And in a few more minutes, Bridget was in the room, distributing to everybody there the careless staccato greetings which were her way of protecting herself against the world. Her entrance and her manner had always a disintegrating effect upon other human beings; and Bridget had no sooner shaken hands with the Farrells than everybody—save Nelly—was upon their feet and ready to move. One of Bridget's most curious and marked characteristics was an unerring instinct for whatever news might be disagreeable to the company in which she found herself; and on this occasion she brought some bad war news—a German advance at Verdun, with corresponding French losses—and delivered it with the emphasis of one to whom it was not really unwelcome. Cicely, to whom, flourishing her evening paper, she had mainly addressed herself, listened with the haughty and casual air she generally put on for Bridget Cookson. She had succumbed for her own reasons to the charm of Nelly. She was only the more inclined to be rude to Bridget. Accordingly she professed complete incredulity on the subject of the news. 'Invented,'—she supposed—'to sell some halfpenny rag or other. It would all be contradicted to-morrow.' Then when Bridget, smarting under so much scepticism, attempted to support her tale by the testimony of various stale morsels of military gossip, current in a certain pessimist and pacifist household she had been visiting in Manchester, as to the unfavourable situation in France, and the dead certainty of the loss of Verdun; passing glibly on to the 'bad staff work' on the British side, and the 'poor quality of the new officers compared to the old,' etc.—Cicely visibly turned up her nose, and with a few deft, cat-like strokes put a raw provincial in her place. She, Cicely, of course—she made it plain, by a casual hint or two—had just come from the very centre of things; from living on a social diet of nothing less choice than Cabinet Ministers and leading Generals—Bonar Law, Asquith, Curzon, Briand, Lloyd George, Thomas, the great Joffre himself. Bridget began to scowl a little, and had it been anyone else than Cicely Farrell who was thus chastising her, would soon have turned her back upon them. For she was no indiscriminate respecter of persons, and cared nothing at all about rank or social prestige. But from a Farrell she took all things patiently; till Cicely, suddenly discovering that her victim was giving her no sport, called peremptorily to 'Willy' to help her put on her cloak. But Farrell was having some last words with Nelly, and Marsworth came forward—
'Let me—'
'Oh thank you!' said Cicely carelessly, 'I can manage it myself.' And she did not allow him to touch it.
Marsworth retreated, and Hester, who had seen the little incident, whispered indignantly in her cousin's ear—
'Cicely!—you are a wicked little wretch!'
But Cicely only laughed, and her feather made defiant nods and flourishes all the way downstairs.
'Come along Marsworth, my boy,' said Farrell when the good-byes were said, and Hester stood watching their departure, while Cicely chattered from the motor, where she sat wrapped in furs against a rising east wind. 'Outside—or inside?' He pointed to the car.
'Outside, thank you,' said Marsworth, with decision. He promptly took his place beside the chauffeur, and Farrell and his sister were left to each other's company. Farrell had seldom known his companion more cross and provoking than she was during the long motor ride home; and on their arrival at Carton she jumped out of the car, and with barely a nod to Marsworth, vanished into the house.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Nelly had let Hester install her on the Carton couch, and lay there well shawled, beside the window, her delicate face turned to the lake and the mountains. Bridget was unpacking, and Hester was just departing to her own house. Nelly could hardly let her go. For a month now, Hester had been with her at Torquay, while Bridget was pursuing some fresh 'work' in London. And Nelly's desolate heart had found both calm and bracing in Hester's tenderness. For the plain shapeless spinster was one of those rare beings who in the Lampadephoria of life, hand on the Lamp of Love, pure and undefiled, as they received it from men and women, like themselves, now dead.