Chapter Seventeen.
Realisation.
By nine o’clock in the evening the Swedish masseur had arrived, and begun his manipulations. He promised that his patient should walk by the end of five or six days, and at the Squire’s request agreed to put up at the Court for that period, giving several treatments a day. His fee made Peignton grimace, but he had to admit that it was cheap in comparison with weeks of inactivity. A telephone message brought a couple of bags filled with his clothes and toilette accessories, and he settled down to rest with the satisfaction of a man relieved from pain, and agreeably expectant of the future. Raynor was a good fellow; no one could have been kinder, and it certainly was a comfort to have the services of a trained man at this point, and to be housed in a big establishment, where there were possibilities of moving from room to room on the same floor, or even of being carried up and downstairs without feeling oneself too intolerable a burden. There were always two or three lazy fellows hanging about, who would be the better for using their muscles. Peignton gave a little shudder of distaste at the thought of the fluster which would have accompanied every movement, if he had accepted Mrs Mallison’s invitation to the Cottage. Teresa, dear girl! had offered to nurse him, but the thing was not possible. Convention would have forbidden her attending him in bed, and how the deuce was he to get up with no one to help? He wondered between a laugh and a groan, if Mrs Mallison would have offered motherly services! And then he thought of Cassandra, standing slim and straight, the little deer-like head turned over her shoulder, looking at him with questioning eyes. What a picture she had made! Thinking of it conjured up other pictures. He envisaged them one by one, as he lay in the darkness. Cassandra on the day of Grizel Beverley’s reception seated beside him in the closed car, the softness of chinchilla beneath her chin; Cassandra playing bridge, tapping the green baize with the long, lovely hand on which the emerald flashed; Cassandra at the church decorations standing with upraised arms against a background of leaves; Cassandra looking at him down the length of her own dining-table, the bare slimness of her throat rising above the bank of flowers. Each picture seemed more beautiful, more appealing than the last. He wondered dreamily what it was which formed this quality of appeal. Was it the touch of physical fragility which underlaid her bloom, or a finer spiritual need which called to a force within his own breast, a force which recognised the call! Always in Cassandra’s presence he had the consciousness of waiting for an opportunity to serve; always he had the consciousness of need. He told himself he would be a happier man if it were ever given to him to be of service to Cassandra Raynor.
And then, with a real tenderness, he thought of his fiancée,—the loving, kind-hearted woman-girl who was to be his wife. The mysterious glamour of a Lady Cassandra was far removed from the practical common sense of Teresa Mallison; but life was largely composed of the commonplace, and he knew that not once, but a hundred times over in the days to come, he would have cause to be thankful for a wife who could be a partner in deed as well as in name. He thought of Teresa’s voice as she said: “I should have liked to nurse you, Dane!” and felt a pang of remorse. He hoped he had not been inconsiderate. He hoped the dear girl was not hurt. He would write her a line in the morning and explain that... that really... Well, hang it! it was simple enough... There was only one spare room at the Cottage. Where could the masseur have slept? There were many adequate reasons for his choice which he could advance in a letter; now that he was quietly settled in bed they crowded into his mind, but looking back at the moment of decision, he knew he had acted from no definite reason, but simply from an overpowering desire. The chance of staying at the Court had been given him. It was not in him to refuse.
The next morning immediately after his treatment Peignton was wheeled into an upstairs sitting-room, where his couch was placed in a window affording a view of the terraced gardens. Cassandra came in dressed for driving, made a few arrangements for his comfort, and immediately disappeared; later on the Squire lounged in, smoked a pipe, and discussed items in the morning paper, and disappeared in his turn. By noon Dane was alone, and the hour and a half before luncheon hung heavily. Luncheon was served to him in his room,—a solitary repast, and the sense of disappointment grew when the table was cleared, and still no one appeared to bear him company. Books and papers galore were within reach, an electric bell would at any moment summon an attendant, but a man accustomed to an outdoor life soon wearies of reading, and as minute after minute ticked away, Peignton became conscious of an overpowering impatience. He threw down his book, seized the electric bell, and pressed his finger on the button. In less than two minutes a manservant appeared in the doorway. “Is the Squire in the house?”
“I am not sure, sir. I will enquire.”
“Ask him to come up, will you? Tell him I’m lonely.”
The man bowed, and retired. Five minutes passed, and the sound of light footsteps was heard from without; the door opened and Cassandra looked at him, smiling under raised brows.
“Not asleep?”
“Asleep! Why should I be asleep?”
“Invalids always sleep after lunch.”
