Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (continued 2)

Jean cast a twinkling glance across the table at Vanna.

“What did they want this time, Miggles? I bet anything you like, that every second letter was to beg for something that you have no business to give, and that you were weak enough to say yes all round. Can you deny it?”

“Why should I, dear child? Such a privilege. Most kind of them to have given me the opportunity. Old clothes! I don’t suppose you ever have old clothes, Miss Vanna—they always look so fresh and new. I like to see a girl in pretty clothes. When I was young, shallis were in fashion. I don’t suppose you ever saw shallis—very stiff, not nearly so graceful as your delaines. A dear lady gave me a brown shalli, trimmed with pipings. Brown was never my colour, but it wore for years—so very kind. Nowadays I have to wear wool for my poor bones. Wool always did irritate my skin. It took me weeks to get accustomed to sleep in blankets. I used to lie awake at nights tossing from side to side, and thinking of all the poor creatures who had no warm coverings—and mine the very best Whitney, the ones from the spare room, Jean, with the blue stripes. Mrs Goring said I was to have them. I’m sure if I’d been the Queen—”

“Oh, it’s wonderful to think of. Real Whitney blankets with blue stripes, on which to toss about and groan! What luck you have, Miggles, and how thankful you ought to be that you have bones to ache. If you hadn’t had that bad feverish attack, you might have been left stranded with your own bedding. It is piteous to think of.”

Miggles shook her large, ugly head with elephantine playfulness.

“Naughty child! naughty child! You are laughing at me, I can see. It is very painful, especially during the night, and I used to be so proud of my hands. I’ve had to give up wearing my turquoise ring, the knuckles are so enlarged. That really was a trial; but when you think what other people have to bear... There’s that poor man at Oxford Circus, who wheels about on a board. I always wonder if there are any legs inside his trousers, they lie so very flat; but of course one couldn’t ask. How monotonous it would be, my dear, to sit on a board from morning till night. When I thought of that, it seemed so foolish to fret about a ring... Your dear mother gave it to me one Christmas, because I had such a desire to possess a ring. It was the only one I ever had.”

“Dear Miggles,” cried Jean fondly, “I wonder you didn’t have a dozen. I wonder that every man you met didn’t press one upon you. They would have done so, if they had known what was good for them. You would have made the dearest wife!”

Miggles smiled appreciatively.

“Well, dear, I should, though I say it myself. I should have made him very comfortable. I have such a sympathy with men, poor dears, working all day long, and banks failing, and upsetting their plans, and all the bills to pay. They do deserve a little comfort at home. My nephew’s wife—Henry’s—I can’t help feeling she’s been a little to blame. Of course there’s no denying that Henry is rash, but he could have been guided, and Florence is hasty. A nice girl, too—very nice. I wouldn’t say a word against her, but you can’t help thinking sometimes, and I’m sorry for Henry. Yes! I’ve always regretted that I never had an offer. I was never pretty, like you, my dears; but personable, quite personable. A gentleman once passed the remark that if he had been young he would have wished nothing better than that nice, wholesome-looking girl; but he was quite old—a colonel, home from India, with a liver. When they are like that they admire a fresh complexion. And of course he had a wife already. It would have been pleasant to look back and remember that some one had wished to make me his wife.” Miggles gazed at the coffeepot with an air of placid regret, which quickly melted into smiles. “But, however—he mightn’t have turned out well. One never knows, and I read a sweet little poem in a magazine which might have been written to meet my case. She said (a lady wrote it; I should think she had had a disappointment), ‘If I never have a child of my own, with its little hands, and pattering feet, still all the children of the world are mine, to love and to mother.’ Such a beautiful thought, was it not?”

“Beautiful, indeed, and so original. She was a great poet, my Miggles. Talking of suitors, Piers Rendall is coming to tea. We’ll have it here, please. Piers likes a nursery tea set out on the table, with plenty of apricot jam, and thick sensible bread-and-butter; no shavings. Plum-cake; not plain—he detests caraway seeds, and two lumps of sugar in his tea.”

“I know. I’ve poured out tea for him since he was so high,” cried Miggles, waving her hand indefinitely in the air. “He had it with me here two days before you came. It’s not many young men who would care to walk three miles to see an old woman, but I can’t say he looks well. Thin—worried! A man ought to be full of life at that age.”

“Fretting for me, dear! He’ll be all right this afternoon. You’ll see,” announced Miss Jean confidently. She would have said the same of any other young man of her acquaintance, nevertheless Vanna waited with some anxiety for the events of the afternoon. Strive as she might, she could not divest her mind of a feeling of responsibility towards Robert Gloucester; of the conviction that Jean was his by right, and that separation could end only in disaster.

At three o’clock that afternoon Piers Rendall walked up the garden path, and Jean rushed out to meet him. Vanna, from her seat in the hall, could hear the merry exchange of greetings.

“Halloa, Princess!”

“Halloa, Slave! How are you feeling?”

“Hugging my chains! This is a piece of luck, your coming down so soon. What brought you away from the gay capital before the end of the season?”

“The train, sir! People who ask personal questions must expect to be snubbed. I ran away, but not alone. I’ve a friend with me—Miss Strangeways. Come and be introduced.”

They had entered the hall while Jean was speaking, and Vanna caught the quick frown of annoyance on the man’s face. He had a strong, well-knit figure, and a thin, nervous face. His hair was dark, his features were sharply aquiline, the whole effect was handsome and distinguished, but not altogether agreeable. The dark blue eyes had a somewhat irritable expression, and the features were subject to an occasional nervous twitching. They twitched at sight of Vanna seated in the deep cane chair facing the door, and his lips straightened themselves eloquently. Vanna knew that he was mentally wishing her at Jericho, and seeing his hoped-for tête-à-tête turned into a dull trio. But the revelation was but momentary, and nothing could have been more courteous than his greeting.

“How do you do, Miss Strangeways? I have heard so constantly about you from Jean that it is a double pleasure to find you here.”

Vanna murmured a conventional acknowledgment and felt mentally antagonistic. To feel oneself de trop is never an agreeable experience, and unreasonable though it might be, she resented both Mr Rendall’s attitude and his courteous disguise of the same. During the meal which followed she remained stiff and silent, while her three companions chatted and laughed with the ease of old friendship. Jean sparkled, her depression dispersed by the presence of a companion of the opposite sex, Miggles beamed from behind the tea-tray, and indulged in reminiscent anecdotes, to which the young man lent the most flattering attention. His bright eyes softened in genuine kindliness as he looked into her large, good-natured face, and he waited upon her with the utmost solicitude. Evidently there was a real bond of affection between the homely old woman and the handsome man. Towards Jean his attitude was more complex. Vanna, watching with jealous, anxious eyes—jealous on behalf of that other suitor whose claims she had denied—could not decide how much or how little his feelings were involved. He admired her, of course—what man would not admire Jean? They bandied words together, joked, teased, protested, without a suspicion of self-consciousness; at times they smiled at each other with undisguised affection; at other times some light word uttered by the girl seemed to strike a false note, and the irritable expression in the man’s eyes flamed into sudden anger.

“He has a passionate nature; he could feel very deeply. I think he is not happy.” Such was Vanna’s diagnosis of Piers Rendall’s character as she drank her tea and ate her plum-cake in almost uninterrupted silence. Her companions had endeavoured to draw her into the conversation. Jean had grimaced eloquently across the table, but Vanna made only a feeble response. It seemed as though Jean’s depression had been suddenly shifted on to her own shoulders; the peaceful content of the last few days had disappeared; she felt solitary, wounded, jarred. When the meal was over and the three young people started out on their walk, these feelings deepened. Had she not already received her instructions—that she was to feign an accident as an excuse for obliterating herself for the others’ benefit? Vanna set her lips with an obstinate little resolve to do nothing of the kind. She would not obtrude her society where it was not desired, but she would stoop to no pretence by way of excuse. When they had walked about a mile along the sea-front, she quietly announced her intention of sitting down.

“I don’t think I shall go any farther. I’ve brought a book. I shall sit here and rest, and you can pick me up as you come back.”

“Oh, Vanna! Why? Are you tired, dear? Aren’t you well?” demanded naughty Jean.

“Perfectly well, thank you,” replied Vanna coldly, and had the satisfaction of seeing that Piers Rendall thought her exceedingly disagreeable for her pains.

The two figures crossed the belt of pebbly stones, and walked over the sunny sands to the water’s side. Hitherto they had kept to the levelled promenade, and to Vanna’s irritated senses it appeared an added offence that, once released from her presence, they should at once hasten into solitude. She turned her eyes away and stared drearily into space. Revolt surged in her heart. It was not fair. Jean had everything—home, parents, beauty, strength, the right to be wooed and won. The world was cruel—unjust. Why should such differences exist? Her own lot was too hard. She had not deserved it. She had done her best. Circumstances had not been too easy—always there had hung a shadow; life in the little country hamlet with Aunt Mary, delicate and sad, had been by no means ideal for a young girl. Without conceit she knew herself to have been dutiful, affectionate, kind. She had put her own wishes in the background, content to minister to an old woman’s declining years. Her own turn would come. Life lay ahead, crowded with golden possibilities; when they came they would be all the sweeter for the consciousness of duty well done. And now? Ah, well, in converse with one’s nearest friend one might affect to be brave and independent, but in the solitude of one’s own woman’s heart it seemed as if those possibilities had been wiped away, and left nothing behind.

