The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

II

There are certain days and festivals when every association of the heart confirms the truth of the old saying that any company is better than none. So felt Wantley and Cecily sitting down to their lonely Christmas dinner—or lunch, as Mr. Jenkins more genteelly put it—in the vast dining-room, where, as the same authority assured Cecily, 'fifty could sit down easy.'

Had these two not been at Marston Lydiate, they would now have been at the Settlement, Wantley doubtless grumbling, man-like, to himself because he was not spending Christmas Day alone, by his own fireside, with his own wife. But to-day even he felt the silence of the great house oppressive, and early in the afternoon he assented with eagerness to Cecily's proposal that they should walk down to the village and see the church where, as she reminded him, he had been baptized.

Mrs. Moss, the housekeeper, and Mr. Jenkins, the butler, standing together by the window in the butler's pantry—which was from their point of view most agreeably situated, for it commanded the entrance to the house—watched the young couple set off from under the portico.

They were talking together rather eagerly, Cecily flushed and smiling. 'It's easy to see they have not long been married,' said the housekeeper with a soft sigh. 'Still plenty to say, I expect.'

But young Lady Wantley was shaking her head, and as she and her husband passed on their way, within but a few feet of the window behind which stood the couple who were looking at them with such affectionate interest, she exclaimed rather loudly: 'Oh, Ludovic, how can you say such a thing! I don't agree with you at all!'

'Ho, ho, a tiff!' whispered Mr. Jenkins with gloomy satisfaction; but Mrs. Moss turned on him very sharply.

'Stuff and nonsense!' she said; 'that's only to show she's not his slave. Why, that girl Charlotte Pidder—her ladyship's lady's-maid I suppose she fancies herself to be, though, from what I can make out, she can't neither do hairdressing nor dressmaking—was telling me this morning that they fairly dote on one another. There now, look at them! There's a pretty sight for you!'

The walkers had come to a standstill, and Wantley taking his wife's hand, was trying to put it through his arm. 'I will not touch your sacred idol!' the eavesdroppers heard him say, 'In future I will always keep my real thoughts to myself.'

'Well, of all things! If the old lord could only hear them!' whispered Mrs. Moss, now really scandalized. 'It do seem a pity that such a nice young lady should be a Papist, and should try and make him a worshipper of idols, too.' And she turned away, for the two outside had quickened their steps, and were no longer within earshot.

Cecily was still indignant. 'I only wish,' she said, her voice trembling a little, 'that you were right and I wrong. If only Penelope would marry Mr. Winfrith, and live happy ever after——'

'I did not promise you that,' said Wantley mildly, 'though, mind you, I think she would have a better chance with him than with anyone else.'

'But why should she marry at all?' cried Cecily. 'I quite understand why her mother would like her to do so, but surely, after all that happened——'

Wantley shot a keen glance at his companion. 'Wonderful,' he murmured, 'the effect of even one night's good country air! You look much better, and even prettier, that you did yesterday.'

Cecily smiled. Praise from him always sounded very sweetly in her ear, but, 'No, no!' she said, 'I won't let you off! Tell me why Penelope is not to remain as she is if she wishes to do so?'

'There are a hundred reasons, with most of which I certainly shall not trouble you; but the best of them all is that, however much she wishes it, she will not be able to do so.'

'And pray, why not?' asked Cecily.

'If Winfrith doesn't succeed in carrying her off, someone infinitely less worthy certainly will, and then all our troubles will begin again. Don't you see—or is it, as I sometimes suspect, that you won't see?'—his voice suddenly grew grave—'that Penelope is never content, never even approximately happy, unless she is'—he hesitated, then went on, avoiding as he spoke the candid eyes lifted up to his in such eager, perplexed inquiry—'well, unless she has some man, or, better still, several men, in play? Now, that sort of game—oh! but I mean it: with her it has always been a game, and a game only becomes absorbing and exciting when there is present the element of danger—generally ends in disaster.'

Cecily walked on in silence. 'I admit there is some truth in what you say,' she said at last; 'but I am sure, sure, Ludovic, that you are wrong about Mr. Winfrith.'

Wantley looked at her thoughtfully. 'A bet, a little bet, my dearest, is a very good way of proving the faith that is in you. Here and now I propose that, if I prove right and you prove wrong after, let us say, two years——'

'Please—please,' she said, 'do not make a joke of this matter; it hurts me.'

'Forgive me,' he cried repentantly. 'I am rather light-headed to-day, and you know I always feel rather jealous of Penelope. After all that's come and gone, it's rather hard that she should take also my wife from me!'