Chapter Sixteen.
A Willing Captive.
The bulb party pursued its inevitable course. The guests arrived in little groups of three and and four, entered the house at the front and made their painful way along highly polished corridors, to a door leading on to the terrace, where Cassandra stood waiting to receive them. Here it was the orthodox thing to intercept greetings with ejaculatory exclamations of admiration at the beauty of the floral display, which being done the visitors descended the stone steps, and roamed to and fro, picking up other friends en route. At times the pitiful sun shone out, and then the Chumley matrons unloosed the feather boas which were an inevitable accessory of their toilettes, and confided in one another that it was “quite balmy,” and anon it retired behind a cloud, and gave place to an east wind which came whirling round unexpected comers, sharp and keen as a knife. Then the matrons thought wistfully of the bountifully spread tea tables which they had discerned through the windows on the terrace, and consulted watch bracelets to see how soon they could hope for relief. There were at least ten women present to every man, and entirely feminine groups were to be seen wandering round from one garden to another, for an hour on end, growing ever chillier and more pinched, yet laboriously keeping up an air of enjoyment.
Grizel Beverley was the latest guest to appear, having made a compromise with the weather by donning a white dress with a bodice so diaphanous that Martin had informed her he could see her “thoughts,” the which she had covered with a sable coat. When the sun shone, she threw open the coat, and looked a very incarnation of spring, so white and lacy and daintily exquisite, that coloured costumes became prosaic in contrast. When the wind blew, she turned up her big storm collar and peered out between the upstanding points, so snug and smooth and unwrinkled that the pinched faces above the feather boas appeared doubly wan and miserable. Feminine Chumley felt it a little hard to be beaten in both events, but bore it the more complacently since it was the bride who was the victor. There was no doubt about it,—Grizel was a success, and already, after but a few months’ residence, Chumley was at her feet. She was sometimes “shocking,” of course, but as she herself had predicted, the sober townspeople took a fearsome pleasure in her extravagances. They were as a dash of cayenne, which lent a flavour to the fare of daily life. Moreover, though welcomed with open arms by the county, Grizel was on most intimate terms with the town. Invitations to afternoon festivities received unfailing acceptance; she made extensive toilettes in honour of the occasion, ate appreciative teas, and groaned aloud when she failed to win a prize of the value of half a crown. Anything more “pleasant” could not be imagined!
In the more serious rôle of parish work also, Grizel had made her début. The Mothers’ Meeting was still waiting time, but one afternoon she had slipped a little gold thimble and a pair of scissors with mother-of-pearl handles into a vanity-bag, and taken her way to a Dorcas meeting at the Vicarage, agreeably expectant of adding a new experience to life.
The Dorcas meeting was held in the dining-room of the Vicarage, on the long table of which lay formidable piles of calico and flannel. At a second small table the churchwarden’s wife turned the handle of a particularly unmelodious sewing machine. Over a dozen women sat round the room still wearing their bonnets, but denuded of coats and mantles, and balancing upon their knees some future garment for the poor, at which they sewed with long, rhythmic stitches. They were assembled together in a holy cause, and under the more or less holy roof of the Vicar himself, yet the observant eye could have discerned as much hidden worldliness in that room as in the most fashionable assembly. At a Dorcas meeting everyone was welcome, the wives of tradesmen as well as representatives of the professional and learned classes. It was difficult to keep up the numbers, and since social engagements were less frequent in the former class, its members were able to give more regular attendance. The grocer’s wife was a cutter-out with whom no other member could compete. She stood at one end of the long table with a length of calico spread out before her, and a pair of gigantic scissors in her hand. As she cut still further and further into the material, she leant forward over the table, and automatically her left leg swung out,—a stout, merino-stockinged leg, terminating in a laced leather boot. All the members came to her for instructions, and all of them were agreeable and friendly in manner, but when the cutting process was over, she retired to a corner of the room where were congregated a few of her own friends. The two classes never mixed.
Grizel took the work presented to her,—a full-sized garment of mysterious intent,—and glanced in questioning fashion round the room. The tradesmen’s wives who had been eagerly drinking in the details of her costume, immediately lowered their eyes to their seams, but from every other face beamed a message of invitation. Grizel beamed back, but continued her scrutiny, till finally in the furthermost corner she discovered the figure of that lonely parishioner who was neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring,—Miss Bruce, the retired plumber’s daughter, to whom she had introduced herself at the church decorations. She waved her bag with a smile of recognition, and carried a chair to the corner.