In times of trouble and upheaval the sufferer is constantly exhorted by sympathetic friends to turn resolutely away from the sad past, and look ahead. Onward! they are told—press onward! Life lies not in the past, but in the future. Despair comes of looking back, courage with expectation. Poor Vanna recalled these axioms with a weary heart. That was just what she dared not do. What could the future hold for her?

She sat very still, her hands clasped on her lap, her eyes shut against the glare. The sun seemed cruel to-day; the dance of golden light across the sands, the sight of those two light-stepping figures in the distance. She would help Jean, help others, who were in need. There was no lack of work in the world for hands which were willing and free. She could make other people happy; could live a noble, selfless life. Even so, and at the thought, the lips of three-and-twenty quivered, and the salt tears flowed. She wanted to be happy herself—longed to be happy. The selfless life sounded barren and cold; it roused no flicker of joy. “How shall I bear it?” asked Vanna of herself. “How can I live, looking on, always looking on, having no part? Even to-day with Jean—my darling Jean—and that strange man, I felt sore and angry and—bad! He thought me a cross, ungracious girl. His opinion does not matter, but other people will think so too if I behave in the same way; and that would be terrible. I could not exist if people did not care for me. In self-defence I must overcome. But how to do it?”

Vanna leant her head on her hands and sent up a wordless prayer. In her own fashion she was deeply religious, but it was not the fashion of her day. Her aunt had been shocked and distressed by her heterodox sentiments, and had spent many hours in prayer for her niece’s conversion, while Vanna, in her turn, had been fully as shocked at the old woman’s conventional ideas.

Aunt Mary had been the most tender and forgiving of mortals. Her memory, tenacious till death of the smallest kindness shown towards her, was absolutely incapable of retaining an injury. If any one offended, her own anxiety was to find for them a means of reform; to her charity there seemed literally no end.

When a trusted servant repaid endless kindnesses by a flagrant theft, Aunt Mary was bowed down with penitence for occasional carelessness on her own part which might possibly have led the sinner into temptation. “I remember distinctly one Sunday night when I left my purse in the dining-room, and was too lazy to go downstairs to fetch it, and at other times I have left change lying about. It was wrong of me—terribly wrong. One never knows what need there may be—what pressing need—and to see the money lying there before her eyes!”

To the scandal of the neighbourhood, instead of giving the offender in charge, or at least dismissing her in shame and ignominy, Aunt Mary tearfully apologised for her own share in the crime, and proposed a future partnership in which both should endeavour to amend their ways. Jane was sullen and unresponsive, too much overcome by surprise perhaps to be able to express any gratitude. That she felt it all the same was testified by her dog-like devotion to her mistress. All went well until another year had passed, when in a sudden burst of emotion the maid confessed to a fresh peccadillo. Now, indeed, any sane person would have realised the folly of keeping such a sinner in the house, and, hurling reproaches on her head, would have promptly ejected her from the threshold; but Aunt Mary was once more content to play the part of comforter. “I have my own besetting sins, Jane,” she said gently, “and I fear I have given way to them many times during this past year. You have kept straight until the last week, and you have confessed your fault. Have courage! You have made a good start. I shall treat you exactly as before, and trust you more fully!”

That was the end of Jane’s offences. Henceforth to the day of her mistress’s death she remained the most faithful and loyal of handmaids. Such was Aunt Mary, who devoutly worshipped a God whom she believed capable of torturing for eternity a sinner who had transgressed during a few short years of life, or a helpless infant who had chanced to die unbaptised! She was likewise convinced that the whole non-Protestant world was irrevocably damned, and harboured serious doubts with regard to Dissenters and the High Church party. She accepted as final and irrefutable every doctrine which she had been taught as a child, and would have been as ready to believe that Jonah swallowed the whale as the accepted version of the story, if it had been so inscribed in the Bible. To think for oneself on matters religious she considered profane; to expect fuller light with fuller knowledge—a blasphemy. To her mind the whole duty of man was comprised in attending his parish church, supporting his vicar, and subscribing to the creeds—Athanasian included. Aunt and niece had had the nearest approach to a quarrel which they had ever known one day when the girl’s intolerance had broken forth into words:

“Aunt Mary,” she had cried, “your religion is wicked! You are good in spite of it. You don’t really believe it. You only think you do. You subscribe ten and sixpence a year to the South American mission, and lie down in peace and sleep, believing the whole continent to be damned, while if one poor dog were suffering outside your gate you could not rest until you had rescued it. Can ten and sixpence buy peace, while a continent perishes? Your creed is unworthy of you!”

“My dear, you forget yourself. You shock me deeply. Such words from a young girl’s lips are terrible to hear. Profane! Rebellious! The poor, dear vicar! I must ask you never again to allow yourself to speak in this way. If the wicked thoughts arise, at least let them not find vent in words.”

After this Vanna was careful to avoid religious discussions with her aunt, but she noted with amusement that next year the good lady’s South American subscription had been increased by half a crown.

Now Aunt Mary had been moved up to a higher class, and the scales of ignorance had fallen from her eyes. The puzzles of life were solved for her, but her niece was still struggling with her tasks, and they were hard to learn. She sat with her hands clasped round her knees, the sea breeze blowing back the hair from the set, white face. Aunt Mary would have said that this trouble was God’s will—His direct dispensation; but Vanna could not accept this explanation. It was surely not God’s will that in past generations two people had put their own happiness before duty. Aunt Mary would have said again that as regards herself this punishment for the sins of others was “permitted,” and intended to be. Well!—one had only to look around the world, at everyday happenings, to realise that the Almighty did not interfere with natural laws. Thrust an arm into the fire, and that arm burns; infect your child with disease, and that child suffers, despite your prayers and entreaties. It is inevitable; but the sufferings were surely of men’s causing, “The thing of all others which, according to my light, must most ‘grieve’ the Spirit of God is the way in which His own children misjudge Him,” Vanna told herself slowly. “Dear, sweet Aunt Mary, who believed Him capable of things to which she herself would never condescend—all the good people who look out upon a sky full of worlds, and believe that their own particular tiny sect hold the monopoly of truth, and that every one who differs from them must inevitably be lost. Perhaps—who knows? it is misjudging Him just as cruelly to believe that the ghastly happenings of our life are of His choice. He has given us free-will; we make mistakes and suffer for them, and make others suffer too; but that’s our own doing, and—reverently speaking—outside His power. He is sorry for us—infinitely sorry, waiting and longing to send help, when our eyes are open to receive it. Perhaps I’m wrong, I can’t tell; but it’s the belief that helps me most, and removes the sting. I have such a big trouble for a woman to face—a lonely life; such a big effort to make—to look at happiness through the eyes of others, and keep sweet, and generous, and ungrudging. I need so much help...”

The minutes passed, while Vanna sat motionless, buried in thought. Passers-by cast curious glances at the still figure seated upon the pebbly beach above the fringed line of seaweed—her scarlet cloak gathered round her shoulders, her dark hair blown back from her face. It was not a beautiful nor even a pretty face in the usual acceptance of the words: the features were neither good enough to be noticeable, nor bad enough to jar. The only beauties were found in the dark, finely arched eyebrows, the oval shape of the face, and the stag-like setting of the small head, to which characteristics Vanna owed that air of distinction which redeemed her from the commonplace. Piers Rendall had paid little attention to the quiet girl who had sat beside him at the tea-table, and afterwards made an unwelcome third in the walk along the sea-front; but as he and Jean retraced their steps across the sands an hour later, his eyes turning towards the waiting figure fastened on the pale face, and lingered there.

We all own a mental picture-gallery which we carry about with us till death. Some of the pictures are ours by deliberate choice, printed on memory by loving intent; others, pain has stamped in undying lines; a few have gained their place as it were by accident. We had no intention of yielding them a place, no interest in the purchase; quietly and all uninvited they ranged themselves against the walls, and refused to be dislodged. Piers Rendall’s glance had been turned in indifference, almost dislike; but to the end of his life the picture of Vanna remained with him, as she sat on the grey stones, above the belt of seaweed, with the scarlet cloak round her shoulders, and the hair blown back from her face. Jean’s merry banter fell on deaf ears; he was not listening; had for the moment forgotten her existence. Her eye followed his, divining the explanation; she smiled expectantly, waiting until he should speak.

“What is the matter with that girl?”

“Tiredness, I should say. Bored! Sick of waiting so long. It was your fault. You would go on.”

“Nonsense. It’s more than that. What has happened to her?”

“Nothing; I told you so. She has serious bouts sometimes. She has one now. So would you have, if you sat in this wind, getting chilled through for an hour on end.”

“I am sorry to hear that. If it has not already happened, it must be still before her. It is written in her face.”

“Piers, how tiresome! Leave my Vanna alone. What is in her face?”

“Tragedy!” said Piers Rendall.

Chapter Seven.

“The Happy Land.”

The next event was the receipt of a letter from Mr Rendall’s mère, containing an invitation for lunch. Jean read it aloud to Vanna as they sat together on the tiny lawn where the postman had been intercepted.

”... Please excuse the formality of a call. I am getting old, and these hilly roads try my nerves. We hope you will all come over to lunch on Wednesday, at one o’clock. I shall be pleased to meet Miss Miggs again, and to make the acquaintance of your young friend. The carriage shall call at twelve-thirty. Believe me, my dear Jean, Your attached friend—”

“Good for her! We accept with pleasure, of course.”

“I don’t.”

“Vanna! How disagreeable you can be when you try. Why were you so bleak and crusty to Piers yesterday? I wanted you to be nice.”

