Lady Cassandra

Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

"Lady Cassandra"

Chapter One.

A Matrimonial Hurdle.

Cassandra Raynor stood on the terrace of her great house, looking over the sweep of country stretching to right and left, and in her heart was the deadliest of all weariness,—the weariness of repletion. It seemed at that moment the bitterest cross that she had nothing left for which to wish, that everything good which the world could give was hers already, and had left her cold.

The stately old house was hers, with its treasures of old-world furnishings, the same furnishings which had ministered to generations dead and gone, and would minister to others yet to come. It would have been considered sacrilege to stamp the individuality of the chatelaine of an hour on those historic halls. The distant stretch of country was part of her estate, but the sight of it brought no thrill to Cassandra’s veins. Her jaded eyes had wearied of the familiar landscape, as they had wearied of the interior of the house, in which she seemed more a tenant than a mistress.

Cassandra wandered idly to and fro, obsequiously shadowed by obsequious servants, and wondered what it would feel like to live in a semi-detached villa, and arrange one’s own rooms in one’s own way, and frill pink silk curtains, and festoon lamp shades, and run to the door to meet a husband returning from the City. She herself had never run to meet Bernard. If she had once begun that sort of thing, she might have been running all day long, for he was always in and out. She wondered what it would feel like to have a husband who disappeared regularly at nine a.m., and returned at seven. One might be quite glad to see him!

Cassandra had done her duty to the family by producing a healthy male child within eighteen months of her marriage. So sorely had she suffered in giving birth to her son that there was no hope of a second child to bear him company, but there had been no regret nor self-pity in her mother’s heart during those first hours in which he lay, red and crumpled, within her arms. Never while she lived could Cassandra forget the rest, the thankfulness, the deep, uplifted joy of those hours. It had seemed to her then that with the coming of the child all gaps must be filled, and all the poverty of life be turned into gold. But... was it her own fault, or the fault of circumstances which had brought about the disillusionment? It had been difficult to believe that the stolid, well-behaved young person, who walked abroad between two white-robed nurses, spoke when he was spoken to, and tucked his feeder carefully beneath his chin, was really her own child, bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh; the wonder child of whom she had dreamt such dreams.

Cassandra had known nothing of babies; Mrs Mason, the head nurse, knew everything, and Bernard was tenacious of the safety of his heir. He thought it a pity for his wife to “interfere,” and said as much with his usual frankness. He did not approve of young children being in evidence, and discouraged the boy’s appearance downstairs. At an unusually early age also he selected a preparatory school at the far end of the county, and henceforth Bernard the younger visited home for the holidays only, and was no longer a member of the household proper. Cassandra loved him, but,—she had wanted to love him so much more! In those first hours she had imagined a bond of union so strong and tender that the commonplaces of the reality could not fail to be a disappointment. Bernard was a dutiful boy, a sensible boy, a boy who brought home satisfactory reports; he considered the Mater a good sort, and appreciated her generosity. Her affection he endured, her tenderness he would have abhorred, but it was as difficult to be tender to Bernard the son, as to Bernard the father. Cassandra had abandoned the attempt.

And, socially speaking, the Court was situated in a hopeless part of the county. The other two big places in the neighbourhood were occupied, the one by an objectionable nouveau riche, and the other by an elderly couple of such strong evangelical tendencies that they disapproved of everything which other people enjoyed. There were, it is true, a few pleasant families at the other side of the county, but though they could be counted upon for state occasions, the intervening miles forbade anything like easy, everyday intimacy. In autumn the Raynors entertained a succession of guests for the shooting, but for the rest of the year Bernard discouraged house parties. He was bored by Cassandra’s friends, she was bored by his, the guests were mutually bored by each other, what then was the use of going to trouble and expense?

As for Chumley, the nearest small township, a mile or less from the nearest gate of the Court, from Cassandra’s point of view “No-one” lived there—literally no one, but a few dull, suburban families who gave afternoon tea parties, gossiped about their neighbours, and wore impossible clothes. Cassandra maintained that there was not a creature in Chumley worth knowing, but Bernard said that was nonsense, there must be some decent women among them, if she would only be decent in return! Cassandra maintained that she was decent; she called on them sometimes, and she asked them to garden parties. One could do no more.

Cassandra had been married ten years, and would be thirty on her next birthday. When one was a girl it had seemed so impossibly dull to be thirty. And it was; Cassandra thought it would be vastly more agreeable to be forty, at once, and be done with it. At forty, one began to grow stout and grey, to lie down in the afternoon, and feel interested in committee meetings, and societies, and other people’s business. At thirty, one was still so painfully interested in oneself!

At forty, one was old, looked it, felt it, acknowledged it with body and mind... but at thirty, it was difficult to be consistently discreet. At thirty, one knew one was old; with the brain one knew it, but it was impossible to live consistently up to the knowledge. There were moments when one felt so extraordinarily, so incredibly young, moments when the mirror, instead of crying shame on such folly, backed one up in delusion, and gave back the reflection of a girl!

Cassandra thanked Providence daily for her eyes, her hair, her straight back, and the dimple in her chin. Viewed in full, her face was a charming oval; taken in halves it supplied two admirable profiles. The nose leant a trifle to the left, so that was the side on which she chose to be photographed and on which she bestowed the prettiest side of her hats. Cassandra and the mirror enjoyed the hats, and Chumley disapproved. That was all the satisfaction she got out of their purchase. Bernard took no notice of clothes during the enchanting period of their youth, but just when his wife was feeling tired to death of a garment, he would awake to a consciousness of its existence and cry: “Holloa, what’s this? You are mighty smart. Another new frock?” Cassandra wished to goodness as he was not more observant, he would not be observant at all. It made it so awkward to order new things.

Cassandra seated herself in a deep cushioned chair, folded her hands in her lap, and began one of the animated conversations with her inner self which were the resource of her idle hours. It was so comfortable talking to oneself,—one could be honest, could say precisely what one meant, need have no tiresome fears for other people’s susceptibilities.

“What’s the matter with me that I feel so restless and dull? I ought to be contented and happy, but I’m not. I’m bored to death, and the trouble of it is,—I can’t think why! I’ve everything I could wish for, and I’m as unsatisfied as if I’d nothing. In the name of fortune, my dear, what do you want?—It comes to this—I’m either a morbid, introspective, weak-minded fool or else I’m noble and fine, and am stretching out for higher things. I’d like to think it was the last, but I’m not at all sure! I don’t long to be great or noble, or superior in any way—only just to be happy, and at rest... I wonder if by chance I’m unhappily married? That would account for so much. I wonder if I ruined my life when I gave in, and said ‘yes’ to Bernard! If I did, it was with the best intentions. I was fond of him. When a dull, quiet man gets really worked up, there’s something extraordinarily compelling. And I expected he’d stay worked up. At eighteen any girl would. There ought to be a Bureau of Matrimonial Intelligence to prevent them from making such mistakes. I’d be the secretary, and say: ‘My dear, he won’t! This is only a passing conflagration. It will die out, and he’ll revert to the normal. You’ll have to live with the normal till death do you part. It doesn’t follow that you’ll quarrel... Ah! my dear girl, there are so many worse things! It’s deplorable, of course, to quarrel with one’s husband, but the reconciliation might be worth the pain. You might put your head on his shoulder, and say: “It was every bit your fault, and the rest was mine. Kiss me! and we’ll never do it again!” and he’d choose the prettiest dimple, and kiss you there, and do it so nicely, you’d long to quarrel again. Oh, yes, there are points about quarrelling, but it’s so hopelessly uningratiating to be—bored. The worse you feel, the less you can say. Imagine telling a man that he bored you to extinction, and expecting to be kissed in return! Being bored goes on and on, and never works itself off’... Bernard is good and loyal, and honourable, and just,—and I’m so tired of him. I am; and I can’t pretend any longer. We’ve lived together in peace and boredom for ten long years, and something within me seems wearing out—

“I wonder how many married people come up against this hurdle? Its name is satiety, and it is bristling with difficulties. I’ve a suspicion that if one could get cleanly over, it would be a safe trot home. But it blocks the way. I’m up against it now—”

Cassandra rested an elbow on the arm of her chair, and leant her head on the uplifted hand. A thrill of something like fear ran through her veins. The simile of the hurdle had leapt into her mind subconsciously, as such things will, but the conscious mind recognised its face. Along the quiet path lay no chance for the reforming of life; it must necessarily be some shock, some upheaval, which would either open out new fields, or gild the old with some of the vanished splendour. Even if one failed to reach the goal without a toss, a toss was preferable to an eternal jog-trot.

Cassandra narrowed her eyes, and stared into space, but no man’s face pictured itself in her mind; for ten long years Bernard had, for good or ill, filled the foreground of her life, not the mildest of flirtations had been hers. She was a pure-minded woman, bred on conventional lines, and the idea of a lover would have outraged her delicacy. In considering the events which might possibly vitalise the future, her mind dwelt on strictly legitimate happenings. A serious illness,—her own,—Bernard’s,—the boy’s; the loss of money; a lengthened separation, which would revive joys staled by custom. Regarded dispassionately the prospects were not cheerful, nevertheless she found herself cheered by the contemplation. She saw herself occupied, engrossed, with something to do, a real object in life. It might be a reviving experience to have one of the Bernards—not dangerously so, of course, but just enough ill to feel dependent on the one woman in the family. Even to be ill oneself would have points. She would sit propped up against her best pillow covers, wearing a distracting bed jacket and cap, and Bernard would come in, and look at her, and say,—What would he say? Cassandra’s smile was twisted with a pathetic humour. “Holloa, old girl. Got ’em all on! Bucking up a bit, ain’t you? I’m off for a ride...” Rather a tame dénouement to which to look forward as the reward for weeks of suffering! Cassandra determined on the whole that she would rather keep well.

And the two Bernards,—what sort of convalescents would they make? Cassandra drew a mental picture of the sick room, with the older patient stretched on a couch, and herself seated by his side, a devoted and assiduous nurse, but there was an obstinate commonplaceness about father and son which refused to adapt itself to the scene. Bernard would have no reflections to make on the wonder of life restored; he would want to hear the Sporting Times read aloud, and the latest news of the crops. His tenderest acknowledgment of her care would be a, “Looking a bit peaked, old girl! What’s the sense of paying a nurse and doing the work yourself?” As for the boy, he would talk cricket, be politely bored, and surreptitiously wipe off kisses. Cassandra determined that on the whole the two Bernards had better keep well also!

As for poverty—one would certainly have enough to do to run a house on a few hundreds a year, but though viewed generally the prospect sounded picturesque, a definite narrowing down to a comparison with one of the many Chumley homesteads, brought a quick shudder of distaste. The narrow rooms, the inferior servants, the infinitesimal gardens,—Cassandra thrust out her hands in horror of the thought, and laughed a soft, full-throated laugh.

“If I am bound to be dissatisfied, let me at least have room to be dissatisfied in! I could bear being stinted in almost anything rather than space. If Bernard loses his money, we’ll go abroad and live on a prairie,—anything rather than a stifling villa.”

She turned her head as the door opened, and her husband entered, and crossed the room to a bureau in the far corner. He wore the usual tweed suit, the Norfolk jacket accentuating his increasing width, the loose knickerbockers revealing large, well-shaped legs. His skin was tanned to a rich brown, his eyes were a clear hard blue, his teeth strong and white, his moustache was cut in a straight harsh line along the upper lip. His cool gaze included his wife with the rest of the furnishings, but he gave no acknowledgment of her presence; not a flicker of expression passed over his face.

There came to Cassandra suddenly, irrepressibly, the necessity of shocking him into life. She was not a woman who indulged in scenes; it came naturally to her to hide her feelings, and act a part before the world. If Bernard had not entered at just that psychological moment, if he had looked one bit less sleek, and satisfied, and dense, she could have gone on acting, as she had done for years past; as it was, a desire for expression rose with giant force, and would not be gainsaid. Very well! So be it. For once she would speak out, and Bernard should hear. She had an acute, a devastating curiosity to hear what he would say.

“Bernard, are you busy? I want to speak to you.”

He turned his head. The clear tints of his skin looked startlingly healthy as seen in the light of the great open window.

“All right! Fire ahead.”

“Bernard, do you love me?”

“Good Lord!” The utter stupefaction on Raynor’s face proved that this was the last of all questions which he had expected to hear. He came across the room, and stood staring down into his wife’s face. “What the dickens is up?”

“Nothing is up. I asked you a simple question. What should be up?”

“I thought you’d taken offence at something I’d done!”

“You have done nothing in the least unusual that I know of. I rather wish you had. Do you, Bernard?”

“Do I what?”

“You know quite well, but I’ll ask you again, if you prefer it. Do you love me, Bernard?”

The man’s ruddy face took a deeper tinge.

“I say, Cass, what rot is this? That was settled and done with years ago. I married you. You’re my wife. If you are not sure of me by this time, you never will be.”

“You are quite sure of yourself?”

“Of course I am. What d’you mean? I’m not the sort to er—er—”

Cassandra turned her head over her shoulder and flung him a challenging glance, her blue eyes bright with defiance.

“Then you had better understand, Bernard, once for all, that—I am not sure of myself! I’m not at all sure that I love you!”

She had said it. The words rang like a clarion call through the silent room. After years of self-deception, and careful covering up, a moment’s impulse had laid bare the skeleton. It stood between them, a naked horror, grinning with fleshless lips. Cassandra saw it and shuddered at the sight, but it was too late to draw back. She caught her breath, and sat tremblingly waiting for what should come.

What came was a burst of hearty, good-natured laughter. Bernard’s eyes twinkled, his white teeth gleamed. He stretched out a freckled hand and laid it on his wife’s arm.

“That’s all right, old girl! Don’t you worry about that. You’re fond of me all right, and a rattling good wife. We’ve been married a dozen years, and never had a row. If all couples got along as well as we do, things would be a sight better. What’s the use of bothering about love at this time of day. I’m not a sentimental fellow. I’m satisfied with things as they are. So are you too, as a rule. Got a fit of the blues, that’s all!—I say, Cass, Peignton’s coming to tea, and I met that girl of the Mallison’s,—Teresa, isn’t it?—and asked her to come along too, and make up a game afterwards. She plays a good hand, and Peignton’s engaged to her they say, or going to be. So we will do them a good turn, as well as ourselves.”

Cassandra rose slowly, straightening her shoulders as if throwing off a weight. Standing there her head was on a level with her husband’s, and for a moment their eyes met, his calm and unperturbed, hers sparkling and defiant. She had spoken. He had heard the truth, and had laughed at her for her pains. Now let the Fates bring what they might. He had been warned...

“Very well, Bernard. I’ll have tea early. Shall I order the car to take her home?”

“Er—no. They’ll send. Pony cart or some contraption of the kind. Peignton’ll look after her all right.”

He chuckled, aroused to interest in a prospective romance, though his own had faded. He turned, softly whistling, and fumbled in the bureau, while Cassandra beat a retreat to her own room.

Now she was angry with herself, sore with the humiliation of an unnecessary rebuff. “How futile of me! How superfluous to bring it on my own head! What did I expect?” she asked herself bitterly. She stood staring out of the window at the landscape, already darkening in the short February light, while the thoughts chased themselves in her brain. Her youth,—Bernard,—her marriage,—the birth of her child,—ennui,—disappointment,—emptiness. The different stages seemed to follow one after another in relentless sequence; they merged together in nebulous confusion. Then suddenly her thoughts switched to another topic.

“Teresa!” she found herself repeating, “Teresa Mallison!” With critical accuracy she was conjuring up the picture of a tall, thickly built girl, with fair hair, fresh complexion, and a narrow, long-chinned face. In Chumley circles Teresa Mallison was considered a pretty girl, and pretty she was, and would be, so long as the glow of youth disguised the harshness of her features. Cassandra acknowledged as much with the generosity which most women show towards the attractions of their sisters, difficult as masculine incredulity finds it to credit the fact. Teresa Mallison was quite a pleasant sort of girl, amiable and unaffected, and quite angelic about accepting eleventh-hour invitations to fill a vacant place. One way and another she had been a fairly frequent visitor at the Court, during the last year, but imagine choosing to live all one’s life with such a companion! Imagine breakfasting throughout the years with Teresa Mallison as a vis-à-vis; being sad with Teresa, glad with Teresa, living day after day with Teresa; growing old, dying, always, always with Teresa; watching her heavy form grow heavier, her long face longer, seeing the wrinkles gather round the light blue eyes, listening always, for ever, to the thin, toneless voice, the recurrent spasms of laughter. Dane Peignton too; Peignton of all men! Not one of the ordinary, uninteresting Chumley natives, but the most attractive bachelor in the neighbourhood! That made the mystery deeper.

Dane Peignton was a comparatively new-comer to the neighbourhood; was in fact only a bird of passage, being a temporary tenant of a small place a few miles distant from the Court, during its owner’s sojourn abroad. Peignton had retired from the Army after a serious breakdown in health, and being not overburdened with this world’s goods, had been delighted to accept from old friends the loan of a house for a couple of years, the responsibility of superintending the up-keep of the estate being taken as a quid pro quo against rent. Being country-bred, he had little difficulty in fitting into his new duties, and in envisaging the future, felt that after Vernon’s return, he would like nothing better than to secure a land agency, live quietly in the country, and take up country sports. Given a few congenial neighbours, and a library of books, he would feel no hankerings for town.

An hour later Cassandra descended the great staircase, and made her way to the drawing-room to await her guests. She had discarded her morning dress, and moved by some subtle impulse of coquetry had decked herself in a new creation, which was pleased to call itself a bridge gown. Even she herself would have been puzzled to give an accurate explanation of her own motives in so doing; so many elements entered, and intermingled. Bernard had repulsed her,—let him see what manner of woman he had repulsed! The remembrance of the girl, rich in youth and love, came also as a spur to the woman to whom the years had brought disillusion. Teresa Mallison had placed her on a pinnacle, and worshipped her as a marvel of grace and beauty,—she wished to retain the girl’s admiration, wished for her own sake to feel conscious of looking her best. She dressed for Bernard’s benefit, for Teresa’s, for her own; the only person of whom she took no account was Dane Peignton himself. He stood outside her life.

The great drawing-room with its white panelled walls looked somewhat cold and austere, but round the log fire was a little haven of comfort, where four Spanish leather screens formed a background for deeply cushioned sofas. The firelight played on the rich colouring of the old leather work, on the dainty equipments of the tea table; on Cassandra herself in her rose-red draperies, on the face, that was so young and vivid, on the eyes which were so tired.

Dane Peignton approaching from the further end of the room had a moment to take in the details of the scene, before she saw him in her turn, and the picture stayed in his mind.

Cassandra on her part regarded Peignton with the added curiosity which every woman feels towards an embryo lover, seeing him in a new light, as a central figure in the eternal drama. She saw a tall man with a military bearing, somewhat at variance with bowed shoulders, a clean-shaven face, not handsome, not plain, the features large and roughly hewn, the eyes a dark steel grey. Yet he was attractive. Why was he so attractive? Cassandra pondered the question while keeping up a light flow of conversation, and arrived at varying conclusions. It was his eyes. It was his mouth. It was his mobility of expression. It was an air of weakness underlying strength, which evoked sympathy and interest. He was attractive, that was the end of the matter; and he cared for Teresa Mallison!

The door opened, and Teresa was announced. She had discarded her coat and appeared in a short dark skirt, and a white blouse, transparent at the neck, and displaying a goodly length of bare brown arms. Her feet looked disproportionately large in walking shoes, and there was a hint of the provincial in her gait. One descried at a glance that it was not often her lot to make an entrance into so stately a room. Cassandra rose to greet her with an involuntary feeling of commiseration. A few minutes before she had come near grudging the girl her good fortune, now at the sight of her, her heart melted with pity. So gauche, so raw! The heavy looks, the reddened arms. Cassandra’s fastidious eye took in the blemishes at a glance, and the feminine in her rose on the girl’s behalf. She placed her on the corner of the sofa, nearest the softly tinted light, moved a table to her side, with a deft hand twitched away a dark cushion and substituted one of a vivid blue. The effect was transforming, for once the dark skirt was hidden from sight the filmy blouse became at once dainty and appropriate, while the softened light showed to advantage the gleam in the fair, coiled hair, the youthful pink and white of the complexion. Cassandra glanced at Peignton to see if he appreciated the picture; and discovered him leaning forward, looking into the girl’s face with pleasure and admiration. Teresa was smiling back, and showing her large white teeth. Cassandra squeezed her lips into a tight little knot, and told herself she was very pleased. But how foolish they looked!

