CHAPTER IX HALF WAY TOWARDS LITTLE GO
‘Sixties’ and ‘forties’ are traditions, happily, of the past. Although Sarnian spinsters may still go out to tea with a maid and a hand-lanthorn, the number of their candles is no longer a rigorous type of their social condition.
But the society of an island, twelve miles long by four broad, must always be cousin-german to the society of a ship. Wherever choice is circumscribed, human nature tends to eclecticism. Sixties and forties may have had their day. A stranger is amazed, still, at the number of island families who do not visit other island families, seemingly from hereditary topographical reasons. The Eastern people have not much to say to those of the West. The country districts hold scanty intercourse with the townsfolk.
At the time I write of the remote little peninsula of Tintajeux was probably the most exclusive parish in the island.
‘While we were on terms with the Rector of Noirmont we had four people in our set,’ Marjorie would say. ‘The Rector of Noirmont, his wife, the Seigneur of Tintajeux, Marjorie Bartrand. Since grandpapa and M. Noirmont had their big Latin fight we have split up into further faction. Our set consists of the Seigneur of Tintajeux and Marjorie Bartrand. We are a nation of two.’
Of the things done and left undone by the Petersport inhabitants, this nation of two was ofttimes as ignorant as though some dark continent divided them. The dances, picnics, military bands, garden parties, and general gossip of urban life, concerned the Bartrands languidly. Old Andros had his farming, his dogs, his classic authors, and a curiously mixed performance which he called parochial work, to occupy him. Marjorie had her study, a boat, fishing-tackle, gardening tools; in days not so very far distant, had a carpenter’s bench; all the wholesome outdoor interests of a country-nurtured child. If Cassandra Tighe chanced occasionally to rattle round in her village cart and communicate to them the last town news, they heard it; rarely, otherwise.
It thus happened, Cassandra remaining away with her nets and her sea-monsters in Sark, that the comedy in course of rehearsal between Geff and Marjorie went on for several days without interruption. The master and pupil met seldom, save during the hours of work, when Geff, professionally severe, discouraged idle conversation. It did not become easier to Marjorie than it had seemed on the first night of their acquaintance to say the words, Your wife. The terms on which they met were frank; slightly stiffer, perhaps, under the broad sun of noon than they had been among the syringa blossoms by starlight! They stood, on the outside, at least, in the position of any commonly dense freshman, and of a coach, conscientiously minded to get his man, if possible, through Previous.
On the outside. Growing to know Marjorie’s transparent nature better and better, deriving keen refreshment from the badly-trained, fine intelligence which might have risen so high above the commonly dense freshman’s level, Geoffrey grew, hourly, more sensible that their seasons for meeting were ’ower lang o’ comin’,’ that each intervening day was a space of time to be lived through! At this point stood Geff. Secure, she was fain to think contented, in the knowledge of a Mrs. Arbuthnot’s existence, Marjorie worked with an unstinted zeal, a vivid delight, such as the whole defunct race of governesses, morning or resident, had failed to awaken in her.