“You told me to keep out of the way, and I did it. I didn’t take to him, nor he to me.”

“Humph! I don’t know,” Jean considered, her chin resting upon the cup of her hand. “He was a trifle quelled to find you here—that was natural, for he thought I would be alone; but he was impressed. When we came back from our walk you were staring out to sea with such big, sad eyes, and he looked at you, and wondered. You impressed him, Vanna.”

“You are not to tell him! I forbid you to tell him about me!”

Vanna spoke with a headlong impetuosity which surprised herself. She did not understand why she shrank from the idea of Piers Rendall listening to an account of her family history; but the prospect stung, and she could not control her impatience. Jean looked at her with quiet reproach.

“I should not dream of such a thing. I shall never speak of it, never—except at your express request.”

“I’m sorry, dear. I’m very irritable these days. Write your acceptance, and I’ll do my utmost to behave. What is she like—this mamma? A female Piers?”

“Not one bit. A little shrinking creature, very proper, very dull—in a gentle fashion, appallingly obstinate. She and Miggles together are as good as a play. You’ll hear. They’ll get entangled in a dual conversation, and all I ask is—don’t look at me! Mrs Rendall would never forgive me if I laughed. She’s a trying little person, and Piers is sweet to her; never loses his patience. He deserves a halo for that.”

Vanna raised protesting eyebrows.

“Well, I hardly knew my parents, but I have realised the want of them so badly all my life that I can’t screw myself up to an access of admiration for a son who is decently polite to his mother. Suppose she does try his patience at times—that’s inevitable, I should say, between a young man and an old woman—how many times has she borne and forborne with him; what mountains of patience has she expended on his training? It’s not a virtue, it’s mere common decency that he should be kind to her now. He would be despicable if he failed.”

“Quite true, every word true. You are theorising, dear, and there’s not an argument against you. But leave theories alone for a moment and look at facts. How many parents and children—grown-up children—do you find who live together in sympathy and understanding? Precious few. Sometimes there’s an open feud; that’s rare, and can’t go on in the nature of things; sometimes there’s an armed truce; sometimes there are successions of jars; almost always there’s a gulf. They see with different eyes, and hear with different ears, and each side thinks the other blind and deaf. One side lacks sympathy, the other imagination. It seems the most difficult thing in the world to ‘put yourself in his place.’”

“I don’t know. If I’d had my own mother, it seems to me we would have been friends. It wouldn’t have needed a great exercise of sympathy to realise that she was old and tired, tired with looking after me; and if I had made a friend of her and talked to her, and—told her things, she would have sympathised with me in return. I know she would. I feel it!”

“Did you, ‘tell things’ to Aunt Mary?”

“No, of course not. That was different.”

“Ah, you think so; but it is not. It’s the generation that’s the bar, not the person,” cried Jean with one of her quick flashes of intuition. “Youth wants youth and looks for it, and finds it easier to confide in a girl after a week’s acquaintance than in her very own mother, I’ve seen it not once, but dozens of times. It doesn’t mean that she loves her more, or a tenth part as much, but in a curious, inexplicable way she’s nearer. It’s hard on the parents. Every age has its own trials: love troubles when you are young; weakness when you are old; when you are middle-aged it must be just this, to yearn after your children, to long to help and comfort, and to see them prefer some one else! I’m sorry for parents; but why do they grow so old? If I have a daughter, I shall keep young for her sake. At least I shall remember that I was young. I shall never say: ‘the rain is coming down in sheets, the wind is in the east. I can’t think why you can’t be content by your own fireside, instead of racing half over the town,’ I shan’t be overcome with surprise when she forgets to order the fish on the eve of a proposal, or expect her to look a fright in mackintosh and goloshes when she goes out with men friends. I shall remember how I preferred to look nice, even if my feet were soaked!”

“You may also remember that you suffered from rheumatism thereby, and wish her to profit from your experience.”

“No use, my dear. Her rheumatism’s her own, and if it comes she will bear it, but never my goloshes! A parent can be wise and prosy, and expound the law; but he can’t do more. If he tries, he loses instead of gains. I shall school myself to the fact that my little girl is bound to err, and that we are bound to suffer in consequence, she in deed, and I in looking on. That’s the price of being a mother. Then when she’s had her own way and been buffeted, she’ll come to me and I’ll help her. Dear little girl!”

The lovely face was aglow with tenderness: it was easy to see that the maternal instinct was strong in Jean’s heart, and that she would rise to her fullest height as wife and mother. The next moment she raised herself, flashed an anxious look at Vanna’s face, and deftly turned the conversation.

“Well, anyway you’ll see for yourself that Mrs Rendall’s a trial. When she and Miggles get started, don’t interrupt—let them have it out by themselves. Piers loves to listen, and so do I.”

The next day an old-fashioned barouche bore the three ladies over several miles of hilly roads to the square white mansion where the widowed Mrs Rendall lived in peaceful seclusion from the world. After the style of old-fashioned houses, it was situated in a hollow, sheltered from the wind, but also cut off from a view of the surrounding country. The entrance hall was bleak and uninteresting, the rooms, so many big square boxes, furnished with Early Victorian heaviness, and an astonishing absence of individuality. Vanna counted eleven little tables in the drawing-room, each bearing a weight of senseless ornaments. On the marble chimney-piece a pair of red glass “lustres,” a pair of Parian marble figures, male and female, were mathematically arranged on each side of a Bohemian glass centre-piece, bearing a medallion portrait of a simpering brunette. A bannerette of crimson cross-stitch, on which was worked a cluster of steel-bead roses, hung pendant from a brass rod; the water-colour paintings on the walls were encircled by large white mounts; the drab carpet was garlanded with flowers; in the air was the sweet, somewhat musty flavour of potpourri. Mrs Rendall wore a large widow’s cap on the top of a small grey head, and was the sort of woman who is instinctively connected with a shoulder-shawl and mittens. It was difficult to imagine her the mother of the handsome man with the bright, irritable-looking eyes, who stood by her side to welcome the guests on their arrival.

The dining-room was a distinct improvement on the drawing-room, as is invariably the case when the mistress of the house is devoid of taste. The mahogany furniture was solid and purposeful, and the family portraits on the red flock walls added an air of richness to the prevailing comfort. The table itself was beautifully spread with the finest of napery and some treasured pieces of old family silver. Six specimen glasses were set at equal distances, each bearing a head of geranium and a spray of maidenhair fern; two white-capped maids stood stiffly at attention.

“Piers, my dear,” said Mrs Rendall primly, “will you ask a blessing?”

During the progress of the first course the conversation was general and futile. The party was too small to allow of separate conversations: the young people seemed inclined to allow their elders to lead the way, and as one old lady seemed determined to cling tenaciously to one subject, and the other to dash continually to pastures new, the result was something confusing. Vanna felt the pressure of Jean’s foot on her own, and received a twinkling glance of amusement. “Now!” said the glance as plainly as words could speak. “The fun’s beginning. Let them have it to themselves.”

“No! I never disturb my borders,” announced Mrs Rendall firmly. “Neither bulbs nor perennials. My gardener says—”

“But you remember the Totteridges!” Miggles interrupted, insistently smiling. “Emily Mackintosh. She married the son of the old man, Rev. Totteridge, Vicar of Newley. My sister Susan was bridesmaid. Pink taffetas. All the go. He went out to India and was killed by a tiger. Poor Emily! You know their garden. That border by the church wall—”

“My gardener says—”

“Emily always divided the bulbs. Some people leave them for three years. Our old landlord over at Sutton—did you know the Dixons? Charming family! They used to come over and play croquet with us at my old home. The second son was a dear fellow, but stuttered. So sad when a man stutters. What was I saying, dear? I do wander! Oh, yes! Old Mr Dixon moved them every autumn—”

“My gardener says—”

“But they grew so matted. You know! Matted! Jungles! I always say take a middle course. When I was spending my holiday in Devonshire I had tea in a lovely old garden. Clotted cream. Did you ever try it with marmalade? De-licious! All the lilies in one bed, and a stream running through. ‘Cool Siloam.’ Couldn’t help thinking of it, you know, but not in an irreverent spirit. Wouldn’t be irreverent for the world. It’s the spirit that matters, isn’t it, dear—the spirit, not the letter? The scent of those lilies—”

“My gardener says—”

“Yes, dear, and of course he has experience, but we must judge by results—judge by results. Stands to reason, as I say, and you had so few blooms. What can you expect if they never get any attention? Poor things. We all like attention. I do, I’m sure. And if they’re matted, can they bloom? Now try it one year! You’re mistress. I don’t approve of being overruled. Consideration, but not concession. Hear all that other people have to say, and take your own way afterwards, as my dear mother used to say. Jean, you are laughing! Naughty girl! What is so funny about bulbs?”

“My gardener says that well-established bulbs bloom better than those which are continually removed,” said Mrs Rendall firmly. “I intend to follow his advice.”

“Certainly, dear. Why not, if you wish it? The garden’s your own. Hope he appreciates his place. People always say gardeners are despotic; my dear father would have no interference. Discharged three men in succession for giving advice, and when the fourth came for orders the first morning—I remember it so well; I was a girl at the time, about fourteen—‘d’ye see that row of gooseberry bushes?’ he said. ‘Dig ’em all up, and plant ’em back again head downward.’ ‘Very good, sir,’ said the man. At lunch time there they were—poor things! roots sticking up in the air—you never saw such a sight—obliged to laugh, you know, obliged to laugh, though daren’t show it. ‘You’re the man for me,’ said my father. ‘There’s a shilling for you; go and get a drink.’ My mother was an abstainer, but he would never join. A pity, but men, my dear, men, can’t be coerced—!”

