II
Her aunt's presence at Monk's Eype scarcely affected Cecily Wake. The two had never become intimate; the girl's young eagernesses and enthusiasms disturbed Miss Wake, and even her sunny good temper and buoyancy were a source of irritation to one who had led so grey and toneless a life.
On the other hand, Miss Theresa Wake was really attached to the beautiful woman whom she called cousin.
She watched Penelope far more closely than the latter knew during those still, hot August days, when the thin, shrunken figure of the spinster lady, wrapped, in spite of the heat, in an old-fashioned cashmere shawl, sat back in one of the hooded chairs set on the eastern side of the terrace. When out in the open air Miss Wake always armed herself with one of the novels which had been thoughtfully provided by her kind hostess for her entertainment; but often she would lay the volume down on her knee, and gaze, her dim eyes full of speculation, at Mrs. Robinson's brilliant figure coming and going across the terrace, to and from the studio, sometimes—nay, generally—accompanied, shadow-wise, by the tall, lean form of Sir George Downing.
After watching these two for a while, Miss Wake would find her interrupted novel oddly uninteresting and dreary.
To Cecily these holiday days were not passing by as happily as she had thought they would. She felt for the first time in her short life disturbed, she knew not why; distressed, she knew not by what.
The hours spent with Mrs. Robinson, doing work she had looked forward to doing, seemed strangely dull compared with those briefer moments when Wantley strolled or sat by her side, looking down smiling into her eyes, asking whimsical questions concerning the Settlement, with a view—or so he said—of settling there himself, if Mr. Hammond and Mrs. Pomfret would accept him as a disciple!
Twice in those ten days he had gone with her to early Mass at Beacon Abbas; and oh, how pleasant had been the walks along the cliff path, how soothing the half-hours spent in the beautiful chapel, with Wantley standing and kneeling by her side. But on the second occasion of their return from Beacon Abbas Penelope had greeted the two walkers, or rather had greeted Cecily, with a questioning piercing look. Was it one of dissatisfaction, of slight jealousy, or simply of surprise? That one glance—and Wantley was well aware that it was so—put an end to any further joint expeditions to the monastery chapel.
During these same unquiet days, when Cecily's heart would beat without reason, when she seemed to be always waiting, she knew not for what, the girl became fond, in a shy, childish way, of Penelope's mother.
Perhaps because she was utterly unlike any other woman Cecily Wake had ever seen, or even imagined, Lady Wantley exercised a curious fascination over her heart and mind. The tall, stately figure, wrapped in sweeping black and white garments, was seen but seldom in the sunshine, out of doors. Since her widowhood she had lived a life withdrawn from the world about her, and she had occupied what had been a sudden and unwelcome leisure by writing two mystical volumes, which had enjoyed great popularity among those ever ready to welcome a new interpretation of the more esoteric passages of the Scriptures.