Bernard came in, and sat himself down with deliberation. He enjoyed afternoon tea, insisted on having a table to himself, and a supply of hot buttered toast. Hardly a day passed that he did not ask for a second supply, and give instructions as to liberality with the butter. He drank three cups of tea, and helped himself largely to cream. And then he wondered that he grew stout! Cassandra nibbled daintily at minute wafers of bread, and the girl on the sofa ate sweet cakes with youthful relish.

“What’s the news, Miss Mallison?” Bernard asked between his mouthfuls of toast. It was a question which he never failed to ask, and Teresa Mallison’s replies never failed to evoke the expected amusement. She believed so implicitly that he was interested in the doings of that dead-alive little hole, and brought out her little items with such an air of importance.

“The Vicar has asked me to decorate the chancel for Easter.”

“Don’t you do it! Lots of trouble, and nobody pleased. Let someone else take that job.”

“Oh, but”—Teresa looked shocked—“I want to! It’s an honour. I’ve only done the finials before. But it needs lots of flowers. I wondered if...”

“I’ll bet you did! They always do.” Bernard laughed good-naturedly. “All right, Miss Teresa; you shall have them. Someone has them every year, and I’d sooner give them to you than most. Tell Dawes what you want, and I’ll see that he remembers. And if you want him to help—”

“Oh, thanks!” Teresa’s cheeks showed a deeper colour. “I have some helpers. Mr Peignton has promised.”

“That’s right, Peignton! Make yourself useful.” Bernard’s smile was so significant, that Teresa made haste to give the conversation a turn.

“The Martin Beverleys have come home.”

“They have, have they? That’s the author fellow who married the heiress, who was not an heiress, because she gave it all up to marry him. Chucked away,—how much was it? Fifty thousand a year?”

“Thirty!”

“Ah well, thirty’s good enough! He didn’t seem to me, the few times I’ve met him, exactly cheap at the price. Good-looking enough in a fashion, and plays a fair game, but a stiff, reserved kind of beggar. Takes himself too seriously for my taste. They tell me he writes good books.”

Teresa waxed eloquent in favour of the local celebrity.

“Oh, beautiful! He is one of the best authors. The last one was the best of all. It’s run through several editions. You ought to read it, Mr Raynor.”

“Can’t stick novels!” declared Bernard, who was never known to read a line beyond the morning papers. “Can’t understand how anyone can when they’ve passed the cub stage. And as to writing them—Good Lord! Fancy that old solemn sides Beverley writing an impassioned love scene! Beats me how he manages to do it.”

“It wouldn’t, if you knew Mrs Beverley!” Teresa said sagely. Her blue eyes brightened, she drew a long, eloquent breath. “She is—adorable!”

The men laughed. Cassandra looked up with a dawning of interest.

“She was Grizel Dundas, niece of that terrible old woman. I’ve heard of her often, but we never met. I’ve met Mr Beverley and his sister, that handsome girl who went to India: they have been here to several garden parties. He is certainly rather stiff, but one feels from his books that he must be worth knowing. It’s interesting to know a man for whom a woman has given up so much, but still more interesting to meet the woman. Tell us, Teresa, what she is like!”

But Teresa wrinkled her brows, and looked vague and perplexed. She could enthuse, but it appeared that she could not describe.

“Er—it’s so difficult! She’s like no one else. I’ve never met anyone in the least like her.”

Cassandra put the invariable question:

“Is she pretty?”

“Oh, lovely!” Teresa cried. “At least—sometimes! She changes. I’ve heard people call her plain. But you hardly think of her looks. She’s so—” Again she hesitated, and became lost in confusion. Cassandra probed once more.

“So—what? Teresa, do please be definite! I’m interested in this Mrs Beverley. If she’s really plain, it’s so clever of her to look lovely. If she is lovely, it’s so stupid of her to look plain. What is she so—?”

“Funny!” gasped Teresa, and giggled triumphantly. “Yes, she is funny! She says funny things. In a funny way. She is not a bit like—”

“Teresa—what?”

“Chumley,” said Teresa, and involuntarily Cassandra heaved a sigh of relief.

“Lovely. Plain. Funny. Not a bit like Chumley.” Cassandra noted each point with an infinitesimal nod; into her eyes there danced a spark of light. “This sounds exciting! I shall call upon Mrs Beverley.”

“Thankful to hear it!” Raynor grumbled. “You ought to call a lot more. People expect it. It would please ’em, and be good for you. You shut yourself up, and get hipped. A woman needs gossip, to let off steam.”

Cassandra’s light laugh carried off the personality of the remark, but after the laugh came a sigh, a ghost of a sigh of whose passing her husband and Teresa remained serenely unconscious. Only Peignton heard it, and his eyes turned to rest upon her face.

There was in his glance an intentness, an understanding which gave the impression of barriers thrust aside. Cassandra was startled by it, and discomposed. She had reached the stage when she did not expect to be understood. That such a stranger as this man should have read her thoughts seemed at the moment a deliberate offence. She lowered her lids with an impulse of self-defence.

“It is five o’clock,” she said shortly. “Bernard, if you can tear yourself from buttered toast, shall we begin bridge?”

Chapter Two.

Wanted—A Wife.

It was a pretty sight to see Cassandra Raynor play bridge. When dummy fell to her turn, she had a trick of stretching out her right hand, and softly tapping the table, during a moment’s deliberation, which gave the onlookers an opportunity of admiring what is certainly one of the most beautiful of created objects, an exquisitely made, exquisitely tended, woman’s hand. There was but one ring on the hand, a square-cut emerald, surrounded by diamonds, and the milky whiteness of the skin, the flash of the emerald against the dull green of the baize, were charming things to behold. Peignton sent a keen glance of enquiry into Cassandra’s face, and felt relieved to behold its absorption. She was thinking entirely of the game; the beauty of her hand was to her an accepted fact; the gesture was actuated by no promptings of vanity. A few minutes later when Teresa imitated the gesture, as she had fallen into the habit of imitating Cassandra in a dozen small ways, Peignton stared assiduously at his cards, but there was an extra empressment in the voice in which he congratulated the girl at the end of the game. He felt the same tender commiseration which a parent knows at the sight of a blemish on a child. Rough luck on a girl to have such ugly hands! Subconsciously his mind registered a vow never to give her emeralds.

During a term of service abroad Peignton had met few women, and those of an uncongenial type, but now he wished to marry, and for some time past had been consciously regarding every girl he met in the light of a future wife. He was not romantic in his requirements—few men are, when they deliberately set about such a search. He wanted a wife because he was thirty-five, and not too strong, and if he ever settled down it was time he did it, and a fellow felt lonely having no one to think of but himself. He wanted a girl about twenty-five—not younger than that,—healthy and cheerful, and fond of a country life, and, after eight months’ residence in Chumley, it appeared to him that Teresa Mallison filled the bill. She was the prettiest and most sporting girl in the neighbourhood; he met her on one excuse or another several times a week, and considered complacently that he was falling in love. Teresa did not consider at all,—she would have been hanged and quartered for him at any moment of any day; she was prepared to do, what is far more difficult—marry him on a minute income, keep house with insufficient help, and rear a large family. Teresa’s tastes were modern, but her heart was Victorian. She looked up to Peignton as a god and hero, and prayed daily to be permitted to serve him on her knees. Also, being Victorian in modesty, she prayed with scarcely less fervour that “unless he asked her” he might never suspect her love, and comported herself in the spirit of that prayer. Therefore Peignton considered that she was ignorant of his designs, and told himself that there was no hurry,—no hurry. It was better to go slow.

This was the first informal occasion on which Peignton had visited the Court and seen Cassandra in the intimacy of a partie carrée, and before the first hour was over he had found it necessary to readjust many impressions concerning his hostess. First, she was younger than he imagined. When she smiled, or made little grimaces of disgust at incidents in the play, or lifted her eyebrows at him appealingly on the commission of a fault, she was not a great lady any more, she was a girl, like the girl by her side. Secondly, she was less beautiful. He had seen her at stately dinner parties, gorgeously gowned, a tiara flashing on her dark head, and had believed her to be faultless of feature; but she was not faultless, her nose deviated noticeably from the straight, her mouth was too large; on a nearer view the classical beauty disappeared, but her place was taken by a woman infinitely more alluring. He admired in especial the poise of the little head, and the way in which she dressed her hair. It was parted in the middle, dipped low on the forehead, and then swept upwards, and in some mysterious fashion became a thick plait which encircled her head, like a victor’s crown. There seemed no beginning or end to that plait, so deftly was it woven, and to the onlooker it appeared as if a Midas finger had laid a gentle touch on each entwining braid, so brightly shone out the golden tints in the brown, burnished hair. Peignton had never seen dark hair show such brilliant lights; he thought that wreath-like plait with the golden lights more beautiful than a hundred tiaras. Why did not all women wear their hair like that?

And her figure too—there was something beguiling about her figure. The softly swathed folds of silk suggested neither dressmaker nor corsetière, but a warm, living woman. Her neck was as white as her hand...

“Steam ahead, Peignton. We’re waiting for your declaration. What are you dreaming about, man?”

“Don’t ask me. I couldn’t tell you,” Peignton replied, truthfully enough. He had been wondering how the deuce a woman like that had come to marry Bernard Raynor!

Teresa played a good steady game, and forbore to chatter, a fact duly appreciated by her host. Cassandra was alternately brilliant and careless. At times looking across the table Peignton could see her eyes grow absent and misty, and suspected thoughts far removed from the play. Then he would wait with anticipated pleasure the deprecatory grimace, the penitent, appealing glance.

At seven o’clock Miss Mallison’s carriage was announced, and Teresa exhibited a dutiful daughter’s unwillingness “to keep the horse waiting.” In the great hall she slid her arms into a Burberry coat, pulled a knitted cap over her head, and passing out of the porch sprang lightly to the front seat of a shabby dog-cart. The coachman, shabby to match, stood at the horse’s head, and as Peignton took his place, looked on with an impenetrability which denoted that this was not the first time he had been superseded. Then he in his turn climbed to a back seat, and the horse trotted off down the dark avenue.

Teresa had looked forward with keenest anticipation to this moment when she and Dane would sit quietly together in the friendly dark. There was no expectation of love-making in her mind, far less of a formal declaration; she was content just to sit by his side, and leaning back in her seat be able to gaze her fill at the strong, dark form. On a previous occasion he had given her the reins to hold while he lit a cigarette, and the picture of his face illumined by the tiny flame of the match would remain for life in her mental gallery. She hoped he would light a cigarette to-night.

If the inchoate thoughts of the girl’s mind could have been translated into words at that moment, they would have made a poem, but Teresa had not the gift of expression. She asked herself several times what she should “talk about,” before at last she broke the silence.

“You see it did pay to discard from strength!”

Peignton laughed. The point had been disputed between the two times and again, but he felt an amused admiration of the manner in which the girl held to her point. To-night his remembrance of the game was hazy, but Teresa as the victor was entitled to complaisance.

“You played rattling well. You always do. I never knew a woman less miserly of trumps. Do you know Lady Cassandra well?”

“I—think so!” Doubt lingered in Teresa’s voice. “They ask me fairly often. She’s very kind. Of course, we’re not—intimate. She’s so much older.”

“Is she?” Peignton asked, and was happily unaware of his companion’s flush of displeasure. “She looks very young. It must be lonely for her in that big place. I’m glad she has you for a friend.” His voice softened as he spoke the last, words. He turned his head to cast a smiling glance at the girl’s figure, and the thought came to his mind that just in this simple, unpretentious fashion would they drive back to their joint home during the years to come. It would not run to more than a cart, but she had not been used to luxury, and was quite content in her Burberry and cap. It was not like marrying a society woman. Heaven knows what fallals Lady Cassandra would don for a like occasion. Peignton admired “fallals,” meaning by the term dainty, feminine accessories, as all men do, apart from the question of price. He could not for his life have described Cassandra’s costume that evening, but it had left its impression as a mysterious floating thing, infinitely removed from the garments of men. Teresa was essentially tailor-made. A good thing too, for the wife of a poor man!

“I wonder what on earth made her many him!”

“Made her—” Teresa’s blue eyes widened in astonishment. “Lady Cassandra? Because she loved him, of course.”

“Is it of course? Are there no other reasons for marriage, Miss Teresa?”

“There ought not to be. There are not... in Chumley. But of course we are not smart.”

“No.” Peignton was once more unconscious of offence. “Still, it’s sometimes difficult to fit the theory to individual cases! Do you never look at the couples around you, and wonder how on earth they came to fancy each other? I believe many of them wonder themselves before a year is past. I can’t imagine Lady Cassandra choosing Raynor!”

“Mr Raynor is very nice. He is a good landlord. People like him very much.”

“I like him myself. He’s a very excellent specimen of his type. I’m not depreciating Raynor as a man—only as a husband for one particular wife. She’s everything that is vivid and alive, he’s everything that’s—slow! It’s a mystery how she took him!”

“Perhaps,” Teresa said shrewdly, “he wasn’t so slow then! He was in love with her, you see.”

She used the past tense in placid acceptance of an obvious fact; Peignton accepted it also, his curiosity concerning the Raynors eclipsed by a tinge of jealousy aroused by the girl’s words. She seemed to understand a good deal of the behaviour of a man in love! How did she come by her knowledge? He had thought the coast clear, but was it possible that one of those local fellows—? Man-like, his interest was quickened by the suspicion, and Teresa gained in value at the thought of another man’s admiration. There was unmistakable inflection in the tone of his next words:

“When I am married, I shall hope to remain in love with my wife!”

Teresa straightened herself, and forced a cough. She was in terror lest the shabby groom might overhear the words, and repeat them for the benefit of the maids in the kitchen.

“Oh, yes, of course!” she said lightly. “That is so nice... Then you will come, and help with the decorations? One needs a man to reach the high places. The Vicar won’t allow a single nail.”

“Yes, I’ll come. I’d like to!” Peignton said. He smiled to himself in the dusk at the thought of standing before the altar in the old church, side by side with Teresa Mallison, her hands heaped with white flowers. He wondered if to her, as to him, would come the thought that there might come another occasion when they would stand there for another purpose. As the horse trotted up to the door of Major Mallison’s house, he was mentally seeing a picture of Teresa in her wedding robes, a gauzy veil covering her head.

A moment later as they bade each other goodnight, the light through the opened door fell full upon the face of the real Teresa in her Burberry and knitted cap, and looking at her, Peignton felt a sudden stab of disappointment. The familiar features seemed in mysterious fashion other than those he had expected. Faults of which he had been happily unconscious, obtruded themselves upon his notice. It was almost as if he looked upon the face of a stranger. He walked down the deserted street pondering the mystery, and like other unimaginative men, failed to find an explanation.

How could it have been possible that he had dreamed of another face?

Chapter Three.

Household Words.

Marten Beverley and his wife Grizel confronted each other across the breakfast table. Only the night before they had returned from a protracted, wedding tour, to take possession of their new home. Each was superbly, gloriously happy, but there was a difference in their happiness. Martin was not tired of play, but the zest for work was making itself felt, and he looked forward with joy to the hours at his desk which would give extra delight to the play to follow. Grizel faced work also, but faced it with a grimace. How in the world to settle down, and to be practical, and keep house?

“Here beginneth the second volume!” she chanted dolefully across the breakfast table. “The happy couple return from their honeymoon, and settle down! ... Martin! I don’t want to settle down. Why should one? It’s out of date, anyhow, to have a second volume. Nowadays people live at full pressure, and get it over in one. Let’s go on being foolish, and irresponsible, and taking no thought for our dinner. It’s the only sensible plan. And it would prevent so much disappointment! I’m a daisy as a honeymoon wife, but I’m not a typical British Matron.”

“You don’t look it!” said Martin, and thrusting his hands in his pockets, tilted back in his chair and sat staring across the table, his eyes alight with admiration. A fire blazed in the grate, but Grizel’s morning robe suggested the height of summer. It was composed of some sort of white woollen material, which showed glimpses of a delicate pink lining. She wore a boudoir cap too, a concoction of lace and pink ribbon at once rakish and demure. Martin was certain that she looked a duck, what he was uncertain about was the suitability of such plumage for the mistress of a small ménage. Had he not kept house for eight years with a sister who had visited the larder every morning, and kept a stern eye on stock-pot and bread-pan, clad in the triggest of blouses, and the shortest of plain serge skirts! His eyes twinkled with amusement.

“Is it your intention to visit the scullery in those garments, may I ask?”

Grizel tilted in her turn, and returned his stare with an enchanting smile. She looked young and fresh, and adorably dainty; an ideal bride deluxe.

“In the first place,” she said, dimpling, “what precisely is, and does—a scullery?”

“A scullery, my child, is an apartment approximate to, and an accessory of, a kitchen. It is equipped with a sink, and is designed for the accommodation of pots and pans, brushes and brooms. Likewise boots, and er—uncooked vegetables. Every mistress of a small establishment visits the kitchen and scullery at least once in the twenty-four hours.” Grizel considered the subject, thoughtfully rubbing her nose.

“Why vegetables?”

“Why not?”

“With brushes and boots?”

“It seems unsuitable, I grant. But they do. I’ve seen them when I’ve been locking up. On the floor. In a wooden box. Carrots and turnips, and potatoes in their skins.”

Grizel straightened herself determinedly, and attacked her breakfast.

“I shall never visit the scullery!” she said firmly. “It would spoil my appetite. Thank you so much for warning me, ducky doo!”

“Not at all. It was an exhortation. The cook will expect it of you. So shall I. You must kindly remember the sink.”

“I take your word for it. Suppose there is? What in the name of fortune has it to do with me?”

“It’s your sink, Madam. Part of your new-found responsibilities. I don’t wish to harrow your susceptibilities, but it might not be kept clean. It is for you to see that it is.”

“You should have told me that afore, Laddie!” warbled Grizel reproachfully. “Nobody never warned me I should have to poke about sinks! And I won’t neither. It’s a waste of skilled labour. Aren’t there lots of sanitary kind of people who make their living by that sort of work? Let’s have one to look after ours!”

“Every morning?”

“Why not? Every evening too, if you like.”

Martin burst into a roar of laughter, and stretched a hand across the table.

“You’re a goose, Grizel; an impracticable little goose. I’m afraid we shall never make a Martha of you.” Then suddenly his face fell, and the caressing touch strengthened into a grasp. “You shouldn’t have to do it,” he cried sharply. “It isn’t fair. You’ve been a miracle of generosity to me, darling, but when it comes to facing the stern realities of life, I wonder if I ought to have let you do it.”

“You couldn’t help yourself,” Grizel said calmly. “I asked you, and you couldn’t for shame say no. Give me back my hand, dear. I want it, to go on eating. I do love having breakfast with you in our very own house, and I must make it last as long as possible, as I shan’t see you again for four whole hours. ... What shall we do after lunch?”

“Er—generally—if I’m in the mood—I go on writing till five o’clock.”

Martin spoke with hesitation, as though fearing a reproach, and Grizel narrowed her eyes, and smiled; a slow, enigmatical smile, but spoke not one rude word. She had quite decided that Martin should not be in the mood!

“On Wednesday and Thursday I’m to be At Home!” was her next irrelevant remark. “We put fifteenth and sixteenth on our cards, and now that we’ve stayed away a week longer than we intended, the fell date is upon us before we can breathe. Do you suppose many people will come?”

Martin’s shrug was eloquent.

“Every adult feminine creature who can crawl on two legs from a radius of five miles around, will crawl to the door. Hundreds of ’em! And with luck three or four males.”

“I could find it in my heart to wish it were t’other way round! However! never say die... There’ll be no time to finish the drawing-room! I’ll have to receive the surging mobs in the sitting-room upstairs. Let’s pray the chairs will go round!”

“Couldn’t the drawing-room be got ready with a rush?”

“Why in the world should we bother to rush?”

“They’ll be disappointed if you don’t. The drawing-room is part of the show. The whole neighbourhood is speculating about it now, and wondering if it’s blue or pink. A house with a closed drawing-room is like a play without the star. Do you realise, darling, that they’ll expect to be shown all over the house?”

“Let them expect, if it pleases them to do it, but they won’t! Let me catch anyone trying it on!” cried Grizel sharply, and the gay eyes sent out a flash of fire. “My own little home!—it shall not be turned into a peep-show for a flock of curious women to criticise and quiz. I’ll give them tea, and I’ll give them cake, I’ll talk pretty, and put on a tea-gown which will scare ’em into fits, but show them over the house—I will not! Let’s pretend the sitting-room is the drawing-room, and all will be peace and joy.”

“It would leak out afterwards, and they’d feel defrauded. Half of them will never enter the house again, darling; you won’t care to pursue the acquaintance, and it will end with an exchange of calls; but you’re rather an exceptional kind of bride, remember, and these good ladies don’t get too much amusement out of life. It would be kind of you to give them an afternoon out! Not, of course, if it bothers you, but surely the maids—”

Grizel crossed the room to the fire, and stretched a small pink, silk-quilted shoe towards the blaze.

