II
Penelope checked the pony's inclination to gallop along the short, smooth piece of road which lay before them, and, when actually passing the large house which stood at the beginning of the village, she almost brought him to a standstill.
Cecily then saw that the blinds, bright red in colour, of the long row of upper windows—in fact, all those that could be seen above the high wall—were drawn down.
'Look well at that place,' said her companion suddenly, 'and I will tell you why David Winfrith never willingly passes by here when he is staying at Shagisham.'
Till that moment Mrs. Robinson had had no intention of telling Cecily anything about this place, or of Winfrith's connection with its solitary occupant, but she wished to escape from her own thoughts, to forget for a moment certain passages in a conversation, the memory of which distressed and shamed her.
To attain this end she went further on the road of betrayal, telling that which should not have been told. 'It's a very curious story,' she said, 'and David will never know that I have told it to you.'
As she spoke she shook the reins more loosely through her hand, and gave the pony his head.
'I must begin by telling you that Mrs. Winfrith, David's mother, was much younger than her husband, and in every way utterly unlike him. Before her marriage she had been something of a beauty, a spoilt, headstrong girl, engaged to some man of whom her people had not approved, and who finally jilted her. She came down here on a visit, met Mr. Winfrith, flirted with him, and finally married him. For a time all seemed to go very well: they had no children, and as he was very indulgent she often went away and stayed with her own people, who were rich and of the world worldly. It was from one of them, by the way—from a brother of hers, a diplomatist—that David got his nice little fortune. But at the time I am telling you of there was no thought of David. Not long after Mr. and Mrs. Winfrith's marriage, another couple came to Shagisham, and took Shagisham House, the place we have just passed. Their name was Mason, and they were very well off. But soon it became known that the wife was practically insane—in fact, that she had to have nurses and keepers. One of her crazes was that of having everything about her red; the furniture was all upholstered in bright-red silk, the woodwork was all painted red, and people even said she slept in red linen sheets! Mrs. Winfrith became quite intimate with these people. She was there constantly, and she was supposed to have a soothing effect on Mrs. Mason. In time—in fact, in a very short time—she showed her sympathy with the husband in the most practical manner, for one day they both disappeared from Shagisham together.'
'Together?' repeated Cecily, bewildered. 'How do you mean?'
'I mean'—Penelope was looking straight before her, urging the pony to go yet faster, although they were beginning to mount the interminable hill leading to Kingpole Farm—'I mean that Mrs. Winfrith ran away from her husband, and that Mr. Mason left his mad wife to take care of herself. Of course, as an actual fact, there were plenty of people to look after her, and I don't suppose she ever understood what had taken place. But you can imagine how the affair affected the neighbourhood, and the kind of insulting pity which was lavished on Mr. Winfrith. My father, who at that time only knew him slightly, tried to induce him to leave Shagisham, and even offered to get him another living. But he refused to stir, and so he and Mrs. Mason both stayed on here, while Mrs. Winfrith and Mr. Mason were heard of at intervals as being in Italy, apparently quite happy in each other's society, and quite unrepentant.'
'Poor Mr. Winfrith!' said Cecily slowly. But she was thinking of David, not of the placid old man who seemed so proud of his flowers and of his garden.
'Yes, indeed, poor Mr. Winfrith! But in a way the worst for him was yet to come. One winter day a lawyer's clerk came down to Shagisham House to tell the housekeeper and Mrs. Mason's attendants that their master was dead. He had died of typhoid fever at Pisa, leaving no will, and having made no arrangements either for his own wife, or for the lady who, in Italy, had of course passed as his wife. Well, Mr. Winfrith started off that same night for Pisa, and about a fortnight later he brought Mrs. Winfrith back to Shagisham.'
Penelope waited awhile, but Cecily made no comment.
'For a time,' Mrs. Robinson went on, 'I believe they lived like lepers. The farmers made it an excuse to drop coming to church, and only one woman belonging to their own class ever went near them.'
'I know who that was,' said Cecily, breaking her long silence—'at least, I think it must have been your mother.'
'Yes,' said Penelope, 'yes, it was my mother. How clever of you to guess! Mamma used to go and see her regularly. And one day, finding how unhappy the poor woman seemed to be, she asked my father to allow her to ask her to come and stay at Monk's Eype. Very characteristically, as I think, he let mamma have her way in the matter; but during Mrs. Winfrith's visit he himself went away, otherwise people might have thought that he had condoned her behaviour.'
She paused for a moment.
'Something so strange happened during that first stay of Mrs. Winfrith's at Monk's Eype. Mamma found out, or rather Mrs. Winfrith confided to her, that she had fallen in love, rather late in the day, with Mr. Winfrith, and that she could not bear the gentle, cold, distant way in which he treated her. Then mamma did what I have always thought was a very brave thing. She went over to Shagisham, all by herself, and spoke to him, telling him that if he had really forgiven his wife he ought to treat her differently.'
'And then?' asked Cecily.
'And then'—Penelope very shortly ended the story—'she—mamma, I mean—persuaded him to go away for six months with Mrs. Winfrith. They spent the time in America, where her brother was living as attaché to the British Legation. After that they came home, and about five years before I made my appearance, David was born.'
'And Mrs. Mason?' asked Cecily.
'Mrs. Mason has lived on all these years in the house we passed just now. I have myself seen her several times peeping out of one of the windows. She has a thin, rather clever-looking face, and long grey curls. She was probably out just now, for she takes a drive every afternoon; but she never leaves her closed carriage, and, though she can walk quite well, they have to carry her out to it. She is intensely interested in weddings and funerals, and, on the very rare occasions when there is anything of the sort going on at Shagisham, her carriage is always drawn up close to the gate of the churchyard. She was there the day Mrs. Winfrith was buried. My father, who came down from London to be present, was very much shocked, and thought someone ought to have told the coachman to drive on; but of course no one liked to do it, and so Mrs. Mason saw the last of the woman who had been her rival.'