It was not the first time that Chumley had noticed the extraordinary intimacy between Mrs Martin Beverley and “poor Miss Bruce.” They had been seen driving together in the country; Grizel’s car—a wedding present from one of the relatives who had benefited by her marriage—had been observed more than once waiting outside the cottage with the green porch, and the little maid had divulged consequentially that the lady “dropped in now and then, to play cribbage with the missis.” The Chumley matrons were not in the least inclined to follow the lead, and call upon the plumber’s daughter, neither, to tell the truth, did Miss Bruce desire their attentions. She now looked down upon the town, and cherished sneaking ambitions after the county. She gave herself airs, and bought an aigrette for her Sunday bonnet. It is doubtful whether her character was improved by being singled out for such special attention, but at least she was happy, and happiness had been a chary visitor in her life.
“This is the first, the very first Dorcas meeting I have ever been to in all my life,” announced Grizel, smiling. “And d’you know I believe it’s my first introduction to calico. This is calico, isn’t it? Funny smell! I rather like the smell. Do people really use it for undies? Rather,—just a little—gritty,—don’t you think?”
“Personally,” Miss Bruce said primly, “I do not use calico. Not that thread, Mrs Beverley! It’s too fine. Let me give you a length... What has Mrs Thompson given you to make?”
Grizel made a feint of unrolling the calico under cover of an upraised arm.
“I shouldn’t wish it mentioned in society,—but it’s a comby! A comby for a giant, or for a fat woman at a show. Look at the waist width! and I don’t believe she’ll ever be so long from the waist to the shoulder. It will bag over her corsets, and make her back round. Couldn’t I take out a reef in the waist, and join it again with a bit of embroidery?”
“We don’t put embroidery on Dorcas garments.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Not the teeniest bit? Even at the top?”
“Never; but the bands are feather-stitched round the neck.”
Grizel adopted an air of severity.
“I call it immoral. I shall speak to the Vicar. No woman can be self-respecting in a calico band!... Well! can I cut out a piece and join it to itself? Its against my principles to let it bag.”
“Mrs Beverley, it won’t bag! It might with you. That’s different. Of course if it were for you—”
Grizel’s eyes opened in a round-eyed stare.
“Aren’t they the same shape as I am?”
Miss Bruce made an unexpected answer. She looked the bride over, taking in the graceful lines of the beautiful body which had the slightness of a fay, an almost incredible slightness, but which was yet so rounded and supple that by no possibility could it have been called thin... She looked, and she shook her head.
“No, Mrs Beverley,” she said firmly. “They are not.”
Grizel sewed industriously all afternoon, and on departing exhibited an exquisitely neat seam for Mrs Evans’s inspection.
“Never say I can’t sew!” she said complacently. “This afternoon has taken me back to my childhood, when I used to hem handkerchiefs and bits of finger at the same time.” She pointed dramatically to a small red stain in the middle of the seam. “In more ways than one. Human gore! Isn’t it piteous?”
Mrs Evans threw a protesting glance.
“My dear! What language!... Very nicely done; very nicely indeed! An excellent beginning!”
She folded up the garment as she spoke, and with a swift movement placed it at the bottom of a pile. Not for a contribution towards the Organ Fund would she have betrayed the fact that Grizel had sewed a leg seam to a sleeve!
From all sections of the community Grizel Beverley was sure of a welcome, and on the afternoon of the bulb party she had a special reason for being her most charming self, a reason which she had found in the weariness of Cassandra’s eyes. The two friends had descended the terrace steps together, but had separated at the bottom, the hostess to talk to as many of her guests as possible before they adjourned to the house for tea. Cassandra was conscious that each group stiffened into attention at her approach, and that natural manners suffered an eclipse while she was present. Invariably the same stereotyped remarks were repeated. “How large the hyacinths are this year. How charming the blue squills look against the bright yellow of the daffodils. The hepaticas are finer than ever... How very early for iris!”
Cassandra sighed. Eight years had she lived among these people, yet she remained the merest acquaintance, while Grizel Beverley was already a friend. A month ago she had been proudly indifferent to her own unpopularity, but to-day it hurt. She was so overwhelmingly lonely that a craving was upon her for human companionship which in some measure might rill the void. She moved about from one group of guests to another, always skilfully turning in an opposite direction when she caught sight of a fair girl in a blue dress, accompanied by a tall man in grey; until presently, with the feeling of reaching a haven, she found herself alone with the Vicar’s wife.
Mrs Evans looked with concern upon the small, brilliantly coloured face under the fashionable hat. She noticed how little flesh there was on the finely modelled cheeks, how sharp cut was the bridge of the nose. The girl looked delicate; she was too thin; taken in conjunction with the tired eyes, that exquisite flush could not be healthy. There was a motherliness in the good woman’s manner which pierced through the crust of dignity as she put her hand through Cassandra’s arm, and said kindly:
“You look tired, dear! I hope you didn’t feel cold standing about on the terrace. It is exposed, and the wind is chill. Are you quite well, Cassandra?”