“If you’re going to be moral, and appeal to my better feelings, you’d better be off to your work! I detest people who air their principles at breakfast... For two straws I’ll stay in bed, and say I’m over-tired with my journey, and can’t see anyone at all. I will, too, if you hector me any more, or I’ll show ’em into the dining-room, and have a sit-down tea, round the big table, with shrimps, and cold ham, and potted beef...”

“They’d put it down as the latest society craze, and adopt it when they wished to be smart... You will be one of the fashion leaders of the neighbourhood, whether you like it or not, so you’d better take heed to your ways. You and Lady Cassandra.”

“Humph!” Grizel’s eyes showed their most impish gleam. “Yes! I’m building great hopes on Cassandra. It’s dull keeping all the fun to oneself. With her help, if she’s the right sort, I’ll make things hum!”

Martin told himself that it was waste of time to say any more for the moment. Whatever he said, Grizel would contradict; whatever he proposed, she would reject; and as what she said would have no bearing whatever on her future conduct, the wisest plan seemed to be to kiss her several times over, talk delicious nonsense for a couple of minutes, and then to retire precipitately to his study. The which he proceeded to do.

Left to herself, Grizel strolled into the half-furnished drawing-room and seated herself on a packing box to survey the scene. Two rooms had been thrown into one, and the windows lowered, to allow a wide view of the garden, and so increase the feeling of space. The furniture was a selection from the collection of antiques which she had inherited from her aunt. Several old cabinets stood ranged along the wall ready to be put into position, and filled with treasures still unpacked. In a corner were rolled the old Persian rugs which would be spread over the parquet floor. At the end of five minutes’ scrutiny Grizel’s quick brain had put every article into its place, and her quick eye had seen the completed whole, and found it good. She decided to get it finished before lunch, and give Martin a surprise, and rang the bell to summon the staff to her aid.

The parlourmaid appeared with alacrity. It was like living in a novelette, to attend a bride who wore pink and white fineries in the morning, and looked as if she had never done a hand’s turn in her life. She entered on the day’s duties with a refreshing feeling of excitement.

“Please ’Um, the fish-man’s called.”

“Oh! has he? I can’t attend to him now. Parsons!—your name is Parsons, isn’t it?—would you kindly remember that my name is not ‘’Um.’ It is just as easy to say Madam, and sounds far better. I want you and Marie, and cook, to come here at once, and I’ll tell you what I want done to this room.”

“At—at once, Madam?”

“Certainly, at once.”

“Before I clear away?”

“What do you want to clear away?”

“The breakfast things, Madam. And,—and the fish-man can’t wait.”

“Tell him to call again then, later on.”

“He’s on his rounds, Madam. He only calls the once.”

“The fishmonger be—” Grizel coughed audibly, remindful of responsibilities towards the young. It was borne in upon her that the moment which she had dreaded was upon her, and could no longer be escaped. The fish-man was waiting, could not wait, could not return; it therefore behoved the mistress of the household to repair to the kitchen and interview the cook. She rose from the packing case, gathered her skirts around her, and turned to the door.

“Kindly go and tell Mrs Mason that I am coming!”

Mrs Mason was on duty beside the kitchen table. Having heard from Parsons’ lips a bated account of her lady’s splendour, she also was setting forth on the day’s duties with a flavour of excitement. Spread out neatly in rows were the remains of last evening’s repast. Cold fish, cold cutlets, dishevelled chicken, half-eaten sweets. Grizel, who had never before been called upon to interview food in déshabillé, turned from the sight with a shudder.

“You can use those up in the kitchen.” The cook acquiesced, and concealed her complaisance.

“And what would you like for the room?”

“In future,” said Grizel firmly, “I should like the menu for the day drawn out, ready to be submitted to me every morning.”

“I have never been uzed—” began the cook, then her eyes met those of her mistress, and to her own amazement she found herself concluding lamely, “Of course if you wish it, ’Um, I must try! ... The fish-man is waiting for horders.”

“Au diable avec le poissonnier!” ejaculated Grizel sotto voce. She leant back against the corner of the dresser, the tail of her white robe folded round in front, displaying the small pink shoes to cook’s appraising eyes. Her eyes roamed here and there over the kitchen, but studiously avoided the provisions on the table. From the region of the back door sounded a whistle, impatient and peremptory. The cook glanced around, glanced back at the pink and white figure standing with head on one side, leisurely regarding the arrangement of brass on the mantelpiece, and was goaded into the extreme course of making a suggestion.

“P’raps... soles!”

“Oh, certainly!” cried Grizel swiftly. “Soles.”

The cook ambled slowly towards the back door. Returning a moment later, she folded her arms, and continued tentatively: “The grocer’ll be next. I ordered in the usuals yesterday—but there’ll be a few extras.—I wanted to ask, ’Um, if you allowed lard?”

“Madam,” corrected Grizel sweetly, and pursed her lips, as though in deliberation. To herself she was declaiming desperately: “Now may the powers preserve me, ... one slip, and I am undid! What on earth does she mean by cornering me like this? I must temporise, and lure her on.” ... She stroked her nose, and said judicially:

“Of course—it depends!”

“Most ladies do,” affirmed the cook. “If they’re particular. It’s difficult to get it the same with dripping.”

Grizel had a flash of inspiration. Lard was the superlative, dripping the positive; naturally, then, all plain cooks angled for the former, and all British Matrons insisted on the latter. She put on a severe air and said firmly:

“Not if your pans are perfectly clean!” and was so overjoyed at her own aptness, that she was ready to allow anything under the sun. Nevertheless, the detective instinct having been born in her heart, she was resolved, as she mentally phrased it, to track lard to the death.

Cook was staring open-eyed, a faint misgiving mingled with the former complaisance. When a mistress began talking of keeping pans clean, she was not so green as had been expected! Her lips set in obstinate fashion.

“Some ladies,” she said, “are so fussy about the colour. You can’t help getting it darker with dripping.”

Grizel felt hopelessly that she had lost the scent. It was a desperate position, face to face with her enemy, defenceless, yet aware that an instant’s failure must lead to wholesale debacle. “I can’t tackle her alone,” she told herself desperately. “I must—I must have a confederate!” and throwing principle to the winds, in a flash of thought she created a fictitious Emily, and wove around her a suitable family history. Faithful servant, perfect cook, expert dripping-er, rent by marriage from a sorrowing mistress, now slumbering in a village grave! With a voice imbued with the sacredness of the remembrance, she pronounced firmly: “Emily did! She always got it white.”

“Oh, rolled!” cried the cook. The corners of her lips gave a slight expressive twitch before she added in automatic fashion. “Yes, ’Um—Madam,—I quite understand.” She crossed the floor and took down a slate from its nail, while Grizel made a mental note. “Lard.—Its Use and Abuse.—Differentiate from dripping.—Why darker? Under what circumstances should it be forbidden or allowed?”

“Soles,” said the cook firmly. “And soup?”

“Oh, certainly. Certainly soup. Mr Beverley likes quite a simple dinner—soup, fish, an entrée, one solid course, sweets—lots of cream, please! and dessert. See that there is always plenty of fruit. And of course, salad. Did I say savories? Of course you’ll arrange all that. That is all for to-day? I think. To-morrow you will have the menu ready.”

The cook, who was a superior plain cook, reflected that she would require a “rise,” if they expected a party dinner every night. If Grizel had been attired in an ordinary coat and skirt she would have rebelled forthwith, but the sheer glamour of pink and white kept her dumb.

“Soles,” she repeated stolidly. “And soup. What kind of soup?”

“Clear!” said Grizel, and felt a glow of triumph. Really and truly she had done better than she had expected. So well that it seemed diplomatic to beat a retreat before she fell from grace. She hitched her skirts still further, and stepped daintily towards the door, but cook cut short her retreat.

“Entrée, you said, Ma’am. What kind of entrée? And there’s lunch. And breakfast. To-morrow’s breakfast. Would it be bacon?”

Grizel waved an impatient hand.

“Bacon certainly. And er—omelette! Kidneys. Cold dishes. The usual things one does have for breakfast. And lunch at one. A hot dish, please, and several cold, and some sweets. And always fruit. Plenty of fruit. That will do nicely for to-day, Mrs Mason. We’ve discussed everything, I think.” She turned a beneficent smile upon the bewildered face. “And I’m sure,” she added daringly, “you’ll manage splendidly with dripping!”

In the dining-room Parsons was still busy clearing away. Upstairs Marie the maid was unpacking endless boxes of clothes, and hanging them up in a spare room fitted to do duty as an immense wardrobe. At the end of a passage stood the baize door which gave entrance to Martin’s sanctum. Grizel approached it stealthily, and pressed her lips to the keyhole.

“Martin!”

A voice from within answered with would-be sternness:

“Go away!”

“Martin... I’m sorry! Just one moment... Something I must ask you.—Most important...”

“Go on, then... What is it?”

“What—Is—Lard?”

The door flew open, and Martin stood laughing on the threshold.

“You goose! What on earth are you talking about?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. And how on earth am I to find out! I’ve been interviewing cook, and she asked if I allowed it. Do I, or don’t I, and why should I not, and for goodness’ sake how does it differ from dripping? I prevaricated, and looked economical, and middle-aged. I saw my face in the dish covers, and it aged me horribly. I thought I’d better find out at once.”

“Yes, but you mustn’t come running to me for such information. I’ve got to buy the lard, remember, and I shan’t be able to afford it, if I’m interrupted. For all you know I might have been killing my heroine...”

“Then she’d have a reprieve, and I’d have done a good deed. You can’t seriously have begun yet, and this is so deadly important. You might spare five minutes to instruct your poor wife.”

Grizel perched herself on the corner of the table, and tilted the boudoir cap at a beguiling angle. Martin stood with his back to the fire and adopted a professorial air.

“Lard,” he said sententiously, “is a substance compounded of a whitey grease, contained for the purposes of trade in balloons or bladders of skins—”

Grizel’s face showed a network of horrified lines.

“How exceedingly disagreeable! I shall certainly not allow it... And what is dripping?”

“Dripping is, er—brown! So called because it drips from the meat in the process of cooking. It is inferior to lard, and aspires to no bladder, but lives in odd receptacles, such as jam jars. It is supposed to supply an unconquerable temptation to a plain cook, and there are fiends in the shape of men, who are said to spend their life tempting cooks to sell the dripping. Katrine used to see dripping in the eye of every unknown man who opened the gate. I never heard her make any allegations about lard. Does that distinction afford you any illumination?”

Grizel sighed, and turned to the door with an air of resignation.

“Well, good-bye, my loved one! Be very good to me, for you won’t have me long. If I’ve got to order meals, I shall never be able to eat them. I foresee that. I never heard so much about grease in my life. Is there nothing decent one could use instead?”

Martin hesitated.

“I believe—sometimes—butter!”

Grizel waved a triumphant hand.

“Of course! Butter! Why couldn’t you have said that before? Nice, clean, fresh butter. I’ll tell her I allow nothing else. What a fuss over nothing! ... Martin, you’re wearing a green tie. I’ve never seen you in green before... Darling! you’re adorable in green...”

Chapter Four.

Grizel at Home.

It was the afternoon of Grizel Beverley’s first “At Home” celebration. The drawing-room had been made ready for the occasion with the aid of what seemed to Martin a very army of workmen, and, as Grizel pointed out triumphantly, it looked as if it had been lived in for generations. Not a single new object marred the mellowed perfection of the whole. Old cabinets stood outlined against white walls, the floor was bare of the superfluity of little tables and flower-stands which characterise so many bride’s apartments; with one striking exception the general effect was austere in tone. The exception was found in a deep recess, on one side of the fire-place, the walls of which were hung with a gorgeous Chinese embroidery which made a feast of colour against the surrounding white and brown, and proclaimed to an understanding eye that the mistress of the house had appropriated the favoured niche for her own use.

Against the wall stood a huge old sofa, showing delicate touches of brass on the carved woodwork, and piled with a profusion of cushions to match the tapestries in tone. There was a table also of carved Chinese wood, littered with books, and a surprising number of odds and ends considering the very short period in which it had been in use; a bureau of dull red lacquer, littered to match, and a great blue enamel bowl containing a few, but only a few, spring flowers.

When Grizel did a thing at all she did it thoroughly, and when the drawing-room was finished to a thread, she herself dressed to match it in a cream lace robe of fallacious simplicity, caught together with a clasp of turquoise and diamonds, and a blue snood tied about her head. When the crucial moment arrived, she intended to seat herself sultana-like on her couch and burst in full splendour upon the admiring throngs. Martin was convinced that no living thing could fail to be subjugated by that gown, but he was equally convinced that Chumley would disapprove of the snood, which it would call a bandage, and consider theatrical and out of place. He knew his business better than to say so, however, and was at the moment abundantly occupied in trying to lure his wife from the window, where she had taken up her position, field-glasses in hand, to watch the approach of the first group of visitors up the lane leading to the gate.

“The Campbells are coming. Hurrah! Hurrah! Three of ’em. One stout person in green, one thin person in black, one girl with large feet. Girl with feet has fair hair. Who do you know, Martin, with fair hair and large feet?”

“Dozens of ’em.” Martin threw a quick look over his wife’s shoulder and recognised the group at a glance. “Mrs Mallison, wife of Major Mallison, retired Army man—the Seaforths. Eldest daughter Mary, dull and domestic. Second daughter Teresa, sporting. They are quite near the gate now, dearest. Don’t, please, let them see...”

Grizel put down the field-glasses, crossed to the couch, and seated herself thereon in an attitude of prunes and prisms propriety. The bell rang, and the three ladies were shown into the room. There was an air of diffidence, almost of shyness in their demeanour, for this was not an ordinary afternoon call, upon an ordinary bride. This bride had been a well-known personage in society, her marriage had been a subject of almost international interest, and the fleeting glimpses which Chumley had had of her, on previous visits to Martin’s sister Katrine, had confirmed all that rumour had to say touching the puzzling variability of her nature. It was impossible for these first callers to restrain a thrill of nervousness as to the nature of the reception before them. When the door opened to give a momentary glimpse of a white figure sitting outlined against a background of Oriental splendour, the nervousness deepened still more. They advanced tentatively, cautious of the polished floor, so tentatively that Grizel met them more than half-way, sailing gracefully forward with an infinity of assurance which had the unexpected result of daunting them still further. They were requested to sit down; they sat down, and stared...

“So good of you to come to see me! You are my very first callers.”

“I trust—not too early.” Mrs Mallison felt a pang of disquietude. “We were so anxious to meet you. You are feeling quite settled down, I hope. How do you like Chumley?”

“Oh, thank you, so much! I adore everything. You do, don’t you, when you are newly married?”

Mrs Mallison and her eldest daughter looked indulgent, but shocked. It was quite natural, quite desirable indeed that a bride should entertain such sentiments, but to express them so openly and to absolute strangers, savoured almost of indelicacy. Teresa was occupied in taking in the details of Grizel’s costume, in condemning the blue snood, and determining to try the effect on her own hair immediately on her return home. She found time, however, to give a quick glance at Martin as Grizel made her pronouncement, and noted the quiver of feeling which passed over his face. The understanding which comes of fellow-feeling revealed the meaning of that quiver. She understood why the man lowered his eyes and gave no glance of response. He was afraid that he might reveal too much!

After that, other visitors arrived quick and fast. Bells rang, doors were opened, and in twos and threes the representatives of Chumley society were announced, and made their bow. They had come together for the sake of companionships or the sake also of being able to compare notes on the way home. They all wore their new spring costumes, and looked—the majority at least—personable enough, yet Martin realised with mingled pain and pride the gulf of difference which yawned between them and his wife. They were practical, commonplace women, leading practical, commonplace lives; to call them ill-bred or uncultivated would have been untrue. They came of good stock, had cultivated their brains and turned them to account, but there was one side of their nature which had not been developed, and that was the side which, in Grizel’s set, had been considered all-important. They had been brought up to discount appearances, and to view with suspicion any person of marked personal charm. They worshipped the god of convention, and its priestess Mrs Grundy. Grizel considered that a woman’s first duty was to charm, and her second,—if a second remained, worth speaking about,—to defy convention, and be a law unto oneself.

Seated in her niche of glowing colour, she looked as much out of place as an orchid in a field of wild flowers, and Martin watching the face of each new-comer, saw reflected upon it the same surprise, the same disapproval, the same unease. He realised that Chumley was a little shocked by the unconventionality of the drawing-room, and still more by the unconventionality of the bride herself. In the last ten years of his life he had remained supremely indifferent of what his neighbours might say or think, but—these good women would be Grizel’s neighbours, out of love for himself she had cast her lot among them; he was almost painfully anxious that she should have such small compensations as would result from liking, and being liked in return. Surely among them all must be found some congenial spirit!

“And are you happily settled with your maids, Mrs Beverley?” enquired Mrs Ritchards, wife of a City lawyer, who might almost be called retired, since he went up to town only two or three times a week. Mrs Ritchards had two subjects of conversation—her garden, and her servants, and had already unsuccessfully tackled the bride on the former topic. To her relief the second venture proved a decided draw, for Grizel leant her elbows on the table, cupped her chin in her hands, and puckered her face into a network of lines.

“Oh, yes, do let’s talk about servants! I’m so interested. I’m making all sorts of horrible discoveries. My cook wants to go out! A night out every week. She told me so to-day. She said she’d always been used to it. I said if it came to that, I’d always been used to having my dinner. I never knew that cooks expected to go out! Who is to cook one’s dinner if the cook goes out? She said she was accustomed to prepare a stew, and cold shapes. ‘Cold Shapes’!” Grizel’s voice dropped to a thrilling note, she lifted her chin, her outstretched fingers curved and wriggled in expressive distaste. “Cold Shapes! Gruesome sound! It makes one think of the Morgue!”

A shudder passed through the room, followed by a diffident laugh. Teresa Mallison and a few of the younger women giggled, the elders forbore on principle to smile at such an allusion, and the Vicar’s wife entered on a forbearing explanation.

“They are human creatures like ourselves, Mrs Beverley, and the fire is so trying! I encourage my cook to go out, as a matter of health. You are not limited to shapes, of course. There are so many nice cold sweets.”

Grizel shook her head. “Grace has not been given to me to eat cold sweets. Not on those nights! I should have a carnal craving for omelettes. We must keep two cooks!” Her little nod waved aside the subject as settled and done with, and the matrons of Chumley exchanged stealthy glances of condemnation. Mrs Ritchards, however, warmed to the attack.

“Why not a kitchen-maid, who could make herself useful upstairs in the morning? There is a young girl in my daughter’s Sunday School Class who might suit you. Very respectable, but short. Of course, if she were expected to wait when the housemaid is out, that might be an objection.”

She paused enquiringly, and Grizel’s face fell.

“The parlourmaid too! Do they all go out? Then how can one possibly be fed? There will be nothing for it, Martin, but to go up to town two nights a week.” The suggestion would appear to have had a cheering effect, for she flashed once more into smiles, looking round the circle of watching faces with eyes a-sparkle with mischief. “It’s such fun trying to keep house when one knows nothing whatever about it! Like starting out on a voyage of adventure! I have the most thrilling experiences...”

Mrs Ritchards smiled with friendly encouragement.

“You will find it much more interesting when you do understand! I always say that to run a household, economically and well, is as satisfactory work as a woman need ask. It’s like everything else, Mrs Beverley, the more you study it, the more interesting it becomes. I have been at it for years, and I pride myself that there is very little that I do not know.”

“Ah!” cried Grizel deeply. She leant her elbow on her knee and bent forward, her expression one of breathless eagerness. “Then you are the very person I’ve been looking for! You can tell me something I’ve been dying to know... What is your opinion about Lard?”

Mrs Ritchards gasped, the other listeners gasped also. Martin choked, turned the choke into a cough, and became suddenly engrossed in the china on the mantelpiece.

“Lard! Lard!” Mrs Ritchards struggled with the inevitable disability to define a well-known article. “But surely... surely... In what respect did you want my opinion?”

“About allowing it, of course, and if one should. Cook asked if I did, and it seemed such a complex question, and there was an implication about dripping—and the colour of something,—dark versus light. I got hopelessly confused!”

Mrs Ritchards did not allow lard. “It’s a question of sufficient heat,” she maintained. “If they get the dripping hot enough, it does perfectly well. It must boil till you see a blue smoke...”

Grizel seized an ivory tablet, and made a hurried note. “Till you see a blue smoke...! I’ll bring that in to-morrow, and confound her with my knowledge. Thank you so much. That’s quite a relief.” She pushed aside the tablet, straightened her back and looked around with a bright, challenging glance. The subject of lard was exhausted, and she was ready to pass on to pastures new.

