Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (continued 3)

Mrs Evans preened herself, and did her honest best to look distressed.

“My dear, I am afraid you mean to be naughty!”

Grizel nodded cheerily.

“I do... Aren’t you glad? It’s no use pretending to be shocked. You have a whole parish-full of proper people who do what they ought, and say what they should, and I come in as a refreshing change. Besides, I really mean quite well! Who knows,—after half a dozen years of Chumley influence, I may be as douce and staid as any one of them!”

At this point the obvious thing for Mrs Evans to do was plainly to express a hope such might be the case; she knew it, and opened her mouth to utter the aspiration, but as she did so she inclined her head to look down into the dimpling radiance of the bride’s face, and once again her heart softened, and she felt that mysterious pricking at the back of her eyes.

“My dear,” she said gently, “I—I think I prefer you as you are!”

Grizel did not answer, but her eyes softened, and she slipped her hand an inch forward so that it pressed against the black satin sleeve. She was thinking happily that she had already two friends in Chumley, Cassandra, and—the Vicar’s wife!

Seeing a pause in the conversation, a small woman in pink satin made a swoop for the seat next the bride, and eyed her with a bright, birdlike smile. This was Mrs Fotheringham (with a small “f”), a lady who combined having nothing to say with a positively uninterrupted flow of conversation. She overcame the apparent difficulty by pouring forth a flood of personal questions, from the storehouse of a curiosity which knew no bounds. She pounced upon Grizel now, as a hawk pounces upon its prey.

“So pleased to meet you to-night. So unfortunate to miss you when I called. I’ve been so longing to meet you. Knew you so well by name. You were Miss Grizel Dundas?”

“Yes.”

“Niece of Lady Griselda?”

“Yes.”

“Lived with her, didn’t you? Sort of adopted child?”

“Yes.”

“All your life?”

“Yes.”

“But of course you had parents?—”

“No—”

The “no” was devilment pure and simple, and gave Mrs Fotheringham what is technically described as a “sensation.” She jerked, stared, and finally forced a wooden laugh.

“Oh, I see. Yes. Stupid of me. Died, I suppose, at your birth?”

“One after. One before.”

“How sad. Very eccentric, wasn’t she? Lady Griselda, I mean. I’ve heard that she was exceedingly—”

“She was.”

“But you got on with her? Must have done, of course, or she would not... Quite attached to you, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“So nice! And you stayed with her until her death, and married immediately after? It was immediately after, was it not?”

“Several months.”

“So nice for you that you had Mr Beverley. He must be a proud man. Not many women would have given up so much. But I’m sure you never regret it?”

“Oh, but I do!” cried Grizel. “Often!”

She was getting bored by this time, and decided that this might be a favourable point at which to end the catechism, so she rose and strolled across the room, leaving Mrs Fotheringham to express her consternation to the nearest listener.

“How extraordinary! Did you hear? She said she does!”

But Mrs Evans had known the question-monger from a child, and stood upon no ceremony.

“You had no right to put such a question, Flora. It was impertinent. Mrs Beverley answered in the only manner possible, by turning it into a joke.”

“I suppose so. Yes. It must have been a joke. She looks happy.” The birdlike eyes roved towards Martin, who had just entered the room with the other men, and subjected him to a curious scrutiny. “Do you think he looks worth it?”

“My dear, it is immaterial what I think! How can any outsider judge of the worth which another woman’s husband represents to herself? It’s not a question of credentials. It’s a question of fit!”

Half an hour later the Squire buttonholed Peignton in a corner of the room, and gave him his instructions.

“I’ve ordered the car for Miss Mallison. See her safely home, will you, and take it on to your own place? Might as well do two good turns while it’s about it.”

His look gave significance to the words, and Peignton could not do less than declare his pleasure at the suggestion. As a matter of fact, however, it was not pleasure of which he was conscious at that moment, but something unaccountably like disappointment.

He had not expected the evening to end so soon; he was unwilling to be dismissed. Throughout the long dinner he had been subconsciously looking forward to something to come; and he now felt defrauded and chilled. He had imagined that he would have had five minutes’ talk with Lady Cassandra—that they would laugh together, and in the meeting of eyes exchange confidences which it would have been indiscreet to put into words, but Cassandra was surrounded by guests of honour, and apparently oblivious of his presence.

She turned with a start as he approached her with Teresa by his side, and received the girl’s adieux with a gracious smile. “So soon! Captain Peignton going to see you home. That’s right. Good night. It was really noble of you to come to the rescue. So very many thanks!”

Her manner to the girl was all that could be wished, but as she turned to Peignton there came an unmistakable chill. Her face, her voice, the fleeting touch of her hand were alike cold, devoid of friendship.

Cassandra was disappointed too, and, womanlike, vented her displeasure on her fellow-sufferer. She also had looked forward to a few brief moments of communion after the emptiness of the evening. She also had the baffled feeling of one who has waited for naught. The while she listened to Lady Mawson’s dreary pronouncements she watched the dark figure follow the girl from the room, and a pang pierced her heart.

“Oh, to be young! To be young,—and to be loved!”

Peignton struggled into his coat, and muttered savagely when a stud caught in the lining. His usual mood was so serene that this sudden irritability and depression was as puzzling as it was disagreeable. He asked himself curtly what the devil was wrong, and made a swift mental summary of the wine consumed at dinner. Nothing wrong, but these elaborate feasts were not in his line. They bored him stiff. Another time he would decline...

At this point Teresa made her appearance wrapped in a white opera cloak, with her mother’s best lace scarf draped over her head, and Dane’s depression lightened, as he smiled at her and took his place by her side in the car. He felt a pleasant sense of intimacy as the door shut, and they were alone together speeding through the darkened park. He had been thinking a good deal of marriage lately, more than he had ever done before, but he did not realise that at the same time he had been thinking less of Teresa. He thought of her now, warmed by her presence, and by the natural rebound from his fit of irritation. She looked pretty in that white kit,—that lace over her face was uncommonly becoming. He had divined the difficulty of her position during the evening, pitchforked among a number of people who as a rule ignored her existence, and he had admired the quiet composure of her manner. A nice little girl. A dear little girl. A pretty, clever, uncommonly sensible little girl.

Teresa looked up, met the approval in his eyes, and thrilled with happiness. The evening had come as an unexpected and golden ending to a long dull day. At tea-time she had been dismally counting over the days which had elapsed since her last sight of Peignton, dismally realising that no mutual engagements lay ahead, and then suddenly the summons had arrived which had placed her by his side during the length of that long dinner, and, best of all, ensured this tête-à-tête drive in the friendly dimness. Surely now—if he cared at all, he would open his heart—

But Peignton was far from such an intention; he was opening his lips to make some casual remark, half-bantering, half-caressing, as had grown to be his habit when with Teresa, when there suddenly came about one of those small happenings which are monumental in their effect on life. The chauffeur, steering out of the lodge gate, took a sharp turn, and the inner wheels of the car descended into the ditch. He was a skilful driver, and as a rule careful enough, but the necessity of turning out at night for the convenience of an insignificant guest had tried his temper, and he was not unwilling to prejudice Miss Mallison against a repetition of the drive. In any case, the swerve was startling enough, and Teresa, feeling herself sinking through space, instinctively threw out her hands and grasped the nearest object. For the moment she was unconscious that that object was Dane himself; she simply found support, and clung, and Dane’s arms held her fast. Two or three violent wrenches followed, as the whole strength of the car struggled to mount the incline, and meantime, locked in each other’s arms, the man and the girl swayed together, this way and that, backwards and forwards, until with a final jerk and groan the roadway was reached. All the time Teresa had not uttered a sound, but now that safety was assured, a sobbing breath quavered from between her lips. It was a pathetic little sound, like the sob of a child in pain, and the red lips were very near. From pure instinct, rather than any definite intention, Peignton bent still nearer, and kissed those lips into silence, murmuring gentle words of encouragement.

“Poor girl—poor dear! It’s all over... We are all right now. You are not frightened, Teresa?”

He held her fast, resisting a faint movement to escape. He did not want her to go. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her again, and feel her lips tremble against his own. The sore, wounded feeling of the evening had disappeared, his heart was beating with strong, rapid strokes. The electric lamp showed the girl’s face flushed and tremulous, the eyes shyly drooping before his own. He bent over her and whispered a question, knowing full well what the answer would be, but wanting to hear it, all the same.

“Are you angry with me for kissing you, Teresa?”

The girl shook her head. Her low voice sounded young and sweet.

“Oh, no... I’m glad!”

“Why are you glad?”

“Because you,—you care!” said Teresa, trembling.

For a breath Dane hesitated, and in that pause something ominous gripped at his heart, and like a man who has made a false step on the edge of a precipice he saw a glimpse of an abyss; but the next moment youth and blood rose to the appeal, and he kissed the soft lips once and again, murmuring appropriate protestations.

“Of course I care—who wouldn’t? I’ve cared a long time... And you care too? You do care for me, Teresa?”

“Oh, yes!”

The answer came with a fervour which could not fail to be infectious.

“Enough—some day—to be my wife? I wish I had more to offer you, little girl!”

“Oh, I want nothing, I want nothing. I would marry you if you were a workman in a cottage. Sooner—than a king!”

It was true. The girl’s voice rang with a sincerity of passion, which was startling in its contrast to the man’s light tones, and Peignton, realising the contrast, was at once touched and abashed.

“You dear girl!” he said softly. “Thank you, dear. I’m not worth it, but—I’ll be good to you, Teresa! You shall never regret it.”