“Piers,” said Mrs Rendall coldly, “return thanks.”

In the face of such an interruption Miggles was perforce reduced to silence, and the luncheon party broke up. Coffee was served in the drawing-room, and Vanna mentally resolved to plead fatigue as an excuse for spending the next two hours with the old ladies; but she was not allowed to carry her plan into execution.

“I want to take you the round of our little estate, Miss Strangeways,” Piers announced when the coffee-cups had been put aside. “Jean knows it of old, but we always seize the opportunity of showing it to strangers. I won’t ask you to come with us, Miggles, for the paths are distinctly rough, and you will be more comfortable sitting quietly on the verandah with mother. What sort of heels are you wearing this afternoon, Jean?”

“Flat, ugly, English! I have too much sense of fitness to sport ‘Louis quinze’ in country roads; but why do English bootmakers set their faces so sternly against insteps? I’m never comfortable out of a French shoe,” said Jean with a sigh.

She slid her hand through Vanna’s arm with an affectionate pressure which was intended to show her agreement in Piers’s invitation, and the three young people walked across the lawn, leaving the old ladies seated in their low cane chairs.

“Sleep sweetly—and dream of bulbs!” quoth Jean, peering at them over her shoulder. “Piers, I don’t want to grow old. It doesn’t seem possible that a time can ever come when I shall be content to wear cashmere boots and sleep on a verandah while other people play in the sun. Do you believe that I shall really grow old?”

Piers Rendall looked at her and his lips twitched, but his eyes did not soften—the hard brilliancy, which was their chief characteristic, became if anything a trifle more accentuated. It was a curious look for a man to cast at a girl with whom he was in love. Was he in love with Jean? Vanna asked herself curiously for the hundredth time in the course of the last few days. If she had but known it, Rendall was engaged in asking himself the same question, and finding it almost as difficult to answer.

At times, yes! He would have been less than a man if he had not been occasionally swept off his feet by the vivid beauty of that upturned face. Jean present—laughing, teasing, cajoling—could hold him captive. Ear and eye alike were busy in her presence, busy and charmed; haunting, everyday cares were thrust into the background, and discontent transformed into joy. For the hour it would seem as if the whole happiness of life were to laugh, and dance, and to rejoice in the sunshine. So far so good, but—Jean absent, the spell dissolved. The thought of her had no power to hold him; he could live tranquilly for months together, indifferent to, almost forgetful of, her existence. Here there was surely something wrong. This could be no real passion, which was so lightly dispelled. If he really loved as a man should love, the thought of her should be as chains drawing him to her side. Piers Rendall sighed. “Perhaps,” he told himself with weary self-depredation—“perhaps I am incapable of real passion. It is the same story all round. I never get far enough. Nature made me in a mocking mood, cursing me with high aims and poor achievements. What I long for is never accomplished, what I attain never satisfies. If I am to find any happiness from life, I must adjust the balance and be satisfied with smaller things. It’s time I married. Most men can live alone, but I’m sick of solitude. Ten years of life in chambers is enough for any man. Jean is a darling, a delight to the eyes; she’s only a child, but she’s sweet all through, and she’ll grow. She’ll be a dear woman. I am always happy in her company—it’s only when we are apart that I have doubts. If she would have me, we should always be together. Would she have me, I wonder?”

He looked down at the girl as she walked by his side, critically, questioningly, with a certain wistfulness of expression, yet without a throb of the desperate, death-and-life tension which another man might have felt, which he himself understood enough to miss and to covet.

“Shall I never feel?” he asked himself, and his thin face twitched and twitched again.

“You don’t speak,” cried Jean lightly. “Poor Piers! he thinks it a silly question, but he is too kind to speak the truth. Does the girl expect to be immortal? he is saying to himself, and trying to conjure up a picture—the picture of Jean Goring, old! Ah, well, it will be only my husk that alters; and even when it’s withered and dry there’ll be this comfort; you’ll be withered, too! We shall all grow old together, and we’ll be friends still, and cling together, and sympathise, and think the young so—crude!” She laughed, and pointed forward with an outstretched hand.

“Here’s the tennis-lawn, and there’s the fernery, and here’s a prosaic gravel path dividing the two. You’ve seen fifty thousand other gardens like it before. Now shut your eyes—keep them shut, and let me guide you for the next two minutes. Then prepare for a surprise.”

Vanna shut her eyes obediently, and surrendered herself to the guiding hand. For some yards the path stretched smooth and straight beneath her feet, then suddenly it curved and took a downward dope. At the same time the well-rolled smoothness disappeared, and her feet tripped against an occasional stone. The second time this happened a hand touched her shoulder with the lightest, most passing of pressures—that was Piers Rendall, who had evidently crossed the path at the opposite side from Jean, to be a further security to her steps. Vanna flushed, and trod with increased care, but the path was momentarily becoming more difficult, and despite all her precautions she slipped again, more heavily than before. This time the hand grasped her arm without pretence, and at the same moment she stopped short, and cried quickly:

“Oh, it’s too rough. I can’t go on. I’m going to open my eyes.”

“Open!” cried Jean’s voice dramatically, and with a hand placed on each elbow twisted her round to face the west.

Vanna gave a cry of delight, and stood transfixed with admiration. The commonplace white house with its tennis-lawn and beds of geraniums had disappeared; she stood on a path looking across a narrow glen illuminated by sunshine, which streamed down through the delicate foliage of a grove of aspens. The dappled light danced to and fro over carpets of softest moss, through which peeped patches of violets and harebells. The trunks of the aspens shone silvery white; here and there on the crest of the hills stood a grave Scotch fir, grey-blue against the green. From below came the melodious splash of water; the faint hum and drone of insect life rose from the ground; from overhead floated down the sweet, shrill chorus of birds. Vanna gazed, her face illumined with admiration, and her companions in their turn gazed at her face. It also was good to look at at that moment, and eloquent as only a usually quiet face can be.

“Oh! how wonderful! It’s a dell—a glade—a fairy glade! The unexpectedness of it! Only a few yards from those beds of geraniums! One feels as if anything like a house or bedding-out plants must be at the other end of the world... And down there the little stream...” She lifted her head with a sudden glance of inquiry. “The stream grows wider surely—there are stepping-stones—at the end there’s a lake. I am sure there is a lake—!”

Before Piers had time to reply, Jean had interrupted with a quick exclamation:

“Vanna! How did you know? How did you guess? You have never been here before?”

“Perhaps Miss Strangeways thinks that she has. Have you visited our glen in another incarnation, Miss Strangeways, that you remember its details so distinctly?”

Vanna shook her head.

“No; I have never known that feeling. One hears of it, but it doesn’t come to me. It’s more like—expectation. I seemed for the moment to see ahead. It must really be a fairy glen, for there’s enchantment in the air. Something—something is going to happen here. I feel it! Something good! We are going to be happy!”

Piers looked at her curiously, but Jean remained charmingly matter-of-fact.

“Of course we are, and we are going to begin at once. Let’s sit down and talk. It’s cool tinder these trees, and I’m sleepy after lunch. So you don’t remember being here before, Vanna? How stupid of you! You must have a very short memory. We’ve played here together scores of times, when there was no white house, and no smooth lawn, and the grandparents of these old trees were gay young saplings. I was a wood-nymph, and danced about with the other nymphs all day long, and flirted with the elves—elves are masculine, I’m sure! and feasted on nuts. (That habit lasts. I adore them still.) When winter came, I curled up into a tight little ball in the hollow of an oak, and slept till spring came back. Where is that old oak, I wonder? I long to meet it again. And all the long summer days we ate wild strawberries, and drank out of the stream, and played hide-and-seek among the trees. And one day, Piers, you came along—do you remember? I peered out from behind the leaves, and saw you coming.”

“I was not an elf then—one of the number who was honoured by your attentions?”

“Oh, dear me, no! Nothing so frivolous. You an elf! You were a woodcutter with a solemn face, and a long white beard, and a big strong axe, and you came trespassing into my glade with intent to kill my dear tree friends. But I circumvented you. When you took up your axe I swung on the branches till the sunshine danced on your eyes, and dazzled them so that you could not see.”

“The same old trick! I seem to have no difficulty in remembering you in that guise. It has a flavour of to-day.”

“Poof!” Jean blew disdain from pursed-up lips. “So much for you. If you are so clever at remembering, tell me something about Vanna as she was at that time. She was there that day—quite close to me. What was she like?”

Piers looked across to where Vanna sat, and, for the first time in the short history of their acquaintance, their eyes met with smiling ease and friendliness. Each felt a sense of relief to see the other in happier mood, and with it an increased appreciation of the other’s charm. “If he were always happy, how handsome he would be!”

“She is charming when she smiles. She should always smile!”

“So we are old friends, Miss Strangeways. We have Jean’s word for it, so it must be true. My memory is not very clear. Let me think. I was a woodcutter with a long grey beard. I must have looked rather striking in a beard. And I invaded Jean’s glade with intent to kill, and made your acquaintance there. What can you have been? Not a nymph, I think; perhaps a flower—”

Vanna lifted a protesting hand. Whence came this sudden tide of happiness; this swift rush of blood through the veins? The last year’s burden of sorrow had weighed heavily upon her shoulders; the Harley Street interview had seemed to put a definite end to youth and joy; but now suddenly, unreasonably, the mist lifted, she knew a feeling not only of mental but of actual physical lightness; hard-won composure gave place to the old gay impulse toward laughter and merriment.