“I’m not an invalid. I’m a well man tied by the leg. I don’t know how a real invalid feels, but I never was further off sleep in my life! I sent to ask the Squire to take pity on me. I’m so confoundedly tired of myself.”
“He is out, but Teresa will be here soon after four. I invited her to tea.”
Peignton looked at the clock, and his face fell.
“It’s only three. There’s an hour and more, before then.”
“Does that mean that you want—”
She stopped, smiling, and he answered with eager haste:
“Yes, please! Could you? You are not engaged?”
“Oh, no, I am very seldom engaged. I was in my boudoir working at my embroidery. I’ll have it brought in here.”
She disappeared, to come back a few minutes later followed by a maid carrying an oak stand, which she placed near the couch. The stand proved to be the latest improvement in embroidery frames, the stretched work being swung between upright wooden supports, which were connected at their base by a cross-beam, so as to do service as a footstool. The while Cassandra selected her chair and a small table for working materials, Peignton peered with awed curiosity at the work in process. He beheld what appeared at first sight to be a water-colour painting, the subject a Southern garden, wherein a marble balustrade was overhung by an orange tree in fruit. The distance showed a glimpse of a blue lake, against which three dark cypress trees were sharply outlined. Beside the balustrade walked the lady of the garden, a stately dame, in a robe of gold-embroidered brocade, ermine lined, and falling open over a petticoat of shimmering blue. Her hair was caught in a golden net, she carried in her arms a sheaf of lilies. On the ground by her feet fluttered a flock of pigeons.
Several parts of the background were unfinished, but enough had been done to give the effect of completion, and Peignton’s admiration and astonishment were equally great. It was the first example of needlework painting which he had seen, and he was full of interest, craning forward on his seat to watch, while Cassandra seated herself, placed her feet on the cross-board, and tilting the frame to the right angle, plied her silks in quick, sure stitches, holding the right hand above, and the other beneath the frame. She was completing a corner of the under-dress, and she showed him how, to gain the desired shot effect, she had twisted together half-threads of green and blue.
“It is the most difficult thing in the world to get silks that are indefinite enough to work the little odd bits,” she explained. “You can get every colour—exquisite colours, but they are so clear, and strong, and new, and unpicturesque! I have to take refuge in all sorts of dodges. I dip the white silks in tea, and coffee, to take off the glare; and the greys in ink, to make them cloudy, and the rose and blue in acids to tone them down into an old-world softness. Sometimes I dye one end of a skein, and leave the other untouched; that gives quite a good effect. I’m always on the look out for old silks, but they are difficult to find, and the ordinary fancy-work emporium-keeper has not awakened to the needs of pictures. When I asked one the other day for a colour to work an old brick wall, she gaped at me as if I were mad. However, with cunning and ingenuity, I have managed to collect quite a useful selection...”
“You don’t—excuse me! treat them with much consideration, now that you have got them,” Peignton said, lifting a tangled mass of colour from the table, and smoothing it with careful fingers. “I remember my mother doing crewel-work in the days of my youth, and having each separate shade run through a kind of tunnel business in a roll of linen. You pulled a thread from the roll, and—there you were! They never grew matted into balls.”
“Ah, yes! My mother did too, but—excuse me, they lacked the real artistic temperament. People with real artistic temperaments invariably tangle their silks, if only for the joy of seeing the glorious mass of colour they make matted together. Of course, if they chance to possess an idle friend, whose hands are itching for work—”
“May I? Oh, that’s splendid. I have a passion for unravelling string. This will keep me quiet for quite a long time. Tell me what colour you want next, and I’ll coax him out!”
“Green; blue. A strand of each. If you like to experiment you can try untwisting them, and mixing the shades.”
Cassandra stitched on, a smile on her lips, but Dane, having extracted the desired threads with unexpected ease, was too much engrossed in watching to make any further effort on his own account. The graceful, wholly feminine pose was another picture to add to the mental gallery. His eyes followed the sweep of the right hand, and he said involuntarily:
“That’s a beautiful ring! I noticed it the first time I played bridge with you. I’ve never seen you without it. It’s the most beautiful ring I have ever seen.”
She stayed her work to turn her hand and look at the ring with a scrutinising glance. “Yes; it’s a good stone. I like it too. It was my mother’s,” she said calmly. There was no consciousness in her face of the beauty of the hand itself. The thoughtful look was the result of a puzzling question. As Peignton’s admiration for emeralds was so great, why had he not given one to his fiancée instead of the orthodox row of diamonds? As though one personal remark called forth another, she turned suddenly to him and asked, “How did you fall yesterday? Everyone told a different tale. Were you really climbing over the rockery?”