Teresa laughed at the absurdity of the thought. It seemed impossible that anything in the nature of regret, or grief, or anxiety, or even boredom could ever again cloud her heart. She had reached the pinnacle of her desires. To know that Dane loved her meant absolute, unclouded happiness. He would go on loving her. Therefore she would go on being blissful and content. As in the fairy tales, they would be happy ever after. “I never knew that it was possible to be so happy!” sighed Teresa in her heart.

Chapter Nine.

The Gift of Creation.

Teresa entered the quiet house, cast a look at the drawing-room door, and realised with relief that her mother had retired to bed. Probably she would be awake, and would expect the returning daughter to enter her room in passing, and give a history of the evening’s adventures, but Teresa had no intention of doing anything of the sort. Pausing for a moment in the hall, she took off her slippers and crept noiselessly past the dreaded portals up to the third floor. To-morrow morning there would be reprisals, but she had news to tell which would speedily turn the tide. The flood of questions and curiosities which were bound to flow from the maternal lips would be intolerable to-night, nevertheless Teresa felt the need of speech. The relief, the joy, the triumph of the moment seemed more than she could endure alone. She needed someone to listen, not to talk, and Mary had been trained by long years of self-abnegation to fill that post.

Teresa entered her sister’s room and turned on the electric switch. Mary lay asleep, her face showing yellow against the whiteness of the pillow, her hair screwed together in a walnut-like knob at the top of her head. She stirred, opened listless eyes to stare at her sister, and automatically struggled to a sitting position.

“Got back?—Do you—is there anything you want?”

Teresa sat down on the side of the bed and threw back her cloak. In the plainly furnished bedroom her blue dress became at once a rich and gorgeous garment, the trifling ornament on her neck gleamed with a new splendour; to Mary’s dazzled eyes she appeared a vision of beauty and happiness.

“What should I want? Cocoa? Coffee? You funny old Martha! your thoughts never get away from housekeeping. I don’t want anything; not one single thing in the whole wide world. I’ve got so much already that I can hardly bear it... Mary! I’m engaged. He does care. He asked me to-night.”

“Who?” asked Mary blankly, and Teresa, staring at her in indignation, realised that, incredible as it appeared, this ignorance was real, not feigned. A pricking of curiosity made itself felt; since this most obtuse of sisters had noticed nothing between herself and Dane, it would be interesting to see whom she would select as a possible fiancé. She smiled, and said, “Guess!”

“Mr Hunter,” said Mary promptly.

“Gerald Hunter!” Teresa was transfixed with surprise at the unexpectedness of the reply, for Gerald Hunter, the young partner of the local doctor, had come to the neighbourhood some months later than Dane himself, by which time she had no attention to bestow upon another man. Hunter was a member of the tennis club, he made a welcome addition to local dances and bridge teas; occasionally on Sunday afternoons he had called and stayed to tea. Teresa was aware that he had a dark complexion, a strong, overhand serve, and a dancing step which went well with her own, but beyond these preliminaries her mind had not troubled to go.

“What on earth made you think it was Gerald Hunter?”

“He admires you.”

“Oh, well!” Teresa glanced complacently into the tilted mirror which showed a reflection of flaxen hair, pink cheeks, and rounded shoulders, sufficiently attractive to merit any man’s admiration. The same law of contrast which made the dress appear rich and elaborate came into operation as regards its wearer. The mirror reflected the faces of both sisters, and it was not unnatural that Teresa should feel a thrill of pleasure at her own fair looks. “Oh, well! But that’s different. Lots of people may admire. Guess again, Mary! Somebody far, far more exciting than Mr Hunter.”

But Mary shook her head.

“If it’s not Mr Hunter, I don’t know. Tell me yourself.”

“Dane Peignton! Oh, Mary, why didn’t you guess? I’ve cared always—from the very first hour I saw him, and I knew he cared too, I was sure of it—and yet, one can’t be sure! When one cares so much, it seems too good to be true. He is so different from anyone else in this stupid little place. He belongs to the world, and to people like... like the people I met to-night, not to our poor, prosy little set. He was the most popular man there. He talked, and they listened; he made things go. They all liked him, and admired him. He has been here only a few months, and they all treat him as a friend, and oh, Mary! you know what they are like to us? If it hadn’t been for him I should have felt like a fish out of water. They gushed, of course, they always gush, but one felt so apart. Old Sir Henry sat on my other side, and persisted in mistaking me for Miss Pell, and talked of things I knew nothing about. I am sure they were all wondering what on earth I was doing up there. What will they think to-morrow when they hear! I’m going to announce it at once. I want everyone to know. I’d like to shout it from the church tower... Oh, Mary, isn’t it splendid? Don’t you think I am the luckiest girl... Don’t you think it is wonderful that he should care for me?”

“Yes... Does he?”

There was an incredulity in the voice in which the words were put which arrested Teresa in her flow of eloquence. She stared with lips agape, her blue eyes darkening in amaze.

“Does he? Does he care?... You ask me that! What are you dreaming about? If he didn’t care, why in the world should he ask me to be his wife? We are not rich; we are not grand. Ours is not exactly a lively family for a man to marry into. He might have chosen a girl in such a different position. Why should he choose me?”

Mary pulled the blankets over her thin chest, and appeared to consider the matter, her eyes resting on her sister’s face with a coolly critical scrutiny.

“Perhaps because—you wanted him to! You generally do manage to get what you want, don’t you, Teresa?”

Teresa straightened herself with an air of offence.

“There was no management about this, anyhow! Whatever I wanted, I didn’t give myself away. I never ran after him and made myself cheap, as some girls do. It’s horrid of you to suggest such a thing. Did I ever show that I cared for him when he was here? I can’t have done, or you would not have been so surprised when you heard of our engagement.”

“I knew you cared for him. You had a perfectly different face when he was in the room. We all knew. We were sorry for you, because we thought he didn’t return it. Mother was thinking of sending you to Aunt Emma’s.”

“Oh, she was, was she!” Teresa tossed her head once more, but the inner happiness was too great to allow of more than a passing irritation. She stretched out her hand, and gripped her sister by the arm.

“Mary! you are horrid. Not one single nice word yet, not one congratulation, when I came in at once to tell you before anyone in the world! If it had been mother, she’d have been hanging round my neck in hysterics of excitement, but you do nothing but lie there and croak, and throw cold water. I’m your own sister—does it seem so extraordinary that a man should want to marry me? Mary, be nice! Congratulate me! Won’t you be glad to have a married sister, and all the fun and excitement of a wedding in the house?”

“Fun!” echoed Mary, and shuddered eloquently. In imagination she saw her mother collecting store catalogues, comparing prices to the fraction of a penny, and dictating innumerable notes. In imagination she saw herself spending week after week eternally sewing for Teresa, marking for Teresa, running ribbons through Teresa’s lingerie, unpacking Teresa’s presents, packing Teresa’s boxes, tidying, arranging, slaving for Teresa, while Teresa herself paid calls, and sat with her lover in the drawing-room. All these things she would do when the time came, and do them meekly and well, but in the doing there would be no “fun.” There was no lightsomeness of spirit in the Mallison household to ease the strain of small duties, or turn a contretemps into a joke. Mrs Mallison’s heart would swell with pride at the prospect of providing an outfit for the future Mrs Dane Peignton; she would say and believe that the whole responsibility was borne on her shoulders; nevertheless, the preparation of that outfit would add years to the lives of every human creature beneath her roof.

“I can’t say that I look forward to the wedding itself, but I hope you will be happy. It would be nice for one of us to be happy. Captain Peignton is a good man; I hope he will be happy too.” Mary hesitated, and a pathetic curiosity showed itself in her face. “I suppose you couldn’t tell me what he said?”

Teresa shook her head.

“Of course not! ... Very little really. It was in the car. The man ran us into the ditch. I was frightened, and... and then, of course—he comforted me! We got home so quickly that there was not much time.—He is coming to-morrow morning.”

Mary nodded, a light of comprehension brightening her eyes.

“You are quite sure he meant it? You are always so sure that you are right, and that everything ought to go as you wish. Don’t be too sure of him, Teresa! Even if you are properly engaged, don’t be too sure. He has only met you now and again for an hour at a time, and seen that you were young and pretty, and good at games. Now he will see you often. He may be disappointed and change his mind!”

“Am I so much worse than I appear?”

“I didn’t mean worse.”

“Then what did you mean? Not better, evidently. What do you expect him to find out when he knows me better?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing to find.”

Teresa rose with an elaborate flutter of garments, and stood tall and straight by the bedside.

“I’d better go. It is evidently not the slightest use talking to you to-night. I think you have been very unsisterly and disagreeable. I wish I had never come in. I was so happy, and you have done nothing but throw cold water. Are you jealous, Mary, that you are so unkind?”

Mary gave her back look for look. A dull flush showed itself on her cheek-bones.

“Would it be such a wonderful thing if I were? I am jealous; of course I am jealous. I have every reason to be jealous. You get everything, Teresa; and I get nothing. It has always been like that, and it always will be. You are strong, and I am weak; you are pretty, and I am plain; you are popular, and I am dull. You are masterful, and get your own way, and I am cowardly, and am beaten; but because one is dull, and cowardly, and plain, it doesn’t follow that one can’t feel—it doesn’t follow that one can’t ache! I have ached for this all my life, and it has come to you. No one ever cared for me, but I should have made a good wife. I should have loved him more than you will ever love. You have wasted so much love on yourself, but I had it all to give. I loved a man once, as you love Captain Peignton, but he never thought of me. He married a girl with a pretty face, and lived close to us for nearly two years. Mother used to invite them here, and send me with messages to the house. I could not look out of the window without seeing them together, walking down the street, sitting in the garden. My bedroom window overlooked their summer-house. I used to see him come in and kiss her.”