“No—no. I guess what you are going to say; but spare me, I pray you! I was not ‘a violet by a mossy dell.’ It is the inevitable comparison, but it does not apply. Whatever I was, I am sure I was never content to nestle in that mossy bed.”

Piers Rendall looked at her reflectively, the smile still lingering round his mouth.

“No-o,” he said slowly. “I should not think the violet was exactly your counterpart. We must leave it to Jean—”

“She was a Scotch fir,” said Jean firmly. “She stood up straight and stiff against the sky, and there were little sharp spikes on her boughs, and if you ran against her, she pricked; but when the storms came, and the aspens bent and swayed, she stood firm, and the little needles fell on the ground, and made a soft, soft bed, and we lay there sheltered, and slept till the storm passed by. There! You never knew how poetic I could be. I’m quite exhausted with the effort, and so sleepy! I positively must have a nap. Run away, you two! Explore the glen for half an hour, and leave me in peace. If there’s one thing in the world I adore, it’s sleeping out-of-doors.”

She curled up on the ground as she spoke, nestling her cheek in her hand, and yawning like a tired child, without disguise or apology. Evidently there was no pretence about her statement, for already her eyelids had begun to droop, until dark lashes rested on the flushed cheeks; she moved her head to and fro seeking for greater comfort; peered upward, and exclaimed with added emphasis:

“Go away! I told you to go.”

Jean was accustomed to issue queenly commands, and her friends were accustomed to obey. Piers and Vanna strolled down the sloping path, leaving her to her dreams. A day before Vanna would have felt unhappily that Piers was chafing at the change of companionship, and condoling with himself in advance on a half-hour’s boredom; to-day she was troubled by no such doubts. Self-confidence had returned, and with it the old stimulating consciousness of charm.

Piers Rendall deserved no pity at her hands.

The path grew steeper, strewn with pebbles, interspersed with crawling roots of trees; the gentle trickle of water deepened in tone as it swirled in rapid flow round the mossy stones; banks of old-fashioned purple rhododendron framed the margin of the lake. A rustic bench stood at a corner, whence the most extensive view could be obtained; the two seated themselves thereon, and slid easily into conversation.

“So you have pleasant anticipations concerning our glen? We are used to admiration, but I think that it is quite the most charming compliment it has received. If it had recalled a dim memory it would not have been half so interesting, for when the good things arrive we are bound to have a share in them, if only the pleasure of looking on while you enjoy. What form does it take—this presentiment of yours? Have you any definite idea of what is to happen—or when?”

Vanna shook her head.

“Nothing! I only know that the moment I opened my eyes and looked round I felt a throb of—not surprise, something bigger than surprise, and a quite extraordinary rush of happiness and hope. Things have not been cheery with me of late, so it is all the more striking. I feel about ten years younger than when I left the house.”

He looked at her searchingly, and Vanna entered it to his credit that he spared her the obvious flattering retort. Instead, his own expression seemed to cloud; he leant his arms on his knees and, bending forward, stared gloomily into space.

“What sports of circumstances we are! I was looking round the table at lunch to-day and puzzling for the hundredth time over the question of temperament. Does it interest you at all? Do you find it a difficulty? Why are some of us born into the world handicapped with temperaments which hold us in chains all our days, and others with some natural charm or quality of mind which acts as an open sesame wherever they go? Look at Miggles! A plain, lonely old woman, without a sou. If she had been born with a ‘difficult’ temper, she might have worked, and slaved, and fought with evil passions, and gone to bed every night of her life wearied out with the stress of battle, and when the need of her was past, her employers would have heaved a sigh of relief, and packed her off with a year’s salary. Can’t you hear her requiem? ‘a good creature, most painstaking—what a relief to be alone!’ But Miggles! No sane creature would willingly send her away. You would as soon brick up windows to keep out the sun. She radiates happiness and content, without—this is the point—without effort on her own part! The effort to her would be to grumble and be disagreeable, yet she receives all the credit and appreciation which she would have more truly deserved in the other case. And Jean! Look at Jean! Honestly—we are both her devoted slaves—but honestly, is it by any virtue of her own? Does she reign by merit or by chance?”

Vanna smiled.

“I know what you mean. Jean is charming, but it is easier for her to be charming than for most people. Every glance in the glass must be as reviving as a tonic. She has no difficulty in making friends, for people advance three quarters of the way to meet her; and if by chance she is in a bad mood—well, she is charming still. Of course, if she were plain—”

“Exactly! She reigns in a kingdom of chance, and by no merit of her own. Doesn’t that seem rather hard on the unfortunates who start with a handicap—a restless, unsatisfied nature, for example—a nature which longs for the affection and appreciation which it seems fated never to receive; which suffers and struggles, and honestly sees no reason why life should be harder for it than for another? Yet there it is—the inequality, the handicap from the beginning. Jean has beauty and charm, but even these don’t weigh so heavily in the balance as happiness; the aura of happiness and content which radiates from Miggles and her kind—the Mark Tapleys of the world, who triumph over every sort of physical and material difficulty. You smile! Are you thinking of some one you know, some particular person who is included in this happy category?”

“Yes; of a man I met only the other day—a man over thirty, with eyes like a child; clear, and unclouded, and happy. Yet he had known many anxieties; in a worldly sense I suppose he would be counted a failure, but, as you say, one felt it, the aura of radiant happiness and content.”

“Lucky beggar! The world which counts him a failure would think me a success, because I have plenty of money, and was born to a decent position; but looking back over my life I can’t remember one single occasion when I have been really content. There has always seemed something wanting, a final touch of completeness floating out of reach. Yet I give you my word, if at this moment a wish would bring me anything I chose, I should not know what to ask!”

Vanna looked at him searchingly, noting the lean cheeks, the hollow brow, the deep lines around eyes and mouth.

“Isn’t that partly physical, don’t you think? You don’t look strong. The body affects the mind.”

Her voice involuntarily took a softer tone, the feminine tribute to weakness in any form; but Piers Rendall would not accept the excuse.

“On the contrary, it’s my mind that affects my body. I’m strong enough. My body was born free of microbes—the poison was in my mind. That seems a hard theory, but it’s true. Have you never noticed how one child in a family seems to have inherited all the weaknesses and failings, while the others get off scot free? He is plain, while they are handsome; sullen, where they are genial; underhand, while they are open. I know such cases where one can only look on and marvel—where there is no blame to be cast, where the parents have broken no law—are healthy, no relation—”

Vanna winced. A shadow passed across her face, as if cast by a flickering bough.

“Don’t talk of it,” she cried urgently. “Don’t! It is too pitiful, here in this glen. I can’t discuss such things here. Another time, perhaps, but let me be happy here. Talk of happy things. There is so much sorrow...”

Piers looked at her, and as he did so there arose in his mind the swift remembrance of her face as she had sat upon the pebbly beach a few days before—the face on which he had read tragedy. Remorse seized him. He hastened to retrieve his mistake.

“Forgive me. You are quite right—the scene is not appropriate. Miss Strangeways, by the laws of appreciation, this glen is yours. I have a conviction that these trees recognise you as their queen. Lay down a law, and we will keep it. Come what may, when you and I enter this glen, we will leave our troubles behind. It shall be a space apart, in which to be busy over nothing but being happy. We will talk of happy things, happy memories, happy prospects; best of all, the happy present. It shall be a sin against the realm and its sovereign to mention one painful fact. Is it agreed?”

Vanna looked around with wistful glance.

“The Happy Land! That is a charming idea—to keep one spot on earth sacred to happiness! Why has not one thought of that before? Yes, indeed, Mr Rendall, I’ll agree. The only pity is that I shall be here so seldom. One ought to keep one’s happy land within reach.”

“I hope you may come more often than you think. Mr Goring is talking of buying the Cottage, and if that comes off you will be constantly with them. My visits also are only occasional. For nine months of the year I am in town. It will be an extra attraction to come down to a place where I am bound to be happy. Where is your settled home?”

“I have no home at present.”

Vanna vouchsafed no further explanation, and Piers did not ask for one, for which she was grateful. More than once this tactful reservation of the obvious had arrested her attention, and been mentally noted as the man’s best point. Vanna felt sorry for him, tender over him, as a woman will do over something that is suffering or weak. The nervous, restless face looked far indeed from content, yet he had declared that if he had power to wish he would not know what to desire. That might mean that he was dwelling in that unrecognised stage of love, that period of discomfort, doubt, and upheaval, which precedes the final illumination. It would go hard with him if he loved and were disappointed. She put the thought aside with resolute effort. Was not the glen dedicated to happy thoughts?

The half-hour slipped quickly away, and presently Jean herself descended to seat herself on the bench by Vanna’s side, and take the conversation under her own control. At four o’clock they returned to the house, mounting the steep path, and entering with a sigh the stiff precincts of the garden.

On the verandah the two stout, black-robed figures of the old ladies could be seen reposing in their wickerwork chairs, but, behold, the distance between those chairs was largely increased, and between the two, the obvious centre of attraction, sat a third form—a masculine form, clad in light grey clothes, towards whom both glances were directed, who gesticulated with his hands, and bent from side to side. The face of this newcomer could not be distinguished; his figure was half hidden by the encircling chairs.

“Who the dickens?” ejaculated Piers blankly. He stared beneath frowning brows, searching memory, without response. “None of the neighbours. Some one from town. How has he come?”