“I think so. Why? Don’t I look well?” Cassandra felt a relief in the thought that her depression might be physical. “You know I am always unhappy at these functions. I am not a good hostess, and it worries me to know what to say. I’m so thankful I’m not a Vicar’s wife! That must be even worse. Doesn’t it bore you to extinction to be everlastingly two people,—yourself with your nice natural impulses—and the Vicar’s wife who has no business to have impulses at all! Doesn’t it bore you terribly to be always ex officio?”
Mrs Evans hesitated. She intensely wanted to say yes, but that highly trained article, her conscience, would not allow the deception. The colour deepened on her large, plain face as she said slowly:
“I did find it a trial in early years. Of late the trial has come to me in another fashion. I am perhaps a little too ready to enjoy the importance of my position.”
Cassandra’s laugh rang out with sudden gaiety. She gripped the large arm, and said with a charming indulgence:
“Ah, but why shouldn’t you? If you do manage us, it’s for our own good. It’s sweet of you to take the trouble... Mrs Evans, Mary Mallison has been here to lunch, and I’ve been talking to her. Her mother is vastly excited about this windfall, but the girl herself does not seem capable of anything but relief at the thought of getting away from home. I’m afraid she’s been rather desperately unhappy. It surprises me that she could suffer so much. I thought she was one of those dull women who are contented to jog along in any rut in which they are placed, and never demand anything for themselves.”
“Do you think there are any such women, Cassandra?”
“Don’t you?”
“I am quite sure there are not.”
Cassandra knitted her brows and stared intently into the face of the woman, who was a virtual father confessor to the parish. If Mrs Evans were sure, what right had she to question; but the thought held a sting.
“But—if not, there must be so horribly many who are wretched!”
“There are,” Mrs Evans said. A moment later: “Wretched is a strong word, Cassandra,” she added, “perhaps it would be better to say ‘disappointed.’ There are very few women who get to my age who are not making a fight against some sort of disappointment. They are very brave about it, for the most part, and cover it up so successfully that the world does not suspect; but the fight goes on. I get many peeps behind the scenes; it’s part of my work. Sickness comes or loss, and then it is a comfort to speak out and unburden the heart. I’ve been amazed at the number of hidden sorrows in the places where I least expected them. I have looked down on a woman as frivolous and commonplace, and have come away after half an hour’s confidences looking up to her as a heroine.”
Cassandra turned her head and looked up and down the diverging paths. Women everywhere, crowds of women, old and young, and heavily middle-aged, talking, smiling, bearing themselves with complacent airs. It was a ghastly, a hideous thought that they were all suffering some inner smart! She had believed that she was an exception, but according to Mrs Evans it was not the sufferer who was the exception, but the child of the sunshine, who, like fortunate Grizel, was endowed with the gift of happiness.
“All of them?” cried Cassandra sharply. “Oh, not all! They look so calm and comfortable. I couldn’t bear to think that under the mask they were all suffering!”
“They are not, my dear; they are forgetting! That’s the lesson so many of us have to learn,—to forget the unattainable, and make the best of what remains. And every innocent distraction that comes along, like this party to-day, to see your beautiful flowers, helps a step along the road.”
“Suppose,” said Cassandra slowly, “one did not wish to forget?”
The Vicar’s wife shook her head.
“One rarely does. It is easier to cling hold. But it’s possible to ask oneself a straight question... Which is going to make life easier for myself, and the people around me,—to cling hold, or,—to let go? It saps one’s vitality to grieve over the unattainable, and in most lives there is an unattainable. There are not many women so fortunate as you, Cassandra!”
Mrs Evans spoke in good faith. She had a sincere liking for the Squire, who as a patron was not only generous, but delightfully free from the dreaded vice of interference. When consulted on church matters, he would shrug his shoulders, and declare that it was all one to him. So long as the music was passable, and the sermons kept within a ten minutes’ limit, he could be relied upon to give liberally, and to make no complaints. Truly a patron in a hundred! Such a man could not fail to be a kind husband. Moreover, the touch of snobbishness in Mrs Evans’s nature invested Cassandra’s position in the county with a most satisfying importance, while the presence of the needful heir made the picture complete. Youth, beauty, wealth, a fine position, a kindly husband, a strong young son,—what more could a woman desire? “But you must be careful not to take cold!” she added remindfully.
Cassandra gave a short, mirthless laugh, but before she had time to speak her husband and Grizel turned the corner of the path, and Bernard, with his usual lack of ceremony, beckoned to her to approach. He looked flushed and worried, and with a word of apology to Mrs Evans, Cassandra hurried to meet him.