Teresa shuddered.

“I should have gone mad! Poor old Mary! But why did you stand it? I should have gone away, and done something.”

“What?” Mary asked, and Teresa was silent. Mary had a way of asking questions which were impossible to answer. What could Mary do? She was one of the vast army of middle-class daughters brought up to do nothing, and thereby as hopelessly imprisoned as any slave of old. She possessed no natural gifts nor accomplishments, she lacked the training which would have ensured excellence in any one department of domestic work, she was devoid of a personality which would make her mere companionship of marketable value. What could Mary do, and who would care to engage Mary to do it? Teresa was silent, finding no reply. She stood hesitating by the bedside, sympathetic but impatient. She was sorry; of course she was sorry, but to-night she wanted to be glad. It would have been better to have gone straight to her room.

“I couldn’t go away,” Mary continued slowly, “but they went—after two years! I fought so hard to deaden myself that I might not feel, that I seem to have been half dead ever since. It’s eight years since they left. I don’t love him now. I don’t think of him for months at a time; but that was my love affair, Teresa. There was never anyone else. There never will be now, and life goes on just the same year after year. It’s wicked, I suppose, but I wonder sometimes why women like me were ever born.”

“Mary, you are very useful. You work so hard—you are always working.”

“Little things!” said Mary, sighing. “Little things! Things with my hands. But a woman is not all hands.” She hitched the blankets once more, and lay back on the pillow. “You’d better go to bed. It’s getting late.”

“Good night, Mary; good old Mary! You shall come and stay with me in my house, and I’ll give you a real good time.”

Teresa turned away, eager to make her escape. She did not kiss her sister, for kisses were not frequent in the Mallison family, and the sudden unlocking of Mary’s sealed lips left an effect of strangeness, as if some stranger had taken her place. It was disturbing and disagreeable to realise that Mary could feel! She opened the door softly and was stepping over the threshold when Mary’s voice called in an urgent note. “More confidences!” sighed Teresa to herself, and stood still to listen.

“Did you remember to turn out the hall light?” asked Mary.

Chapter Ten.

News in Chumley.

The news of Teresa Mallison’s engagement provided Chumley with an excitement which was shared equally by every section of the community. Tradesmen discussed it with their assistants, message boys overheard, and took it home in the dinner hour, as an important item of news which mother would be able to bestow on other members of the Coal Club and Mothers’ Meeting. “That fair girl of Mallison’s, she hooked him up at Bagnor! Peignton they call him. Fair chap as drives a dog-cart.” Domestic servants discussed the engagement with the maids next door, and opined that the old Major would be glad to get rid of one of them. Wherever a couple of matrons stood together on the pavement of the High Street, or a cluster of girls stood holding bicycles in the roadway itself, it would have been safe to bet that the subject of discussion was that of the latest engagement.

“Have you heard the news?”

“What news?”

“Teresa Mallison. You haven’t heard? Oh, I am glad to be the one to tell you. Engaged!” The speaker’s voice would swell to a note of triumph, she would fall back a step the better to contemplate the surprise, the excitement, on the face of the listener.

“Engaged! Teresa? Not—”

“Yes! Yes!” Here the informant would execute a little prance of excitement. “It is,” Captain Peignton. Isn’t it exciting? The most interesting engagement for years. Mrs Mallison is beaming.

The listener would enthuse in her turn, sometimes wholeheartedly, sometimes with an undercurrent of sadness or regret. Mothers of aging daughters knew a vicarious pang, the daughters themselves smiled brilliantly and ached within, but the general note was praise of Teresa, pride in Teresa, an assumption that Teresa had accomplished a laudable work, and had raised herself a head and shoulders above her fellows. Such is the general opinion in English country towns, where the educated females of the population exceed the male by a round ten to one. As for Dane himself, he was the passive member in the transaction. He had been “caught.” Teresa had “caught” him. It was said in no spirit of unkindness, but it was said all the same. Every voice said it, every smile, every nod of the head and knowing arch of the brow. Clever Teresa. The best match in the town!

Grizel, like most other matrons, heard the news outside the grocer’s shop in the High Street. The night before Martin had sighed over the grocer’s bill, and that sigh had sent his wife speeding out of the house by eleven o’clock the next morning, fired with determination to become a model housekeeper forthwith, and deliver her own orders in person. Interviewed before starting, Cook acknowledged that Robson’s was high, but had no further explanation to offer than that “it did run up!” The young man called every morning, and there was always “Something,” but Chumley matrons had repeatedly warned Grizel that that young man should not call. It was death and destruction to let cooks order at the door. Orders should be given in the shop, and delivered later in the van. Grizel had hesitated, and advanced a counter-plea.

“But the van-man is quite old, and Orders is such an attractive youth. It’s hard on poor Cook!” But now Martin had frowned, and the lines had showed in his forehead, and she could have found it in her heart to imprison Cook in a nunnery for life.

Mr Robson, senior, hurried forward to attend in person to a customer of distinction, and took advantage of the occasion to direct her attention to a number of new and delectable goods, positively the latest things on the market. Fruits preserved whole, and so cleverly as to be hardly distinguishable from fresh; glass shapes of rare and costly edibles, all ready for the table; sauces, condiments, appetising novelties in biscuits. Grizel displayed the liveliest interest, tasted, with relish, whenever a taste was practicable, and ordered half-dozens of each novelty in turn. Mr Robson pointed out that there was a reduction upon taking half a dozen, and Grizel had set her heart on reduction. The size of the bill gave her a disagreeable shock, however, and she left the shop feeling decidedly crestfallen, to fall into the arms of Mrs Gardiner and Mrs Evans, who were standing just outside.

The sight of Mrs Beverley emerging from a provision store, like any ordinary prosaic housekeeper, was surprising enough to put the subject of the latest engagement into the background while the good ladies greeted her, and stealthily examined the details of her toilette.

“Good morning, Mrs Beverley. It is a surprise to see you here! No need to ask how you are.—You look the picture of health.”

“I’m not really. I’m bowed low with care. My domestic troubles are like my wedding presents, numerous and costly. The worst of all is the grocer. I never knew that a grocer’s shop was so alluring! I thought it was all teas and pickles, and dull things for cleaning that one can’t eat, but it’s a fiery furnace of temptation. I’ve been in ten minutes and I’ve spent pounds... And I came myself because I wanted to save!”

The matrons’ smile bore a touch of pathos. They themselves had suffered from grocers’ bills for many years, and knew the inevitableness thereof. Every woman who is at the head of a household must shoulder the burden of the grocer’s bill, and bear it bravely, for it is hers for life. Assiduous, unceasing care may at times relieve the pressure, but there can be no escape; the smallest slackening of care, and the burden presses once again, weighing her to the earth.

On almost any other subject the listeners would have been ready to converse with the interesting bride, but when it came to a choice between grocer’s bills and a new engagement, the engagement won at a canter.

“We were just discussing an exciting piece of news!” Mrs Gardiner said, smiling. “You have heard already, I suppose. Everybody is talking about it!”

Grizel’s face brightened instantly into the most agreeable animation.

“No! Tell me... What is it? Somebody run away with somebody else’s wife?”

“My dear!” Mrs Evans frowned disapproval. “This is not London. I am thankful to say we don’t do such things. We were speaking of an engagement in which we are much interested. You know the girl, of course. Teresa Mallison. We are so pleased to know of her happiness.”

“So am I. I love girls to be happy. I’d like them all to be engaged and married to-morrow to husbands nearly as nice as mine. And she has such a ripping complexion... Who is the happy man?”

This was the thrilling point. Mrs Gardiner beamed with importance.

“Captain Peignton!”

Grizel’s chin dropped; she stood stock-still, staring with big eyes. Why and wherefore she had no idea, but the news was subtly unwelcome and disturbing. She had imagined that the fiancé would be the curate, the doctor, the manager of the branch bank—never for one moment had it entered her mind to think of Dane Peignton filling the rôle. Her mind chronicled a picture of him as she had seen him last, bidding good night to Cassandra Raynor at the conclusion of the dinner party two nights before. She had studied him with critical eyes, acknowledging his attractiveness, and—like others before her—wondering wherein the attraction lay, but concerning one thing she had known no uncertainty, she had known that he had been bored to leave so early! There had been nothing of the eager lover about him, as he turned with Teresa to the door. Grizel felt the flatness of her own voice as she asked: “When? How long? I didn’t know...”

“Only on Tuesday. After the dinner party at the Court, I believe. He brought her home. Of course you were there, and saw them together. Didn’t you suspect?”

“Never.” Grizel shook her head. “I should not have suspected if I’d met them a hundred times. She is not all the kind of girl I should have expected—”

Mrs Evans was seized with a small, tickling cough, and Grizel, looking at her, met a glance of warning. She hesitated, and compromised.

“I hardly know her, of course. She must be nice if he likes her. He is a charming man.”

Mrs Gardiner allowed herself the relief of a phantom sniff. Mrs Beverley she considered was putting on “side.” She had known Dane and Teresa for precisely the same length of time, yet she spoke of one as a friend, of the other as the merest acquaintance. It was but another example of county versus town, and as such to be personally resented.