Vanna looked, but without interest. In a short time the carriage would be at the door to carry the three ladies back to the cottage by the sea. The advent of a stranger could not affect them for good or ill. She turned to exchange a casual remark with Jean, and behold, Jean’s cheeks were damask—flaming, as if with a fever. Now what was this? The effect of that nap on the mossy ground? But not a moment before Jean’s colour had been normal. Had anything been said to arouse her wrath? Was she by chance annoyed at this interruption to the visit? And then, nearer already by a score of yards, Vanna turned once more towards the verandah, and understood. There, sandwiched between the two old ladies, smiling, debonair, at ease, a stranger, yet apparently on terms of easy friendship, sat—not the wraith of Robert Gloucester, as for a moment seemed the only possible explanation, but the man himself, in veritable flesh and blood. Incredible, preposterous as it appeared, it was nevertheless true. One could not doubt the evidence of one’s own senses, of the eyes which beheld him, the ears which listened to his words, as in characteristic simplicity he offered his explanation.

“How do you do? You are surprised to see me here. I came down by the twelve train. Mr Goring and I have arranged to have some fishing together. I’m putting up at the inn. I called at the Cottage and found you were out. The maid told me where you were to be found, and I thought I would walk over, and perhaps have the pleasure of escorting you home. I have introduced myself as you see!” So far he had addressed himself pointedly to Vanna, casting never a glance in the direction of Jean, but now he turned towards Piers with the frankest of smiles. “My name’s Gloucester. I’m just home from abroad. I’m going to fish with Mr Goring. Hope you don’t mind my intruding. I am at a loose end down here.”

“Not at all—not at all! Pleased to see you. Sit down. We’ll have some tea.” Piers spoke cordially; what was more to the point, he looked cordial into the bargain. Of a shy, reserved nature, cherishing an active dislike of strangers, he yet appeared to find nothing extraordinary or offensive in the intrusion of this man “just home from abroad,” who had raided his mother’s privacy in the hope of gaining for himself the pleasure of meeting her invited guests. Vanna looked past him to the faces of the two old ladies seated on the basket chairs, and beheld them benign, smiling, unperturbed. They also had fallen beneath the spell of Gloucester’s personality, and had placidly accepted his explanations. Jean walked to the farthest of the row of chairs, pushed it back out of the line of vision, and seated herself in silence. Piers strolled towards the house to hurry the arrival of tea, and Miggles declared genially:

“So nice for gentlemen to fish! Such an interest, especially getting on in years like Mr Goring. Gout, you know! such a handicap. I believe the inn is comfortable. Quite clean; but always mutton. You will have to take meals with us.”

“I—I’ve lost my handkerchief. I’ll look upstairs,” mumbled Vanna hurriedly. She dived through the open window, fled upstairs to the shelter of the bedroom where she had laid aside her wraps three hours before, and sinking down on the bed pressed both hands against her lips. For the first time for many weeks, laughter overcame her in paroxysms which could not be repressed. She laughed and laughed; the tears poured down her cheeks; she laughed again and again.

Chapter Eight.

A Narrow Escape.

Suddenly Jean wrapped herself in a mantle of reserve. Not even to Vanna, her chosen confidante, did she express surprise at Gloucester’s sudden appearance, or make one single comment, favourable or the reverse. Driving home in Mrs Rendall’s carriage, she maintained her fair share in the conversation, and betrayed no sign of embarrassment. That she was embarrassed Vanna knew by the tone of her voice, which was wont to take a higher, shriller note on such occasions; but neither Gloucester nor Miggles was likely to recognise so subtle a betrayal. The old lady was evidently greatly taken with the new acquaintance, and invited him to dinner at the end of the drive.

“We are only three women, very dull for a young man, but as you are alone in the inn—so unhomelike, inn-parlours!—if you would care to dine at seven o’clock, pot luck, just a simple meal! Don’t dress; it’s a picnic life down here, and the girls like to run about as long as it keeps light.”

Miggles had reigned as mistress of Mr Goring’s home for so many years that, failing the second wife’s presence, she still managed the household, without any attempt at interference from her old pupil. Jean had no ambition for domestic responsibilities; looking after a house was dull, stodgy work, Miggles liked it, then for goodness’ sake let her do it; she had no wish to exercise her prerogative. It was Miggles, therefore, who gave the newcomer his first invitation to the Cottage, but when Robert’s eyes turned to the girl with an involuntary question, Jean was ready with a gracious support.

“We are very quiet, as Miss Miggs says. Next week father brings down the family, and it will be livelier; but if you care to risk it, we shall be pleased.”

“Seven o’clock. Thank you!” said Robert simply. He took his leave for the time being, and the ladies entered the Cottage.

“We had better get our letters written, as we shall not have time later on,” said Jean calmly. Even when seated with Vanna at the same writing-table she made no reference to the event of the afternoon. It might have been the most natural thing in the world for Robert Gloucester to leave his old friends in less than a week after his return from India, in order to have the privilege of fishing with a strange elderly gentleman. When the letters were finished, she talked on indifferent subjects, gaily, lovingly, intimately as ever, yet with a certain carriage of the head, a set of the lips which seemed to send forth an unspoken warning, “Until now my heart has lain bare before you, but to-day there has entered into it something so intimate, so sacred, that it cannot be revealed to any human gaze. Touch me not!” And Vanna understood, and was silent.

Robert Gloucester came back to dinner and sat at the head of the table opposite Miggles, the two girls seated one on either side. A bowl of roses stood in the centre of the table; roses twined round the framework of the opened window; tiny sprays of roses wandered over the muslin of Jean’s gown. They talked of books, of pictures, of foreign lands, of things extraordinary, and things prosaic. When Robert recounted experiences abroad, the two girls questioned him as to scenery and environment, and Miggles wished to know what he had had to eat, and if there was any means of drying his clothes.

Gloucester also entered into details about his business life, and the failure of his investments, explaining his present monetary position with an incredible frankness.

“It seemed an awfully good thing, perfectly sound, but it came a jolly big crash. I was fortunate to get out of it as well as I did. I haven’t been fortunate in my speculations. Between them I’ve dropped almost all my capital. I have a share or two in a bank paying rattling good interest, and the firm pay me a fair salary, and that’s all that is left.”

“Oh, we know you don’t mean that,” laughed Miggles easily. “It will all go on quite nicely, I am sure, and you will be settling down and marrying, of course.”

“Of course,” said Robert Gloucester.

There was something so exquisitely unusual about his frank avowal of poverty that Vanna had hard work to keep a straight face. What to another man would have been a secret between himself and his banker weighed so heavily on Robert Gloucester’s candid soul that he must needs blurt it out on the first possible occasion. Vanna knew intuitively the exact workings of his mind: he had come down to Seacliff to woo Jean for his wife. Jean must know from the beginning exactly what he had to offer; not for a single evening could she be allowed to think of him in a setting which did not exist. “He had not been lucky in his speculations.” Unnecessary explanation! It was from guileless natures such as his that the fraudulent made their hoards. The national savings bank would be the only safe resting-place for Robert Gloucester’s money.

When the simple meal was over the two girls accompanied their guest into the garden and sat beside him while he smoked. He neither offered cigarettes to them, nor did they dream of providing them on their own account. In the seventies it was still a rare and petrifying experience to see a young girl smoke. The heroine of to-day is depicted to us as making dainty play with her cigarette, or blowing smoke-rings with unequalled grace. If the tips of her fingers are also stained yellow with nicotine, and her clothes diffuse an atmosphere of a smoking-carriage, these details are mercifully concealed. Jean and Vanna at least had no hankerings after this masculine amusement.

Once and again as the time passed by, Robert looked fixedly at Vanna, and grey eyes and brown exchanged an unspoken duel. “Leave us alone!” entreated the brown. “You know; you understand! As you are wise be merciful...”

“Not one step!” replied the grey. “Here I am, and here I stay. This is my post, and I will stick to it.”

“Be hanged to your post! You take too much upon yourself. Hand over your post to me. Think of the difficulties, the contrivings, the explainings I have had to undergo before getting away from town!”

“You had no business to leave...”

Vanna stuck obstinately to her guns, and at last Gloucester abandoned his efforts. Another man would have been angry, impatient, would have eyed her with cold antagonism, but Robert betrayed no irritation. Rather did his brown eyes dilate with mischievous amusement as they met her own.

“Please yourself,” they seemed to say. “Do your little best. Erect your puny barriers. A day or two more or less—what does it matter? The end is sure.”

The Cottage with its sloping garden was perched high on the side of one of two outstanding cliffs which formed a deep, narrow bay. So far did these chalk-walls jut out, so narrow was the space between, that the view from the land had a confined, stage-like effect. The coast-line on either side was completely hidden from sight, only the blue-green waters stretched ahead, but these waters were one of the highways of a nation’s life, and o’er its surface all kinds of craft passed to and fro, in endless panorama. When the tide was up, the great steamers could safely take the inshore channel, while near at hand, and looking as if one could, in nautical language, “throw a biscuit aboard,” the smaller craft plied their way to and fro. Now it would be a small sailing barge, with captain, mate, and crew, comprised in one single hand, anon a white-sailed yacht, with gleaming brass-work and spotless paint, or a coasting collier, grimy and drab, her screw out of water, as she churned her homeward way. In fine weather coasting passenger-boats ventured near shore, while farther off the pilot-boats of many nations could be discerned, decked with gay strings of signalling flags, and the busy tugs plied far and near, endlessly on the watch for chances of salvage.

