A rearrangement of the table proved to be necessary, since at half-past
eight Lord Lindfield's motor had not yet been heard of. But in spite of
the absentees, it was a hilarious party that sat down. Some had been on
the river, some had strolled about the garden, and all were disposed to
enjoy themselves immensely. Jim Crowfoot had not ceased talking at all,
and showed at present not the slightest sign of doing so. He took Daisy
in to dinner.
"They are probably sitting by the roadside," he said, "singing Brahms to
each other, while the chauffeur lies underneath the car hammering it,
with his feet just sticking out, and trying to screw the throttle into
the waste-pipe of the carburetter. Why does nobody invent a motor car
without a carburetter? It is always that which is at the root of the
trouble. And the shades of evening will thicken, and they will sing
louder and louder, as night draws on, to check their rising sensations
of cold and hunger and fear, while the chauffeur swiftly and firmly
reduces the car to scrap-iron. I think it is so interesting when
somebody doesn't arrive. Their absence gives rise to so many pleasing
conjectures. What are we going to do to-morrow, Miss Daisy?"
"Oh, nothing, I hope," said she. "Why? Do you want to do anything?"
"No, but if I was expected to do anything, I wished to know the worst at
once. What I like best of all is to sit in a chair and not read. The
chair ought to be placed at some railway station, and a succession of
people should be provided to run by me with heavy bags in their hands
just missing their trains. The next best thing to doing nothing yourself
is to observe everybody else trying to do something, like catching
trains, and not succeeding. My uncle once missed eight trains in one
day, and then tried to commit suicide. But next day he caught nine
trains and a motor 'bus, which reconciled him to living, which he is
still doing."
"Are you sure he was your uncle?" asked Daisy.
"Not quite; but it is much better style to say a thing happened to your
uncle than to confess that you made it up. If you make things up people
expect you to write a novel or something, whereas nothing can be
expected from you if you say it happened to your uncle. I haven't got
any uncles. That is such a good thing; I can't be an anxiety to them.
And nobody is an anxiety to me."
The dining-room looked towards the front of the house, and Daisy turned
suddenly.
"Ah! surely that is the crunch of a motor on the gravel," she said. "I
expect it is they."
That it was a motor was at once put beyond the region of doubt by a
succession of loud hoots, and in a couple of minutes Jeannie appeared in
the doorway.
"Dear Alice," she said, "I apologize most abjectly; at least, the motor
apologizes. Lord Lindfield made it apologize just now at the top of its
voice. Didn't you hear it? Don't scold us. We missed the train by about
twenty minutes, as it is always best to do things thoroughly. Shall we
dress, or may we come into dinner just as we are?"
Jeannie looked radiantly round while chairs and places were being laid
for them, shaking hands with those nearest her, smiling at others, and
kissing her hand across the table to Daisy. The swift movement--it had
been extremely swift for the last ten miles after the car had got to
work again--and the change from the cool night air into this warm bright
room had brought the blood to her cheeks, and gave a wonderful sparkle
and youthfulness to her face, and she sat down at the top of one of the
sides of the table with Lord Lindfield between her and Alice.
"And we are so hungry," she said; "for the last half-hour we have
talked of nothing but food. I couldn't look at the pink after-glow
of the sunset because it reminded me of strawberry fool, and Lord
Lindfield nearly burst into tears because there was a cloud shaped
like a fish. And we had no tea, you see, because we were missing our
train at tea-time."
Dinner went on its usual way after this, and Daisy succeeded in giving a
less distracted attention to Jim Crowfoot, for up till their arrival she
knew that she had really been thinking about them only. She still felt a
little hurt that instead of coming down here early to-day Lord Lindfield
had been prevented from doing that only by his subsequent engagement to
take Aunt Jeannie to a concert; but very likely he had thought over his
half promise to arrive early, and seen, which was indeed the case, that
it was not quite a usual thing to do.
No doubt that was it; no doubt he would explain it to her afterwards,
and Daisy settled in her own mind that she would at once admit the
reasonableness of it, though she would let it appear that she was a
little disappointed. And she was delighted that Aunt Jeannie liked him;
she had said that before to Lady Nottingham, but it was truer now than
when she had said it. For she had been conscious then of something in
her own mind that did not agree with the speech; she had been glad that
Aunt Jeannie liked him, but she would have been quite equally glad if
she did not.
It was not quite a nice feeling; there was something in common between
it and jealousy, and it had required a certain effort, which she had
gladly made, to put it away from her. That she had done.
From where she sat she could just see him at the head of the table, side
by side with Lady Nottingham; but she let herself look at him no more
than she looked, with but casual glances, at any of the others. But it
was very often that she heard, and allowed herself to listen for, that
great boisterous laugh which contained so much enjoyment. Her rare
glances in his direction, however, told her that it was Aunt Jeannie to
whom he was talking, for after a word or two to Lady Nottingham just
after he came in they had had no further conversation together. It was
clear, then, that he liked Aunt Jeannie. That was a good thing also.
The door from the dining-room was at that end of the room at which he
was sitting, and Daisy, on her way out, had to pass close to him. He had
not finished his talk with her aunt even then, for they both stood by
their chairs, she waiting till others had passed out. But as Daisy came
up he saw her.
"Why, Miss Daisy," he said, "haven't seen or heard you all
dinner-time. Been practising for a future incarnation as a mouse or
some dumb animal? Well, this is jolly, isn't it? And Mrs. Halton's
forgiven me for having a motor that breaks down, on condition of my
getting one that doesn't."
