"What was the matter with Guy?" she asked when he was gone, and, when everybody looked at her sharply, Pauline felt herself on fire with blushes, made a wild stitch in the tail of the scarlet bird, and then rushed away to look for the lost embrocation, refusing to hear when they called after her that Mother had been sitting on it all the afternoon.
The windows along the corridors were inky blue, almost turning black, as she stared at them, half frightened in the unlighted dusk; outside, the noise of the rain was increasing every moment. She would sit up in her bedroom till dinner-time and write a long letter to India. By candle-light she wrote to Richard, seated at the small desk that was full of childish things.
Wychford Rectory, Oxon. Tuesday.
My dear Richard,—Thank you for your last letter, which was very interesting. I should think your bridge was wonderful. Will you come back to England when it's finished? There is not much to tell you except that a man called Guy Hazlewood has taken Plashers Mead. He is very nice, or else I should have hated him to take the house you wanted. He is very tall—not so tall as father, of course—and he is a poet. He has a very nice bobtail and a touching housekeeper who is deaf. Birdwood likes him very much; so I expect you would, too. Birdwood wants to know if it's true that people in India—oh, bother, now I've forgotten what it was, only he's got a bet with Godbold's nephew about it. Guy—you mustn't be jealous that we call him Guy because he really is very nice—has just been in to tea. Margaret is a darling, but I wish you'd take my advice and write more about her when you write. Of course I don't know what you do write, and I'm sure she really is interested in your bridge, but of course you must remember that she's not used to the kind of bridges you're building. But she's a darling and I'm simply longing for you to be married so that I can come and stay with you when I'm an old maid which I've quite made up my mind I'm going to be. Guy has been gardening with Father a good deal. Father says he's fairly intelligent. Isn't Father sweet? He drank your health at dinner the other night without anybody's reminding him it was your birthday. I think Guy likes Monica best. I don't think he cares at all for Margaret except of course he must admire her—Margaret is such a darling! Oh, a merry Christmas because it will be Christmas before you get this letter. Percy Brydone and Charlie Willsher came to dinner last month. They were so touching and bored.
Lots of love from Your loving
Pauline.
Don't forget about writing to Margaret more about herself.
Pauline put the letter in its crackling envelope with a sigh for the unformed hand in which it was written. Nothing brought home to her so nearly as this handwriting of hers the muddle she was always apt to make of things. How it sprawled across the page, so unlike Monica's that was small and neat and exquisitely formed, or Margaret's that was decorated with fantastic and beautiful affectations of manner. It was obvious, of course, that her sisters must always be the favorites of everybody, but it had been rather unkind of Guy to avoid her so obviously to-day. Richard had always realized that even if she were impulsive and foolish she was also tremendously sympathetic.
"For I really am sympathetic," she assured her image in the glass, as she tried to make the light-brown hair look tidy enough to escape Margaret's remonstrances at dinner. If Guy were hopelessly in love with Margaret, how sympathetic she would be; and she would try to explain to him how interesting an unhappy love-affair always made people. For instance, there was Miss Verney, whom everybody thought was just a cross old maid; but if they had only seen, as she had seen, that cracked miniature, what romance even her cats would possess! She must take Guy to see Miss Verney or bring Miss Verney to see Guy; a meeting must somehow be arranged between these two, who would surely be drawn together by their misfortunes in love. Guy was exactly the person whom an unhappy love-affair would become. It would be so interesting in ten years' time, when she would be nearly thirty and old enough to be Guy's confidante without anybody's interference, to keep back the inquisitive world from Plashers Mead. No doubt by then Guy would be famous; he always spoke with such confidence of fame. Monica and Margaret would both be married, and she would still be living at the Rectory with her father and mother. Pauline, as she pictured the future, saw no change in them, but rather sacrificed to the ravages of time her own appearance and Guy's, so that at thirty she fancied both herself and him as already slightly gray. The gong sounded from the depths of the house, and hastily she snatched from her wardrobe the first frock she found; it happened to be a white one, more suitable to June than to December, with a skirt of many flounces all stiffly starched. After rustling down passages and stairs she reached the dining-room just as the others were going in to dinner.
"Pauline, how charming you look in that frock!" her mother exclaimed. "Why, it's like Summer just to see you!"
Pauline was very happy that night because her mother and sisters petted her with the simple affection for which she was always longing.