The next hour or two had fairly fulfilled the breakfast plans. Daisy,
after the tiger accident to her parasol at the Zoo, had fallen back, for
country use anyhow, on an immense scarlet contadina umbrella, and had
planted herself and this under the elm-tree as soon as breakfast was
over. Almost immediately after Lord Lindfield had followed her, with not
quite so rigid an interpretation of idleness as Daisy, for she had
brought absolutely nothing with her to occupy her hands or her mind,
whereas he had a daily paper.
"Not a word or a sigh or a sneeze, Miss Daisy," he said, in a whisper,
"or we shall be discovered. Not brought anything whatever with you?
That's right. Just you yourself."
"You forget my parasol," said Daisy, "and it really isn't an
insignificant affair."
"I know it isn't. I don't like it. It hides too much of you."
Daisy laughed.
"I suppose that means I have to put it down," she said.
"Well, I think it would be kind of you," he said. "You've been hiding
yourself too much lately to my mind."
Daisy could not let this pass.
"Well, I like that," she said. "You threw me over all yesterday, which
you said you were going to spend down here; you arrived with Aunt
Jeannie in the middle of dinner, and played five thousand up with her
afterwards."
"Yes, and when I do hope to catch a glimpse of you you hide yourself
under a scarlet umbrella," he said. "That's better; thanks awfully."
Daisy furled the big umbrella, and threw it down on the grass. For the
moment her mind was absolutely at peace again, and went back with a
tremulous sense of happiness to the mood of the ball, so few evenings
ago. And as she faced him, she thought again that it was a different
man from the one she had known, and again saw that the difference was
in herself.
"We had a great discussion, Mrs. Halton and I," he went on, "when we
were sitting like wayside flowers near Ealing yesterday, as to whether
people were nicer in the country or in town. I wonder which of us you
will agree with."
"Oh, with Aunt Jeannie, I expect," said Daisy, not without challenge in
her voice.
"H'm. That's a nasty one for me. Well, let's put it to the proof,
anyhow. We agreed that some people are nicer in town and others in the
country, but there we parted company."
"Ah, don't tell me," said Daisy. "Let me think."
She plucked a long grass stem and drew it through her teeth.
"The people one really likes and loves are nicer in the country," she
said at length. "The people who just amuse you are nicer in town."
"Hurrah!" said he. "That's first-rate! It's what I said myself. Mrs.
Halton wouldn't have any of that. She says that she herself is so much
nicer in town that she refused to accept such a classification. Else it
would mean that none of us liked her. But she stuck to the fact that
none of us would like her so much down here."
Daisy considered this.
"How funny of Aunt Jeannie," she said. "I wonder----"
Then a whole collection of the things that poor Daisy had tried to put
away from her mind flashed into it again, giving her a feeling of
sickness and insecurity. What did it all mean?
"I wonder what she meant?" she added, truthfully enough.
"Don't know. Here she comes. By Jove! Miss Daisy, how splendid she
looks."
Aunt Jeannie certainly was looking her very best this morning. She was
walking hatless in the blaze of the sun, and somehow the sunlight seemed
not so much to shine on her as to shine from her. Flowers, garden,
river, sky, sun, were all so much less splendid than she.
"I love this heat," she said, "and it saps my moral nature and leaves me
a happy animal with no sense of responsibility. Daisy dear, you needn't
answer. I won't invade you for long. But I sat down at my table with all
the unanswered letters, I looked them through, and determined not to
answer one. I'm going to have a holiday from being good. I've been good
too long, I think. The joy of virtue palls. But there ought to be wind;
there is sun and sky and water and all nice things, except wind. Can't
you--what's the phrase?--can't you raise the wind, Lord Lindfield?"
Tom Lindfield clicked his finger and thumb together.
"Jove! Mrs. Halton," he said, "you always think of the right thing, or
make me do so." He jumped up. "I'll order the motor at once," he said.
"You and Miss Daisy and I, let's all go out for a run. Old Puffing Billy
always goes well up to speed limit the day after he's broken down."
Daisy's effort with herself that morning on the river suddenly came to
the limits of its energy. Once again she saw everything in that light
which she had tried so hard to extinguish. And now there was more added,
there were further features in the scene. Aunt Jeannie was too clever
for her; with how natural an air she had come out and said that only
wind was necessary to make the morning perfect; and how naturally and
how unconsciously had he responded to that subtly conveyed suggestion,
the very subtlety of which made him believe that he had thought of the
plan himself. But outwardly Daisy still was mistress of herself; it was
from the inside, not the outside, that her control was beginning to give
way. She put up the red umbrella again.
