyse is here, we none of us get much chance at the car."
Saintliness ignored the grumble. Arthur fidgeted under it. "If you want
the car, I'm sure I don't want to take it from you, Godfrey," he said
rather hotly.
"Oh, I spoke in your interest. I'm not likely to be asked to go on a
motor excursion!"
"You wouldn't go for the world, if you were asked," said Judith.
"It'll hold us all. Anybody can come who likes," remarked Bernadette
meekly.
"That's a very pressing invitation, isn't it?" Godfrey growled to
Arthur, asking his sympathy.
Little scenes like this were frequent now, though Oliver Wyse's name was
not often dragged into them; Godfrey shrank from doing that often, for
fear of defiance and open war. More commonly it was just a sneer at
Bernadette, a "damper" administered to her merriment. But Arthur
resented it all, and came to fear it, so that he no longer sought his
cousin's company on walks or in his study, but left him to his own
melancholy devices. The unhappy man, sensitive as he was, saw the change
in a moment and hailed a new grievance; his own kinsman now his wife was
setting against him!
In fact Bernadette's influence was all thrown in the other scale. It was
she who prevented Arthur from open remonstrance, forbade him to be her
champion, insisted that he should still, to as great a degree as his
feelings would allow, be his cousin's friend and companion. She was
really and honestly sorry for Godfrey, and felt a genuine compunction
about him--though not an overwhelming one. Godfrey had not loved her for
a long while; Oliver Wyse was not responsible for that. But she had led
him to suppose that she was content with the state of affairs between
them; in fact she had been pretty well content with it. Now she had
changed--and proposed to act accordingly. Acting accordingly would mean
not breaking his heart, but dealing a sore blow at his pride, shattering
his home, upsetting his life utterly. She really wanted to soften the
blow as much as possible; if she left him, she wanted to leave him with
friends--people he liked--about him; with Margaret, with Judith, and
with Arthur. Then she could picture him as presently settling down
comfortably enough. Perhaps there was an alloy of self-regard in this
feeling--a salve to a conscience easily salved--but in the main it came
of the claim of habit and old partnership, and of her natural
kindliness. These carried her now beyond her first delight in the drama
of the situation; that persisted and recurred, but she was also honestly
trying to make the catastrophe as little of a catastrophe as was
possible, consistently with the effecting of its main object. So it came
about that, in these last days before Oliver Wyse arrived, she thought
more about her husband than she had done for years before, and treated
his surliness with a most commendable patience.
Although Arthur's relations with Godfrey had thus suffered a check, his
friendship with little Margaret throve; the shy child gradually allowed
him an approach to intimacy. They had rambles together, and
consultations over guinea-pigs and gardening. Here Arthur saw a chance
of seconding Judith's efforts after family unity. Here there was room,
even in his eyes--for Bernadette, though kind and affectionate in her
bearing towards the child, did not make a companion of her. Inspired by
this idea, he offered a considerable sacrifice of his own inclination.
When the day came for his motor excursion, he proposed to Bernadette
that Margaret should be of the party. "It'll be such a tremendous treat
for her to be taken with you," he said.
Bernadette was surprised, amused, just a little chagrined. In her own
mind she had invested this excursion with a certain garb of romance or
of sentiment. It was to be, as she reckoned, in all likelihood her last
long _tête-à-tête_ (the driver on the front seat did not count) with
Cousin Arthur; it was to be in some sort a farewell--not to a lover
indeed, but yet to a devotee. True, the devotee was not aware of that
fact, but he must know that Oliver Wyse's arrival would entail a
considerable interruption of his opportunities for devotion. Arthur's
proposal was reassuring, of course, in regard to his feelings, for it
did not seem to her that it could come from one who was in any danger of
succumbing to a passion, and once or twice in these later days a
suspicion that the situation might develop in that awkward fashion had
made its way into her mind. Arthur must be safe enough as to that if he
were ready to abandon his long _tête-à-tête_! She was really glad to
think that she could dismiss the suspicion. But she was also a little
disappointed over her sentimental excursion--at having it turned into
what was in effect a family party. Even talk about sentiment would be at
a discount with Margaret there.
"It'll be rather a long day for her, won't it?" she asked.
"It'll be such a great thing to her, and we can cut it a bit shorter,"
he urged.
With a slight lift of her brows and a smile Bernadette yielded. "Oh, all
right, then!"
"How awfully good of you!" he cried. "How awfully good of me!" would
have seemed to her an exclamation more appropriate in his mouth at the
moment.
The child was sent for, to hear the great news. She came and stood
dutifully by her mother's knee, and Bernadette put her arm round her
waist.