“Here you are at last! Been searching all over. Trust you to hide yourself out of sight. Look here! I want you at the house. There’s been an accident. Peignton—”
Cassandra straightened herself hastily. The flower-beds with their blaze of colour whizzed round in kaleidoscopic fashion before her eyes. She felt very cold, and faint. Grizel’s voice sounded a long way off, speaking with a studied distinctness.
“A slight accident! Only his ankle. He was doing something in the rockery, clambering over the big stones, and one turned over... The Squire sent for an old Bath chair in the stables, and he has been wheeled into the plant room. There is a terrific discussion going on as to what next. Can’t you come and take away some of Mrs Mallison?”
Cassandra turned homeward without a word, the Squire walking by her side, waving his hands in excitement.
“She wants to drag him home with her in that shandrydan! Says he’ll be lonely at home, and would have Teresa. Hang Teresa! There’s a time for all things,—a man can’t be bothered with love-making when his foot is giving him blue lightnings. Shake him to pieces driving over those roads! Jevons can get him to bed here, and look after him properly. I’ll wire to that Swedish fellow to come down, and he’ll have him on his feet in two or three days. We’ll put him in the blue room, next to the Den, and he can wheel in on a sofa to-morrow. Now back me up!”
“What does Captain Peignton say? It is he who must decide. He may prefer—”
“Oh, rats!” The Squire waved impatiently. “He won’t prefer. What man would? Teresa’s a fine girl, but that mother is the limit. She’d drive Peignton daft, mewed up in that little house. I know what I’m talking about,—what you’ve got to do is to back me up! You’re always so deuced ready with objections. He’s hurt himself here, and he’s going to stay here till he’s better. I’ve made up my mind.”
The Squire stormed on, repeating the same things over and over again until the house was reached, and he led the way through a doorway level with the ground into a large, bare room furnished with a couple of chairs, a few cupboards, and a long central table. It was a room used by the gardeners for the arrangement of flowers for the house, and had been chosen on the present occasion as offering the easiest access to the Bath chair. Cassandra’s eyes darted past a group of female figures and rested on Peignton’s face, pale and drawn, though resolutely composed. The realisation that he was suffering put an end to hesitation, and she swept forward, ignoring an opening chorus of explanations, and said firmly:
“His foot ought to be raised. It ought to be bathed at once. The shoe must be cut off.”
Mrs Mallison was loud in assent.
“I said so, Lady Cassandra; I said so! I’ve been talking to him for the last ten minutes. Folly to waste time! The trap is in the stable, and we could be home in half an hour. I want to take him home with me, Lady Cassandra. The best thing, isn’t it? So dull for a man with a sprained ankle,... but he’d have Teresa. Teresa would amuse him. Do let me order the trap!”
“My dear madam, it’s madness. The poor beggar can’t stand a drive. He’d better get off to bed upstairs, and I’ll wire for the Swedish fellow who put me to rights last year. My man knows how to start operations, and he can begin right away. Marvellous how those Swedes treat sprains! I was laid up a solid six weeks with the same ankle ten years ago under a country G.P. Sprained it again last year, and called in this masseur fellow, and in four days—”
The Squire was safely launched on a favourite story, staring from one feminine hearer to the other, demanding full attention. Cassandra turned her head and looked steadily at Dane. She meant that look to be a question, and the question received its answer. If ever a man’s eyes expressed appeal, Dane’s expressed it at that moment. With all the intensity which eyes could express, he threw himself at her mercy.
“I think,” said Cassandra clearly, “Captain Peignton had better stay. It will be quicker in the end. Teresa must come up and amuse him here.” She laid her hand on the girl’s arm with a kindly pressure. “You will stay and look after him now, till my husband finds Jevons. There is an old carrying chair in the box-room, which will get over the difficulty of the stairs. Mrs Mallison! shall we lead the way to tea?”
The next moment the room was empty save for the engaged pair. Teresa knew that the opportunity had been made, and knew that she ought to be grateful, but she was anxious and miserable, and more than a little wounded by her lover’s unwillingness to accept her mother’s invitation.
“I should have liked to nurse you, Dane!” she said reproachfully, and Dane pressed his lips in a spasm of pain, and rejoined quietly:
“I know, dear. Thank you, but it’s better as it is. I’ll be confoundedly glad to get this shoe off, and try what sponging will do. You’ll come up?”
“Oh, yes!” Teresa said. She leant against the side of the Bath chair, and held out a tentative hand. “I wish it had been me! I’d rather bear it myself a dozen times. It will help you, won’t it, Dane, if I come and sit beside you? If I were ill, I’d want more than anything else just to see your face!”
“Bless you, Teresa! You’re a dear girl,” Dane said, smiling, but his eyes wandered wistfully to the doorway. The Squire was right. A man in pain has no zest for love-making. A woman would welcome it with her dying breath.