"Thanks awfully, Lord Lindfield," she said, "but I can't think of
the grilling roads and the dust without putting up my neat little
parasol again. But you are too ingenious for words! Aunt Jeannie
comes out here and demands wind, and you instantly think of the only
plan of giving it her. No, for me the book of verses, or, rather,
the newspaper, underneath the bough will last till lunch-time. Has
anything happened?"
Daisy spoke in the lightest possible tone; it required a woman to hear
that beneath the light words a troubled spirit spoke. And Jeannie was
sick at heart at the success of her scheme. She had heard at breakfast
how these two meant to spend their morning; she was aware that others
knew of the situation which existed between them, and would surely avoid
the elm-tree by the rose-garden like a plague-stricken spot, and so she
had come out here on her hateful mission, interrupting and breaking up
their dangerous companionship.
She had been prepared to go further than this--to ask, if necessary,
point blank, for the use of his car, and hint at the pleasure of his
company. Part of that had been spared her; he probably had no inkling
of her design in coming out and demanding wind; indeed he thought he
had thought of it himself. But Daisy knew.
The tragic farce had to preserve the tone required of public
performances.
"Daisy dear, won't you come?" she asked. "Three is the best company
of all, I think."
Daisy turned over a leaf of the paper rather too smartly for a public
performance.
"Indeed, I think I won't, Aunt Jeannie," she said. "I had such a long
row before breakfast. I feel frightfully disinclined to move."
And she waited to hear Lord Lindfield urge her to come. But he was
already half-way towards the house. Daisy just raised her eyes, and
saw him already distant, and she felt that which she had often heard
of before, but passed over as unintelligible. Now she understood it,
for her heart swelled.
Aunt Jeannie followed after a general remark or two, to which Daisy
could scarcely reply. And after that more trials were in store, for
Willie Carton brought his patient presence out under the elm-tree
which had promised so well and performed so badly, and lay on the
grass and pretended to read a book.
It was very stupid of him to come, so Daisy thought, and rather selfish.
She had given him so firm an answer, and if he reopened the question
again she was determined to speak even more plainly. But he did nothing
of the kind, and Daisy, quieting down a little from the tumult of her
private thoughts, began to feel a little compassionate.
She knew now, in some kind of way, what was going on inside him. She
realized the nature of that which brought him out here, to pretend to
read a book. He wanted to be near her. And there was something of the
pathetic faithfulness of a dog about him--a dog that is beaten and
repulsed but never falters, or can falter, in devotion to his master.
She had begun to know what that unreasoning devotion meant.
"I know the compact of the elm-tree is not to talk or expect answers,"
said Willie quietly. "Don't let me disturb you."
Daisy looked up at him swiftly.
"But if I said that you do disturb me?" she said.
"Then I should go away," he said.
"Oh, Willie, you don't," she said.
"Right. Tell me when I do."
And then poor Daisy began to have a headache. It got worse, and before
long she rose.
"What a beastly day," she said.
"It is rather," said he. "But it's all right here."
"It isn't all right anywhere," said Daisy. "I shall go indoors. I've
got a headache."
"Wish I could take it," said he.
"Oh, don't be foolish. Thanks awfully; I know you mean it. But one can't
take other people's burdens, you know. We are all saddled separately,
and--and all we can do is to pretend we aren't saddled at all, and make
grimaces and pretend to enjoy ourselves. Do pretend--we all pretend."
"Oh, I've been pretending a long time," said he.
Daisy's headache gave her a stab that was quite unsettling.
"Men always think about themselves," she remarked. "Don't answer. It is
the elm-tree rule."
"I shall answer. Was your remark that men always think about themselves
meant to apply to me? I only want to know."
Daisy had some little sense of justice left.
"No," she said. "I don't think it was."
* * * * *
The motorists came back very late for lunch, just as the evening before
they had come back late for dinner.
* * * * *
Such was Daisy's morning; and she felt she had a perfect right to a
headache. And with her headache she lay in the window-seat of her
bedroom and watched the punt, with its crimson spots of cushions,
unwaveringly reflected in the surface of the Thames. Above the sky
grew darker with the approach of storm, and the light grew more
coppery with the rising of that curious cloud out of the south. But
still this dreadful clearness of air continued in spite of the
growing darkness.
Maidenhead was still close and distinct, and closer and more distinct
was the punt, where Aunt Jeannie handed Lindfield two crimson cushions.
Then in that darkness below the chestnut-tree a match was struck, and he
lit a cigarette, and dropped the still flaming vesta into the Thames.
Then he shifted his position a little, and sat nearer to that other
figure dressed in grey, whose arm was leaning over the side of the punt,
and whose hand just dabbled in the water.
And then Daisy suddenly hid her face in the cushions of the window-seat
and began to sob.