“Are you fond of games, Mrs Beverley?” Teresa asked, eager to secure another member for her various clubs, and feeling that the moment was a convenient one for introducing the subject. “We have a good tennis club, and ladies can play golf every day but Saturday, on the Links. It would be so nice if you would join. We have tea every afternoon. The members take it in turns to provide the cakes.”

“How nice!” cried Grizel with a gush. “I adore cakes. I’ll join certainly, if you’ll promise I need never play. It bores me so to run about after balls. I never can catch them, and I don’t want to, so why should I try? Really”—she dropped her chin sententiously—“it’s a waste of time!”

The Vicar’s wife saw her opportunity, and grasped it.

“I agree with you, Mrs Beverley. The tendency of the age is to spend far too much time over games. My husband considers that it is a national danger. There are so many other things better worth doing!”

“Oh, yes,” cried Grizel promptly. “There’s bridge.” The strain of the conversation was beginning to tell, and she told herself impatiently that she would not be “preached.”

“Bridge is so comfy; you can sit still, and have a cushion to your back, and smoke, and talk between the deals. It’s quite a good way of getting through the afternoon. What stakes do you play for here?”

The women in the company who played for money looked at the Vicar’s wife and were silent. Those who did not, felt virtuous, and looked it.

“At our house we make a point of playing for love,” Mrs Ritchards announced. “My husband disapproves of anything in the nature of gambling. Of course, when one has young people coming in and out, there is a responsibility. Personally I should object very strongly to taking another person’s money. Don’t you feel an awkwardness, Mrs Beverley—from your own guests?”

“Not a bit. I love it!” declared Grizel naughtily. “But I hate to lose. I hope someone will be wicked enough to play for money with me. I suppose there are some wicked people in the neighbourhood?”

“They do at the Court. I go up there sometimes. Lady Cassandra loves bridge,” Teresa said with a pride which overcame shyness. Was she not the only girl in Chumley who could boast of anything like intimacy with the big house? She watched her hostess’ face for a brightening of interest, and felt aggrieved when it failed to appear.

“That’s good. I’m glad there’s someone. I must ask her about it,” said Grizel nonchalantly, taking a future acquaintance for granted with a calmness which at once irritated and impressed her hearer. At the bottom of her heart Teresa felt the birth of a jealous dread; and found herself hoping that Cassandra would not call, would at any rate delay doing so for months to come, as was her custom with Chumley acquaintances. And then once again the door was thrown open, and with an accent of satisfaction the parlourmaid announced—Lady Cassandra Raynor.

She had come already! On the very first day on which Mrs Beverley was at home,—as quickly, as eagerly, as the humblest among them! Every woman in the room felt the same sense of amaze, the same rankling remembrance of the different manner in which she herself had been treated. Their eyes turned as on one pivot towards the door.

Cassandra entered, a vision of delight in grey velvet and chinchilla furs, her face with its delicately vivid bloom half hidden by the latest eccentricity in hats. Her dress was very tight, her hat was very large; from an artistic point of view the lines of both were abominable, but Cassandra considered them ravishing, and, being one of the happy people who look well despite their clothes, succeeded in mesmerising her audience into a like belief. She advanced, walking with short, mincing footsteps, while her eyes swept the room. Grizel rose from the sofa to greet her, and a glance was exchanged between them, a swift, appraising glance. The lookers-on heard the exchange of a few society phrases, pronounced, it appeared to them, with an unnecessary amount of “gush,” but in the moment in which the two hands clasped, and the hazel eyes looked into the blue, the two women realised that for them there need be no intermediate stage; they were not strangers, they were already friends.

Martin came forward and shook hands in his turn, and Cassandra seated herself, bending her head in a smiling greeting, intended to embrace the whole room. She had timed her visit in the hope that most of the guests would be ready to depart, and noticed with satisfaction the empty teacups, but every woman in the room with one exception, was at that moment forming a mental resolution to stay and listen to what passed between this interesting pair.

“Your house looks so beautifully settled, Mrs Beverley. I hope you haven’t been bored over the upset. It’s so impossible to get things done in the country!”

“Oh, thanks. I’m not on speaking terms with a workman in the neighbourhood, but I did get things done as I wished! I always do. We parted on the worst of terms, and I gave them a heart-to-heart talk, and told them I hoped the Germans would come soon, and drill them into something like intelligence. It would really be an admirable thing for the country!”

The Vicar’s wife arose with heavy dignity. With a whole parish waiting on her ministrations she had no time to waste listening to such nonsense. Unpatriotic into the bargain. Yet despite her disapproval, there was an indefinable something in the bride’s personality which touched her heart. Perhaps it was the radiant happiness of her mien, perhaps it was that deep musical note which at times softened her voice, suggesting depths below the surface; perhaps it was simply her fragility and charm. Hannah Evans did not trouble to analyse her feelings, she merely held out a plump gloved hand, and smiled kindly into Grizel’s face.

“I must be running away, Mrs Beverley. My husband is hoping to call upon you very soon. This afternoon he has a class for confirmation. I must hurry home to give him tea. He comes in so tired. Good afternoon. So pleased to welcome you among us! I hope we may often meet.”

Her voice rang true, there was a kindliness written on the large, plain face to which Grizel’s heart made instant response. She brought her own left hand to join the right, clasping the grey glove with an affectionate pressure, and smiled back the while with a winsome friendliness. There was silence in the room while the onlookers looked with critical eyes at the two figures, so typical of youth and age. The bulky woman, with her jet bonnet and capacious black silk coat, the nymph-like form of the bride. Every ear listened for the response.

“Oh, you will; indeed you will! I shall often be running over to the Vicarage to see you.”

“That will be very nice.” Mrs Evans smiled complacently. “I hope you will. And I must not forget—I made a note to ask you before I left.—It would give us great pleasure if you could see your way to take up a little work. We are sadly in need of helpers. I was going to ask if you would join our Mothers’ Meeting?”

“Oh, give me time!” cried Grizel reproachfully. “Give me time!”

In answer to after reprisals she justified herself by the assertion that she had spoken on the impulse of the moment, and in absolute good faith. Besides, what else could the old thing have meant? And even if she didn’t, why need the silly creatures be shocked? She did not attempt to deny that they were shocked, the flutter of dismay had indeed been so real a thing as to obtrude itself on ears, as well as eyes. Gasps of astonishment, of horror, of dismay, sounded to right and left; rustling of silk; hasty, inoperative coughs. Grizel still saw in remembrance the petrifaction on the large kind face looking down into her own, the scarlet mounting swiftly into Teresa’s cheeks. Only one person laughed, and that laugh had had the effect of heightening the general condemnation. It was Cassandra Raynor who laughed.

Chapter Five.

“Two of a Kind.”

Mrs Evans’s departure gave the start to what was virtually a general stampede. As one woman rose to make her adieux, another hastily joined her, offering a seat in a carriage, or companionship on the walk home. Mrs Mallison collected her daughters with the flutter of an agitated hen. Mrs Ritchards forgot even to refer to the kitchen-maid. Grizel beamed upon them with her most childlike smiles, but there was no staying the flight: feebly, obstinately, as a flock of sheep each one followed her leader. In three minutes Cassandra alone was left, and Martin having escorted the last sheep to the door, took the opportunity to escape to his study, and shut himself in with a sigh of relief.

Alone in the drawing-room the two women confronted each other in eloquent silence. Cassandra’s eyes were dancing, her cheeks were flushed to their brightest carmine; Grizel was pale, and a trifle perturbed. “Now I’ve been and gone and done it!”

“You have indeed!” Cassandra laughed. It was delightful to be able to laugh, to feel absolutely at home, and in sympathy with another woman. There was reproach in her words, but none in her tone. “How could you say it?”

“Because I thought she meant it,—honestly I did, for the first second, and I always act on the first second. And why need the silly things be shocked? They’ve all got dozens. What is the old Meeting, anyway?”

“I think it’s... Mothers!” volunteered Cassandra illuminatingly. “Poor ones. They have plain sewing and coal clubs. I subscribe. You were invited to join the Committee. In the parish room. They—I believe they cut out the plain clothes.”

“Fancy me cutting out plain clothes!” cried Grizel, and gave a complacent pat to her lace gown. “I’ll subscribe too, and stay at home, but I’ll apologise to the dear old thing. She meant to be kind, and I’m sorry I shocked her. I’m going to ring for fresh tea, and we can have a nice talk, and shock each other comfortably. Have you any children?”

“I have a son,” said Cassandra. The brilliance of her smile faded as she spoke. She was conscious of it herself and laboriously endeavoured to keep her voice unchanged. “He is nine years old. At a preparatory school. Quite a big person.”

Grizel also ceased to smile. There was an expression akin to reverence in the hazel eyes as they dwelt on the other’s face. The deep note was in her voice.

“You look so young, just a girl, and you have a son nearly ten! Old enough to be a companion,—to talk with you, and to understand. How wonderful it must be!”

There was a moment of silence during which Cassandra’s thoughts flew back to those never-to-be-forgotten days when a tiny form lay elapsed to a heart overflowing with the glory of motherhood, and then reproduced before her a stocky figure in an Eton suit, with a stolid, freckled face. She smiled with stiff lips.

“He is a dear thing, quite clever too, which is satisfactory. You must see him in the holidays, but unless you can talk cricket I’m afraid he may bore you. It is not, of course, a responsive age.”

“It will come! It will come! It’s storing up. These undemonstrative natures are the richest deep down,” Grizel said softly.

The maid came in with the tea at that moment, and she said no more, but it was enough. Cassandra felt an amazed conviction that if she had spoken for hours, the situation could not have been more accurately understood.

Grizel poured out tea, talking easily the while.

“Having a son must mean educating oneself all over again. Cricket now! It’s the deadliest game. One goes to Lord’s for the frocks, and to meet friends and have tea, and see all the dear little top hats waved in the air at the end. I dote on enthusiasm; it goes to my head like wine. Every Eton and Harrow I wave and enthuse as wildly as if I’d ten sons on the winning side. But how on earth they can enjoy that everlasting running about over the same few yards, between the same old posts, hour after hour, day after day!” She shrugged expressively. “Well! I never look.”

“It’s worse when they talk about it!” Cassandra said. “When my boy is at home, he and his father talk cricket steadily through every meal. I am hopelessly out in the cold. I suppose it will grow worse as time goes on, and more masculine tastes develop.”

Grizel paused, cup in hand, to stare reflectively at the fire.

“Do you know that’s a subject which is exercising me very much! All my life until now I’ve lived with women, and been conversationally on my own ground, and now there’s Martin! We’ve got to have meals together, and depend on each other for conversation until death doth us part, and it’s a big proposition. Suppose he gets bored? Suppose I get bored? At present it’s such delight just to be together, that it doesn’t matter what we say. I could talk hats by the hour, and he would be patient, and he could prose about golf, and I’d murmur sympathetically in the pauses, and be quite happy just watching him, and thinking what a dear he was, but”—she put down her cup—“I’m not a child; I know that that stage must pass! It may be just as sweet to be together—it may be sweeter, but the novelty will pass... Tell me!” she bent forward, gazing in Cassandra’s face. “How soon does it pass?”

Again Cassandra was conscious of stiffened lips, of making a pretence at the answering smile.

“The time varies, but even in exceptional cases it is horribly soon. I was very young when I married. We were a big family at home, and very hard up. It was a revolutionary change to come almost straight from the schoolroom, and an allowance of a few shillings a week, to be mistress of the Court. I was wild with excitement, it seemed impossible that I could ever get blasé.”

“But you did?”

“Oh, yes.”

“How soon?”

“Very soon, I’m afraid. Incredibly soon.”

Grizel tossed her head.

“I am never blasé. It’s impossible that I ever could be. Life interests me too much. The more difficult it is, the more absorbing it becomes. But I’m sorry for the poor little ignorant brides who believe so implicitly in the ‘happy-ever-after’ theory, that they take no trouble to make it come true. I’m twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine, and I’ve no illusions on the point. My husband and I are gloriously happy, but I know we shan’t go on at the same level, unless I work hard to keep it up.”

“I! Why not we? Surely it’s a mutual affair?”

“Yes, but bless ’em! men are not adaptive, and most of them are so busy making the bread and butter, and too tired when that’s over, to bother about anything more! It’s the women who have to do the fitting in. That brings us back to where we started. I’m trying to think ahead, and prepare myself for the horrible moment when Martin wants to talk sense!”

They both laughed, but Cassandra was conscious of a pricking of conscience. It had never occurred to her to “work hard” to preserve her husband’s love. Like many another woman she had taken for granted that once secured, it would automatically remain her own; she had grieved over a divergence of interest, as a calamity beyond her control. How could one “prepare” against such a contingency?

“I’m not at all sure that I agree with you,” she said restlessly. “The ‘happy-ever-after’ theory has its drawbacks, but it’s very sweet while it lasts, and your other seems prosaic from the start. To have to work hard, to ‘struggle’ for one’s husband’s love!”

“Well, why not? Is there any big thing in life which one gains, or keeps without a fight? And this is the biggest of all, and the most fragile and easily lost. Think! among all your friends how many could come to stay in your house for one month, that you wouldn’t be thankful to part from at the end? I don’t say you stop caring for them, but you’ve had enough! You say to yourself: ‘Emmeline is an angel, but that giggle of hers drives me daft. Thank the gods she’s leaving to-day!’ or ‘Emmeline’s a perfect dear, I’m devoted to her, but have you noticed the way she wriggles her nose? It’s got on my nerves to such an extent that I can’t bear it an hour longer.’ And you stand on the platform and wave your hand, and draw a great big sigh of relief as the train puffs away, and within the railway carriage Emmeline is sighing too, and feeling unutterably relieved to be rid of you! ... You know it’s true!”

“Oh!” laughed Cassandra, “don’t talk of a month. A week is enough for me. Less than a week!”

“Then why wonder at the difficulties of marriage? There’s no magic in a few words spoken at the altar, to make two people impervious to each other’s faults. It’s the most wonderful and beautiful of miracles when they manage to live tied together for twenty, thirty, even fifty years, and to be decently civil until the end. It’s worth any amount of effort to accomplish. I adore my husband, I adore myself, but we are mortal... we have failings; and as we grow older they’ll grow worse. At present we are both blind, but there will come a time when our eyes are opened. I know. I’ve seen. I’ve watched. I’ve taken warning. I’m going to prepare myself in advance.”

“What, par exemple, are you going to do?”

“Study the brute! Study his fads. Join the golf club, for one thing, and learn to listen intelligently, at the cost of a few miserable afternoons. I detest sports, and sporting clothes, and strong boots, and a red face, and tramping about mile after mile over rough ground. If we’d been intended to walk we should have had four legs; but I shall very soon pick up all that is necessary!”

“Why not go a little further, while you are about it, and play with your husband? You might take lessons from the pro. to get up your game, and then you could go to the links together in the afternoons. If you are determined to sacrifice yourself, you may as well do it thoroughly. He’d be so pleased!”

“I’m not so sure,” Grizel said shrewdly. “I’m his wife and he adores me, but he’d rather play golf with a boring man with a good handicap, and come home to find me sitting on a sofa looking pretty and fluffy, ready to acclaim his exploits, and listen to volumes about every hole, and the marvellous way in which he cleeked his tee off the bogie. Well! what is it? Don’t you call it a bogie?” She laughed herself, in sympathy with the other’s merriment, and ended with an involuntary: “Lady Cassandra! I’m so glad you came. Do let us often laugh together! I have such a comfortable feeling that you won’t be shocked at anything I say.”

“No one ever shocks me, except myself. You don’t know how glad I shall be. I’m really rather a lonely person, though I’ve lived here so long. It seems extraordinary to have had this intimate conversation with you on our very first meeting. I wouldn’t dream of discussing such matters with any other woman in the neighbourhood.”

“Of course not. You don’t know anyone else so well. We are intimates, so what’s the use of hedging?”

“I don’t want to hedge. I’m only too thankful to know it. It’s not healthy to live so much alone. One grows introspective. These last years I’ve been growing more and more absorbed in Cassandra Raynor.”

“Well! she is attractive, isn’t she? I’m going to do exactly the same. I felt it in my bones the moment you entered the room. You felt it too! I saw the little spark leap to your eyes.”

“It did. It’s quite true, but I ought to warn you that being associated with me, won’t make you any more popular in Chumley. Chumley doesn’t—approve of me! I expect you are sensitive enough to atmospheres to have grasped that fact for yourself?”

“I did. Yes. But why?”

“Oh, many reasons. I dress fashionably. I hate parish work. I don’t go to ‘teas,’ or give them in return. I’m lazy about calls. I’m not interested in the people, and I can’t pretend.”

“Oh, but I shall be interested. I always am. I love all those dear old things in their dolmans and black silks. They are types of the old-fashioned women, whom I’ve read about, but never known. I shall love studying them, and hearing their views, and shocking them by telling them mine in return. They’ll love being shocked—all prim old ladies love it. They’re all walking home now, buzzing over my faux pas, and feeling as perked up as if they’d been to the theatre. They think they are grieved, but they have really enjoyed themselves immensely. I lived with a very old great-aunt before my marriage, so I’m an expert in old ladies.”

Cassandra assented absently. She was not interested in old ladies, but she was interested in watching Grizel as she talked. Her practised eye took in every detail of her appearance, and every detail was right. She studied her features, her expression, the waves of her soft fair hair, the swiftly moving hands, and sat smiling, appearing to listen, while her thoughts raced ahead, planning future meetings, seeing herself blessed with a friend who would fill the empty gap.

“I shall be jealous of the old ladies if you give them too much of your company!” she said, with a charming smile which accentuated the flattery of the remark. Grizel smiled back with a little nod of acknowledgment, and Cassandra lifted her muff as if preparing to depart, asking casually the while:

“Have you good news of your sister-in-law, Miss Beverley? I knew her slightly, and admired her a great deal. She went to India, I think?”

Grizel’s eyes danced with animation.

“She did. Yes. To visit a friend. We saw her off at Marseilles, my husband and I, and a fortnight later we were sitting in a café, drinking coffee, and flirting outrageously, when we suddenly saw the name of the ship on a poster! It had been in a collision in the Indian Ocean; and the passengers had to take to the boats. If another ship had not come to the rescue, they might all have been drowned.”

“What a terrible experience! How sad for the poor girl, just when she was starting for such a delightful visit!”

“Not at all sad. Not at all. A very good thing,” said Grizel unexpectedly. “Katrine had been wading through trivialities all her life; a big experience was just what she needed. Besides—as a matter of fact... there was a Man!”

“Aha!” cried Cassandra, immediately fired with feminine interest. “On the ship?”

“Pre-cisely! Fastening her into life-belts, bidding her a tragic adieu, waving a gallant hand from the sinking prow.”

“Just so. I understand! And when is the wedding to be?”

Grizel’s face lengthened in dismay.

“Goodness me—I haven’t told you, have I? No one is to know for a couple of months. How on earth did you guess? Please don’t speak of it to a soul. You see, it’s a trifle awkward, because as a matter of fact the real man,—it wasn’t the real man,—I mean it was the real man really, only he pretended—”

Cassandra held up a protesting hand.

“I think you’d better leave it alone! You didn’t tell me anything; I guessed, but I’ll promise to forget forthwith, and be agreeably surprised when I hear the news a few months hence. Don’t tell me any names!”

Before Grizel could reply the whizz of an electric bell sounded through the house, and both women involuntarily groaned, foreseeing an end to their tête-à-tête, but the next moment Grizel’s eyes brightened.

“It’s a man!” she whispered ecstatically. “It’s a man. I can hear his dear boots! My first man caller! Oh joy! Oh rapture!”

“Captain Peignton.”

Dane entered, his eyes narrowed in his usual, short-sighted fashion. Cassandra noticed that he threw a quick glance round the room and guessed, what was indeed the truth, that he had hoped to meet Teresa Mallison, and have an opportunity of escorting her home. When he caught sight of herself, his face showed a ripple of feeling that came and went before she could decipher its meaning. Then he sat down, and made conversation to Grizel, and was smiled at in return with a display of dimples which seemed to have sprung into existence for his benefit. Certainly the old ladies had not been treated to them; even Cassandra herself had come off second best, for Grizel was essentially a man’s woman, who awoke to her highest self in the presence of the opposite sex. It was easy to see that the present visitor was making a favourable impression, and that Grizel was alive to the charm which Cassandra had found it so difficult to define.