“I am very much attached to Teresa Mallison. She is a very nice, well-brought-up girl. She will make him an excellent wife. I think he is very much to be congratulated,” she said stiffly, and the little speech was memorable, inasmuch as it was the only one delivered in the High Street that day, in which Dane himself was singled out for congratulation!

“Are you walking towards home, Mrs Beverley? Perhaps we might go so far together,” said the Vicar’s wife, as Mrs Gardiner nodded adieu, and entered the grocer’s shop, and the two women turned into a side street, composed of those dreary stucco-faced little villas which seem the special abode of insurance agents and dressmakers. The houses continued but a short way, and then gave place to nursery gardens, and scattered habitations of a better type. Grizel hated the mean little houses, not for any sympathy for the inconvenience which they must cause to their inhabitants, but because she herself was bound to pass them on her way to the High Street. She amused herself by planning wholesale fires, in which entire terraces would be devoured, and in a hazy, indefinite fashion had decided that such a catastrophe would be profitable for the insurance agents, as well as for herself. Trying for the dressmakers, of course, but then dressmakers spent their lives in being trying to other people. Let them take their turn!

This morning, however, Grizel was oblivious of the villas, she was peering into Mrs Evans’s large face, and saying tentatively:

“You stopped me... Why shouldn’t I say it? If I don’t think Miss Mallison is the right girl, why mayn’t I—”

“These things get repeated. One can’t be too careful. I make it a rule to be silent, if I find myself unable to say what is agreeable.”

“How dull you would be! I say would, because it isn’t true. You’re scolding me now, and I’m sure that’s not agreeable! Dear Mrs Evans, do you think it is a suitable engagement?”

“Dear Mrs Beverley, how can I judge? Can anyone in the world decide whom a man or a woman will choose?”

“They can’t, but they can guess pretty well whom they won’t! You know them both, Captain Peignton and Miss Mallison; can you imagine them living together, and being satisfied all their lives?”

The older woman looked at the bride in silence. Hundreds of couples had she seen kneeling hand in hand in the chancel of the church, cheerfully plighting a troth which bound them together till death should them part, and of how many could it be said that they were satisfied! She knew too well into what a prosaic compromise the lives of many of these lovers degenerated, but she would have felt it a sacrilege to say as much to this bride of the happy eyes, and the gay, unclouded heart.

“My dear,” she said slowly, “if they think so themselves, it’s not my place to judge. It often puzzles one to understand why people choose one another, but I am a strong believer in nature! Nature is always working out her own great plan, and she dictates for the good of the race. You see it all around—the dark chooses the light, the tall chooses the short, the fat chooses the thin, the brilliant woman marries a sportsman, the man of letters a gentle house-frau. Nature has dictated in this case. Captain Peignton is not too strong, and his nerves have been taxed: Teresa doesn’t know what nerves are. I never knew a more healthy, normal girl.”

“Mrs Evans, you have known her for ages. Do you think she is interesting?”

But Mrs Evans was not to be trapped into personal expressions of feeling.

“It is quite immaterial what I think. I have known Teresa Mallison all her life, but, my dear, I know nothing about the Teresa whom Captain Peignton sees. He in his turn knows very little about the Teresa who will be his wife at the end of the first two or three years of married life.”

Grizel’s hazel eyes widened with a look of fear.

“Does one inevitably change so much?”

“One grows!” Mrs Evans said. “How could it be otherwise? Marriage for a girl means a shouldering of responsibility for the first time in her life, facing a money strain, a health strain, a curtailment of liberty. There is more joy one hopes, but there is certainly more discipline. Troubles must come—”

Grizel threw out a protesting hand. Her thoughts had slipped instinctively from the newly engaged couple, to the more enthralling subject of Martin and herself, and the prophecy hurt.

“Why must they, if they aren’t needed? Suppose people can be disciplined by happiness, why need they have the trials? I am disciplined by happiness. It suits me; it makes me good. It does not make me selfish and unkind. And I am grateful. I go about that little house, and there’s something inside me singing ‘Thank you!’ ‘Thank you!’ all day long. I’m so brimming over with love and charity that it’s all I can do not to kiss the cook on her cross old face, and press a diamond brooch into her hand. Anything to make her cheerful! It hurts to see anyone less happy than myself. Don’t, please, say I must have trouble, Mrs Evans. Let me stay in the sun!”

“Dear child!” said the Vicar’s wife, and once again she felt the unwonted pricking sensation at the back of her eyes. She was used to sorrow, skilled in offering consolation and advice, but it was all too rare an experience to meet with joy. In the depths of her kind old heart she wondered if indeed Grizel were not right, but not for the world would she have allowed herself to express so unorthodox a feeling. She walked in silence for some yards, and then, with a sudden change of subject, asked shortly, “How’s Katrine?”

“Talking of love in the sunshine? Oh, Katrine’s well! She’s just returned from her honeymoon, and Captain Blair has had his old bungalow enlarged. They had a glorious time. She was married from her friend’s house, and rode off to camp in the wilds. She shed her skirt as soon as she arrived at the camp, and never saw it again till her return. A honeymoon in leggings! What would Chumley say to that?”

“It sounds exceedingly—er—unlike Katrine!”

“Yes, doesn’t it? Isn’t it splendid? And she loved it. Her only worry was that bits of her looked so nice, that she was longing all the time to see herself full length.—However, ‘Jim’ has taken her photograph!”

“I hope he will make her happy. Katrine has a difficult nature, and it was such a very short acquaintance.”

“Oh, well! but they knew a great deal of each other.”

Grizel’s smile was enigmatic, for the secret of Katrine Beverley’s correspondence with her unknown lover was not divulged outside the family circle. She said good-bye to the Vicar’s wife at the parting of the way, and turned in at the gate of her own domain.

Daffodils were nodding among the grass. A bed beneath the window was ablaze with many-coloured anemones, the shimmer of green was on the trees; and at the study window stood Martin watching for her return. Grizel’s heart swelled within her. Despite the enlargement made for her benefit, despite the general air of freshness and prosperity, it was after all but a modest establishment, ludicrously small when contrasted with her former homes, yet for Grizel all the riches and treasures of life were contained within those four walls. With the clanging of the gate the world was shut out, and she entered home as a sanctuary. Most of us are so occupied regretting past joys, and planning joys for the future, that it is only at rare moments that we realise the joy of the present. “I was so happy.”

“I shall be so happy.” These are expressions of daily use. The sound of “I am happy,” is so rare as to bring with it the effect of shock. Grizel was one of the fortunate ones who continually realise the happiness of the present, but even she had her positives and superlatives. Since hearing the news of the hour she had been conscious of a weight of depression, but with the opening of the gate that weight disappeared. It seemed as if no joy that life could have to bestow could exceed that of home-coming, with the sight of Martin waiting for her return!

She smiled in answer to his waving hand, but his quick eye caught the sobered expression on her face, and he hurried to meet her, and drew her into the drawing-room.

“Anything the matter, my precious one? Anything troubling you?”

Grizel leant her head on his shoulder with a forgetfulness of coiffure which in itself would have raised his apprehension. Her hands clasped themselves round his arm, she drew a long trembling sigh.

“Oh, Martin, hold me close! Don’t let anything happen!”

“What has happened, dear, to upset you like this?”

“Nothing; but I’m afraid. Oh, if we are very good, and go on being thankful, and doing our best, need we have troubles to spoil it? It’s... it’s Paradise, Martin, and I want it to last!”

Martin’s face quivered above her bowed head. He had lived in Paradise before, and it had not lasted. He knew that it never did last, that sweet and dear as might be the after life, it was only for a brief period that human beings could remain in their Eden. He held her close, with a jealous touch.

“So long as we have each other, we can bear the rest. Honestly, dear, we shall have less to bear than most people, for the simple reason that we won’t let things trouble! When one has gained the big treasure, the gnats can’t sting. It’s not like you, Grizel, to be afraid!”

“I am hideously afraid, but it’s your fault. It’s loving you so much that has turned me into a coward. I’m afraid of everything where you are concerned,—draughts and drains, and accidents, and editors, and letters in blue envelopes, and perils by night and by day. Every day I bury you of a new disease. If you sneeze it’s consumption, if you cough it’s pneumonia, if you scratch your finger, it’s blood-poisoning. You looked pale this morning, so it was pernicious anaemia.” A little laugh came with the last words, and she raised her head to peer into his face. “Do you feel by any chance as if you had pernicious anaemia?”

Martin took her by the shoulders and led her to the door.

“I shall do, if you keep me waiting any longer for lunch. Go upstairs and take off your hat.”

But Grizel lingered by the door.

“Do you about me?”

“Do I what about you?”

“Think of all the gruesome things that might happen? Lie awake at night imagining them.—Get in a panic every time I am five minutes late?”

“You were over five minutes late to-day, but my pulse was normal. I merely concluded that you had met a friend and were enjoying a gossip.”

“Men,” said Grizel sententiously, “are stupid, dense, prosaic brutes.” She gave a tilt to her one-sided hat, and added in a tone of the utmost nonchalance: “By the way, I did hear some gossip. Captain Peignton is engaged to that fair girl he took in to dinner at the Court. Teresa—don’t you call her?—Teresa Mallison.”

“By Jove, is he? That is good!” Martin said. “I’m awfully pleased to hear that. They’ll make an ideal pair.”

Grizel glared at him, with the eyes of a fury.

“Oh, go to your study!” she cried vindictively. “Go to your study—and write books!”

Chapter Eleven.

The Veil Falls.

