“I’d make a solemn vow never to wear another! I’m a great believer in the influence of clothes. They account for many of the mysteries of human nature. You know how conventional men are,—how horrified at anything the least bit out of the ordinary rut.—It’s because they have always to wear coats and trousers cut in the same way, out of the same uninteresting cloths! They never know the complete bouleversement of feeling which a woman experiences every day of her life when she changes from one style of garment to another. You put on a blouse and skirt, and you feel active and gamy; you slip into a tea-gown, and want to talk confidences with a friend; you put on decolletée, and feel inclined to flirt, and be frivolous; you wear a tailor-made costume and—go to church! Chronic blue serge would depress a saint. Do go to Celine, Miss Mallison! Let me send you the address!”
“I’ve not decided to go to Paris,” Mary said ungraciously, but the next moment she lifted her eyes to Cassandra’s face and gave a weak little smile of apology. “I’ve not decided anything. Not even where to go first. I don’t seem to care. You talk about seeing the world, but I don’t particularly want to see it. Now that I can go where I choose, I’ve been trying to think of an interesting place—a place that interests me, I mean, but I can’t do it. I’ve hardly been outside Chumley, and every other place seems unreal. I used to long to travel when I was a girl, but I don’t care about it now. I’ve grown so used to doing nothing. Perhaps it may be different now that I have my own money.” She hesitated for a moment, then questioned tentatively: “Of course you... you have always had enough money.”
“Ye-es! Yes, I suppose I have. My father was a poor man for his position, but we had practically everything we wanted,—horses and carriages, and beautiful gardens, and change when we needed it, and pretty clothes, and—”
“And space!” concluded Mary for her. “You have never known what it was to live in a small house where you can never get more than a few yards away from other people, never get out of the sound of their voices, never have a place which you can call your own, except a cold bedroom. No place where you can cry without bringing rappings at the door... That’s why I want to go away. I want my money to bring me Space. I want to feel alone, with space to do as I like, without thinking of anyone but myself, or even having anyone to check me if I am foolish, and reckless, and mad. I expect I shall be reckless. It’s a relief sometimes to be able to be reckless, Lady Cassandra!”
“Oh, Mary Mallison, it is!” cried Cassandra. She slipped her hand through the other’s arm, and said warmly, “I won’t send you any addresses, I won’t give you any advice. Go away and be as reckless as you can! And when you come back, come and tell me about it, and I’ll rejoice, and not point a single moral. It’s in my heart to be reckless too.”
“Thank you,” said Mary, and there was a note of real gratitude in her voice. Lady Cassandra was the last person from whom she would have expected understanding, but she did understand, and had even confessed to a fellow-feeling. Mary was sufficiently under her mother’s influence to feel that sympathy from the Squire’s wife was doubly valuable, yet she was vaguely disquieted, for what was her new-found money going to procure for her, that was not already in Cassandra’s possession? If material pleasures palled, would the mere fact of liberty be sufficient to fill her heart? Was liberty in her case but another term for loneliness? Mary was silent, feeling as usual that she had nothing to say.
With arms still linked the two women turned a corner of the path, and found themselves confronted by the Squire and his companions, who were approaching from the farther side; but now there was a fourth member of the party, for Dane Peignton walked beside his fiancée, smiling down into her upturned face, and for the moment unobservant of the new-comers, who were still some distance away. Cassandra’s hand jerked on Mary’s arm, she was conscious of a rise of colour, and to cover it said quickly:
“Captain Peignton has deigned to appear at last. I asked him to lunch. Teresa should scold him... but I suppose they meet constantly. Are they to be married quite soon?”
She was glad of an opportunity of putting a question which she longed to have answered, but had shirked putting into words, but Mary’s answer was not illuminative.
“I hope not.”