“I was. I’m afraid I did some damage to the bulbs as well as myself, but you had told me that the saxifrages were partial to boots. I thought I was perfectly safe. I was, until by bad luck I stepped on to one of those big—er—”
“Clinkers?”
“Clinkers—yes! that’s it, and it rolled over and brought me with it, with my foot twisted beneath me.”
“It had probably been put in this year. The old, moss-covered stones are safe enough. I’m sorry if I misled you. What did you want to do?”
To her surprise the colour rose in his cheeks. He took up the tangled silks and smoothed them out with elaborate precaution.
“I wanted a sprig of that sweet stuff for my coat. The sweet stuff you wore the afternoon we ran away.”
There was a tone in his voice which quickened the beat of Cassandra’s heart, but she shrugged her shoulders with an affectation of resignation.
“You are determined to put the blame on me! By your own account I seem to have lured you on by both precept and example. What would men do without the poor women to carry the blame? Bernard is never really consoled about any mishap until he has traced its origin back to me. It’s difficult sometimes when it’s some matter connected with the land, about which I know nothing, but he had a bright inspiration about that one day, and declared that things had gone wrong because I didn’t interest myself! If I had taken an interest, the deal would have been a success! I used to defend myself at one time. Now I don’t. I know that one of the ways I can help him is by letting him work off his irritation by blaming someone else. In his heart he knows perfectly well that he is talking nonsense. At least, I suppose he does! I always know when I’m deceiving myself.”
The blood rushed to her face as she finished speaking, for an inner voice seemed to jeer at the spoken words, to laugh with a saturnine unbelief. She hurried breathlessly on: “In your case, I do really seem to blame. I did mislead you. I was in a truant mood that afternoon, and forgot my responsibilities. You must forgive me, and let me do all I can to help your convalescence.”
“Thanks,” Peignton said absently. He sighed with profound regret. “That summer-house is so far away. I shan’t be able to get so far. I should have enjoyed another tea. What about the Bath chair?”
Cassandra shook her head.
“That summer-house is my own special property. I admit a friend on occasion, but never more than one. I even put up with tinned milk, rather than let the household know where I disappear for so many of the missing teas. If one of the men wheeled your chair for you, there would be no more chance of running away.”
Peignton’s look showed a latent jealousy.
“Whom have you taken there besides myself?”
“Not many. One or two only, until the last months. Then—pretty often—Mrs Beverley.”
The jealousy was still to the fore.
“You are very devoted to Mrs Beverley?”
“I’m thankful to say, I am! I needed a woman friend, and we were friends at once. There were no preliminary stages. At our second meeting it seemed absurd to address each other by formal titles. I knew her better at that early stage, than many of the women who have been my neighbours for years.”
“I should have thought,” Peignton said slowly, “that at this period of her existence Mrs Beverley was too much engrossed with her man to have any interest to spare for an outside friendship.”
The latent grudge sounded in his voice. Cassandra discerned it, and turned upon him with a smile. Without troubling to think why or wherefore, she knew that he was jealous of her intimacy with Grizel, and the knowledge was balm to her soul.
“I’ll tell you a secret!” she said, stopping her work to emphasise her words with uplifted finger. “No man can altogether engross a woman! However good, and fine, and tender he may be, there’s still a need within her that only a woman can fill. The happiest married woman needs a woman friend. The better the husband, the more she needs her. A good man is so aggravatingly free from littlenesses. He objects to grumbling; he makes the best of misfortunes; he refuses to repeat gossip; he has a tiresome habit of imagining that his wife means everything she says. If a woman is to endure a good husband with any resignation, she must have another woman near by with whom she can let herself go!”
They laughed together, and Cassandra stretched out her hand for the silks which Dane was smoothing between his palms. Just for a moment the two hands touched, but after that moment there followed a pause of mutual self-consciousness. Cassandra bent her head, unwinding and re-winding her silks with careful deliberation. Dane played with the tangled ball, longing, yet not daring to ask what shade would be next required. He looked with distaste upon the two separate threads; wondering how long they would take to work. When Cassandra spoke again, she surprised him by a personal question:
“How soon are you to be married, Captain Peignton?”
For a moment he stared in surprise. Then he laughed.
“Apropos of good husbands?”
“I was not thinking of the connection, but let us hope it is apropos. Soon, I suppose? Men are generally impatient.”
