As she descended the lane, she scolded herself for ingratitude. She was glad the Farrells were coming, because they would bring newspapers, and perhaps information besides, of the kind that does not get into newspapers. But otherwise—why had she so little pleasure now in the prospect of a visit from Sir William Farrell? He had never forced himself upon them. Neither his visits nor his lessons had been oppressively frequent, while the kindnesses which he had showered upon them, from a distance, had been unceasing. She could hardly have explained her disinclination. Was it that his company had grown so stimulating and interesting to her, that it made her think too much of other things than the war?—and so it seemed to separate her from George? Her own quiet occupations—the needlework and knitting that she did for a neighbouring war workroom, the gathering and drying of the sphagnum moss, the visiting of a few convalescent soldiers, a daily portion of Wordsworth, and some books about him—these things were within her compass George knew all about them, for she chronicled them in her letters day by day. She had a happy peaceful sense of communion with him while she was busy with them. But Farrell's restless mind and wide culture at once tired and fascinated her. He would often bring a volume of Shelley, or Pater, or Hardy, or some quite modern poet, in his pocket, and propose to read to her and Bridget, when the sketching was done. And as he read, he would digress into talk, the careless audacity of which would sometimes distress or repel, and sometimes absorb her; till suddenly, perhaps, she realised how far she was wandering from that common ground where she and George had moved together, and would try and find her way back to it. She was always learning some new thing; and she hated to learn, unless George changed and learnt with her.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Captain Marsworth was walking along the road from Grasmere to Rydal with a rather listless step. As a soldier he was by no means satisfied with the news of the week. We ought to have been in Lille and weren't. It seemed to him that was about what the Loos action came to; and his spirits were low. In addition he was in one of those fits of depression which attack an able man who has temporarily come to a stand-still in life, when his physical state is not buoyant enough to enable him to fight them off. He was beginning plainly to see that his own part in the war was done. His shattered arm, together with the neuralgic condition which had followed on the wound, were not going to mend sufficiently within any reasonable time to let him return to the fighting line, where, at the moment of his wound, he was doing divisional staff work, and was in the way of early promotion. He was a man of clear and vigorous mind, inclined always to take a pessimistic view of himself and his surroundings, and very critical also of persons in authority; a scientific soldier, besides, indulging a strong natural contempt for the politicians and all their crew, only surpassed by a similar scorn of newspapers and the press. He had never been popular as a subaltern, but since he had conquered his place among the 'brains' of the army, his fame had spread, and it was freely prophesied that his rise would be rapid. So that his growing conviction that his active military career was over had been the recent cause in him of much bitterness of soul. It was a bitter realisation, and a recent one. He had been wounded at Neuve Chapelle in March, and up to July he had been confident of complete and rapid recovery.
Well, there was of course some compensation. A post in the War Office—in the Intelligence Department—would, he understood, be offered him; and by October he meant to be at work. Meanwhile an old school and college friendship between himself and 'Bill Farrell,' together with the special facilities at Carton for the treatment of neuralgia after wounds, had made him an inmate for several months of the special wing devoted to such cases in the splendid hospital; though lately by way of a change of surroundings, he had been lodging with the old Rector of the village of Carton, whose house was kept—and well kept—by a sweet-looking and practical granddaughter, herself an orphan.
Marsworth had connections in high quarters, and possessed some considerable means. He had been a frequenter of the Farrells since the days when the old aunt was still in command, and Cicely was a young thing going to her first dances. He and she had sparred and quarrelled as boy and girl. Now that, after a long interval, they had again been thrown into close contact, they sparred and quarrelled still. He was a man of high and rather stern ideals, which had perhaps been intensified—made a little grimmer and fiercer than before—by the strain of the war; and the selfish frivolity of certain persons and classes in face of the national ordeal was not the least atoned for in his eyes by the heroism of others. The endless dress advertisements in the daily papers affected him as they might have affected the prophet Ezekiel, had the daughters of Judah added the purchase of fur coats, priced from twenty guineas to two hundred to their other enormities. He had always in his mind the agonies of the war, the sights of the trenches, the holocaust of young life, the drain on the national resources, the burden on the national future. So that the Farrell motor-cars and men servants, the costly simplicity of the 'cottage,' Cicely's extravagance in dress, her absurd and expensive uniform, her make-up and her jewels, were so many daily provocations to a man thus sombrely possessed.
And yet—he had not been able so far to tear himself away from Carton! And he knew many things about Cicely Farrell that Nelly Sarratt had not discovered; things that alternately softened and enraged him; things that kept him now, as for some years past, provokingly, irrationally interested in her. He had once proposed to her, and she had refused him. That was known to a good many people. But what their relations were now was a mystery to the friends on both sides.
Whatever they were, however, on this September afternoon Marsworth was coming rapidly to the conclusion that he had better put an end to them. His latent feelings of resentment and irritation had been much sharpened of late by certain passages of arms between himself and Cicely—since she returned from her visits—with regard to that perfectly gentle and inoffensive little maiden, Miss Daisy Stewart, the Rector's granddaughter. Miss Farrell had several times been unpardonably rude to the poor child in his presence, and, as it seemed to him, with the express object of showing him how little she cared to keep on friendly terms with him.
Nevertheless—he found himself puzzling over certain other incidents in his recent ken, of a different character. The hospital at Carton was mainly for privates, with a certain amount of accommodation for officers. He had done his best during the summer to be useful to some poor fellows, especially of his own regiment, on the Tommies' side. And he had lately come across some perplexing signs of a special thoughtfulness on Miss Farrell's part for these particular men. He had discovered also that she had taken pains to keep these small kindnesses of hers from his knowledge.
'I wasn't to tell you, sir,'—said the boy who had lost an eye—'not whatever. But when you come along with them things'—a set of draughts and a book—'why it do seem as though I be gettin' more than my share!'
Well, she had always been incomprehensible—and he was weary of the attempt to read her. But he wanted a home—he wanted to marry. He began to think again—in leisurely fashion—of the Rector's granddaughter.