“No!”
“Don’t dispute, please... You will do as I say. Nature will help her now; we can only leave her alone. You must go home and telephone,—to the Club House for her husband, to the village for the doctor. They must come straight here. And the car,—it must drive to the nearest point, and wait. Possibly in an hour she may be able to walk. If not, she can be carried.”
“I’ll carry her!”
“Her husband will carry her, or the men. Tell two men to come, and bring brandy, smelling-salts, anything you think of. If you are wise you will lie down yourself. You are worn out, and can do no good here. We don’t want two invalids. Now, please!”
For a moment Peignton stood gazing down at the motionless figure on the grass. Then hunching his shoulders, turned inland, and took the field path.
Teresa straightened herself to watch him as he went. She was kneeling by Cassandra’s side, but he had no glance for her. She watched him pass swiftly down the narrow path between the barley and the oats. The poppies blazed their brightest red; the patches of groundsel shone golden in the sun.
Cassandra lay motionless, with closed eyes, her breathing growing momentarily more natural and regular. Grizel smoothed the hair from her brow, laid a practised finger on her pulse, and crept away, beckoning Teresa to follow.
“All right! doing well. Leave her alone. The air is her best medicine. Perhaps she will sleep. Teresa, dear! get me some wine.”
She collapsed in a limp little heap on the grass, and raised a piteous face. To evoke Teresa’s pity for herself, not to pity Teresa, that was her inspiration, and to this intent she made the most of the natural exhaustion. Teresa waited upon her deftly, and then quite calmly and sensibly proceeded to wait upon herself. Grizel’s eyes widened with amaze as she beheld the girl with a wine-glass in one hand, and a sandwich, in the other, eating and drinking with as much apparent composure as if the tragic interruption had never occurred.
To the ardent, impulsive nature such composure seemed unnatural, almost brutal. “How can she?” Grizel asked herself blankly. “How can she? Oh, Martin, dear, to know your love gone, and to sit down quietly to eat sandwiches! Chewing.—Chewing! What can it feel like to be made like that? It’s marvellous, it’s magnificent, mais ce n’est pas la femme! Poor, poor little Teresa, and my poor, beautiful Cassandra, and poor Dane Peignton, poor Squire, poor Everybody! God help us all... We’re in a rare muddle! What is to happen next?”