The Squire heard the news of Peignton’s engagement at the County Club, and carried it to his wife on his return to lunch. He found Cassandra on the terrace, where she had spent what was perhaps one of the happiest hours of her life. An hour before she had opened one of the long windows of the morning room, and had stepped bareheaded, in her white morning dress, into a bath of sunshine and warmth. Hitherto though the sun had shone, east winds had prevailed—making it necessary to put on wrappings for even the shortest excursion, but this morning the “nip” had departed; what wind there was blew balmily from the south, and the temperature without was warmer than that in the house. There is always a special thrill attendant on the first breath of summer, a special consciousness of freedom and escape, when for the first time it becomes possible to leave the house and wander bareheaded under the skies, but never, as it seemed to Cassandra, had a springtide been so wonderful as this.

She looked downwards over the terraced gardens, and everywhere the world seemed new. Green branches on the larches, shimmers of green on oak and ash, swelling of buds on the great chestnuts, and through the bare brown of the earth the shooting of living things. Everything was new and pregnant with joys to come, and from her own heart came an answering song of joy. It seemed in mysterious fashion as though the stateness of custom had been left behind, with other drearinesses of the long winter, and the coming spring had vivified her life. The air breathed hope and expectation, and although she could not have said to what special event she was looking forward, she knew that there was hope in her heart also, and an expectation which gilded the coming days. It was good to be alive, to wander bareheaded in the sunshine inhaling the fragrance of flowers, to behold reflected in the long windows the graceful glimpses of one’s own form, to look around the fair domain lying to right and left, and be able to say, “This is mine!”

Cassandra clasped her hands behind her back and strolled to and fro, thinking the many and inconsequent thoughts that come to a woman in such hours. She wondered why she had ever been unhappy, and decided never again to “give way.” She wondered what Bernard had really felt when she had declared that she did not love him. Poor Bernard! How could she have been so bold? Of course she loved him! He was a nice old dear. She wondered if, after all, the new afternoon dress had better be grey! Suppose it were violet for a change; just the right shade of violet, without a touch of red. She wondered if she dare wear the new French hat in Chumley, and what the boy would say of it when he came from school. He had a way of calling her hats “the Limit,” and looking self-conscious in their presence. She had laughed, and worn them all the same, for the wearing of the latest eccentricity in hats had been something more than a slavish following of fashion,—it had been a virtual throwing down of the gage in the face of the prejudices of the neighbourhood. On the days when she was most oppressed by the atmosphere of Chumley and its inhabitants, it had a tonic effect to drive up and down the High Street, wearing a feather stuck at an angle never before attempted out of Paris, and to watch eyes roll from right to left. There had been a time when the church aisle was her chosen shocking-ground. Cassandra blushed when she recalled that phase, and remembered what had brought it to an end. Just an expression on Mrs Evans’s face. Nothing more. She had paused outside the church gate to speak a passing word before getting into the car, and the Vicar’s wife had been kindly and affectionate as ever, had called her “Dear,” and held her hand in a lengthened pressure, but there had been a shadow upon the large, plain face, and the grey eyes were rigorously averted from the marvellous headpiece topping the small, brilliant face. The silence, the kindliness, made Cassandra feel suddenly mean and small, a sensation which was intensified as the car turned from the church door, and Bernard had said with a laugh: “Give ’em a treat this time, Cass! That hat of yours took the starch out of the Vicar’s sermon.” An hour later the hat was a smouldering ruin, and henceforth Cassandra took her plainest clothes to church. But the High Street remained, and here no one could interfere. As the wife of the squire and landlord she might indeed be said to have the right to shock, when it pleased her so to do.

Now that the bulbs were in bloom Bernard would agitate for the usual spring garden party. He always asked the same question: “What was the use of having the things at all, if nobody came to see them?” So the entire neighbourhood was invited, and frequently it rained, inevitably the wind blew from the east, and the guests made scant work of the bulbs, and huddled in the house, partaking of lengthy teas. Cassandra hated all garden parties, and spring parties most of all, but this morning the prospect seemed less distasteful. She would no longer know the feeling of loneliness in a crowd, she would have friends of her own, whose presence would transform the scene. In imagination she summoned them before her—Grizel, with her radiant smile, and merry, chattering tongue; Peignton, his head bending forward from the slightly bowed back, his eyes fixed upon her, with their questioning look, the look that said so plainly: “I am waiting. Give me your orders, and I obey!” Some men had that expression; it meant nothing, of course, but it had charm. Decidedly it had charm. It would help her through the formalities of entertaining, to feel in the distance that waiting glance.

Cassandra turned and saw her husband ascending the stone steps of the terrace. He had entered the grounds by a side gate, and made his way across the path. His cap was pushed back from his brow, his brown face showed the flush of heat, his eyes looked astonishingly blue and clear. There was a metallic quality about those eyes which, taken in conjunction with the strong white teeth, gave a somewhat fierce expression to the face, but to-day he was smiling, and an air of complaisance and satisfaction pervaded the whole figure. Cassandra smiled in response. It seemed fitting that to-day everyone should feel happy. She stood waiting for his approach, and together they paced slowly onward.

“Isn’t it lovely? I’ve been out over an hour. A perfect spring day!”

“Mating time, eh?” said the Squire with a laugh. “‘In the Spring a young man’s fancy...’ Well! it seems it is true. I’ve just been hearing news. You haven’t heard? I thought perhaps they would ring you up.”

“No,” said Cassandra blankly. “No.” She stared uncomprehendingly in her husband’s face, and suddenly her heart gave a queer unexpected little thud, and her pulses quickened their beat. “Who did you expect would ring me up?”

“Oh, either of them. Or both. They’re at the stage when they’ll want to do everything in pairs. And they know you’ll be interested.”

“Couldn’t you tell me at once what the news is?”

“I did tell you. An engagement, of course. Peignton’s engagement. With the fair Teresa. For goodness’ sake, don’t pretend to be surprised to hear. You notice precious little, but you must have noticed that. I told you myself it was coming on.”

“Of course you did. I remember perfectly. I am very—”

Cassandra paused from sheer inability to think what feeling dominated. She felt neither glad nor sorry, interested nor surprised; nothing but a curious blankness, as if a veil had been dropped over the scene of life. Five minutes ago, two minutes ago, she had been tingling with vitality, now she was numb, and found it an effort to collect her thoughts.

For once Bernard’s lack of observation was a gain. He strode along the terrace with hands thrust into his pockets, smiling in agreeable reminiscence of club-room gossip.

“Rather a stiff thing in mothers-in-law,—Mrs Mallison, what? Don’t envy him the connection. Best thing he can do to cut away to a distance. But the girl’s all right. Fine buxom creature. Got her head screwed on all right. Just the wife he needs. Nice fellow, but inclined to be fanciful,—the sort of man one could imagine taking up any mad scheme, if he were left on his own. Miss Teresa will stop that nonsense. She’s got a partic-u-larly keen look out for number one. Ought to have fine children too. Just the type to go in for an annual baby without turning a hair.”

Cassandra’s look was frigid.

“I think we may leave that. It is hardly the time—”

“Lord bless my soul, what else is she for!” cried the Squire loudly. “What is any woman for, if it comes to that? If more of them did it, there would be less talk of nerves and nonsense. The modern woman is too careful of herself to be burdened with a family, and what’s the consequence? I ask you what’s the consequence? Are they any healthier than their mothers before them? Are they as healthy? Damned sight more satisfactory work looking after a nursery, than gambling in bridge clubs every afternoon. Too squeamish nowadays even to talk of ’em, it appears!”

Through the roughness of the man’s voice there sounded a note of pain which pierced through the wife’s torpor. He would have liked a nursery full of his own, and had grieved over the fate which made it impossible. Cassandra knew it, and admired the reticence with which he kept his disappointment to himself, never allowing it to escape in so many words. She was the more remorseful as the disappointment was not mutual. She had hoped so much, given so much for her son, had suffered so bitter a disappointment from his lack of response, that she had no wish for another child. But she was sorry for Bernard.

She stretched out her hand and put it through his arm, leaning against him with unusual intimacy.

“Don’t shout at me, Bernard; don’t be cross! Why should you? I daresay it’s all quite true, but children don’t always bring happiness. Think of the parents you know who have large families! They are always in trouble. Some of the brood are always miserable, or ill, or in difficulties, or poor, or unruly, or all at once, and the poor parents have to rack their brains to think how they can help, and suffer every pang with them; worse pangs, because the children are young, and can shake things off, and the parents sit by the fire and think. I’ve seen it with my own parents. They never had a chance of being happy and restful. One or other of us was always tearing their heart-strings.”

“People don’t have children for the sake of happiness, my good girl,” the Squire said bluntly. “A certain amount of happiness goes to it, no doubt, but that’s not the principal consideration. It’s a duty they owe to the race, and they must be prepared to take the rough with the smooth. You can’t expect to rear any young thing without trouble.”

“But they don’t care in return, Bernard! They care so little. That’s the heart-break. Parents are everlastingly giving out, and getting so little in return. It’s an empty feeling. Children give so little, in comparison with the love that is lavished on them.”

“Who expects them to care?” demanded the Squire. “It’s nature that the old should look after the young; it’s nature that the young should fly away. It’s no use bucking against nature! You are thinking of your own satisfaction, and the amount of happiness you are going to get out of the business. That’s where you’re wrong. There’s too much talk of happiness these days. I don’t believe in it. It makes people soft and finicking. If they thought less about their feelings, and more about their work, it would be a damned sight better for all concerned. We were not put into this world to be happy.”