Looking on in silence during the first moments of conversation, Cassandra was not so sure that Peignton reciprocated his hostess’s approval. Her light flow of conversation seemed to disconcert rather than put him at his ease, his answers came with difficulty, his eyes had none of their usual brightness. Well! the man who could fall in love with Teresa Mallison would hardly be likely to appreciate Grizel Beverley. Cassandra made up her mind to take her departure, but some minutes elapsed before she really rose, and then to her surprise Peignton also made his farewells, and accompanied her to the door. Outside, the car stood waiting, and as he helped her into it and held out his hand in farewell, his face in the fading light looked pale and tired, and Cassandra spoke on a quick impulse:

“Can I give you a lift? It will be just as quick to go round by the cross roads. Unless you prefer to walk...”

“Thank you, I’d be grateful. I’ve had a heavy day!”

He seated himself beside her, and the car sped smoothly down the narrow road. For some moments neither spoke, but Cassandra was conscious of a pleasurable tingling of excitement. She had had so many lonely drives seated in solitary state among the luxurious fitments of her Rolls Royce, that the presence of a companion was in itself an agreeable novelty. Besides, as she reminded herself, she had a double reason in being interested in Dane Peignton, since both for Bernard’s sake and Teresa’s it was her duty to cultivate the friendship. She turned towards him, met the brown eyes, and smiled involuntarily. They were nice eyes!

“Well! what do you think of the bride?”

“Just what I was going to ask you!”

“I agree with Teresa. She is adorable!”

The mention of Teresa aroused no flicker in his face. His brows contracted in consideration.

“Is she? I’m not so sure. She does not strike me as a woman of very deep feeling.”

“You would not say that, if you had heard her talking before you came in!”

“Wouldn’t I? That’s interesting. What was she talking about?”

“Oh!” The blood mounted into Cassandra’s cheeks, she felt a sudden unaccountable shyness. “Marriage! The relationship of husband and wives—that sort of thing.”

Peignton laughed: a breezy laugh without a touch of self-consciousness.

“Naturally! I might have known it. What else could you expect? She is a bride, and head over heels in love,—must have been, to give up all she did—naturally she’d want to prattle to another woman. Boring for you, though, as you know so much more of the game.”

Cassandra looked at him thoughtfully. The electric light overhead showed the small oval face, with the rose flush on the cheek, the soft greys of the furs round her throat. The words came slowly.

“Do you know—it’s a strange thing to confess,—but I don’t! She is a bride of two months, and I’ve been married ten years—but she realises things now, that I’ve passed by. She sees deeper into the difficulties. She feels more, not less.”

“You are too modest,” Dane said quickly, his brown eyes softening in involuntary admiration of the beautiful sad face. “Nothing is easier than to talk big, before the event. We can all theorise, and lay down the law; the tug comes when we begin to act. Mrs Beverley is living in Utopia at present, and talks the language thereof. Very exalted and charming, no doubt, but—it isn’t real! You should not take her too seriously.”

Cassandra did not reply. It was not for her to betray another woman’s confidence, and for the moment she was occupied with the side-light which Peignton’s words had given her concerning his own sentiments.—Grizel Beverley believed in the reality of her Utopia, and intended to preserve it at the point of the sword; Peignton proclaimed it a delusion before he had even come into possession. Such an attitude was not natural, was not right. He was not temperamentally a cold-blooded man, the latent strength of his nature made itself felt, despite the indifference of his pose, and Teresa was young and pretty and fresh. Once more the older woman felt a stirring of pity for the younger. It was as the champion of Teresa’s youth that she spoke at last.

“You seem to have no illusions! Isn’t it rather a pity, at your...”

“Stage of the game?” He finished the sentence for her with unruffled composure. “I think not, Lady Cassandra. To expect too much, is to invite disappointment. I’m not very young, and my experience has shown me that for most people, life resolves itself into making the most of a second best. Things don’t turn out as they expect. They set out to gain a certain prize, and they don’t gain it, or if they do, something unexpected creeps in to rub off the bloom. Don’t think I’m morbid. I’m not; I’ve no reason to be. There’s a lot of good, steady-going happiness open to all of us, if we are sensible enough to take it, and not lose our chance by expecting too much.”

“You are very philosophical. Generally speaking, I suppose you are right, but we were talking of marriage, when even the most matter-of-fact people are supposed to have illusions. There are not many girls who would accept a lover who did not believe, for the time, at least, that he would be happy ever after if he could secure her as a companion.”

“Oh, well!” he said, laughing. “Oh, well!”

Cassandra was left to infer that there were occasions when exaggeration was legitimate; occasions even when a man might succeed in blindfolding himself, but the concession did not alter the inward conviction. Once more she relapsed into silence, considering his words. Peignton was one of the rare people with whom it was not necessary to carry on a continuous flow of conversation. One could be silent, pursuing one’s own thoughts with a comfortable assurance that he was mentally keeping touch, and that when speech came it would be to pronounce a mutual decision.

“A second best!” Those were the words which had burned themselves on Cassandra’s brain. Life for the majority of people resolved itself into making the most of a second best. There was plenty of good, steady-going happiness in store for those who were sensible enough to take it, and not waste their time straining after the unattainable. The doctrine was distinctly bracing for those who had fallen into the trough of disappointment. Cassandra made a mental note to think over its axioms at her leisure. She had come to the stage when philosophy might have its turn, but, oh, it was good to remember that there had been a day when she had not philosophised, had not reasoned, had not made the best of anything, because youth and hope had already placed that best in her hands! What if it had been a delusion,—she had had her hour, and nothing that life could bring could take away its memory!

There stabbed through her heart a passion of pity for the man who was so calmly ignoring the glory of life. She turned towards him, her eyes dark with earnestness.

“Ah, no, it’s a mistake. Why be satisfied with makeshifts, when there’s a chance of the best? To be too easily satisfied is as foolish as to expect too much; more foolish, for you miss the dream! If the reality fails, one can always look backward and remember the dream.”

Peignton’s air of absorption had no personal reference. The words had passed over his head in so far as they applied to himself. He was looking at Cassandra and saying deep in his heart: “That woman! To grow tired of her! And Raynor! he can never have been worthy to black her boots.” Peignton had a hatred of waste, and it was waste of the worst sort to find this adorable woman thrown away on a man who was quite obtrusively unappreciative. There was such unconscious commiseration in his glance, that Cassandra drew back sharply.

“Goodness, how serious we are growing! It’s the rarest thing in the world for me to theorise. It must be the pernicious effect of paying calls. I’m not responsible for anything I say after being cooped up with rows of women discussing cooks, and Mothers’ Meetings. Forgive me if I’ve bored you!”

“I’m not bored. I’ll think over what you say. I expect you are right, and I’m wrong. When one is obliged to slack physically, as I’ve done these last years, the mind is apt to slack in sympathy. It is a sort of slacking to be content with makeshifts. I must brace up, and aim at the sky, or if a makeshift is inevitable, at least one can use a little deception and pretend that it is the best.”

“Could you do that?”

Cassandra’s eyes were incredulous, but Peignton smiled with easy assurance.

“Oh, yes, certainly. If I chose. It’s a question of temperament. It is always easier to me to be happy, than the other thing. One adapts oneself—”

The car stopped at the cross roads and Cassandra held out her hand in farewell. The melancholy air had disappeared, an elf of mischief danced in her eyes.

“Captain Peignton, you are hopelessly prosaic. It must be a second best after all, for the dream would be wasted upon you. The second best, and—shall I help you to it?”

“Do!” he cried, and they parted with a mutual laugh. It was only after the car had whizzed ahead and he was left alone upon the road, that it occurred to him to connect Teresa Mallison with the offer.

“Poor little girl. Too bad!” he said to himself then, and there was tenderness in his eyes, tenderness in his heart. With every conscious thought he was loyal to Teresa, yet one thing puzzled him,—when apart from her, he found it impossible to visualise the girl’s face. As often as he tried to summon it, it eluded him; he could see nothing but the sweep of dark hair across a white brow, the oval of delicately flushed cheeks, a little chin nestled deep into grey furs. And Raynor was indifferent to her,—indifferent to that woman!

Chapter Six.

The East End.

Mrs Mallison was one of the kindest of women; she was also one of the most exasperating. She herself was complacently aware of the first fact, and referred to it frequently in conversation, enumerating her benefactions with obvious satisfaction: of the latter attribute she remained blandly, blindly unaware. The combination is frequent, the havoc wrought thereby in domestic circles widespread throughout the land. Mrs Mallison rose early from preference. Having reached a time of life when she required little sleep, she found it a relief to rise at seven, and by an exercise of logic, unanswerable to her own judgment, considered it incumbent upon the whole household to experience a similar briskness. She read a chapter of the Bible and the day’s portion of Daily Light before leaving her bedroom, and prayed sadly to be preserved throughout the trials and temptations of the day. To expect happiness she would have considered a flippant attitude, unworthy a professing Christian, the glad morning face had no justification in her eyes.

“Well, Bailey! I wonder what trials the Lord has in store for me to-day!” she would sigh meekly to the old servant who brought her early tea, and sallying forth from her bedroom, thus expectant, seldom failed to encounter several minor trials on the way downstairs: Dust; grease; marks on white paint. It was usually a chastened Mrs Mallison who took her seat behind the urn.

Mrs Mallison had an active mind and a cumbersome body. This combination is also widely known, and deplored by grown-up daughters. No sooner had an idea entered her mind, than she wished it put into instant execution—by a daughter. Whatever the daughter might be doing, however responsible might be her work, she must leave it, dismiss it from her mind, be ready with heart and will to execute her mother’s behests. Such was a daughter’s duty; to fail in it was to risk references to serpents’ teeth, and to that subsequent burden of remorse, to be borne by the delinquent, when death should have removed her mother to another sphere. Mary Mallison found it simpler to give in at once, leave a letter half-written, or a photographic plate half-toned, and adjourn upstairs to move the position of jars on the storeroom shelves, or make sure that a drawer was safely locked. She would even rise in the middle of her breakfast, and walk meekly into the drawing-room to feel if the palms needed water; but Mary was thirty-two, and anaemic into the bargain, and her axiom in life was, “For goodness’ sake, let us have peace!” It was easier to walk a dozen yards into the drawing-room, than to be talked at for the rest of the meal. Mary obeyed, swallowing a constant mental revolt, the strain of which showed in her wan bloodless face. Long ago, when she was twenty-four, she had loved a curate, and the curate had not loved her in return. No man had ever loved her; it was to the last degree unlikely that anyone ever would. Mary offered automatic thanks weekly for the gift of creation, and smothered as wicked the wonder what she had been created for? She also, like her mother, wondered drearily what troubles lay ahead.

Teresa was young, and pretty, and had been educated at a public school. She had inherited from her mother a fair skin, flaxen locks, a strong will, and a pertinacity of purpose which might in time develop to disagreeable proportions. In the meantime she was the admired youngest member of a plain and heavy family, and was by nature affectionate and appreciative. It was only on occasions that Mrs Mallison was conscious of running up against a dead rock when she opposed her will to that of her youngest daughter; only in glimmering rays of light that she realised that what Teresa desired, almost inevitably came to pass. Over and over again the same thing happened. Teresa had come forward with a proposition: consent had been withheld, Teresa had withdrawn. Weeks, even months had passed by; to all appearance Teresa had abandoned the proposition, and then suddenly it crystallised, it became fact. Quietly, placidly, Teresa had bided her time, clinging with limpet-like determination to her point, moving the pawns on the board, waiting for the right moment to make the final dash.

Teresa had left the proud position of head girl in a great school to vegetate in a dull country town, dust the drawing-room, arrange flowers, make her own blouses, and “keep up her music,” and had found the routine as unsatisfactory as does every other modern girl. The Mallisons were comfortably off—that is to say, they had a small detached house, in a good-sized garden, kept two indoor maids, and a man who looked after the garden and drove the shabby dog-cart. They were also able to pay their bills with praiseworthy regularity, and to take a yearly holiday en famille. They likewise allowed each daughter thirty pounds a year for dress and pocket money, and would have strongly resented an insinuation that they were not acting generously in so doing. Mary had “managed” on thirty for a dozen years. Teresa managed for two, and then relinquished the struggle. She made no moan, for moans would have had no avail, except to bring about her ears a harvest of precepts. Teresa informed her sister that “they must be shown,” and she proceeded to show them. She bought no new dress, she went about with her parents in aggressively shabby clothes, she walked incredible distances to save twopences, and thereby made herself late for meals; in short she demonstrated to her old-fashioned parents, that if they wished to possess a pretty, creditable daughter they must be prepared to pay for her. The allowance was increased to fifty, and Mary languished beneath a sense of injury. Thirty had been considered enough for her!

On the morning after Grizel Beverley’s reception the Mallison quartette was assembled at breakfast in the stiff, sunless morning room. Mrs Mallison poured out coffee; Major Mallison sat facing her before the silver bacon dish, the morning light streaming in on his tired, discouraged face. Mary sat on the right, opposite the toast-rack and the egg-stand. Teresa on the left, by the marmalade and honey jar. The Morning Post lay neatly folded on the sideboard. Mrs Mallison approved of sociability at meals; conversation helped digestion. When the Major declared that he loathed general conversation at breakfast, and would rather be left in peace than listen to the finest conversationalist alive, he was told that he was unamiable and selfish, and a burden of regret prophesied for him also “when he had no one to talk to!”

Mrs Mallison poured out four cups of coffee, made her usual lament re the price of bacon, and cast a disapproving eye on Teresa’s blue crêpe blouse.

“I thought, my dear, that you were going to church this morning to decorate the chancel.”

“I am, Mother.”

“In that blouse?”

“Certainly. Why not?”

“Most unsuitable. Too light. A dark flannel is the right thing for the occasion. You will have time to change it before you start. Don’t forget!”

Teresa cast down her eyes and applied herself steadily to bacon. She had not the slightest intention of wearing a dark flannel blouse. The blue crêpe had been chosen, not for its durability, but that it might look pleasant in the eyes of Dane Peignton. All the mothers in the world could not have made Teresa change it; so what was the use of discussing the point! She gave the conversation an adroit little switch.

“Don’t wait lunch for me, Mother. I shall probably go to the Vicarage. We shall need all our time.”

“We are having fried steak. If you come at all, you must be punctual. If it’s done too long, all the strength has gone. I could give you sandwiches to eat in the vestry. Or it might be stewed. If papa did not object, it could quite well be stewed. He dislikes the onions. If we had carrots instead, would you object, papa? But, of course, there’s the flavour. Carrots are not so seasoning... Perhaps it had better be sandwiches. Mary, is there a glass of that chicken and ham paste? See if there’s a glass, dear. Cook could make some nice fresh sandwiches.”

Mary moved automatically, but Teresa stopped her with a waving hand.

“I loathe sandwiches. I shall go somewhere and have a proper lunch. Don’t bother, Mother.”

“My dear,” said Mrs Mallison reproachfully, “I am your mother. When you have a tiring day before you I am naturally anxious that you should be fed. They will be busy at the Vicarage. Cold meat and salad. One could hardly expect more, but you are accustomed to a hot dish. It is the day for steak, but if papa didn’t object we might change. I don’t care for changes as a rule, it upsets the servants, but just for once.—A chicken now! You like chicken. Just run to the telephone, dear, and tell Bates to send one up. Good, roasting. Three and six. If papa doesn’t mind.”

Not a flicker of expression passed over the Major’s face. He was the Jorkins of the establishment, and knew well that, useful as he might be for purposes of quotation, he was negligible as a working factor. He continued resignedly to partake of bacon. Teresa vouchsafed an appreciative smile.

“We’ll have fowl for dinner. Plenty of time when the boy calls. I’m going out to lunch, Mother. I’d rather. It’s part of the fun.”

Mrs Mallison sighed. Here was one of the expected trials. A daughter, unappreciative, preferring to roam abroad, oblivious of the fact that after a morning’s church decorating she would be in possession of a harvest of small talk which a mother would naturally desire to hear. Who decorated the lectern; who the finials; who did the windows this year? The windows were the least coveted post. A mother whose daughter had been honoured with the east end would naturally feel agreeable sympathy for the mother of those who wrestled modestly with window-sills. Then also there were subsidiary interests. Who brought the Squire’s flowers? Did Lady Cassandra drive down? Was the Vicar tiresome about nails? Exactly what did everyone present say about Teresa’s scheme of colour? The good lady felt it hard that she should have to wait until evening to satisfy her interest on these thrilling points. She set her lips and said to herself, “Certainly not! If young people have no consideration for others, they cannot expect to be indulged. Not fowl. Roast end of the neck.”

At the side of the table Mary sighed, and stared dejectedly into space. Eight years ago she had been asked to “do” the east end, and the curate had been by her side all day helping her, reaching to high places, bending down, taking the vases from her hand. After all these years she could still see before her every line of the smooth boyish face. He had never loved her, he had gone away and married another girl, but he had been admiring and attentive; several times in the course of that day he had made her sit down to rest; at tea at the Vicarage he had placed a cushion behind her back. In Mary’s starved life such small incidents took the place of romance. She looked across the table at her sister, not so much with envy, as with pity. Poor Trissie! she also was dreaming; she also must awake. And Teresa understood the glance and set her red lips. She had not the least intention in the world of following in Mary’s footsteps. Thirty-two should never find her dragging along at home! She thought of Dane Peignton with the warm glow at the heart which always accompanied the thought. If Dane did not “care,” her dearest hope would be blasted, but it was characteristic of Teresa that she could put aside the possibility, and be assured that even Dane himself could not spoil her life, or reduce her to Mary’s apathy of indifference.

After breakfast came “Worship,” when the maids came in and sat on two chairs placed as near as possible to the door, and the mistress of the house read aloud a chapter in the Bible, followed by a long prayer from a book entitled Family Devotions. The chapter this morning was taken from Judges, and had little obvious bearing on the lives of the hearers. It is doubtful if anyone attended after the first few verses. The cook was listening for the tradesmen’s bell. If it rang in the middle of Worship it was understood that she was to rise softly and creep out. Under such circumstances it was, as she expressed it, difficult to “settle down.” The housemaid was thinking of her young man. Teresa was considering her scheme of decoration. Major Mallison and Mary were resignedly sitting it out. For the prayer everyone rose and knelt down, but the mental attitude remained unchanged. They rose once more with sighs of relief.

After breakfast Teresa dusted the drawing-room, made her own bed, and hung over the banisters listening for the moment when her mother should begin telephoning orders to the tradespeople, when she herself might leave the house without fear of further questioning as to the blue blouse. She expanded her shoulders with a sigh of relief on reaching the open air, and sped along the quiet road with the feeling of escape which every member of the Mallison household experienced when the gate was safely closed, before a shrill recall had sounded from door or window.

Teresa’s thoughts that morning were occupied as many another daughter’s have been before her, in pondering the astonishing problem of her parents’ youth. Father and Mother in love! Father ardent, Mother shy! Father and Mother exchanging love glances; engrossed in one another’s society. Could such things be? And if so—lacerating thought!—could they be again? In thirty years’ time could Teresa and Dane...

Teresa flushed violently. She had not prayed at Family Worship. She had been frankly and emphatically bored, but she prayed now, walking along the public road, in her blue coat and fashionable jam-pot hat, she lifted her eyes to the grey skies, and the voice in her heart cried earnestly: “I’ll make him happy! Help me to keep him happy! Give him to me, and make me a good wife.” A glow of tenderness softened the hard young eyes. “Make me good,” cried Teresa, “For Dane’s sake!”

She was the first to arrive at the church, before even the Vicar’s wife. Was she not the honoured young worker, to whom had been entrusted the decoration of the east end? A mass of daffodils, wallflowers, and primroses lay banked in baskets along the aisles. These were the contributions of the poorer members of the community, the villagers and owners of small gardens. Outside the chancel rails were ranged rows of growing bulbs in pots, hyacinths, narcissus, the finer variety of daffodils, great trumpet-like heads of white and cream, orange and gold. These were the first contribution from the Court; later on the carriage would bring down a hamper of flowers, freshly cut and fragrant. The sexton came forward with a box containing the tin vases and fitments provided for such occasions, and delivered the usual warning about nails. The Vicar would allow no nails. Teresa took off her long coat and placed it in a pew; the blue of her blouse seemed to take an added richness from the austerity of the surroundings. How glad she was that she had disobeyed her mother and kept it on!

Presently the Vicarage party arrived, and quickly following one after another the helpers. Teresa lifted the flower-pots one by one and placed them behind the delicate tracery of the oak screen, so that the pots themselves were hidden and the carved openings appeared to give a vista into a sweet spring garden.

All the while she worked, she kept a strained outlook for Dane’s appearance. When another helper approached, and would have loitered in conversation, she made a speedy excuse for hurrying away, lest he should come now, and their meeting be marred; when her back was turned to the aisle she listened for the sound of his footsteps. At any moment he might enter, stand by her side, call to her in his full, rich tones: “Miss Teresa!”