"Cousin Arthur and I are going for a long drive in the car. We shall
take our lunch, and eat it by the road-side, and have great fun. And
you're to come with us, Margaret!"
The delighted smile which was expected (by Arthur, at least, most
confidently) to illuminate the child's solemn little face did not make
its appearance. After a momentary hesitation, Margaret said "Yes,
mummy."
"You like to come, don't you, Margaret?"
"Yes, mummy." She looked down and fidgeted her toe on the carpet. "If
you wish me to."
"No, dear, I want to know what you wish. Were you going to do something
else?"
"Well, Judith had promised to take me with her to Mrs. Beard's this
morning, and show me Mrs. Beard's rabbits."
The tone was undeniably wistful, whether the main attraction lay in
Judith, in Mrs. Beard, or in the rabbits. The combination was a powerful
one in Margaret's eyes.
"And would you rather do that than come with us?" Bernadette went on,
very kindly, very gently.
The toe worked hard at the carpet.
"Do just what you like, dear. I only want you to please yourself."
"If you really don't mind, mummy, I think I would rather----"
"Very well then!" Bernadette kissed her. "Run away to Judith!"
The delighted smile came at last, as Margaret looked up in gratitude at
her kind mother.
"Oh, thank you so much, mummy!" And she darted off with an unusual
gleefulness.
Bernadette, her part of kind mother admirably played, looked across at
Arthur. He was so crestfallen that she could not forbear from laughing.
His scheme a failure, his sacrifice thwarted! The father sulked; the
child, with an innocent but fatal sincerity, repelled advances. Things
looked bad for the unifiers! Indeed one of them had put her foot neatly
through the plan devised by the other. Judith knew about the proposed
excursion; clearly she had not thought it possible that Margaret would
be asked to join, or she would never have arranged the visit to Mrs.
Beard.
"We're unfortunate in meeting a strong counter-attraction, Arthur. We've
overrated the charms of our society, I'm afraid." Though Bernadette
laughed, she spoke in dry tones, and her look was malicious.
Arthur felt foolish. When once the scheme was a failure, it came to look
futile, hopeless--and terribly obvious. Bernadette saw through it, of
course; her look told him that.
"Oh, well, I suppose rabbits are----!" he murmured feebly.
"Rabbits--and Judith!" She rose and went to the window. "I rather think
it's going to rain." Then after a pause she went on, "I think you're
rather a conventionally minded person, Arthur."
He attempted no defence. She had seen through the scheme--oh, quite
clearly! She was vexed too; she was frowning now, as she stood by the
window.
"You can't have the same tastes and--and likings as people have just
because you happen to be some relation or other to them. It's no use
trying." She gave an impatient little shake of her head. She had not
altogether liked the child's being asked; she liked no better the
child's being unwilling to come. Little as she had wanted Margaret's
company, it was not flattering to be postponed in her regard to
rabbits--and Judith. Still, if the child did prefer rabbits and
Judith--well, there was the comforting reflection that she could always
have rabbits at a very moderate cost, and that there was no reason to
apprehend that she would be deprived of Judith. What she valued least
was the thing she was most likely to lose, as matters stood at present.
Hurt vanity wrested the little girl's innocent sincerity into an
argument for Bernadette's secret purpose.
"I don't like the look of that cloud. I'm sure it's going to rain."
Arthur glanced out of the window in a perfunctory way; he felt that he
would have to accept Bernadette's view of the weather prospects, however
subjective that view might be.
She was out of conceit with the excursion. All this "fuss"--as she
expressed it in the primitive phraseology of inward reflection--spoilt
it. She was rather out of humour even with Cousin Arthur. She did not
mind Judith planning and scheming in the interests of family union; she
was used to that and regarded it with an amused toleration. But she did
not fancy Arthur's undertaking the same _rôle_. In her conception his
proper attitude was that of a thorough-going partisan and nothing else.
As such, he had been about to receive the tribute of that excursion. Now
she was no more inclined to it. That sort of thing depended entirely on
being in the mood for it. Arthur's--well, yes, Arthur's stupidity--and
Margaret's--well, yes, Margaret's ungraciousness--had between them
spoilt it. She felt tired of the whole thing--tired and impatient.
"I think we'll wait for a safer day, Arthur."
"All right. Just as you like." He was hurt, but felt himself in fault
and attempted no protest; he knew that she was displeased with him--for
the first time in all their acquaintance.
So the car was countermanded. But the next day was no safer, nor the day
that followed. Then came Friday, which was otherwise dedicated. Neither
as a sentimental farewell nor as a family party did that excursion ever
happen.