One misty day as Jean sat perched alone on the edge of the railed-in garden, at a point from which she could have dropped a stone into the sea beneath, a smooth grey keel glided noiselessly round the corner of the cliff, and another, and yet a third—low-built, ominous-looking monsters, the colour of the fog, the colour of the waves, Her Majesty’s battleships, each bearing on board its complement of seven hundred men. To-night, as the daylight faded slowly away, the different lights at sea attracted the watching eye. From the left came a merry, starlike twinkle, as from a faithful friend who kept firmly to his post; beyond him in the dim distance was the humourist, who for ten seconds on end indulged in a stony stare, then darkened, gave two cunning winks, and so again to his stare. Right ahead was the big revolving light which, like a constable afloat, divided the traffic—“This way for the river, that for the North Sea!” High over all swung the rays from the great lighthouse on the downs.

Presently round the farther cliff came a great ocean liner, its cabin windows showing out a blaze of light, the throb, throb of its engines heard distinctly in the distance, a floating city, bearing home an army of men: the man who had toiled and reaped his reward; the man who had toiled and failed, the idler, the drone, the remittance man back again to prey on his friends; the bridegroom speeding to his bride; the trembler, to whom the wires had flashed a message of tragedy; the sinner, fleeing from justice, the pleasure lover seeking a new world. Those brilliantly lighted rooms held them all. Up the long channel they sailed; past the shifty sand-banks, past the hidden rocks; gliding smoothly along the beaten track, while the captain stood on his bridge and grew pale beneath his tan. Until the dangerous channel was navigated, he would not leave his post.

The three who were seated on the garden bench watched the great vessel in silence until she disappeared behind the cliff.

“A week ago,” said Robert softly, “a week ago I was steaming along this very coast. Only one little week!”

He broke off suddenly, and there was no response, but Vanna felt Jean’s fingers twitch within her arm. Was she too beginning to realise the bearing of this week upon her own life?

During the days which elapsed before Mr and Mrs Goring and the two schoolboys arrived at the Cottage, Jean kept sedulously by her friend’s side, and allowed Robert Gloucester no chance of a tête-à-tête. Instead of being ordered to keep her distance, as on the occasion of Piers Rendall’s visit, Vanna was held firmly by the arm, invited to join every expedition, considered so necessary that, without her company no expedition could be faced. Where Jean went, Vanna must needs go also; who wished to see one, must see the other also.

But when the family arrived, the chaperonage could no longer be preserved. The Cottage was crowded to its fullest limit. Miggles was busy with household affairs. Mr Goring, his wife, the two schoolboys, all made their own demands on the girls’ time. If Jean were bidden to accompany her father for a walk along the downs, Vanna must needs hunt for crabs among the rocks below. If Vanna was writing letters to tradespeople, Jean must run to the village and order cakes for tea. Young girls should make themselves useful; a daughter should be ready to wait on her father; a sister should be glad to amuse her brothers in their holidays. In these days it was worth while for an occupant of the inn-parlour to keep a sharp lookout on the winding path leading from the cliff to the village, for if by chance a girl’s graceful form were seen descending, there was time to snatch hat and stick, and reach the corner of the road at the same moment as herself.

Jean, intercepted on her way to fulfil a commission, and without possibility of escape, would promptly adopt an air of freezing dignity, reply in monosyllables, and hurry through her work in the shortest possible space of time; but no amount of coldness, of snubbing, or neglect could damp the ardour of Gloucester’s pursuit. Before a week was past, the budding romance was discerned not only by the different members of the household, but by the village en bloc; and while parents discussed prospects and settlements, and the schoolboys planned holiday visits to “Jean’s house,” Mrs Jones of the general stores moved the position of a row of sweet-bottles in the shop window, in order to enjoy a better view of the daily encounter, and the boatmen waiting impatiently for customers consulted their watches on the appearance of either of the interesting couple, and indulging an apparently ingrained habit, bet pennies together concerning the time which would elapse before the advent of “t’other,” And still Jean wrapped herself in her mantle of reserve, and refused to mention Gloucester’s name even in private conclave with her friend.

Piers Rendall often walked over to the Cottage to spend some hours of the day with his friends, and, strange as it might appear, the two young men seemed mutually attracted to each other. Vanna believing them both to be in love with the same girl, was constantly watching for signs of jealousy and irritation, but none appeared. If Piers was occasionally somewhat silent and distrait, the fact did not interfere with his transparent enjoyment of Gloucester’s company; while Robert himself seemed to take a positive pride and pleasure in the knowledge of the other’s devotion.

“He admires her desperately, doesn’t he? Every one does. There are dozens of fellows head over heels in love with her, I suppose. Scores! She must be kept busy refusing them, poor fellows! Hard lines for a girl, especially when she is so sweet and sensitive, and sympathetic, and—”

Vanna threw up her hand with a comical little grimace of appeal.

“That’s enough, that’s enough! Three adjectives are quite a good allowance for one sentence. Spare me the rest. Miss Goring has a charming disposition, and she is duly appreciated. That’s settled. Now we’ll talk of something else. How did the fishing go this morning? A good haul?”

They looked at each other and laughed with mischievous enjoyment. Each time they found themselves alone the same thing happened. Gloucester persistently endeavoured to talk about Jean; Vanna as persistently turned the subject. On both sides the contest was conducted with absolute good humour. It was as amusing as a game, in which each tried to outwit the other, to set for him an unconscious trap and pitfall.

To-day they walked along the country lanes, Jean and Piers Rendall ahead, Miggles bringing up the rear, with a schoolboy hanging on each arm. These two lads, Jack and Pat, adored the old woman who had been their confidante and mentor from their earliest years, and there was literally no end to the sympathetic interest which she bestowed upon them. Father and mother might weary of eternal cricket and sixth-form reminiscences, and impatiently suggest bed or a book. Jean might, and did, wax frankly cross and bored, but Miggles never failed to produce a due display of surprise; never denied the expected admiration, nor shirked a question which gave the conversation a new turn of life. At this moment Vanna could hear Pat’s voice reeling off the everlasting details:

“Smith, major, was bowling his hardest—he’s a terror to bowl—and the pitch was fast, and a ball got up, and got me on the shoulder—”

“Dear, dear, think of that! And you went on playing? You are brave! And made a fine score too, I’ll be bound!”

How much of Miggles’s happiness did she owe to this blessed capacity for sympathy in the interests of others?

The destination of this afternoon’s walk was a little wood lying about a mile inland, and as a short cut across country, Jean and Piers led the way through a farmyard, and thence on to a winding lane, sunk deep between two hedgerows, fragrant with honeysuckle and wild rose. To right and left lay the fields belonging to the farm; pleasant fields of wheat and corn, of delicate, green-eared barley, of sweet-smelling beans.

It was a typical English lane; a perfect English afternoon, not typical, alas! except so far as it demonstrated the perfection to which our erratic climate can occasionally attain. The sky overhead was deeply, uncloudedly blue; the sea in the distance the clear, soft green of an aquamarine, sparkling with a thousand points of light; all that the eye could see was beautiful and harmonious; all that the ear could hear, peaceful and serene; laughter, happy voices, the soaring notes of a lark; all things animate and inanimate seemed to speak of peace and happiness; and then suddenly, horribly, the scene changed. What had appeared the distant lowing of cattle, swelled into a threatening roar; a man shouted loudly, and his call was echoed by many voices, by a clamour of sound, by high, warning cries. From the far end of the narrow lane came the sound of galloping feet—heavy, thundering feet seeming to shake the ground; light, racing feet pursuing; swifter footsteps, which were yet mysteriously left behind. Borne on the air came the cries of men’s voices, and ever and anon that deep, dull roar. Nearer and nearer drew the danger, but the tall hedges hid it from sight.

Jean and Piers turned hurriedly back; Miggles and the boys hurried forward to where Vanna and Gloucester stood, the centre of the group. The two men exchanged swift, anxious glances, divining, without consultation, the nature of the danger—a bull, escaped from its chain, rushing towards them. What could be done?

The towering hedges gave no chance of escape, and so far as the eye could reach there was neither gate nor entrance into the fields. Before there was time to consult or to issue directions, the danger was upon them. With incredible swiftness, within as it seemed one moment from the time when the first cry had burst upon their ears, the danger was at hand.

Round a corner of the road the huge beast rushed into view; a terrible, nerve-shattering sight, filling up, as it seemed, the whole space of the narrow path, pawing the earth, sending up clouds of dust, bellowing with rage and fear. Breathless with horror, they stood and watched it come.

And then a strange thing happened. At that moment of strain and terror the thoughts of the four elders of the little party flew instinctively towards Jean. Danger and Jean! Death and Jean! The idea was insupportable. Jean, who was in herself the embodiment of youth, of health, of joy. The woman who had been to her as a second mother; the girl who was her lifelong friend; the man who until now had been the most favoured of her admirers, turned with a common impulse to succour Jean, and Jean, white-faced, trembling, primitive woman, stripped in one moment of conventions and pretence, indifferent, oblivious of them all, leapt forward into Gloucester’s arms.

They closed round her; she clung to him, hiding her head on his breast; he pressed a hand on her hair, screening her eyes till the danger should have passed. In another moment it was upon them. An agonised gasp of fear passed from one to another. The danger was past!