Eleven o’clock came, and he had not appeared; half-past eleven. All the pots were arranged. Intentionally Teresa had lingered over the work, dreading to begin the more elaborate decorations which would require aid. If she were seen mounting a stool, some of the men helpers would at once come forward to assist; and Dane entering and seeing her thus provided, might attach himself to someone else. A dull ache of disappointment filled Teresa’s heart. If he really cared; if the opportunity meant to him what it did to herself, he would not have wasted the hours. She put her last pot in its place, stood back to view the effect, and heard at last the longed-for words of welcome.

“Miss Teresa—here I am; bright and early, you see! What have you got for me to do?”

He was smiling, composed, unconscious of offence. The ache sharpened into pain at the realisation, but Teresa had a wisdom beyond her years, and allowed no sign of disappointment to become visible. To sulk and looked aggrieved was not the way to increase a man’s admiration. She smiled into his eyes, and cried readily:

“Heaps of things! I need you for all the stretchy places. You are so big. And those great palms... They have to go into the corners. Will you help me to move them?”

“Certainly not. I’ll do it myself. Just point out where they are to go. What’s the good of me if I can’t save you fatigue?”

The tenderness of his smile was as ointment of healing, but true to her principles Teresa averted her eyes, and put on her most business-like manner, so that no answering sign of tenderness might be visible. Not to the verger himself had her manner been more cool and detached, but Dane showed no sign of dissatisfaction. They had met to work, not to make love; he admired the girl for her brisk, capable ways, and found pleasure in the sight of her alert young figure clad in the short skirt, stout boots, and untrimmed hat. They worked industriously for the next half-hour, banking up comers of palms, covering the foremost pots with a velvety cushion of moss. Side by side they knelt on the marble floor, pulling apart the fragrant sods, patting them into shape. Once when a rebellious morsel refused to remain in place Teresa fumbled among her yellow locks for a hairpin to act as skewer, whereupon Dane made a quick movement to withdraw her hand.

“No, no, it’s covered with soil! ... Let me!” He covered his finger and thumb with a handkerchief, carefully extracted the nearest pin, and held it towards her. “That’s better! It’s too bad to soil your pretty hair. You’ve got loads of hair, haven’t you? I love to see a girl with good hair. How far does it come down?”

“Past my waist.” Teresa’s conscience pricked her on account of one braid which could come down as far as required, but there seemed no immediate need for confession on that score. Her cheeks were flushed, she took a long time over the last arrangement of moss, pondering uneasily. Had anyone seen? What would they think? She hoped to goodness that Miss Mason’s eyes had been averted! What Miss Mason saw at noon, was parish news by sunfall... “By the by, you’ll be interested to hear that Teresa Mallison is engaged to that young Peignton. I saw him distinctly stroking her hair.” In imagination she could hear the thin, clipped voice scattering the news broadcast. And in time it would come to Dane’s own ears...

Teresa rose and cast a searching glance round the church. No one was looking, the workers were engrossed and preoccupied. The Vicar’s wife was affixing a cross of daffodils to the front of the pulpit, the doctor’s daughters were trimming the lectern with stiff little bunches of daffodils. All down the aisle workers were twisting sprays of ivy round the tall gas standards, in the discreet background dowdy nobodies were wrestling with window-sills. The Vicar’s wife held firmly to the theory of universal brotherhood, but it would never have occurred to her to ask a wealthy parishioner to “do” the windows, or a tradesman’s wife to undertake the east end. Teresa and Dane left the chancel and stood hesitating at the head of the aisle. Now they were ready for the cut flowers, and the cut flowers had not arrived.

“The Squire promised to send down. I wrote again last night to remind him. He can’t have forgotten.”

“Oh, no. They’ll be here soon. There’s a car at the door now.” Peignton peered forward, looking down the length of the aisle into the sunlit churchyard beyond, and the girl watching him, as she loved to do at unobserved moments, saw a sudden light come into the lazy eyes. She peered in her turn, and beheld a small grey foot emerge from the door of the car, then a second foot, and finally a tall figure, grey-robed, grey-furred, which stood aside, sharply outlined against the darkness of the background, and waited for the descent of still another figure, coated in white.

Lady Cassandra! ... she had come herself, and with her Mrs Martin Beverley. They were driving about together in the morning, a sign of intimacy more eloquent than a dozen afternoon meetings. They were smiling into each other’s faces as they walked up the church path, talking with the ease of lifelong friends.

Teresa felt a pang of jealousy, not of Dane Peignton,—these women were married and could have no interest for him,—but for herself, and her position in the Raynor household. Proud as she had been of the degree of intimacy to which she had been admitted, in her heart she had acknowledged the presence of a barrier shutting her out from personal friendship. She had been a favoured acquaintance, nothing more, and now a friend had appeared, and the acquaintance must needs stand aside.

Up the church aisle came the two women, side by side, graver now as befitted their surroundings, yet bringing with them a whiff of the world of gaiety and fashion, the influence of which spread subtly over the feminine body of workers. The Vicar’s wife pulled down her cuffs, and brushed the leaves from her gown; the doctor’s daughters arranged stray locks, and placed themselves in artistic attitudes around the desk, and from the background poor Miss Bruce looked on with widened eyes.

Cassandra came forward to shake hands with Mrs Evans, the natural hostess of the occasion.

“Good morning, Mrs Evans. How busy you all are! I drove down with the flowers, and brought Mrs Beverley with me. The groom is bringing them in. We promised Miss Mallison—”

She looked around, caught sight of Teresa and Peignton standing side by side, and nodded, faintly smiling. The affair was progressing then! No need for outside help. Teresa, flushed and happy, the blue of her blouse setting off the pink and white of her complexion, looked her most attractive self. Cassandra envied her, pitied her, felt an inexplicable irritation with her, all at the same moment, but being bred in the school which considers the suppression of feeling to be the first axiom of good manners, her smile of greeting remained unchanged.

The vases for the altar had been carried into a vestry, where they stood on a table ready to be filled. The groom was directed where to carry his hamper, and the two visitors followed, talking in undertones to Teresa and Dane as they went. Inside the room itself there was a greater sense of freedom, and their voices instantly heightened in tone. They had an air of having nothing to do, and of being indifferent as to how long they stayed, which was far from welcome to one at least of the workers.

Teresa had planned exactly how the vases were to be arranged, and had anticipated a happy half-hour, alone with Dane, free from the observation of curious eyes. She was capable of carrying out her own ideas, and wished for no assistance. It was Peignton who made the unwelcome suggestion that Cassandra should remain to help.

“I’m out of this!” he said, shrugging. “Never arranged flowers in my life, and don’t know how to begin. Dragging about palms is more in my line, but that’s done now, and I’m no more use. Sorry to be such a broken reed, Miss Teresa! Perhaps Lady Cassandra—” He looked at Cassandra, and once again his eyes lightened, as if what they beheld was good in his sight. “I am sure you know how to arrange flowers!”

“Oh, yes,” Cassandra said calmly, “I’m supposed to be quite good. Well, Teresa, I am at your service. You are in command. Issue your instructions! Mrs Beverley, you won’t mind waiting a short time?”

“Oh, no,” Grizel said sweetly. “I’ll help too!” She made no motion to take off her gloves, however, but stood watching with a lazy smile while her companion threw off her furs in business-like fashion. The square emerald sparkled against the whiteness of her hand, as she turned over flowers, searching for the most perfect specimens. Once more Dane watched it with fascinated attention, once more looked from it to Teresa’s hands, reddened and stained with soil, and hastily averted his eyes. Henceforth he kept them averted. There was no disloyalty in admiring a beautiful thing. The wrong began when one stooped to invidious comparisons.

By degrees it came about that Cassandra arranged, while the others stood by, and supplied her wants. She was accustomed to the handling of delicate blooms, and possessed little coaxing tricks of propping and supporting, which added greatly to their effect. Of the first two vases completed, hers was so palpably superior, that the obvious course was to invite her to undertake all five. Teresa gave the invitation with a good grace, and stood aside handing sprays of lilies, and disentangling delicate fronds of green.

As she stood she faced a small mirror on the wall, before which the Rev. Vicar presumably concluded his clerical toilet. At the moment it gave back the reflection of herself and Cassandra, standing side by side, and the contrast stung. At home, by the same law of contrast, Teresa complacently considered herself next door to a beauty, but seen side by side with Cassandra Raynor, her image appeared of a sudden coarsened and blunted. Moreover, the inferiority was not confined to the body; mentally as well as physically she was at a disadvantage;—her words seemed halting and difficult, compared with the other’s delicate ripple of conversation. Teresa’s honesty accepted the fact, disagreeable though it was. The little ache at her heart was not caused so much by jealousy, as by regret for the hour which she had longed for, the hour which was not to be. Surreptitiously she watched Peignton to see if he shared her disappointment. His manner was quieter than when they had been alone together. He looked less at his ease, but he was interested, his eyes followed the delicate work with absorbed attention. He was more interested, rather than less. Teresa felt suddenly very tired. She had hoped he would look disappointed!

Meanwhile Grizel had strolled out of the vestry and stood viewing the scene with lazy, smiling eyes. The workers were so busy that they had not noticed her approach, and she had time to study them unawares. For the most part they worked in pairs, consulting together, the more deft-handed arranging the flowers, the less skilful acting as assistant, and executing her commands. Quietly though they worked, there was in the air a sense of camaraderie; and one divined that these workers were friends who had chosen to work together, and enjoyed the companionship. In the background a solitary black-robed figure stood straining upward from the seat of a pew, engaged in covering the sill of a window with fragments of foliage, and those inferior flowers which had been rejected for more prominent places. Grizel took a short cut through a pew, and approached this worker’s side.

“May I help you?” she asked, and Miss Bruce turned her head and stared in bewilderment. She was a middle-aged spinster, who lived in a small villa, with a small servant-girl, a fox-terrier, and a canary in a brass cage. She possessed exactly two hundred pounds a year, and felt herself rich. It was only in the matter of friends that she was poor, for the taint of trade set her apart from the people whom she wished to know, while as a lady of independent means she, in her turn, despised the class from which she had sprung. Mrs Evans considered Miss Bruce a “useful” worker, and asked her to tea regularly once a year, in addition to a summer garden party. The churchwarden’s wife was asked to meet her on these occasions. “You won’t mind, dear, I know,” the Vicar’s wife would premise. “You are so kind, and it gives her such pleasure, poor soul!” But as a matter of fact the tea party gave Miss Bruce no pleasure at all. She was keen enough to realise the exact conditions of her invitation, and instead of feeling flattered was wounded and aggrieved... “Last week she had nine people there one afternoon, the Mallisons and the Escourts, all that set. Ellen heard about it from the cook. Why couldn’t she ask me then?” she would ask herself bitterly. “Never anyone but Mrs Rose!” Every year she decided to refuse the next invitation, but when it came to the time her courage failed. In the deadly dullness of her life a change was too rare to be lightly foregone. She stepped down from her high perch now, and turned her dull eyes to stare into Grizel Beverley’s happy face.

“May I help you a little?”

“Thank you. It’s very kind, I’m sure. I shall be much obliged.”

“That’s all right!” said Grizel cordially, and promptly seated herself at the end of a pew, and extended an arm along the top of the oaken back, in an attitude of luxurious ease. Exactly what form the “help” was to take it was difficult to guess, but Miss Bruce was not thinking of such mundane considerations; her mind was occupied in grasping the astounding fact that the latest celebrity of the countryside, Mrs Martin Beverley, late Miss Grizel Dundas, had chosen to single out her insignificant self, when some of the most important ladies in the parish were present.

“It’s—not very interesting over here,” she stammered apologetically. “Window-sills are so dull. It’s impossible to get an effect.”

“They are rather muddly, aren’t they?” Grizel agreed cheerfully, casting a roving eye over the branches of greenery, scattered intermittently with daffodils which had had their day. “But I daresay no one will look... I don’t think I know your name, do I? You haven’t called on me yet?”

Miss Bruce flushed a deep brick-red. Her lips tightened in remembrance of the old grudge.

“I—don’t call!” she said bluntly. “It would not be—acceptable. I am poor.”

“Oh, so am I! There we can sympathise. Isn’t it dull?” cried Grizel gaily.

Miss Bruce looked at her in silent disclaimer. No one could look into Grizel’s face and doubt the honesty of her words, but Miss Bruce reflected tartly that there were different degrees of poverty! Why, the clothes on the bride’s back this morning must have cost a considerable portion of her own year’s income! The white coat hung in strange and wonderful folds, the outside was severely plain, just a simple, unadorned cloth garment which an ordinary woman might have worn; but as she sat, the fronts had fallen apart, and the spinster gazed with awe upon a gorgeousness of lining such as it had not entered into her brain to conceive. Ivory brocade, shot through with gold; a band of exquisite embroidery where the two fabrics met, cascades of delicate lace. Miss Bruce was fond of coining phrases to express her meaning. She coined one now, “Muffled magnificence!” It seemed an inconceivable thing that any woman could allow such richness to be hidden away beneath a cloth exterior, yet something latent within her applauded the feat. “Muffled magnificence,” she repeated to herself, her gloating eyes taking in each perfection of detail. Her lips twisted in grim realisation of the difference in degrees of poverty, but a quality of sincerity and kindliness in Grizel’s hazel eyes prompted an unwonted confidence. She heard herself saying quite simply and naturally:

“There is something besides poverty, Mrs Beverley! My father was a plumber. Quite in a big way, of course, but still,—he was in trade. He was a very good father; he educated me well and left me enough to live on. I’m grateful to him, but,—you can understand—”

Grizel gave a soft little move of appreciation.

“A good plumber.—A plumber with principles... Oh, you must be proud! I’ve travelled all over the world, but I never heard of such a thing before. All the other plumbers I’ve heard of have brought misery on everyone who knew them... You must certainly come to see me, and tell me all about him, and I’ll call on you too, and see his photograph... Had he a chin beard?”

Miss Bruce’s gratification was merged in stunned surprise.

“Chin—beard?”

“They always have. Haven’t you noticed? If your father hadn’t, that makes him more wonderful still. And where is your house, Miss—”

“Bruce. In Rose Lane. Near the Men’s Institute. A little house with a green porch. You wouldn’t have noticed—”

“I’ve just come, you see,” Grizel apologised, “and I’ve been busy about my own little house. I’ll show it to you, and you must show me yours. When will you come to tea?”

Miss Bruce stood silent, struggling between a longing to name a date, clinch the invitation, and wave a flag of triumph in the eyes of her enemies, and some softer feeling which forebade taking advantage of the ignorance of a new-comer. She looked down at the young happy face, at the slim young body in its dainty trappings, and a rare impulse of tenderness stirred in her dried heart. People said that Mrs Beverley had been born to a great fortune, had lived in luxury among the highest in the land, but she gave herself fewer airs than many upstarts in semi-detached villas. One good turn deserved another. Miss Bruce rose to unexampled heights of sacrifice.

“It is very kind of you—I appreciate it, but I’d better not! The gentlefolk don’t know me, don’t want to. If they met me sitting in your drawing-room it would be awkward for everybody concerned.”

Grizel elevated expressive eyebrows.

“I choose my own friends. No one has a right to dictate. I’ll drive over for you some day, and carry you off whether you want to or not. You could help me so much! There are thousands of things I want to know about the place, and the workpeople, and where to send, and what to do when things happen—they always are happening in a house, and I’ve a sort of conviction that you could tell me! I’m rather a lazy person, but I get things done. Providence is kind in sending along people to do them for me.”

Such was the magnetism of the dimpling smile that Miss Bruce entirely forgot that this was the person who in the present instance had volunteered to help herself, and stammered ardent promises. Anything she could do! Everything she could do. Only too pleased and proud—

“That’s all right, then. And about those daffodils! Don’t you think they’d look better massed together into little groups? They do look so plaintive fading away all on their own little lones. You’d get more effect from good-sized bunches!”

“Well, I can try!” Miss Bruce conceded amiably, and for the next ten minutes she worked diligently, carrying out the instructions given by a soft voice, and a waving hand in an exquisitely fitting glove. The result was distinctly to the good, and Grizel had no hesitation in taking her due share of praise.

“We have done them well!” she said graciously at parting, and Miss Bruce magnanimously agreed.

“Thank you so much for your help!”

Grizel made another short cut through a pew, and was intercepted by the Vicar’s wife, who had been watching the tête-à-tête with wondering eyes. Mrs Martin Beverley, and poor Miss Bruce! What on earth had they found to talk about all that time? Her keen eyes were alight with curiosity, but Grizel vouchsafed no information; she knew without hearing what the good lady would have to say, and was in no mind to hear it. Perhaps of all sins, pride is the most universal, and the most varied in the manner of its presentment. It hides itself under many disguises, obtrudes its head in the most unexpected situations. The socialist railing at society, and calling upon mankind to follow his example, is often more inflated with pride than the aristocrats against whom he inveighs: an ardent philanthropist living happily among East End roughs, will display unexpected bristles to a fellow-worker who has not known the advantages of a public school; so Grizel Beverley, looking down on the small folk of Chumley from the altitude of her past experiences, failed to grasp Infinitesimal distinctions, and saw no reason why she should be hindered thereby. She had no mind to obey instructions from the Vicar’s wife! She floated past with a nod and a smile, and joined the little group of three who were standing outside the Cancel rails, surveying the effect of the completed vases. The girl Teresa looked paler and more set in expression; tired, no doubt, with her morning’s work. Cassandra, on the contrary, looked refreshed, the interest of having work to do, and doing it well, lighting her eyes into a girlish brightness. Her face was almost as happy as Grizel’s own, as she turned to greet her.

“Here you are! I hope I’ve not kept you too long. It must be nearly time for lunch.” She cast a quick glance at the two by her side, and added tentatively; “I’m going straight back in the car; won’t you both come, too, and let me feed you after your labours? Do! I’d be so pleased.”

Without a flicker of hesitation came Teresa’s refusal.

“Thank you; I couldn’t possibly. I’ve not finished. There is always a cold lunch at the Vicarage. Mrs Evans asks anyone who likes to go. It’s so near.”

“Yes, of course.” Cassandra held out her hand in placid acceptance of the fact, spoke a few words of farewell, and turned to Peignton, taking for granted a like excuse on his part, but he was hesitating, and displaying an obvious wish to accept.

“Is there anything more that I can do to help you, Miss Teresa?—If my work is finished, there’s no need for me to stay. Of course, if there’s anything I can do—”

“No, thank you. Only a few odds and ends. Nothing serious. I can manage quite well,” said Teresa staunchly. Her heart was cramped with pain, but she made no sign. As calmly as a martyr of old, she smiled through the fire, shook hands with each of the three in turn, and accompanied them a few steps down the aisle.

Cassandra walked ahead, her head in the air. “Now why did he do that?” she asked herself uneasily. “I asked them together. I never dreamed he would come alone. Perhaps Bernard was mistaken, and there’s nothing between them, after all. She seemed absolutely detached!” The possibility brought with it a sense of relief, and her thoughts flew ahead to the afternoon. “I’ll take him to my summer-house to tea, and we can talk. There are quite a number of things I want to say...”

It was five o’clock before Teresa Mallison returned home that afternoon, for the “few odd things” stretched out to unexpected length. The day had turned out very differently from what she expected, but there was no anger in her heart against the two who had disturbed her peace. With unusual fairness of mind she realised their unconsciousness, their unwillingness to offend. Things had just happened. No one was to blame. This philosophic attitude did not prevent her from being exceedingly short and snappy with her family for the rest of the evening, or from refusing coldly to partake of the fowl which had been provided for her delectation. To some natures a scapegoat is necessary, and in nine cases out of ten they are conveniently discovered in the home circle.

Chapter Seven.

Stolen Hours.

Driving home in the car Cassandra was conscious of contending emotions which carried her back to nursery days; pleasure, excitement, an underlying gnawing of guilt. So had she felt, stealthily playing in a corner with a toy purloined from a sister’s store, and yet, as she assured herself, there was no need for compunction. She had invited both Teresa and Dane; it was not her fault if the girl chose to refuse; not her fault if the man was ungallant enough to accept. Yet the feeling of guilt persisted. She looked curiously at Peignton to see if he shared her discomfort, but never did a man look more serene and unperturbed. Happy too! The thrill of pleasurable excitement which in her case was a real, though secondary sensation, was, to judge by appearance, all-pervading in his case. His eyes shone, the tired-out look had disappeared; his lips smiled.

