4
“What a brute,” said Blanche when the procession had passed on down the hill towards Wycombe.
“How he stared at my hair,” said Millie, with a giggle. “I did try to get it up, but it’s that stubborn with the heat or something.”
“Lucky for us he had that creature with him,” commented Blanche.
Millie assented without fervour. She was bold enough now the danger had passed.
Mrs Isaacson looked from one to the other and attempted no criticism of the adventure.
“You must let me do up your beautiful hair,” she said to the simpering Millie.
Millie was grateful. “It is kind of you, Mrs Isaacson, I’m sure,” she said. “My hair is a trouble. I sometimes think I’ll cut it all off and be done with it....”
She appeared excited and chatted incessantly while the hair-dressing continued, and Blanche restored the remains of their meal to the trolly.
With some difficulty they succeeded in getting Mrs Gosling back into her carriage. She had taken no notice of the procession, but as they were starting again she awoke from her abstraction to ask: “When d’you expect we’ll be ’ome, Blanche? I’ve been thinkin’ about them curtains in the drawin’-room....”
“We’ll be home in an hour or two, now,” Blanche said, reassuringly. She did not know what a struggle awaited them before they should top the hill at Handy Cross.
Mrs Isaacson had forsaken her place at the pole. “I shall be able to push more strongly behind,” she had said, but despite the theoretical gain in mechanical advantage obtained by the new arrangement, the hill seemed never-ending. They had to rest continually, and always they looked with increasing irritation at the quiet figure in the trolly, chief cause of their distress.
“I believe she could walk all right,” Millie broke out at last.
“If it was for a little way, it would help,” commented Mrs Isaacson.
But when Blanche put the proposition to her mother, Mrs Gosling seemed unable to comprehend it, and pity influenced them to renew the struggle.
So they toiled on with growing impatience until they reached level ground again; and presently, looking down over the long slope of the valley, saw, two miles and a half away, the spire of Marlow Church.
They rested under a hedge for a time, and when they started again Millie followed her sister’s example and discarded her hat. Blanche, with a certain courage of opinion, had left hers under the walls of Wycombe Abbey, but Millie’s hat found a place in the trolly.
The ease of the long descent permitted a renewal of conversation, and Mrs Isaacson and Millie talked in undertones as they made their way down towards Marlow. Blanche took little notice of them; she was struggling perplexedly with the problems of life. Mrs Gosling’s presence was negligible.
“That was a very handsome fellow in the carriage,” remarked Mrs Isaacson suddenly, “I think you do well not to go near that place again.” Her fine eyes fixedly regarded the broad, rusty back of Mrs Gosling and the broken ribs of her umbrella.
Millie simpered. “Oh! I should be safe enough. His wife’d see to that.”
“She was not his wife,” returned Mrs Isaacson. “Men would not marry now that they are so few.”
“Well! there’s a thing to say!” exclaimed Millie on a note of expostulation, interested nevertheless.
“It iss true,” continued Mrs Isaacson. “I haf heard of this handsome young fellow. He iss a butcher, and he goes every day to kill the sheep and cows, because the women do not like that work. And he iss very strong, and clever also. He teach a few of the women how to cut up the sheep and the cows. And he iss much admired, it iss of course, by all the young women; but he does not marry because he is one man among so many women, and it would not be right that he should love only one, for so there would be so few children and the world would die. Yes! But he has for a time one who iss favourite, for another time another favourite. And that iss why I warn you not to return. Because I see that he admire your so beautiful hair. And I see that if you had not been so modest and so good, and hide behind your sister, he would have come down from his carriage and put you up there beside him. And he would have said to that bold ugly woman. ‘Go, I tire of you, I will haf beside me this one who iss young and beautiful and has hair of gold.’ It iss not safe for you, there.”
“Oh! I say,” commented Millie.
“It iss true,” nodded Mrs Isaacson, with intensest conviction.
“Oh! well, thank goodness, I’m not one of that sort,” said Millie, warm in the knowledge of her virtue.
“Truly not,” assented Mrs Isaacson. “You must not be displeased that I warn you. It iss not your goodness that I doubt. It iss that this man iss so powerful. He iss able to do what he wishes. He iss a king.”
“Goody!” was the mark of surprise with which Millie punctuated this remarkable piece of information, and for several yards they trudged on in silence.
But Millie soon revived this fascinating subject by saying thoughtfully, “Well, you don’t catch me over there again.”
“Truly not. It iss not wise,” agreed Mrs Isaacson, and proceeded to enlarge upon Millie’s dangerous beauty.
It was a topic entirely new to Millie. She simpered and giggled, disclaimed her attractions, protested that Mrs Isaacson was “getting at” her, and became so absorbed in the fascination of her disavowal that she forgot her weariness, her tender feet—naked to the road in two places—and all her discouragements. She walked with a more conscious air, straightening her back and lifting her head. The blood moved more freely in her veins, and she presently became so vivacious in her replies that Blanche was aroused to a sense of something unfamiliar. She checked the trolly and looked back at her sister, past the quiet brooding figure of Mrs Gosling.
“What is it, Mill?” she asked.
“Oh! nothing!” replied Millie. “We were just talking.”
“Seem to be enjoying yourselves,” said Blanche.
“We were saying that we shall soon now arrive at some place where we can rest. Yes?” put in Mrs Isaacson, and thus established a ground of confidence between herself and Millie.
“P’raps. I dunno!” returned Blanche. She sighed and looked round her.
In the fields between them and Marlow they could see here and there little figures stooping and straightening.
“Ooh!” exclaimed Millie, suddenly.
“What?” asked Blanche.
“There’s another man,” said Millie, pointing. “We’d better scoot!”
But they made no attempt to put such an impossible plan into action. The man had evidently seen them. He was coming towards them across one of the fields, shouting to attract their attention. “Hi! wait a minute!” they thought he was saying.
“Mill!” exclaimed Blanche, with extraordinary emphasis.
“What?” asked Millie, nervously. She was flushed and trembling.
“Do you see who it is?”
“It isn’t the one out of the carriage....” hesitated Millie.
“No! Silly. It’s that young fellow who used to live with us, our Mr Fastidious. What was his name? Thrale! You remember.”
“Goody!” said Millie. She was conscious of a quite inexplicable feeling of disappointment.
“He iss a friend? Yes?” asked Mrs Isaacson.