“But you would have sent them away from the door! Given the message to Johnson, and turned them away without even seeing them yourself.”
“I should. I plead guilty, Bernard. I should have flown straight to a bath. It takes a Grizel to make herself charming with whitewashed hair, but to do me justice I should not have chosen the morning of a dinner party to drag about heavy furniture in the room overhead.”
“Did she do that?”
“She had it done. And the house being jerry built, the new ceilings are only guaranteed to stay up, if they are not pushed. She pushed, and in revenge this particular ceiling loosened itself slowly, waiting for the crucial moment... They have gone up to town for a week, while the room is put right, so Grizel will feel that the game is worth the candle.”
“Humph!” The Squire was silent, seeing that he himself had persistently refused to take his wife to town for the last eight years. He was a country man, born and bred, and had never yet succeeded in discovering a time of year when the land was sufficiently lacking in interest to make it bearable to leave, and waste the time in town. Moreover, with the extraordinary meanness which affects some rich men, he hated spending money on hotel bills, while his own house was open. His wife could run up for a day when she needed new clothes,—what more did she want? Cassandra wanted a great deal more,—she wanted to see, and to hear, to refresh her spirit with art and music, to meet people who spoke her own language, and understood her own thoughts, and get away from the stultifying influence of a little country town. She had fought persistently for years in succession, but she had failed, and now she fought no more. Bernard said she had come to her senses.
“What are you going to do for the young couple?” he asked gruffly. “Another dinner would fall flat.”
“And they were here so lately,” Cassandra agreed quickly. “Shall I fix the bulb party for next week, and ask the whole Mallison clan to lunch beforehand? I’m willing, if you are. Of course Captain Peignton would come too. It would be paying them a little extra attention, and avoid the bother of another dinner.”
“Just as you like!” The Squire was appeased by the prospect of a garden party, as his wife had intended he should be, and she heaved a sigh of relief. Another dinner with Dane and Teresa as guests would be insupportable so soon after that other evening when she had met his eyes across the banked-up flowers, and felt that strange, sweet certainty of understanding. After hearing of the engagement she had felt an intense dread of the next meeting, which must surely reveal to her her own folly in believing that this man felt any special interest in herself. He had looked pensive because he was in suspense; his appeal to her had been to a married woman who had presumably been through the mill, and whose help he was anxious to gain. She would see him radiant, glowing; his eyes would no longer linger on hers, he would no longer have the air of standing by to await her command: he would be wholly, entirely, obtrusively absorbed in Teresa!
Then suddenly the meeting came about, and nothing had been different; everything had been bewilderingly the same. They had met in a country lane, and Cassandra had made her congratulations in her most gracious and cordial manner, and he had thanked her in a few short words and stood looking—looking.—He was not radiant, he was not aglow; the subtle appeal of suffering had never been more strong: in spite of everything the strange, sweet certainty of inner sympathy and understanding once more flooded her being. They spoke only a few words, and parted, and since that day Cassandra had seen Dane only in the distance. Bernard reported him as a devoted lover, always in attendance. He shrugged his shoulders with an easy tolerance. It was a stage. It would pass!
Fortune favoured Cassandra, inasmuch as the bulb party fell on the day following that on which Mary Mallison had received the notice of her inheritance, and therefore the engagement took a second place in importance. Major Mallison excused himself from the luncheon party on the score of sciatica, which being interpreted meant a sore heart. Mary was his favourite daughter, and the discovery of her long revolt had wounded him sorely. His wife also had had her hour of bitterness, but it was temperamentally impossible for Mrs Mallison to keep up an estrangement with any creature, male or female, who was on the wave of prosperity. Mary, the dependent and helpless, would have been hard to forgive; Mary the heiress commanded respect, and could be excused a weakness. In the abundance of her satisfaction in escorting two successful daughters to luncheon at the Court, the last spark of resentment disappeared, and Mary’s determination to exploit the world on her own became a proof of spirit to be retailed with maternal pride.