“Weren’t we, Bernard, weren’t we?” Cassandra asked piteously. Five minutes ago it had seemed that happiness was the be-all and end-all of life, that in fact it was life itself, the only thing worthy of the name, but that was five minutes ago, and since then the veil had fallen. Pacing the terrace by Bernard’s side, the hard theory of work and duty seemed infinitely more applicable. And yet—life was so long! Barely thirty years behind and perhaps forty or more to come. Cassandra’s heart shrank at the prospect. She could have faced death bravely, but life appalled; long, dragging-out years of duty, unillumined by love. If it were hard now in the days of youth, and health, and beauty, what would it be in the searing of the leaf? She looked into her husband’s face, so strong and wholesome in its clear, out-of-door tints, and her heart went out to him in a wave of longing. As a drowning man will cling to the first support that his arms can reach, so did she turn to the man who had vowed to give her a lifelong support. If Bernard would care! If just for once he would show that he could care. Her starving heart cried out for food. It seemed impossible to live on, without a word of love or appreciation. She pushed her hand further through his arm, and gently smoothed the sleeve of his coat. It lay just beneath his eyes, the long, beautiful hand, the tapering fingers delicately white, with a tinge of pink on the almond-shaped nails; the square-cut emerald sent out gleams of light. Cassandra knew that that hand was a lovely thing. Surely the sight of it, resting there, would bring that other strong, brown hand to meet it! Then, grasping it fast, she could speak out, and say: “Help me, Bernard. Show me your love! I am only a woman, and I am afraid...” But the strong hand did not come. Bernard slackened his arm, and turned towards the house. His ear had caught the tremor in his wife’s voice, and it was his fixed decision that when women waxed emotional it was wisdom to leave them alone. He looked at his watch, announced that there was just time for a wash before lunch, and took his departure. And as he went he whistled a lively song.

Cassandra leant her arms on the stone balustrade and looked over the sloping gardens. The shimmer of green buds was on the trees; through the brown earth were springing living things. All the world was new, but in her breast her heart lay dead.

Chapter Twelve.

Her Infinite Variety.

“I should like,” announced Grizel to Martin over the breakfast table, “I should like to publish an apology, illuminated and framed, dedicated to middle-class house-mistresses, to explain how I’d misjudged ’em, and say I’m sorry.”

“Now that, in a manner of speaking, you have become one of them yourself.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘a manner of speaking.’ I have, wuss luck! so now I know. I always laughed before, and felt superior and forbearing, and wondered why he married her, and felt so sorry for him that he had. One of the many aggravating things about a man is that he looks so much nicer middle-aged. He is scraggy when he is young, but he fills out, and grows broad and dignified, and the little touch of grey in his hair has quite a poudrée effect. But his wife does not improve. Take ’em fat, or take ’em thin, there’s no getting away from it, they look worse every year. It needs a lot of grace, Martin, for a woman, to watch herself growing steadily into a fright, and to keep on smiling!”

“Every woman, my vain one, is not so much occupied with her appearance as you are. When she gets middle-aged, she doesn’t care.”

“Then she ought to, or her last estate will be worse than the first. Her husband and children will rise up and rend her. Her boys will blush for her when she goes to their public school; and her girls will have engagements when she wants to go out, and her husband will think thoughts, and look back and wonder ‘Why’—”

“Not necessarily. It doesn’t follow. I was at a musical At Home one evening last year, when a professional sang, ‘Believe me if all those endearing young charms’—You know how it goes on!—‘were to fade by to-morrow, etc., thou wouldst still be beloved, as this moment thou art, and around the dear ruins, each wish of my heart, would entwine itself faithfully still.’ The hostess seized that moment to sail out of the room. She was a vast woman. Parts of her were engulfed by the doorway long before her head vanished from sight. She had numerous chins, but, imbedded in flesh, one could still trace a likeness to an ethereally fair daughter. The host took me by the arm, and pointed covertly to the door. ‘My dear Ruins!’ he whispered beneath his breath. ‘My dear Ruins!’ But there was love in his eyes, as well as fun. He loved his Ruins!”

“Bless him!” cried Grizel warmly. “May his tribe increase! But most men don’t. So she must do her best. If she’s fat, she diets, and it’s harder for a middle-class housewife to diet than for any creature on the face of the earth. Because why? She has to rack her brains every morning to think of nice things for other people to eat, and naturally she thinks of the things she likes best herself, and then she sallies forth and buys them, and smells the smell of their seasoning all afternoon, and at the great moment says, ‘No thank you!’ and eats minced beef. And when the poor dear catches hold of an infinitesimal crinkle in her gown, and calls upon those present to witness that she grows so thin that it hangs upon her,—they jeer, and laugh her to scorn. I’ve heard it. I’ve seen it. It’s a heartrending sight.”

“I’ll promise faithfully not to jeer when you grow fat.”

“I never shall,” Grizel assured him. “Scrags are my line. Scrags are much easier to deal with. Scrags can always be mitigated if you lavish enough money; it’s the plain coat and skirt that’s the devil. I’d like to found a charity for the supply of draped garments to the thin wives of clergymen. Can’t you see them,—in navy-blue serge, with flannel shirts falling well in at the chest? It must have a depressing effect on the sermons! ... What was I talking of last! It’s rather difficult to keep count.”

“The superiority of middle-aged men over their wives. Wasn’t that it?”

“I never said they were superior. They’re not, but they look it, and that’s an extra burden on the wives. It proves without any doubt soever that women’s work is more exhausting than men’s.”

“Is this by any chance a suffragette lecture in disguise?”

“Certainly not. Who mentioned suffragettes? I’m talking of the old-fashioned women who stay at home, and look after their own affairs, and I’m sorry for them, and wonder they are not fifty times more stupid than they are, and I’m sorry I spoke. I said in my haste, ‘They can talk of nothing but their servants.’ Poor darlings! What wonder? Shut in from morning till night with two aproned fiends, who at any moment may reduce you to starvation, or poison you as you eat. (I don’t care if my pronouns are mixed! I shall mix them if I like!) Suppose man had to live day and night mewed up with his clerk and office boy; suppose you were followed wherever you went by grumbles and breakages, and a smell of onions, and daren’t let go, in case you were left to clean the sink yourself! A woman said to me the other day, that after a lifelong struggle she could not for the life of her decide which was worse—a servant who thinks, or a servant who don’t. Her housemaid could think. She thought the laundry bill had been rather high the last few weeks, so she kept back a lot of table-linen what time a party of guests were expected. She was hurt about it when reproved, and said she could never do right. She couldn’t... Martin! make up my mind for me.—Should I give Parsons notice or not?”

Martin elevated his eyebrows, and nodded once or twice with an air of enlightenment.

“Ah-ha! Now we come to it! I was waiting for the personal application. Parsons, eh! Let me hear the case. Yours and Parsons’s. Then I can judge.”

Grizel rested both elbows on the table, and supported her chin in the hollow of her hands.

“Parsons,” she said clearly. “Maud Emily, age twenty-six. Profession, House-parlourmaid. Religion, Anabaptist (I’m sure she’s an Anabaptist, by the cut of her Sunday hat). Honest. Steady. Clean in her work and person. Willing and obliging. Can clean plate... Forgets everything. Breaks the rest. Snores while waiting. Has feelings, and an invalid mamma, who, I feel it in my bones, will be tuk worse regularly on the afternoons of dinner parties. In every emergency, can be backed to do the worst possible thing... There! it’s a problem for a society paper! ... What should Mrs Beverley do?”

“Mrs Beverley should exercise patience and self-control. She should speak gently to the poor girl, who no doubt is doing her best. First Prize awarded for this solution, a copy of Mrs Tupper’s famous work, The Blue Boy Darling.”

Grizel contemplated him frowningly.

“Something will have to be done about your jokes! You have no sense of fitness. It drives me daft when a person jokes when I am worried. I’ll laugh myself in a fortnight’s time; with grace I’ll laugh to-morrow, but I won’t laugh to-day for all the jokes on earth, and I hate anyone who tries to make me do it. I’m not in the mood for jokes, and you ought to know it without being told.”

“Sorry, Madam, but there seems something wrong with your theory. You want to be cheered when you are already cheered, and not to be cheered when you are in need of cheering.”

“Silly jokes,” Grizel said firmly, “do not cheer. They can be endured in periods of health. In periods of affliction they are the last straw which breaks the woman’s back.”

Martin chewed his bacon in dignified silence, while his wife cocked a speculative eye at him to see if she had gone too far. Presently the two pairs of eyes met, and Grizel, made an extraordinary play with her eyebrows which gave the effect of contrition, and defiance, and injured innocence, and apologetic love, and half a dozen appealing sentiments rolled into one, whereat Martin shrugged, and cried, “You women!” and racked his brain to think what consolation to offer next.

“Cheer up, darling, we’ll have a holiday next month. I’ve had a note from the agent to say we can have the house, and the Squire is keen to join. You’ll enjoy the sea and unlimited powwows with Lady Cassandra, and, if you speak her fair, perhaps she’ll take over the housekeeping, and set you free.”

The mutual renting of a house near a seaside golf course had been in discussion for some time between the two households, but Grizel betrayed only a mitigated satisfaction in her husband’s proposal.

“Cassandra knows nothing about housekeeping, and if she did I’m not going to give it up, just as there’s a chance of getting a little credit. I’m getting quite a daisy at it now. Guess what you’re going to have to-night? Best end of the neck! Cook suggested it, and I said, ‘Whose neck?’ She looked quite scared. Martin, did you know you had chops growing inside your neck? Isn’t it thrilling?... I’m going to kiss you on the best end of your neck!”

