The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

I

After her return from Kingpole Farm that night of stress and storm, Penelope felt strangely, terribly forlorn. Those about her seemed changed. She gradually became aware that she was being watched, considered anxiously, by her mother, by Wantley, even by Miss Wake. Cecily alone among them seemed as she had always been, but even she, or so Mrs. Robinson suspected, had gone through some experience which she was keeping secret from the woman who knew herself so well and loyally loved by her.

As the time grew near when Miss Wake and her niece were to go back to town, leaving Penelope alone with her mother and with her cousin, there came over Mrs. Robinson an overmastering desire to recall Downing to Monk's Eype; she longed for the protection which would be afforded her by his presence. She also wished him to confirm her in the conviction that the time had come when Lady Wantley should be told of what they were about to do.

For the first time the gravity, the irrevocable nature, of the step she was taking came home to Penelope's mind, to her heart—especially after her agonizing interview with Winfrith—and even to her conscience, for she acknowledged a duty to her mother.

During these days of suspense Mrs. Robinson became 'gey ill to live with,' and the two who suffered most from her moods were Mrs. Mote and Cecily Wake. Penelope half suspected her old nurse of treachery, and sometimes she would give her a peculiar, and Motey felt it to be also a terrible, look. The old servant was a brave woman, but during that time of silent, fearful waiting her spirit often quailed, and she sometimes bitterly regretted having spoken to Lady Wantley.

To Cecily her friend's capricious moods were a source of pained bewilderment. Penelope no longer drew, no longer painted, no longer, indeed, did anything but walk and drive. She seemed to have a fear of solitude, and yet the girl was the only companion whom she tolerated.

Sometimes the two would drive in the broad, low pony-cart for hours, with scarce a word said on either side. At other times Mrs. Robinson would talk with her wonted impetuosity and sharp decision of many things and people of moment to Cecily. She would refer to her brief married life at the Settlement, even to her childhood and David Winfrith. Then would come bitter, slighting words concerning those whom the speaker knew to be dear to her listener, sarcastic references to enthusiastic Philip Hammond and large-minded, kindly Mrs. Pomfret; even—then Cecily Wake's heart would whisper that this was surely cruel—her cousin Wantley would be ruthlessly dissected, and his foibles held up to scorn.

There would come moments when Penelope again was kind, when she would say a word implying that Cecily Wake was her best, her most intimate, friend; but this was now often followed by a sentence which seemed to tell of an approaching break in their friendship, of coming separation.

Soon the two, the woman and the girl, were at utter variance the one with the other, and Cecily suffered almost as keenly as did Penelope. It seemed to her only too clear that Mrs. Robinson grudged her, and disapproved of, Wantley's love. What else could mean her strange, obliquely stabbing phrases?

Cecily's mind often reverted to that most moving, sacred hour when Wantley had given her his mother's pearls, when he had told her, dryly and yet tenderly, of how truly he loved her. He had said—she remembered the words, and, so remembering, often let her eyes fall before those of her friend—'Unless you particularly wish to do so, I should prefer that you say nothing—just now, at once—to Penelope. Wait till I have spoken to your aunt, till we are both in London, till we are ready to tell all the world.' And, of course, she had assented, while yet feeling sure of Mrs. Robinson's real sympathy.

But now Cecily felt sure no longer, and over her heart there came something very like despair. How could she, Cecily Wake, who owed so much—nay, her very acquaintance with Wantley—to Penelope, go against her in so serious a matter? Cecily had retained the clear conscience, free of all casuistry, of a child. She knew that she loved Wantley with all her heart, that her feeling for him was no longer under her own control; but she also knew that she could never marry him in direct opposition to the wishes of the one human being to whom she regarded herself as indebted for all which made life worth living.

And so her happiness became quite overshadowed with misgivings and hesitations, of which she said nothing to her lover.

This reticence was made easy by Wantley's own conduct. With a punctiliousness which did him honour, he scorned to take any advantage of their hidden understanding. For many reasons he had preferred that their formal engagement should take place, and be publicly announced, in London. Meanwhile, he felt infinitely content, and in no haste to provoke the elder Miss Wake's tremulous, incredulous satisfaction, or to receive his cousin's ironical congratulations.

There are moments in almost every life when a man feels himself lifted far above his usual plane of thought and feeling, when he knows he is happily adrift from familiar moorings.

Such a moment had now come to Wantley. He would ask himself, with a certain exultation of heart, whether it were possible that a time could come when he would feel any nearer, ever more intimately linked, to his beloved, to this young and still mysterious creature, the tips of whose fingers he had not even kissed, and who, as he well knew, and was glad to know, lived in a spiritual sense in a world so far removed from that in which he had always dwelt.

He trembled at his own good fortune, and would fain have propitiated that sportive Fate which lies in wait for those to whom Providence has been too kind. So feeling, he told himself that he should not grudge Penelope the present companionship of Cecily. He divined something of his cousin's unhappiness and unrest, though far from suspecting their intensity, and so the gradual shadowing of Cecily's face was attributed by him to her hourly contact with one who was obviously ill at ease and sick at heart.

On the last day of Theresa Wake's stay at Monk's Eype, Mrs. Robinson quite unexpectedly and most capriciously, or so it seemed to the older lady, expressed a sudden wish that the aunt and niece should stay on for another two or three days.

So eager was Penelope to compass the matter that she actually sought out Miss Wake in the early morning before she was up and dressed. 'Pray, Cousin Theresa, stay on a little longer! Do not go to-morrow. This is the sixth—stay on till the ninth. We are all leaving on Saturday.' She added, after a scarcely perceptible pause: 'Sir George Downing is coming back to-day.'

But Miss Wake's answer was very decided, and not very gracious in expression. Was it fancy that made Mrs. Robinson feel that the few words were uttered very coldly? 'No; we cannot alter our plans at this late hour, Mrs. Pomfret is expecting Cecily back to-morrow evening. We must certainly leave in the morning, and you will be able to spare us very well.'