“Are they?” He knit his brows, and appeared to consider the subject. “I don’t know that I am impatient. Being engaged is quite a pleasant condition. It’s an opportunity of getting thoroughly acquainted. It doesn’t seem fair on the girl to rush her into a hasty marriage. And in the meantime I have no settled home. I could leave the Moat at any time, if there were a sufficient reason, but Paley will be home in autumn. I should like to stay on until his return. It has fitted in very well for me having the run of the place while he is away, and I don’t want to make a convenience of him. He wants me to put up at the Moat over Christmas, and have some hunting, and then, if I can find it, I’d like a small agency just to add the jam to my own bread. Perhaps next spring...”
A year from now! Cassandra was conscious of mingled dismay and relief. A year more of friendship and understanding; a year more of unrest. For her own sake she could not decide whether she were glad or regretful, but she thought of Mrs Mallison and the pile of catalogues on a table when she had paid her visit of congratulation, and from her heart she was sorry for Teresa.
“I was engaged for six weeks,” she said, shrugging, and Dane opened his lips eagerly, choked back the coming words, and mumbled a conventional astonishment. She longed to know what he had been about to say!
For the next half-hour Cassandra stitched steadily at the under-robe of the pictured dame, but Peignton had not another chance of feeling the electric thrill of contact as his fingers met hers. She declared that he ruffled the surface of the silks, and insisted upon unravelling for herself.
At half-past four a manservant announced Teresa’s arrival. She had been shown into the drawing-room, and Cassandra rose to go to her, gathering her work materials together on the table. Peignton’s eyes were wistful as they followed her movements; again she had the impression that he was on the point of speaking some eager words, but again he checked himself, and was silent.
“I will bring Teresa up to you,” she said quickly. “You will enjoy a talk with her before tea.”
At five o’clock tea was carried into the Den, and the Squire and Cassandra came in to share in the meal. They found Teresa sitting close to the couch, in a somewhat aggressive attitude of possession. She had less colour than usual, and her eyes looked tired, and Peignton’s first words concerned her health.
“This girl has no business to be out,” he said kindly. “She is quite hoarse and wheezy. I tell her she is a dozen times worse than I am. I’m afraid she has taken a chill.”
“Oh, Teresa, don’t be ill after my bulb party!” Cassandra entreated. “Every year I have a batch of colds on my conscience, and this year there is an ankle thrown in. I’ll order the car for you later on, and you must take half a dozen remedies to-night, to nip it in the bud.”
“It’s no use,” Teresa said gloomily. “All the remedies in the world won’t stop my colds when they once get a start. They begin on my chest, and work steadily up to my head, and I’m fit for nothing but a desert island for a week or ten days. I came out to-day because I knew it would be my last chance. I shall be worse for it, of course; but I don’t care. I had to see Dane.”
“Well!” cried Peignton with an air of imparting solace, “if you are going to drive home there is no need to hurry. Now that the Squire is in and we are a four, what about a game of bridge?”
“Well thought of! So we will! Good idea!” cried the Squire heartily.
Teresa smiled; a thin, artificial smile.
At seven o’clock Cassandra wrapped her visitor in a warm coat, and walked beside her down the staircase. During the pauses of the game the wheezing of which Dane had spoken had been distinctly audible, and there was no doubt that the girl was in the initial stage of a chest cold. She was low-spirited too, impatient with the contrariety of fate.
“Just my luck!” she said crossly. “Now, of all times, when Dane has this tiresome ankle, and needs me to cheer him up. A man hates sitting still, and of course you have a hundred engagements. If he’d been with us, I could have amused him all day long.”
“It wouldn’t have been very amusing for him, if you had been in bed with an attack of bronchitis! It is hard luck, Teresa. But you must nurse yourself, and get better quickly. Captain Peignton will soon be able to come to see you. Till then, I’ll do everything I can.”
“Oh, I know you will. Of course. You are most awfully kind. But still!” cried Teresa eloquently.
Cassandra went back to her boudoir, and stood face to face with her own thoughts. What a complex thing was human nature; how many separate selves went up to make a whole! One part of her was sorry, quite honestly and unfeignedly sorry for Teresa, in that she was debarred from ministering to her lover during his confinement; another part rejoiced with a ruthless joy. For three or four days out of a lifetime, fate had decreed that Dane should be left in her own charge, dependent upon her for society. She clutched at her chance with greedy hands.
“They are all I shall have. I shall have to live on them all my life,” Cassandra said in her heart. Then her lips trembled, and she spoke aloud in a low, trembling voice. “I suppose I love him. I suppose that’s what it means.—I know I love him! Oh, Teresa, it won’t hurt you to spare him to me for just four days!”