“What a good thing a good car is! I used to swear by walking, but the time has come when I find it very agreeable to slip into a cushioned seat, and be whirled where I would go. There’s something mysteriously fatiguing about decorating churches; haven’t you found it so? Perhaps it is the necessity of keeping quiet and forbearing from expressing oneself as one otherwise would, when one is unexpectedly scratched or bruised. In any case, I am tired. And hungry! It is good of you to offer to feed me.”

Cassandra smiled with the comfortable assurance of one who takes perfect meals as a matter of course. There was no consciousness of cold mutton, no fear of a heavy pudding, to mar her enjoyment of an unexpected guest, but having never experienced a housekeeper’s anxiety, she failed to appreciate the relief.

“I hope they will give you something fit to eat!”

“And afterwards... Will you show me your garden?”

“I have no special garden. I do nothing myself. I’m always making up my mind to take over a little corner, but it takes a long time to make up my mind. I don’t want to dig and delve. I enjoy the flowers better when I get them without any trouble. It would be simply an effort to try to find an interest.—Do you believe in troubling to find an interest, when it doesn’t come naturally?”

“Yes,” Dane said simply, and Cassandra stared at him with a feeling of check. She had not expected that quiet “yes”; it carried with it a finality which put an end to argument.

“I have had to do it, you see!” he added. “The thing which did interest me became impossible, so I was obliged to find something else to fill the gap.”

Cassandra lay back against the cushions with an exaggerated sigh of resignation.

“Oh, dear! here we are back at our Second Bests! I hate Second Bests, and makeshifts of every description, and I don’t recognise any obligation to adopt them. If I can gain an interest only at the cost of something it doesn’t interest me to do, how can it be an interest at all? I’m talking nonsense, but it’s your fault... You are so painfully philosophic... Does a land agency really fill the gap left by the old regiment, and its associations?”

“Nothing near it. But it helps. It is several degrees better than nothing.” Peignton spoke resolutely, but his face twitched, and Cassandra was smitten with compunction.

“Ah! I shouldn’t have said it. It was mean of me. When you are so brave...” Her voice sank to a tenderness of which she was unaware, as she asked the next question: “What was it? I never heard more than just that you had a breakdown!”

“Lungs,” he said simply. “I had a cough, and it stuck to me, and I lost weight, but I never dreamt of anything serious. It was a bit of a—jar! I was packed off home to a sanatorium, and came out at the end of six months with a clean bill of health. I’ve been up to be vetted every few months since. The last time it was a new fellow, and he could not spot the weak place, so I’m all right, you see; it has just made me physically a few years older than I really am. Given care, and an outdoor life, I have as good a chance as another man.”

“Oh, of course. So many people... It’s nothing now, compared with what it used to be,” Cassandra assented hurriedly. That was the reason of the subtly appealing look which had puzzled her from her first meeting with this man! He had looked death in the face; had left the mimic playing at arms, to fight a hand-to-hand battle with that grim spectre through weary weeks and months. Such an experience could not fail to leave its mark, however resolutely it might be ignored. She was silent for some minutes, staring dreamily out of the window, while Dane in his turn studied her face, and wondered in masculine innocence why every woman did not wear chinchilla.

“How do you take it when such blows come?” she asked slowly at last. “Do you rage or sulk? I suppose with ordinary human creatures it comes down to one of the two. Only the saints are resigned, and I don’t fancy you—”

“No, indeed. Very far from it!” He laughed, then sobered quickly. “I suppose I,—sulked! I got the credit for taking it uncommonly well, but that was because I was too proud to fuss. Pity hurt. For my own selfish sake it was easier to bluff it out, and pretend to be hopeful. But inside—I went through a pretty fair imitation of hell in those first few weeks!”

In Cassandra’s low croon of sympathy sounded all the warmth of her Irish heart; her eyes were liquid with sympathy.

“And then? Afterwards... How soon did you—”

“Pull myself together? Oh, I dunno! As soon as I—began to pull round, I suppose!” He shrugged his shoulders. “Not much credit in that, was there? I sulked, as you put it, so long as everything seemed over, but when I saw I was going to live on, I was obliged to rouse myself to see what could be done. That’s natural! The more one has lost, the more important it is to make the most of what remains. I couldn’t enjoy my life in the way I intended, but I was determined to enjoy it all the same.”

“And have you?”

“Rather! Look at me now. Having a rattling time. I’ve never enjoyed things more in my life than during the last few weeks.”

“Church decorations included!” Cassandra enquired with malice prepense. She wanted to see if he would look self-conscious at what was meant to be a veiled reference to his connection with Teresa, but he looked at her with the frankest of smiles and said: “Yes; didn’t you?” and it was she, not he, who suffered from embarrassment.

At lunch Bernard was unaffectedly pleased to see the unexpected guest, and throughout its course talked to him persistently on topics which left Cassandra out in the cold. She was evidently accustomed to be thus ignored, for her dreamy eyes showed that her thoughts were far away, and she replied so absently to Dane’s tentative attempts to draw her into the conversation, that he was not encouraged to persevere. She awoke to sudden sharp consciousness, however, when Bernard began making suggestions for the afternoon, taking for granted that his guest was ready to accompany him wherever he should suggest to go. “I’ve been wanting to drive round Boxley for some time. You come along and give me your advice,” he said finally, and again Cassandra knew a revival of youthful days in the tingle of anger, the incredulous load of disappointment, which like a real physical weight pressed upon her heart. It was ridiculous, it was absurd, it was quite ludicrously out of proportion, to feel so torn about so small a thing, but she was torn. It was in her at that moment to blaze into anger, to speak loud protesting words, to push aside her plate and dash from the room. All the different impulses which had torn the girl Cassandra when defrauded of a promised treat of the nursery surged up suddenly in the breast of the woman who sat in silent dignity at the head of her table, smiling her unruffled, society smile.

Bernard, of course—Bernard never took her into consideration; but,—What would Peignton say?

What he said was the easiest, most natural of explanations.

“Thanks very much. Another time I’d be delighted, but this afternoon Lady Cassandra has promised to show me the gardens. Perhaps we could fix a day for next week?”

The Squire knitted his eyebrows, and looked from his guest to his wife, back again from his wife to his guest. Plainly he was concerned, plainly also he was concerned for his guest’s sake, not that of his wife.

“That’s very good of you,” he said slowly, “but er—the whole afternoon? Rather a fag, isn’t it? You could have a walk round after lunch, and we’d start at three.”

“Thanks, but it’s against my principles to divide good things. We’ll do Boxley next week, if you’ll give me the chance.”

The Squire looked at his wife again and smiled, a good-natured smile. He was obviously content that she should be amused, provided that he himself had no trouble in the matter.

“That’s all right, then,” he said. “We’ll leave it at that. Cass will be quite pleased to have someone to talk to. Won’t you, Cass?”

“Very pleased!” said Cassandra gravely. It was beyond her at that moment to make pretence, but the earnestness of her face had the effect of launching her husband on an old grievance.

“It’s your own fault, you know; your own fault! I’m always talking to you about it. She won’t make friends, Peignton! Lived within a couple of miles of Chumley all these years, and hasn’t a single friend. Says there’s no one to know. Rubbish! Don’t tell me... Lots of ’em, if she took the trouble to find out. Too proud, that’s the size of it, and they know it, and it gets ’em on the raw. She’s made herself jolly unpopular, that’s what she’s done. You can’t deny that you have made yourself unpopular!”

“I am quite the most unpopular woman in the neighbourhood,” Cassandra said, with the sideways tilt of the chin which Dane was beginning to recognise. “It’s humiliating, but I can’t see that I am to blame. I bore the Chumley people, and they bore me, and if I’m to be bored at all, I so very much prefer to do it for myself. I don’t complain of being alone.”

“Oh, yes, you do. Not in words, perhaps. There are a jolly lot of ways in which a woman can rub it in,” cried the Squire with a shrewdness at which Cassandra laughed with unruffled good-nature.

“Poor Bernard! Have I rubbed it in? Never mind! Grizel Beverley is going to prove a host in herself, and Captain Peignton is giving me a whole afternoon, and I’ve been at the church for over an hour, decorating, and talking prettily to the other helpers. Things are looking up. Who knows! I may be quite sociable by the end of another year!”

But the Squire refused to be cajoled.

“Lots of ’em!” he repeated pugilistically. “Lots. All those houses, and a woman in each. Don’t tell me! What’s the matter with Mrs Mawson? What’s the matter with Miss Mawle? What’s the matter with the Baxters, or the Gardiners, or Mrs Evans?”

“I like Mrs Evans. I think I almost love the real Mrs Evans,” Cassandra said thoughtfully. “I have always a feeling that if I were in trouble the real Mrs Evans would understand. But one so seldom gets a glimpse of her!”

“Don’t understand what you are talking about. Who else do you get a glimpse of?”

“The Vicar’s wife,” said Cassandra, and rising from the table put an end to the discussion.

After lunch the two men sat together smoking and talking, but before the end of half an hour Peignton grew restless, and cast about in his mind for an excuse to escape. Would Lady Cassandra come for him, or was he supposed to search for Lady Cassandra? In any case the best of the day was passing, and it was folly to waste time indoors. He strolled to the window, caught sight of a woman’s figure among the bushes on the nearer lawn, and lost no time in following. It was Cassandra, as he had surmised, Cassandra in a knitted coat and cap of a soft rose colour which matched the flush on her cheeks; her hands were thrust into her pockets, and she nodded welcome to him with a girlish air. No girl could have looked younger, or fresher, or more free from care, and she felt as free as she looked. The guilty feeling of the morning had disappeared, she had forgotten Teresa Mallison, and her claims, while her husband’s scepticism of the fact that any man should choose to spend an afternoon with her for his own enjoyment, had stirred up latent founts of coquetry. Peignton should enjoy himself! She had not yet forgotten how to charm a man. She would charm him now so that his afternoon in the spring garden should be a time to be remembered. She need not have troubled. Grave or gay, nothing that she could have said or done could possibly have failed to charm Peignton. But of that fact she was, as yet, as ignorant as himself. The south windows of the Court opened on to a stone terrace from which two separate flights of steps gave access to a succession of gardens, sloping down to the wide stretch of park. At the head of each stairway, and against the house in the spaces between the windows stood stone vases filled with the gayest of spring flowers. The fragrance of them filled the air, their colours flared gloriously against the dull grey background, and threw into striking contrast the green severity of the Dutch garden immediately beneath. Here, later on in the year, the beds would exhibit gay specimens of the latest development in carpet gardening, but in the meantime they were bare, and the quaintly cut trees and shrubs had a grim, almost funereal austerity. Lower down came a rose garden, with pergolas leading in four separate avenues to a centre dome. In summer the rose garden was a fairyland of beauty, but its time was not yet. The gardeners were busy pruning and training, cleverly inserting new branches among the old. Peignton noticed that though Cassandra gave the men a pleasant greeting, she did not pause for any of the questioning, the propositions, the consultations as to how and where, which true garden lovers find irresistible under such circumstances. She led the way to the lily beds, the ferneries, the herbaceous borders, and the sunk garden, all slumbering in the promise of beauty to come, last of all to the rockery, already ablaze with the gold of alyssum and the purple of aubretia, the little pockets between the stones filled with every variety of spring bulb: daffodils of yellow, white, and orange, flaring tulips, early hyacinths, and many-coloured anemones.

After the unbroken greenery of the higher terraces, the rockery appeared a riot of colour, as if the very spirit of spring had chosen it for an abode. The air was sweet with fragrance, the sloping banks formed a protection against the breeze; it seemed an ideal position in which to pause and rest.

“Where,” Dane asked tentatively, “does one sit?”

“Wherever one can. On the least bumpy stone within reach,” Cassandra replied. She seated herself in illustration upon a boulder covered with a cushion of shaded moss, and immediately began snipping leaves from a shrub of scented verbena, the which she inhaled with languid enjoyment. “Just avoid stalks, and you are all right. Saxifrages like being sat on; they are even grateful if you stamp upon them with strong boots, so you need feel no scruples.” She held the lemon leaf poised in air, studying his face with curious eyes. “You are rather given to scruples, aren’t you? Your conscience is very active!”

“I’m afraid it is,” Dane said regretfully, as he in his turn selected an impromptu seat. “My people were all Friends, so it’s an inheritance. A Nonconformist conscience has a terrible persistence; there’s no living it down. It’s been a handicap to me many times, obtruding itself when it wasn’t wanted. One doesn’t seem to have much personal connection with one’s conscience. It seems so entirely independent of will, that there’s no kudos attached to having a lively one, or no blame if he’s quiescent. Mine happens to be of the persistent kind, and particularly long-lived. He was a worry to me in the nursery; he’s a worry to-day. I don’t think—” he paused for a moment, as if judicially weighing his words—“I don’t think I’ve ever been able to do wrong with any real satisfaction!”

They looked at each other and laughed, but Cassandra hastily lowered her eyes, affecting to bend over a further bed in search of a new fragrance. In reality she was afraid that her eyes might show the tenderness of her heart. The man’s expression as he looked at her had been so full of goodness and honesty that the hidden impulse had been to stretch out her own hand and touch his, to stroke it, and hold it close, and say such fond words as women will, when their hearts are touched. “You dear thing! You dear thing! what harm have you done? Your conscience may sit at ease!” ... With a fellow-woman one would have carried out the impulse, but convention forbade such sincerities between a man and a woman unconnected by blood. Convention decreed that genuine feeling should be disguised.

“Can’t you?” said Cassandra lightly. “Oh, I can! I sinned gloriously in short frocks, with never a thought of consequences. My chum sister was my partner in wickedness, we planned all our rebellions together, but when it came to the bit, she missed half the fun. I could bury everything in the joy of the moment, and forget there was such a thing as to-morrow... She had no sooner done the deed, than she began to be visited by qualms. I didn’t object as much as I might have done, for if the sin was edible—and it generally was.—there was so much the more left for me. She used to sit and shiver, and say: ‘Cass, you’ll be ill! What will Mother say?’ while I ate up her share.”

“And were you ill?”

“I forget,” said Cassandra, and looked at him with a rebel’s eyes. “But I ate my cake!”

Before he had time to answer, suddenly, impetuously she had sprung to her feet, and darted round a corner of the rockery to shelter behind a clump of shrubs. Peignton followed, alert but mystified, but the explanation came swiftly enough. From the raised path which curved through the park to the entrance of the house came a familiar whirr, and the next moment there sped into sight a large grey car carrying two men on the box, and within the tonneau one large, elderly dame. From the distance it was not possible to distinguish her face, but Cassandra recognised her all the same, and groaned aloud.

“Mrs Freune... from Bagton. What shall I do?”

“They’ll look for you?”

“She’ll make them. They’ll ask the gardeners. They’ll say I’m here.”

“Let’s run away!”

She looked at him and her eyes danced, but the instincts of hospitality put up a fight. “It’s a long drive! Twelve miles. She’ll want tea.”

“Does she stay long?”

“Hours. And talks politics into the bargain.”

“Lloyd George?”

“Yes. And the German Invasion. There’s no avoiding it.”

“But it’s a crime! On an afternoon like this, when the sun is shining... You can’t go...”

“She’s driven twelve miles.”

“Twelve miles in a good car! What’s that? She’ll enjoy her tea all the more for waiting... Couldn’t we—?”

Cassandra came a step nearer, her voice sank to the thrilling note in which of old she had concocted mischief in the schoolroom.

“Listen! ... there’s a summer-house near the north gate. It has a locked cupboard with things for tea. I keep them there for my especial use... If we ran down this path quickly... before she arrives—”

“We could have tea there together? For goodness’ sake, let’s fly!”

“But your conscience? The Nonconformist conscience? Are you sure you could enjoy—?”

“She’s your visitor, not mine. I have no scruples. Only give me the chance!”

“On your head be it!” cried Cassandra, and bending low, darted between the shrubs towards a winding path which led in the opposite direction from the house. Peignton followed with eager steps.

Chapter Eight.

The Skirts of Chance.

Now that Lent was over dinner parties came on with a rush, started, as was only discreet, with a state gathering at the Court, when the county was invited to welcome the bride. The Vicar and his wife were the sole representatives of Chumley proper, but Dane Peignton was in request, as an odd man is bound to be in the countryside.

“It will be deadly dull,” Cassandra had warned her friend, “but it has to be done. Brace up, and go through it bravely, and if you don’t like it you need never try again.”

“I won’t,” Grizel said frankly. “A duty is a duty, and has to be done whether you like it or not, but I choose my pleasures to suit myself. If I’m amused I’ll go,—if I’m not, all the saddles of mutton in the world won’t tempt me. It always amuses me to be with you, my dear, but judging from the specimens I’ve already seen, it’s a very, very heavy county. The women are heavy in the afternoon. I tremble to think of what they must be in the drawing-room after dinner. Could I do anything to jolt them up? Put on a black gown, or do a little skirt dancing, or tell stories? I could tell some awakening stories!”

But Cassandra shook her head and issued her orders.

“You are to wear your wedding dress, and behave yourself like a sweet young bride, and do credit to yourself, and to me, and to your husband’s books! When you go to Rome, do as the Romans do.”

When the night of the dinner arrived the sweet young bride repaired to her husband’s dressing-room en route from the bathroom to her own apartment, and squatted on the floor to watch him shave, with her white gown wrapped around a foam of lacey under-garments, and her white shoes kicked off on to the rug. She looked young, and fresh, and blooming, and brought with her a delicious odour of violets, and it appeared to afford her intense satisfaction to watch Martin lather his chin, and twist it from side to side for the convenience of the safety razor.

“Darling, you do look plain! I love you dreadfully when I see you shave. All that trouble to spare me a beard! ... Don’t cut yourself, like a precious. I do so object to bits of cotton-wool... Doesn’t it feel nice and married to have me sitting here, watching you, in my bare tootsies, and knowing that even the Vicaress herself could not object? She’ll be there to-night, you know. What will she wear?—A black satin, cut in a V, with a pendant of agate, and a cap with an aigrette. Dear thing! I must remember to enquire for the Mothers’ Meeting.”

Martin, his chin violently undulating, murmured a word which was evidently of a warning nature, but Grizel took no notice. Her hands were clasped round her knees, she was smiling, in a soft reflective fashion.

“No,” she said slowly, “no! this first year must be just for ourselves.—I am so thankful that Katrine is away and so happy, for our own sakes, as well as her own. I am thankful there are no other near relatives to trouble about. I don’t want Anyone to come between us this first year, not even—that! A year or two alone together we must have, and then,—we’ll pray for twins!”

Martin’s sureness of hand alone saved him from the necessity of cotton-wool. He turned round, smiling, lathered, twinkling with humour.

“Why be so greedy? Surely one—”

“No, no—two would be twice as nice. You get on so slowly with one at a time.” She bent her head still lower, so that her chin rested upon her knees; her golden eyes stared into space, her shoulders heaved with a regretful sigh. “No,” she said at last, “no! I suppose it would not do. Triplets are vulgar, but oh, Martin, think of it!—three ducks, all in a row, each with its long white tail, and its little ribbons round its wrists, and its little gold sovereign hanging round its neck... The Queen’s Bounty! And oh, Martin, think, think! what an advertisement for your books... It would be in all the papers. ‘Mrs Martin Beverley, wife of the well-known novelist, yesterday became the mother of three daughters. (They must be daughters!) Later enquiries at the house elicited the news that the mother and family were all doing well.’”

“Really, Grizel! really!” cried Martin, protesting. “You make me blush.”

“Oh, well!” Grizel sighed, and rose to her feet in one swift, astonishingly agile movement. “Bear up. There’s no use getting agitated before the time. It might be only twins!”

She strolled out of the room, and seating herself on the chair before her own mirror, gave herself into the hands of the waiting maid.

“Now then, Marie, make me look like a sweet young bride.”

Marie looked complacent. It was easy to obey that order, since her mistress was radiant with beauty and happiness, and there lay waiting on the bed a gown, which looked as if it had been blown straight out of a fairy tale for her adornment. The ordinary white satin was far too dull and substantial to have a place in its concoction. It was a mass of cobweb lace of extraordinary antiquity and frailness, mounted on a lining of silver gauze. The fine folds accentuated the reed-like slimness of Grizel’s figure, the misty indefiniteness of shading suited to a marvel the small face, with its white cheeks and amber eyes, that face which was at once so colourless, and so aglow. Marie looking at the reflection in the mirror, pushed aside the cases of jewels, and lifting a piece of tulle swathed it lightly round her mistress’ head, allowing one long end to flow down the back. It was unconventional, it was daring, but the effect was irresistible, and Marie stood aside heaving a sigh of triumph.

“No jewels. Only the gauze. In effect—a veil!”