She rose, and put her threat into execution, then sauntered over to an easy chair, and lit a cigarette.

“Of course, when you talk so sweetly about my talks with Cassandra, I know you are inwardly gloating on golf. You throw Cassandra to me as a sop, so that you may feel free, and have no scruples in leaving me day after day. Never mind! retribution will be yours. Poor angel! how tired you will get of hours and hours of undiluted Squire...”

“I’m not so sure; he is a type, and I’m interested in types, and from the golfer’s point of view, an approximate handicap covers a multitude of sins. And I don’t propose to confine myself to Raynor. I asked Peignton to come down, and he was delighted.”

Grizel frowned thoughtfully.

“I like Captain Peignton. It’s noble of me, for he has never quite made up his mind to like me, but I’m not altogether sure that you were wise to ask him this time.”

“For Heaven’s sake why not?”

Martin’s bewilderment was transparent. Grizel dropped her eyes, and played with her cigarette. A suspicious listener might have accused her of searching for a judicious reply.

“Well!—he’s engaged. And I don’t want her. She would be in the way.”

“Is it necessary to ask her at all?”

“If he comes, yes. I think we ought.”

Martin looked thoughtful in his turn. It was evident that, like his wife, he was not anxious for the society of Teresa Mallison, but after a moment’s consideration he was ready with a solution.

“We’ll ask her from Friday till Monday, at the end of his stay. Then they can travel home together. She will understand that he is asked primarily for golf. What on earth makes you imagine that he doesn’t like you?”

Grizel pursed her lips.

“I think... he thinks, I have more than my share!”

“Of—what?”

“Happiness.”

Martin’s face softened eloquently.

“So you have, darling. So you always will have. But that’s thanks to yourself. And why should he grudge you your happiness, pray? Isn’t he happy himself? Isn’t his Teresa happy?”

“Oh, yes. Teresa is as happy as Teresa can be.”

“Well, then!” exclaimed Martin conclusively, and dropped the subject. He had wisely abandoned the effort of following his wife’s nights of thought, and was for the moment more engrossed with his own. He glanced at the clock, and there fell over his face that restless, straining expression which Grizel had learned to recognise as a sign that work in the study was not going well. Being a wife she dared a question which from anyone else would have been an offence.

“Book dragging?”

“Badly.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“Come to a full stop. I know where I am, and I know where I want to get, but there’s a middle distance to be filled in... filled, not padded... and ideas won’t come. I need four or five chapters to give the characters time to—er—”

“I know.” Grizel tilted her chin and assumed an expression of ferocious absorption. She would emerge from it presently and make suggestions, and none of the suggestions would be of the slightest use. Martin knew as much, but he lingered all the same because Grizel was Grizel, and whatever she said delighted him to hear.

“Make the heroine go into the park, and sit on a bench, and talk to an old man...”

“Yes.”

“Well... A shabby old man, but with signs of race. He would hint at troubles, and she would sort of lure him on to tell her his history—”

“Yes?”

“How stupid you are! Then of course you must work it out. He might be a miser, or an uncle from China—or the husband of someone who had married again. Is anyone married again?”

“No.”

“Oh, well then, she won’t meet him! ... What about a fire? No! you had a fire in the last book. Or a flood. Is there a river anywhere handy that could flood them out?”

“There is not.”

“Don’t be so blighting. I’m trying to help. Could there be a lost will? It’s banal, I know, but what can you do? Everyone writes novels, and there isn’t a plot left. Even leprosy is overdone. Now if you’d bring in a few chapters about the parlourmaid I’d write them for you. That reminds me! I was forgetting to ask you something, and it’s most important. Parsons says there are two handkerchiefs short from the laundry, and the man is coming for the money, and what will I say. Martin! what do I say? What does one say when the laundry is short? Should I be angry? How angry? I don’t care a dump about the old things, but I’ll pretend I do. Shall I tell him you’ve a cold, and have only a dozen and can’t do without them? Ought I to make him leave his own? Just give me a hint, and I’ll work it out. Could I demand compensation? Happy thought! Are they insured?”

Martin laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

“Domesticities again. I’m off. I believe Katrine used to dock off sixpences... Well! you will let the Raynors know that we can have the house?”

“I’ll ring up Cassandra, and ask her to drive round to talk over details. Whenever I’m sorry that I married you, Martin, I’m glad again because of Cassandra. I’m a real safety valve to Cassandra. The poor dear soul had no one to grumble to before I came. A sympathetic woman listener who is not above throwing in a curse on her own account is absolutely necessary when one lives alone with a man. Now look at you—”

Martin shut the door firmly behind him, and mounted the staircase two steps at a time.

Chapter Thirteen.

Mrs Mallison Shocked.

Mrs Mallison possessed an insatiable curiosity. Its area, it is true, covered but a few square miles of country, for everything that happened outside Chumley was powerless to stir her to interest. Kingdoms might rise, kingdoms might fall, science might evolve the most marvellous of inventions, beneath a cataclysm of nature, whole provinces might be wrecked—Mrs Mallison listened to the announcement as she sipped her morning coffee, and murmured an automatic: “Dear! Dear! Tut! Tut!” the while she continued to ponder why Mrs Gainsby was hurrying to the early train wearing her best hat! Nothing that affected her neighbours was too trifling to engage her attention, and her mind, empty of so much, was a veritable storehouse for inconvenient numbers and dates. When the doctor’s chimney went on fire, she was able to declare that to her certain knowledge the sweep had not been on duty in that house since the third of March, the day of the blizzard, when Mrs Jones wanted him at the same time, because the weight of snow made her soot fall. The doctor’s wife had plainly been guilty of the folly of trying to save two-and-six. She knew to an hour the age of every one of the younger generations, and laboriously corrected lapses of memory on the part of relations or parents. It was impossible for one of her acquaintances to resurrect so much as a buckle without her instant and cordial recognition. “And the paste buckle that you had on your purple silk all those years ago—how well it comes in! ‘Keep a thing a dozen years, and it comes into fashion again,’ as my old mother used to say.”

She remembered the Vicar’s sermons when he preached them after a lapse of years, and the good man chid himself because the fact brought annoyance, rather than gratification. Not for the world would he have put it into words, but deep in his heart lay the thought that it was useless to remember precepts, which were not put into practice.

Within her own home Mrs Mallison’s curiosity reached its acutest pitch, so that it became sheer torture to her to be shut out from even the smallest happening. To overhear tags of conversation was insufferable, unless she were instantly supplied with the context. Thus to come into a room and hear a daughter say, “I always thought so,” was to know no peace until she had been enlightened as to the context of the statement. “What have you always thought, Teresa? Teresa, what do you always think?”

“Nothing, mother.”

“My dear! Nonsense. I heard you. As I opened the door I distinctly heard you say so. What were you talking about?”

“Nothing, mother. Nothing worth repeating, at any rate. You wouldn’t be interested.”

“My dear, I am always interested. How could I not be interested in my children’s thoughts? Wait till you are a mother yourself... You can’t possibly have forgotten in this short time. What do you always think?”

Then Teresa would set her lips and look obstinate, and Mary would come to the rescue.

“Teresa said that she always thought silk wore better than satin.”

There was a ferocious patience in the tone in which Mary responded to these calls, it was the patience of a wild beast which must submit or starve, but behind the submission a discerning observer might have observed the teeth and the claw. But then no discerning observer troubled about Mary Mallison. She was one of the women on whom the world turns its back.

As might naturally be expected, the arrival of the post-bag furnished Mrs Mallison with some of the most thrilling moments of her day, and her interest in the correspondence of others was even keener than in her own. If the recipient was out at the time the letter was delivered, she examined postmark and writing to discover the writer, and then set to work to anticipate the contents.

“Mrs Fenton writing to Mary... What can she have to say?... She’s at home, from the postmark... They never correspond. Dear me! ... Most peculiar! Perhaps it’s a subscription... Perhaps it’s a bazaar... Mary did once help her in a sale of work. Baskets, I remember—a stall of baskets. She wore a brown dress. She must certainly refuse. Too many calls at home. What does she want gadding over to Mayfield?... That! Madam Rose’s bill again for Teresa. The third time. Papa must speak to her. Gives the house a bad name. And... er... what’s this? I know the writing—do I know it? Is it a man or a woman? They all write alike nowadays. No crest. On such a good paper one would expect a crest. I must explain to Teresa that on no account can I allow her to correspond with men... Perhaps it is a schoolfellow...”

It was at the breakfast table one morning that the great news came, and it was imparted in a dull, legal-looking envelope addressed to the eldest daughter. Mrs Mallison’s eye caught the lawyer’s name on the flap of the envelope, and pounced on the significance.

“Ratcliffe and Darsie—Miss Brewster’s lawyers. She’s left you a legacy. I expected it, of course. Quite the right thing. Her own godchild, but I did not think we should hear so soon. Dear me! How much? She was not rich, so you can’t expect a large sum... Twenty pounds perhaps, to buy a ring. Most kind. Possibly a hundred... Mary! We are all waiting! Why don’t you speak? Quite a long letter. Read it out—read it out! Most inconsiderate to keep us waiting. How much is the legacy?”

“There is no legacy.”

Mrs Mallison’s breath forsook her, for it might be the quarter of a minute, then returned with renewed force and violence.