The great brute went plunging down the lane, his head bent low, his small eyes blinking, foam upon his lips; in his anxiety to escape his pursuers, taking no heed of the figures flattened against the hedge. With shouts and oaths, brandished sticks and panting breath, the farm hands galloped in his rear. They passed out of sight, and the quiet lane, sunk beneath its flowering hedges, regained its wonted peace.

Not so the human beings for whom that moment had been fraught with such startling emotions. Jean’s revulsion of feeling was as swift as the impulse which had preceded. Hardly had the pursuit clattered by than she had wrenched herself from Robert’s grasp, and with crimson cheeks and haughtily tilted head, taken shelter by Miggles’s side. Vanna, still trembling, leant back against the hedge, gazing from side to side. Robert Gloucester turned and walked down the lane, following the line of pursuit. She caught a glimpse of his face as he went—radiant, aglow! At the other man she would not look. Sympathy for his discomfiture and pain withheld her gaze. She knew exactly how Piers Rendall would look at this moment: his eyes brilliantly hard, his lips a-twitch. For her own sake she would not look. She hated to see that twitch.

Miggles leant against the hedge, and burst into unrestrained tears. Blessed Miggles, who could always be trusted to come to the rescue! Her sobs, her tears, her simple oblivion to the subject which was engrossing the minds of her companions were the saving of the situation.

“Oh, my dear Jean—a bull! A runaway bull! Never in all my life—and to think that to-day, of all others. This narrow lane! Oh dear! Oh dear! Your poor dear father! If you had worn your red dress! It might so easily have happened! Thank God! thank God! Your arm, dear, your arm. I do so tremble! My poor old heart feels as if it would burst. What a Providence! What a Providence!”

“What a wicked, wretched man to leave the gate unlocked! I’ll ask father to have him discharged at once,” cried Jean hotly. “It’s wicked, criminal carelessness. We might all have been killed.”

From the bottom of the hedge crawled the scratched and blackened figures of the two schoolboys.

“I say!” gasped Jack, breathless. “What a lark! What a blooming lark!”

Chapter Nine.

Treasure Trove!

Miggles did not easily recover from her fright. The good body was in precarious health: it was only the power of mind over body which kept her going, and when the motive power was temporarily eclipsed it was startling, even alarming, to behold the corresponding physical change. The light faded from the eyes; the chin dropped; a dozen unsuspected lines furrowed the face; beaming middle-age was transformed in a moment into suffering age.

“I think, my dears,” she announced apologetically, “so sorry to spoil your walk, but I think I’ll go home! Bulls, you know, bulls! They are disconcerting. When you’ve lived all your life in towns you are not accustomed... I’ve got a little,” she gasped painfully, “stitch in my side! It will soon be gone.”

The grey hue of her face showed only too plainly the explanation of that stitch. Miggles knew it herself, but, as ever, preferred to make light of her ailments. She leant on Piers’s arm, glancing affectionately in his face, and made no objections when Vanna came forward to support her on the other side.

“I am honoured! Quite a triumphal procession!” she gasped, with blue lips.

The two schoolboys had scampered off to join in the chase. Jean was preparing to follow Miggles and her supporters, when a hand was laid on her arm, and Robert Gloucester’s voice spoke in her ear:

“You and I are going on to the wood.”

Jean jerked herself free with a haughty air.

“Excuse me, I am going home. I must look after Miss Miggs.”

“Miss Miggs has plenty of helpers. She doesn’t need you. I do. Be kind to me, Jean. I’ve waited so long.”

So long! It was not yet a fortnight since he had arrived in England; but time has different values, as Jean had discovered for herself. These last days had counted for more in life than all the years which had gone before. She looked for one moment into the brown eyes bent upon her, then hastily lowered her lids. But she turned down hill in the direction of the wood. There was nothing in the world so mad or impossible that she could have refused Robert Gloucester when he looked at her with his clear eyes lighted by that flame.

They walked in silence along the quiet lane, golden with buttercups, into the cool shadow of the wood. “Now!” said Jean’s heart, beating painfully against her side. “Now!” She was not unversed in occasions of the kind, and as a rule had no difficulty in “heading off” her suitor by a baffling flow of conversation, but to-day no words would come. She looked at the soft carpet of moss beneath her feet; she looked at the branches overhead; she looked down the gladelike vista, and saw ahead a green space encircled by trees—a sunlit, sun-kissed space, doubly bright from contrast with the surrounding shade. “There!” said the voice in her heart. “It will be there.” It seemed fitting that Robert Gloucester should tell his love in the light and the sun.

Right into the centre of the sunny space they walked, and as by a mutual impulse halted, face to face. For once Robert’s radiant calm was eclipsed. Before the tremendous purport of the moment, confidence, tranquillity, all the varied qualities which combined to sustain the equilibrium of his character, were swept aside as though they had never been. The world held but one person, and that was Jean; if Jean failed him, nothing was left.

At that moment the physical strain of long sojourn abroad showed itself painfully in sunken cheek and pallid hue. In the light grey clothes, which hung so loosely on his thin form, he looked like the ghost of a man, a ghost with living eyes—glowing, burning eyes, aflame with love and dread. He stood with hands clasped at his back, not daring a touch.

“Jean!” he said breathlessly, “I am a beggar at your gate, I am starving, Jean, and I have nothing to offer you—nothing but myself and my love!”

Afterwards Jean had many criticisms to make concerning the fashion of Robert’s avowal—criticisms at which she would make him blush when his hair was grey; but at the moment she was conscious of one thing only—that Robert was in torture and that she could ease him. With a smile which was divine in its abandon she held out her hands towards him.

“But that’s all I want,” said Jean, trembling.

They sat for an hour by the side of an old oak, the sunshine flickering through the branches on the illumined loveliness of Jean’s face, on Robert’s rapturous joy. Even to a cold, outside eye they would have appeared an ideal couple: what wonder that to each the other seemed the crowning miracle of the world! The perfect moment was theirs; the ineffable content, the amazement of joy which God in His mercy vouchsafes to all true lovers. The love lasts, but the glory wanes; of necessity it must wane in a material world, but the memory of it can never die. It lives to sweeten life, to be a memory of perfect union, a foretaste of the life beyond!

They talked in the tongue of angels, in such words as can never be transcribed in print; they marvelled and soared, and then at last came down to facts. A shadow flitted across Robert’s face; his voice took an anxious note.

“I am a poor man, Jean. Until now I have not cared, but I’m grieved for your sake. I should like to have kept you like a queen, but I am poor, and I fear shall never be otherwise. We shall have to live in a small house with a couple of servants, and think twice of every sovereign we spend.”

“Shall we?” asked Jean absently. She was occupied in measuring her small white hand against Robert’s sunburnt palm, and had no attention to spare for such minor details. Her own dress allowance of a hundred a year had invariably to be supplemented by an indulgent father, but it seemed to her a matter of supreme unimportance whether Robert were rich or poor. At that moment she would have received with equanimity the news that he was a huckster of goods, and that she would be expected to follow his barrow through the streets. Monetary conditions simply did not exist; but on another point there was no end to her exactions.

“How much do you love me?”

“Beyond all words, and all measures, beyond the capacity of mortal man. That is why I feel a giant at this moment—a god! There’s no room for my love in a man’s poor frame.”

Jean dimpled deliriously. This was just as it should be, and such good hearing that it could bear endless repetition.

“And am I the first? Have you never loved any one before?”

“Not for a moment. The thought of marriage never entered my head. I thought I was far better off as I was. Oh, Jean, imagine it!”

Jean smiled at him with shy, lovely eyes.

“And never flirted, nor run after a pretty girl?”

“Goodness, yes!” The emphasis of Robert’s affirmative was a trifle disconcerting to Jean’s complacence. “What do you take me for, Jean? I adore pretty girls. I should be a fool if I didn’t. At balls and picnics it’s part of the programme to get up a passing flirtation. I wish I had a sovereign for every one I’ve enjoyed in the last ten years. Half a dozen dances and supper, and forget all about her next day—you know the sort of thing! It doesn’t enter into our calculations.”

Jean stared, considered, and finally laughed.

“No, it doesn’t! Thank goodness I am not jealous. I have dozens of faults, as you will find out to your cost, poor boy; but that’s not one. I don’t mind how many pretty girls you admire. We’ll admire them together. You are mine; we belong to each other. As you say, that sort of thing doesn’t enter.” She sat silent, musing with parted lips. A bird hopped lightly across the grass, peered at them for a moment with bright, curious eyes, and soared up to the blue. The air was sweet with the fresh, pungent scent of the earth.

“What is it?” questioned Jean, as every lover has questioned since the days of Eve. “What is it that makes the difference, the yawning, illimitable difference between just one person and all the rest of the world? Why do we love each other like this? You have seen hundreds of girls, but you have never wished to marry one. Men have loved me, and I hated them the moment they began to make love. But you—if you hadn’t!—Robert, what should I have done? I should have lived on—I am so strong, but my heart would have died; there would have been nothing left. And a fortnight ago we had not met! People will say that it is madness, that we cannot know our own minds; but the marvel of it is—we knew at once! I was frightened, and ran away, but I knew; deep down in my heart I knew that you would follow. Tell me when you began to know—the very first moment!”

And then Robert retold the story to which Vanna had listened on the night of the ball, with the thrilling addition of the encounter in the conservatory, and Jean listened, thrilled, and trembling with agitation.

“Yes, it is true. I was waiting for you. It was meant to be. We were made to meet and love each other.”

“From the beginning of the world, my Rose, my Treasure!” said Robert Gloucester.