"Daisy darling," said Aunt Jeannie, putting her arm round the girl's
waist, "how are you? You must take my side. After having stuck for
an hour on a perfectly flat road, is it unreasonable that I couple
my forgiveness with a new car?--You shall have our ultimatum
afterwards, Lord Lindfield. Daisy may make harder conditions than I,
and if she does, I shall certainly adopt them. Now, do look bored
pretty soon, and come out of the dining-room quickly. It is
barbarous this separation of the sexes after dinner. You don't stop
behind after breakfast to drink tea."
The others had passed out, and Daisy and Mrs. Halton brought up a rather
detached rearguard. The rest had gone straight out of the house into the
verandah, where they had had tea, for the night was exquisitely soft
and warm, and they followed them there.
"Ah! such a concert, Daisy," said Jeannie. "I wish you could have
been there. And such a ludicrous drive as we had. It is so pleasant
meeting Tom Lindfield again; we were great friends a year or two
ago, and I think we are great friends still. But, my dear, our
drive! We went for the first hour well inside the four-miles-an-hour
limit, and eventually stuck on a perfectly flat road. Then the
chauffeur chauffed for an hour or two, and after that we came along
a shade above the fifty-miles-an-hour limit. Our limitations were
our limits throughout. And such nonsense as we talked!"
"Oh, do tell me," said Daisy. "Nonsense is the only thing I care to
hear about."
"I couldn't. I can't remember anything. I only know I laughed quite
enormously and causelessly. Ah, here they all are.--Alice, what a divine
place, and how it has grown up? Like Daisy. I was telling her about my
ridiculous drive with Lord Lindfield."
Jeannie sat down in a big basket-chair and became suddenly silent. She
felt queerly tired; she felt also rather sick at heart, and looking at
Daisy, she could not bear the thought of the trouble and disquietude she
must bring to the girl whom she so loved. She had saddled herself with a
load that already galled her, though she had barely taken it up, and
even as she spoke of her ludicrous drive there came to her mind an
aspect of it, namely, the purpose for which she had driven down with
him, which was not ludicrous at all.
And here, in this starlit garden, with friends on all sides of her,
it seemed an incredible thing that she had got to sow suspicion and
discord. Trouble and sorrow seemed so remote, so utterly alien.
Security and serenity had here their proper home; it was a place of
pleasantness and friends and rest. She felt much inclined to yield
to its influences, to put off the execution of her scheme, saying
to herself that it was wiser to think over it again, and see if
there was not, as surely there must be, some other possibility of
detaching Daisy from the man whom it seemed certain she would
otherwise marry, and whom it was quite impossible she should marry.
Even now Daisy was standing near her, trusting her so implicitly,
loving her so well. That love and trust, so intensely dear to her,
she had to risk disturbing; indeed, it was scarcely a risk she ran,
it was a certainty she courted.
However quietly and well she did her part it was impossible that Daisy
should not see that she was encouraging Tom Lindfield, was using a
woman's power of attraction to draw him towards her. True, Daisy had not
as yet told her that she expected to marry him; officially, as far as
Daisy was concerned, she herself was ignorant of that. But supposing
Daisy confided in her? There was nothing more likely. Within the next
four-and-twenty hours Daisy would quite certainly see that her aunt was
very intimate with Lord Lindfield. That very intimacy would encourage
Daisy to tell her. Or, on the other hand, Lord Lindfield, while still
thinking that she was only a very pleasant, sympathetic woman, might
tell her his hopes with regard to Daisy. That was a very possible stage
in the process of his detachment.
Yet she knew that personally she could make no better plan than that
which she had already begun to carry out. She had thought over it, and
thought over it, and one consideration remained paramount, namely, that
Daisy must never know why this marriage was so unthinkably impossible.
If he proposed to her, it seemed certain that she would accept him. In
that case she would have to be told. Clearly, then, his proposal must be
averted. She could find no other plan to avert that than the one she was
pursuing, and already, partly to her relief, partly to an added sense of
the meanness of her own role, she believed that his detachment would
not be so difficult to manage. He had responded very quickly and readily
to her advances; he had come to the concert with her and was delighted
to miss the train, having told her also that he had "thought" of going
down early to Bray. He had said no more than that, and she had quite
legitimately laughed at the idea of his spending the day alone with two
girls, had professed herself as pleased to have upset so preposterous an
arrangement. Yet this, too, though she was glad to have stopped it,
added to her heart-sickness. He would not have made such an arrangement
unless Daisy had allowed it. And if Daisy permitted him to come down to
spend the day with her and Gladys, it surely implied that Daisy wanted
very much to see him. But Lady Nottingham had told her that Daisy was
not in love with him. That was still an anchor of consolation.
All this was no effort of consecutive thought which required to be
reasoned out. It was all in front of her, spread out like a landscape,
to be grasped in a moment. There was Victor, too....
Daisy moved a step nearer her chair.
"It's three days since you got back, Aunt Jeannie," she said, "and I
haven't had a real word with you yet. May I come and talk to you this
evening when we go up to bed? I have such heaps to say."
This was too dangerous. At any cost Jeannie wanted to avoid an intimate
conversation with Daisy. She had her work to do, and she did not think
she could go through with it if Daisy told her in her own dear voice
what she already knew. She herself had to be a flirt, had to exhibit
this man to Daisy in another light, to make her disgusted with him. That
was a hard row to hoe; she did not want it made more difficult.
Luckily, even as Daisy spoke, an interruption came. The sound of men's
voices sounded from an open door.
"My darling, how I long to talk to you," she said, "or, rather, to have
you talk to me. But to-night, Daisy, I am so tired. When I can escape
and go to my bedroom, I shall just tumble into bed. You look so well,
dear, and so happy. You couldn't tell me anything nicer than that. Ah!
here are the men. Let us multiply ourselves."