So it came to pass that when Mr and Mrs Beverley made their entrance into the great drawing-room of the Court, there came to one and all of the assembled guests the impression of a creature half human, half fairy, poised midway between heaven and earth, aglow with that absolute, unshadowed happiness, which is seldom given to mortals to see or to enjoy. It was indeed the primitive note in Grizel’s temperament, which made such a condition possible. The least introspective of mortals, she accepted happiness as manna from heaven, throve on to-day’s supply, and confidently expected the morrow’s supply. The minor trials, which would have dimmed the rapture of another bride, pricked her for the moment, and were then cast aside, and dismissed from thought, as completely as though they had never existed. There were occasions when such abstraction brought about material contretemps, but of the mental lightening there could be no doubt.

Everyone in the room received the same impression of radiance as the bride entered, but on the different minds the impression acted differently. The Vicar’s wife, clad as had been foretold, in black satin and aigretted cap, but showing a pendant of cameo, instead of agate, on the discreet décolletage, felt a sudden unreasoning disposition towards tears, and the good man, her husband, breathed a mental “God keep her!” but the Hon. Mrs Mawson was distinctly shocked. She was the Evangelical magnate whose religion seemed largely to consist in disapproving of other people’s enjoyments, and the bride’s obtrusive happiness appeared to her as a deliberate “tempting of Providence.” Moreover, she disapproved of the costume as theatrical and unusual. Why not satin, like everybody else? And no jewels! The niece of Lady Griselda Dundas must possess jewels of price. Then why that bare neck? Mrs Mawson was wearing her own rubies, and took it as a personal slight that the bride had come to meet her unadorned.

Midway between the two extremes flowed the general verdict, but Grizel was blissfully unconscious of criticism. She went through the necessary greetings of acquaintances, among whom she was surprised to recognise Teresa Mallison, and then exchanged a few words with her hostess before leading the way to dinner on the Squire’s arm.

Cassandra looked as usual, both tired and vivid; she gave a caressing pressure to her friend’s elbow, and murmured softly:

“Exquisite. About eighteen! ... Talk hard, Grizel, for pity’s sake—talk hard! The atmosphere is freezing. At the last moment Mona Fenchurch sent a wire. Flue. I had to send for Teresa. She’s so good about filling gaps.”

“Oh, well!” Grizel said significantly. Of course Teresa was delighted to come, especially when by good luck it was Peignton’s predestined partner who had fallen out! She stood by his side now—flushed, silent, a trifle gauche, for it was something of an ordeal to meet the people who politely ignored her existence in the life of the neighbourhood. Grizel divined something of the cause of the girl’s embarrassment, and sent her a smile of beaming friendliness. Well! all had turned out for the best. Nobody wanted Mona Fenchurch for the pleasure of her company, and her absence had paved the way to a lovers’ meeting. Captain Peignton looked supremely content, and how sensible of the girl to stick to blue!

Teresa, however, was not at all self-congratulatory on the subject of her gown. If she had had a day’s notice,—even half a day, she could have dashed up to town, and equipped herself in something newer, and more worthy of the occasion. She was miserably conscious that the blue dress was past its freshness, and had already paid several visits to the Court.

The dinner which followed was lengthy and stately. It was also undeniably dull! At one end of the table Grizel chatted and leant her elbows on the table, and kept the Squire in complacent chuckles of laughter, but their gaiety, instead of spreading, seemed to throw into greater contrast the forced conversations of the other guests. With the exception of Teresa Mallison they were all elderly people, who had driven over many miles of country to perform a social duty, and neither expected nor received any pleasure in its execution. They all knew each other, met at intervals, and discoursed together on the same well-worn topics. Lady Rose talked garden, and was an expert on bulbs. Sir George Everley, her partner, described all bulbs vaguely as daffodils, lived simply and solely for “huntin’,” and would in all probability die for it another day. The Vicar’s partner lived for bridge, and his wife had fallen to the share of an old general who looked upon food and drink as the events of the moment, and had no intention of losing a good chance. Long years of dining out had made him an expert at the game of starting his partner on a hobby during an interval between courses, and then giving her her head until the next stop. “Well! and what is the latest good work in the parish, Mrs Evans, eh, what?” he enquired genially, as he waited the advent of fish, and then with the help of a, “Did you though? God bless my soul! Pine work! fine work!” he was left free to enjoy his fare, and make mental notes on the flavouring of the sauce, until such time as he had leisure to give Mrs Evans another lead on the vexed question of the choir.

Lord Kew sat on Cassandra’s left side, and threw depressed crumbs of conversation to his companion, the stout wife of the huntin’ squire. It was said of Lord Kew that he could not talk for five minutes together without bringing in the German invasion, and his conviction that England was galloping headlong to the dogs. He prophesied as much to the squire’s wife in less than the prescribed time, and she said that “something ought to be done,” and seizing on the word “dog” introduced to his notice her two pet Chows. From time to time also Cassandra helped her along with a few words, leaving Martin to make the acquaintance of his right-hand neighbour, who had heard of his books, and really must get them from the library. “Do you write under your own name?”

Teresa sat like a poker, still and silent, vouchsafing monosyllabic replies to the formalities of a county magnate, about whom she knew everything, but who had got it firmly impressed into his sluggish brain that she was someone else, and accordingly insisted upon referring to people and incidents of whom she had never heard. Now and then came a happy moment when Peignton gave her his attention, and smiled encouragement into her eyes, but he was working hard to rouse a chilly lady to animation, and even on occasion throwing an occasional bold challenge across the table, where a couple seemed settling down into permanent silence.

Teresa had the impression that Dane was putting aside his own amusement as something entirely subservient to the general good. It was almost as though he felt a responsibility, and was working for a reward. She never suspected that the reward came more than once in a glance from Cassandra’s eyes, and a smile of appreciation flashed down the length of table. Cassandra’s head and neck rose above the banked-up flowers, her cheeks were flushed, the stars of emeralds on her throat sent out green flames of light, she looked brilliant and beautiful, a fitting chatelaine for the stately old house, but it was not her beauty which appealed to Peignton’s heart; it was the subtle want which mysteriously he felt able to supply. He did not trouble himself to enquire into the nature of this strong mutual sympathy, for he was a practical man accustomed to do the next thing, and not trouble about the future.

To-night Cassandra was a hostess struggling with an unusually depressing set of guests, and he expended himself to help her. Looking up the length of table, Grizel’s face was like a flowering shrub in an avenue of cedars. Peignton looked at her and felt a pang of something like anger. She was content enough! She had everything she wanted. Things were cursedly unfair...

In the drawing-room Grizel as the bride was handed round for five-minute conversations, and being in an amiable mood exerted herself to be all things to all women. She talked “huntin’” and she talked bridge, she asked advice concerning her garden, she listened sweetly to details of May Meetings, and vouchsafed copious and entirely untrue descriptions of an author at home; only with the Vicar’s wife did she allow herself the privilege of being natural, and saying what she really meant.

Mrs Evans was elderly and stout, parochial and intensely proper. Grizel was young and unconventional to an extreme, yet beneath the dissimilarity there existed a sympathy between the two women which both divined, and both failed equally to understand.

Grizel knew that Mrs Evans’s brain viewed her with suspicion, but she was complacently aware that Mrs Evans’s heart was not in sympathy with her brain. Was it not exactly the same in her own case? Mentally she had pronounced the Vicar’s wife a parochial bore, the type of middle-aged orthodox, prudish woman whom her soul abhorred, but, as a matter of fact, she did not abhor her at all, for the eyes of the soul saw down beneath the stiffness and the propriety, and recognised a connecting link.

“If I were in trouble, I’d like to put my head down on her nice broad shoulder, and,—she’d like to have me there!”

“Well!” cried Grizel, sinking down in a soft little swirl of lace and silver by the side of the chair which held the portly black satin form, and resting one little hand on its arm with a gesture of half-caressing intimacy. “Well! Are the Mothers still meeting?”

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.

“Oh, Trissie... they are cross! Do you think they will ever forgive me?”

“Don’t be a rotter, Mary,” the younger sister cried scornfully. “I was thankful to hear you assert yourself at last. For goodness’ sake don’t give one bleat, and then relapse back into the old rut. Of course they are cross! What else did you expect? Did you expect them to be pleased? If you are going to break loose and lead an independent life you must be strong enough not to mind crossness.”

“Yes, but I can’t, and besides—father was sad! That’s worse than being cross. I felt miserable when he said that!”

“Well! he was right!” Teresa pronounced with characteristic certainty. “It was sneakish to go on pretending.—It wasn’t patience at all, it was sheer funk. It would have been better for you, and everyone concerned, if you’d spoken out years ago. You would have had more freedom, and mother would have been less of a bully.”

“It would have been better if I’d been born with a different disposition, a disposition which would have let me speak,” Mary said bitterly. “I am a coward, as you say, and nothing but a shock like this morning’s news could have wound me up to speak. It seems hard that people should have such different dispositions.”

“Humph!” Teresa mumbled vaguely. She was not interested in the difference of temperament; she was interested in Mary’s fortune, and how she was going to use it. She pushed aside her cup and plate, leant her arms on the table, and cupped her chin in her hands.

“Look here, Mary—what are you going to do?”

“I’m going away.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know! Anywhere. London. Paris. It doesn’t matter very much. I want just to be away from Chumley, and to be free. To go where I like, and do as I like.”

“Alone?”

Mary’s face twitched.

“I have no friends.”

“You have acquaintances. They would be glad... lots of people would be glad to go with you.”

“No! They are part of the old life. They would stare and take notes. They would write home and gossip. It would be no use going away—I should not escape. The old atmosphere would be round me all the time. I shall go alone.”

Teresa sat silent, striving to grasp the extraordinary idea of Mary on her own, Mary going forth into the world, staying in hotels, wandering about bustling streets, alone, always alone... There was something pathetic in the prospect which pierced even to the preoccupied, girlish heart. She frowned, and racked her brains for illuminating suggestions. Where could Mary go? What could Mary do? To stay alone in an hotel, with no occupation to help one through the aimless hours, would be desolation, yet the mental searchings brought no solution. Honestly, Teresa could not think of one thing outside the Chumley radius, in which Mary took a flicker of interest. In imagination she entered a great restaurant, heard the babble of voices, the flare of the band, and beheld in a corner the dun-coloured figure of Mary, seated in solitary state at a flower-decked table. She saw the other visitors stream forth to their various pleasures, and Mary creep silently up the stairs. She saw Mary’s face peering disconsolately through dusty panes.

Breed a bird in a cage, and rear it there, and at the age of maturity throw open the door. The bird will fly and as it flies it will sing. It has its moment of joy, but when the moments have passed into days, its lifeless body falls to the ground. Liberty may come too late.

Teresa looked at her sister with puzzled, unhappy eyes.

“Mary! I don’t like it. You ought not to go alone. Those big places can be so desolate. You see all the other people talking and laughing together, and feel like a pelican in the wilderness. What would you do from morning till night? Don’t think I’m hinting; I wouldn’t come with you if you asked me, because of Dane, but do take someone! If you go alone, you’ll be bored to death.”

Mary rose from the table, the precious envelope in her hand, and turned towards the door.

“Very well, then,” she said quietly, “I will be bored. But I’ll be bored in my own way.”

Chapter Fourteen.

A Sensation.

“I should like to ask Peignton and his fiancée to dinner,” Martin said, and Grizel nodded obediently, and said:

“Then we must have roast fowl! Roast fowl, I’ve discovered, is the fatted calf of the middle classes. Whenever I tell Cook that a friend is coming, she says: ‘A fowl, I suppose, mum. Three-and-three, or three-and-six?’ I always say three-and-three, and feel virtuous for the rest of the day. If it’s three-and-three, there’s just breast enough for ‘the room’; the extra threepence leaves a picking for the kitchen. Cook says it’s cheaper ‘in the end’ to give the three-and-six, but I take no notice. Sometimes I suspect the poulterer of a dark design, and believe that there’s no difference at all! The extra threepence is just a trap for the unwary. However! ... enough of these details. Certainly we’ll ask them if you wish it. And who else? We can’t contend with them alone all night long. I adore lovers in theory, but I object to feeling de trop in my own house. If we were a partie carrée they would expect me to have an important letter to write for the early post, and you to come with me to look over my shoulder. No, you don’t! We’ll have a crowd, and let them realise from the first that there’s no chance of a quiet moment. Who else?”

Martin deliberated.

“The Raynors? They’ve been fairly intimate...”

“Certainly not. I must reserve Cassandra to help me later on when we tackle the formidables. This shall be a lively, informal affair, got up in a hurry to wish them luck. Quite a short invitation, the shorter the better. Young people for choice—cheery, and fond of roast fowl. Mary Mallison for one.”

“Because she is young and cheery?”

“It doesn’t matter a bit. She is going to be asked,” maintained Grizel, with that characteristic inconsequence which she had the power to turn into the most charming of attributes. “She shall have the nicest partner, and the best place, and the merrythought all to herself. I’m so sorry for Mary Mallisons. There are such a horde of them, and nobody wants them, and they don’t want themselves, and it’s all so wrong and wasteful and piteous, and I never see one of them, and look into her poor, starved little face that I don’t say to myself with a shudder, ‘Suppose that was me?’”

Martin smiled at her adoringly.

“Oh! but it isn’t, and it never by any possibility could have been. Besides, don’t you think it’s their own fault? You were twenty-eight when we were married, and you had lived alone with a cross old aunt. You might easily have turned into a Mary Mallison yourself, if you had so little spirit as to allow yourself to be starved. Even if you had never married, can you imagine yourself sinking into a depth of apathy and indifference? There’s something contemptible about it. An unmarried woman has such wide possibilities. There is so much work waiting for her to do.”

“If she is allowed to do it! But what if there is a chain around her neck, in the shape of some relation who thinks that her work is to be an understudy at home? What would Mrs Mallison have to say to wide possibilities, while she wants a daughter to run messages and arrange the flowers? What would you have said in the days when you needed Katrine, if she had talked of her life’s work? Her work was obviously to darn your socks until such time as you found someone else whom you liked better, when—pouf!”—she snapped her fingers—“enough of Katrine! Let her go out into the wilds, and see what she can find!”

“Well! She very speedily found something that she liked better. Katrine was not a happy illustration, young woman! In your ever-present desire to be personal, you overlooked—”

“Exceptions prove the rule,” Grizel said stubbornly. “Besides, we were not discussing Katrine, we were discussing the roast-fowl dinner. Two Mallisons, the Hunters, Captain Peignton. Who else? We might as well make it up to ten while we are about it.”

Martin suggested the name of some young people whose parents had already entertained himself and his wife, and Grizel sighed, a long sigh of resignation.

“What shall we do with them afterwards?”

“Talk.”

“They can’t talk, bless you! Don’t know how.”

“Then you must talk to them.”

“I can’t. A dull dinner party pumps me dry, and I simply cannot stand desultory drawls for an hour on top of it. I get fidgets, and yawn,—heavens, how I yawn! It’s not a mite of use telling me not to. I must. If I swallow them down my nose swells, and my eyes fill. I look as if I had hay fever... Do you never get fidgets at a dull party?”

“Mental?”

“No. Physical. In your legs. Far worse! They won’t keep still. I’ve lived through some shocking hours.—I’d rather play puss-in-the-corner, than talk twaddle for an hour on end.”

“I should thoroughly enjoy seeing Mary Mallison playing puss-in-the-corner,” Martin declared, and beat a hasty retreat. Experience had proved that it was a colossal mistake to endeavour to change Grizel’s mind. The most convincing of arguments had no power to move her; while moral axioms sent her galloping headlong in the opposite direction to that in which she was directed; moreover, it was a waste of energy to essay the task, since her rebellions were but word deep, and the passage of a short half-hour was usually sufficient to disperse them, and restore her to her usual complacent radiance.

This morning the radiance returned at the prospect of Cook’s face when she heard of the impending trial. Grizel did not think of her own face as she sat at the head of her table awaiting the serving of dishes prepared by a good plain cook. She had seen that expression more than once of late on the faces of worthy Chumley hostesses. It was a compound expression, which included a smile, a determined animation of the eyes, and withal a pucker, a tightening, a tenseness of anxiety. For all their forced gaiety the eyes had a faraway expression; they were penetrating through dividing walls, peering into saucepans, anxiously regarding the preparation of sauce. Grizel had been quick to diagnose the symptoms, but her sympathy had been lacking. “Hang it all, it’s not her fault! She didn’t cook it!” had been the mental comment.

Cook, as had been expected, folded her arms and assumed an expression of acute resignation. “Ten did you say, ’Um? Twelve with yourselves. I’m not sure that the range... How many courses were you thinking of having?”

“Oh, dozens. As many as we can have. If we do it at all, Cook, we’ll do it well.”

“Clear soup?”

“We haven’t come to soup yet,” said Grizel cheerfully. “Lots of things before soup.”

“When I lived at the Robertses we were always giving dinners, but they studied me, as well as themselves,” Cook replied poignantly. “Soup, of course, and fish, but she got in the entrées, to give me a clear hand with the joint. Fowls mostly, or a saddle of mutton. The sweets were cold, and she got in the savouries, and sometimes an ice pudding. Then there was cheese straws, and dessert. She always said I managed very well.”

“You would do!” Grizel said. “Well, now you shall have a change. I won’t have anything at all like that...”

It was by this time easy to make a selection of guests, as every visitable house in Chumley had made its own individual effort towards entertaining the bride. Sometimes it was dinner, more often it was tea, and, as Grizel pathetically declared, not even a real tea, a tea where you could sit quietly in a comfortable chair, and gossip, and consume rich cake. A tea as enjoyed in Chumley was a strenuous affair, when guests were bidden from four to six, and were expected to rack their brains over a number of nerve-racking problems.

The first invitation of the sort that Grizel received was for a Kate Tea. She misread the first word for Cake, and thought it suitable, if a trifle ostentatious, but as she afterwards informed Cassandra, the awakening was rude.

“It was ‘Kate,’ my dear, not cake,—a wretched Kate that haunted us all afternoon. Did you realise that every second word in the English language ends with Kate? Well, it does! and Mrs Morley read out a story, and we had to fill in the gaps with Kate words. Kate had an untruthful nature and was given to prevari-Kate, so she got into trouble, and engaged an advo-Kate. See?”

Cassandra groaned.

“Don’t! Too awful. You’ll have dozens of these preposterous invitations if you once accept. Why do you go?”

“Ah!” Grizel looked thoughtful. “There was a prize.—I’d be bored for hours for the chance of gaining a prize. Why is it that the prospect of something for nothing has such a fatal lure? I might win a manicure set, or a shoe-horn, or a leather bag. I’ve thousands already; I wouldn’t know what to do with the blessed things, but I crave to win them! I racked my brains over that wretched Kate until I was quite exhausted, and came out next to the bottom. Next week there’s ‘A Florin Tea.’ What happens to a florin? Do they give us one all round? And a Photograph Tea after that. Everyone takes a photograph of herself as a baby, and you guess Who’s who. There’s going to be some scope for personal remarks. There is a Smelling Tea too, but I’m going to be ill for that. She means well, dear lady, and I accepted with pleasure, but I shall stay at home with more. I couldn’t respect myself going about smelling at little bags...”

“They tried the same sort of thing with me years ago, but I steadily refused, and now they have given me up. You’ll have no peace in Chumley, Grizel, if you let yourself in for these dreadful entertainments. You’ll be asked out to tea every afternoon of your life, to meet the same people, and sit in the same rooms, and hear the same little gossip over and over again.”

“But that makes them so keen to have me for a change!” Grizel said, laughing. “My dear, they adore me. I’m a succès fou. I wear different clothes wherever I go, and say all the maddest things that come into my head, and they hang on my every word. The Kate hostess nearly cried because I didn’t get the prize. She was trying to give me hints all the time. It was touching! And I was so stupid.”

Cassandra regarded her with a puzzled air.

“I believe you really enjoy it! And it’s so different from your old life, just as different as it was for me. I can’t think why you aren’t bored!”

“I’m never bored,” Grizel declared. “At least, not all at a time. It’s such a funny old world, and a bit of me is interested in everything that comes along. Besides, I adore kindness, even when it disguises itself in Kate teas, and the least I can do is to be agreeable in return. But I am thankful that I have you, Cassandra. I should be lost without one real friend, who speaks my own language.”

There was no procrastination in Grizel’s nature; what she had to do, must be done at once, if it were to be done at all. Straight from the kitchen she adjourned to the telephone, rang up Teresa to make sure of the guests of honour, and then proceeded to scribble half a dozen of the most informal of invitations for an unfashionably early date, which were despatched forthwith to the post. In an incredibly short space of time the answers were received, one and all accepting with pleasure, and Cook, divided between depression and elation, nerved herself to prepare the dinner of her life.