“What? Impossible! None? Then why write? A lawyer’s letter costs six and eightpence. There must be a reason. Mary—I insist!”

Mary lifted her colourless eyes, and looked her mother in the face.

“Miss Brewster left me no legacy. She left me her principal. Everything she had. I shall have five hundred a year.”

“God bless my soul!” cried the Major loudly. Teresa flushed scarlet over face and neck, and stared with distended eyes.

“Oh, Mary! I’m glad! How ripping.”

“Ripping, indeed. Is that the best word you can find for your sister’s good fortune?” Mrs Mallison raised her eyes in ecstatic rejoicing to the electric light ornament which decorated the centre of the ceiling. “Thank God that I have lived to see this day! I told papa when we chose her as godmother that it might be for the child’s benefit. Not likely to marry, and a settled income. We thought of your welfare, Mary, in your long clothes and see the result. And I made a point of inviting her once a year. She was devoted to you as a child—you remember the pink corals? but of late with her ill-health we have fallen apart, and she seemed indifferent. Nothing, even on your birthdays. Well! Well! what news! What thankfulness. All things work together. Five—hundred—a—year!” Her large body expanded in beatific realisation. “Five hundred—pounds. It’s marvellous how much a few hundreds mean after necessities have been provided. As I have said a hundred times—after a thousand, every hundred does the work of two... What about a brougham? We have always needed a second carriage. Papa and I are getting too old to drive in the open in winter, and Teresa goes out so much at night. It would be only the initial expense, for Johnson could do the work. He might need a new livery. And the little conservatory opening out of the drawing-room... That has been a long-felt want. So cheerful,—and you could look after the plants, dear. Such agreeable work! ... Five hundred,—about forty pounds a month, ten pounds a week, nearly thirty shillings a day. My dear, what riches! Quite a little millionaire... So apropos too, with a wedding in prospect. It would have been a strain out of a regular income, and one hesitates to break in on capital. Perhaps your rich sister will give you your trousseau, Teresa, who knows! Indeed I feel sure she will wish it. It doesn’t seem suitable for one sister to have so much, and the other nothing. You may not care to halve it, Mary, perhaps halving would be too much, but a hundred a year for Teresa. Oh, certainly a hundred. It is so nice for a young wife to have pin-money of her own... What about a brass tablet in the church? Quite a nice one for forty pounds, and she worshipped there in her youth... We must wear black, of course. Handsome black, only suitable. We could run up to town. Ah, Mary!” her voice grew arch and playful, “if it were not spring, I would remind you of my ambition for sables! Nothing looks so well as handsome black and a sable set. Never mind! Never mind. Christmas is coming! Dear me, quite a Portunatus cap! Only to wish, and the thing appears... Papa, you must tell Mary what you want next!”

Then Mary spoke, and if a peal of thunder had crashed through the sunlit room, the shock could not have been half so great.

“I shall not give,” said Mary slowly, “one penny to anybody. I shall keep every farthing for myself.”

Major Mallison gaped, Teresa screwed up her face and stared at her sister with a vivid kindling of interest. At last! At last! the dormant spirit had roused itself from its lethargy. Teresa felt a sympathy, an excitement, which had no element of self. She braced her knees under the table, and sent forth a telegraphic message of support.

“Go it, Mary!”

“Mary,” gasped Mrs Mallison deeply, “have you gone mad?”

“Oh, no,” said Mary calmly. “I may have been mad before. I’ve sometimes fancied I was, but I’m sane now, I’m more than sane... I’m free! I’ve been only a slave—a white slave.”

Mrs Mallison cast an agonised glance at the sideboard and bookcases, as if terrified of offending their susceptibilities. She held up protesting hands.

“Silence! Mary... Have you no decency?”

“I’m sorry if the word shocks you. Perhaps it would be better to say a useful maid. I’ve been a useful maid at thirty pounds a year, and no holiday nor nights out. I’ve done what I’ve been told to do, from morning till night, and from night till morning when it has been necessary, but I’ve had no life of my own. I’m thirty-two, and I’ve never even invited a friend to tea without first having to ask permission. I have no corner of my own to which I can invite a friend—not a corner in the world—except a tireless bedroom. Every servant in the house has had more freedom than I have had. I have not been free even to think. It was useless, for what I thought was never noticed. Nobody troubled about what I thought. I was just Mary—a useful machine. Nobody takes any notice of a machine, except to keep it oiled. Nobody expects it to be sad, or in pain, or lonely, or discouraged, or tired of turning round and round in the same small space. Nobody suspects it of having a heart... but it has all the same, and when it has a chance of breaking free—it does not let it go. This money is my chance. A woman brought up as I have been is powerless without money, and I have had none. I’ve never had a penny piece in my life for which I’ve not had to say thank you. The money you have given me has never been looked upon as my right, as payment for work... yet I have worked hard. I have given you my whole life.”

“You have done your duty in the position in which it has pleased God to place you,” said Mrs Mallison with dignity. As Mary’s excitement had increased, she had grown quieter, and her face showed signs of mental shock. Not the news of the legacy itself had been so startling as this sudden outbreak on the part of the silent, patient daughter. Nor was her distress in any sense affected. According to her lights she had been a good mother, careful of colds and draughts, of food and raiment. Five minutes ago she would have declared her conscience to be free of reproach so far as Mary was concerned; it was paralysing to discover that she had been looked upon as a heartless task-mistress. Her exultation of a moment before was replaced by pain and discomfort, and her voice took the deeper tone of earnestness.

“You have fulfilled your duty in the place in which it has pleased God to place you... and have done the work He set you to do.”

“Are you so sure of that?” Mary asked, and Mrs Mallison had an agonised conviction that the girl was going to turn atheist into the bargain!

“Then why did He make me with a woman’s heart, with a woman’s natural longing? Why did He give me the instinct to crave for someone of my own, who would put me first, instead of nowhere at all. Someone who would care. And it isn’t only people that a woman wants,—it’s things! What had I of my own? The clothes I wear. Nothing more. No pauper in the land is poorer than I have been! If this is my appointed place and I have done my duty in it, why am I so empty and tired? Poor Mary Mallison! whom everyone pities, and nobody wants. Oh, yes! you may think I don’t know how people talk of me, but I do know! You say it yourself quite often. ‘Poor Mary.’ Why am I poor Mary... whose fault is it that I have missed my chance?”

“I think you are forgetting yourself, Mary. You talk very strangely, very—indelicately, I must say. I suppose you mean that you are not married. You can hardly call that my fault!”

“I am not so sure. What chance did you give me? If I’d been a boy you would have sent me to college, and paid money to give me a start, but I was only a girl, and it was cheaper to have a governess than to send me to a good school. So I was educated at home, and made no friends. That meant no visits, no change, but just Chumley always Chumley, and the five or six young men I’d known all my life. I could count up on two hands all the marriageable men I have met in the last ten years. It bored you to entertain, so we had no young people here till Teresa came home. I was not pretty nor clever, but I should have made a good wife. Some man might have loved me... If you had given me a chance I might have been happy now, living in my own home.”

There was a dead silence. Mrs Mallison was too shocked to speak. Of all her emotions this was predominant. She was shocked. Shocked that a spinster daughter should openly regret marriage and a mate, shocked that such feelings should find vent in words, shocked that a man—albeit her own husband—should be present to hear such sentiments emerge from virgin lips. Shocked for Teresa, the bride, down whose cheeks large tears were rolling. Mrs Mallison believed them to be tears of shame, but in reality they betokened the purest sympathy and regret.

Major Mallison stared with glassy eyes. Suddenly he cleared his throat and spoke, and the sound of his voice caused yet another shock to the hearers. Another dumb creature had found his voice.

“The girl is right,” he said. “She speaks the truth. I wish she had spoken before.” He paused for a moment painfully rumpling the tablecloth. “It would have been kinder to speak out, Mary. I should have endeavoured to meet you. But thirty-two is not old. You can still enjoy your life. As for the money, I wish you all to understand one thing: I require no help, and I accept no help. What is necessary and suitable for my household, I can supply. I have done so in the past, and can do so for the future. Your fortune is your own, Mary. Do with it as you please. We need no contribution. You hear that, Margaret? You understand?”

“Yes, Henry, I understand. I am learning to understand a great many things this morning.”

The old man rose feebly, and stood plucking at the edge of the tablecloth. It was evident that there was something more which he was trying to say. Mary looked up, and their eyes met.

“All these years,” said her father slowly, “while you have been silent, running after your mother, serving us all, appearing so patient,—has there been bitterness in your heart, Mary? Bitterness and rebellion?”

The two pairs of eyes held one another in a steady gaze.

“Yes,” Mary said.

“Ah!” the Major winced. “That hurts me,” he said slowly. “That hurts me, Mary!”

He turned and left the room. Mrs Mallison stood up in her turn, and began rolling up her napkin before putting it into its silver ring. She reserved her parting shot until her husband was out of hearing.

“Well, Mary, I hope you are satisfied. You have turned our rejoicings into bitterness and revilings, and sorely hurt and distressed your poor father. I fear your fortune will bring you no blessing.”

The door closed loudly, and the sisters were left alone, abashed and discomfited. When our minds are overflowing with the consciousness of our own grievances, it is always irritating to be forced to realise that there are two sides to every question, and that we ourselves are not altogether without blame. Mary Mallison had so long been in subjection to her parents, that the consciousness of their serious displeasure overwhelmed for the moment the smart of her own injuries. She was still obstinate, still determined, but her conscience was pricked, and she was unheroically afraid.