“Your affectionate old friend,
“Esther Tibbutt.
P.S. I wish you could come down here again. Can’t you?”
Trix leant back in her chair, and drew a long breath. The novel was utterly and entirely forgotten. So that was what Pia’s letter had meant. It was this man she had been thinking of all the time. A dozen little unanswered questions were answered now, a dozen queer little riddles solved.
Trix slid down off her chair on to the bear-skin rug in front of the fire. She leant her arms sideways on the chair, resting her chin upon them. Most assuredly she must place the whole matter clearly before her mind, in so far as possible. She gazed steadily at the glowing coals, ruminative, reflective.
And firstly it was presented to her mind as the paramount fact, that it was the mention of this man—this Michael Field, so-called—that had been the direct cause of Pia’s odd irritability, and not the indirect cause, as she most erroneously had imagined. Somehow, in some way, he had caused her such pain that the mere mention of his name had been like laying a hand roughly on a wound. Secondly, though Trix most promptly dismissed the memory, there was Pia’s hurting little speech, the speech which had followed on her—Trix’s—theories promulgated beneath the lime trees. In the light of Miss Tibbutt’s letter that speech was easy enough of explanation. Had not Pia had practical proof of the unworkableness of those theories? Proof which must have hurt her quite considerably. How utterly and entirely childish her words must have seemed to Pia,—Pia who knew, while she truly was merely surmising, setting forth ideas which assuredly she had never attempted to put into practice. Thirdly—Trix ticked off the facts on her fingers—there was the amazing little game of cross-questions. That too was entirely explained. How precisely it was explained she did not attempt to put into actual formulated words. Nevertheless she perceived quite clearly that it was explained. And lastly there was Pia’s letter to her, the letter which had vainly tried to hide the bitterness which had prompted it. Clear as daylight now was the explanation of that letter. Buoyed up by Trix’s advice, by Trix’s eloquence, she had once more attempted to put the high-sounding theories into practice. And it had proved a failure, an utter and complete failure.
All these things fell at once into place, fitting together like the pieces of a puzzle, an unfinished puzzle, nevertheless. The largest pieces were still scattered haphazard on the board, and there seemed extremely little prospect of fitting them into the rest. How had Pia ever met the man? What was he doing at Chorley Old Hall? And why was he pretending to be Michael Field, when she—Trix—now knew him to be Antony Gray? The last two proved the greatest difficulty, nor could Trix, for all her gazing into the fire, find the place they ought to occupy. She remembered, too, her own idea regarding the colour of that bubble. Was it possible that she had been right in her idea? Verily, if she had been, in the face of this new discovery, it opened up a yet more astounding problem. Pia actually and verily in love with the man, a man she believed to be under-gardener at the Hall,—Pia, the distant, the proud, the reserved Pia! It was amazing, unthinkable!
Trix heaved a sigh; it was all quite beyond her. One thing alone was obvious; she must go down to Woodleigh again as soon as possible. Certainly she had no very clear notion as to what precise good she could do by going, nevertheless she was entirely convinced that go she must. And then, having reached this point in her reflections, she returned once more to the beginning, and began all over again.
And suddenly another idea struck her, one which had been entirely omitted from her former train of thought. Was it possible that Mr. Danver knew of the identity of this Michael Field? Was it possible, was it conceivable that he held the key to those greatest riddles? Truly it would seem possible. His one big action had been so extraordinary, so mad even, that it would be quite justifiable to believe, or at least conjecture, that minor extraordinary actions might be mixed up with it.
And then, from that, Trix turned to a somewhat more detailed consideration of Pia’s position. One point presented itself quite definitely and clearly to her. It was certainly evident from that memorable letter of Pia’s, that she did regard this man as a social inferior, from which fact it was entirely plain that she had no smallest notion of his real identity. Trix clasped her hands beneath her chin, shut her eyes, and plunged yet deeper into her reflections. They were becoming even more intricate.