Mary half laughed, half coaxed her into coming with them. But she went very unwillingly; fell completely silent, and seemed to be in a dream all the way to the cottage. Meynell took no notice of her; though once or twice she stole a furtive look toward him.
* * * * *
The tiny house in which Catharine Elsmere and her daughter had settled themselves for the summer stood on a narrow isthmus of land belonging to the Maudeley estate, between the Sandford trout-stream and a large rushy pond of two or three acres. It was a very lonely and a very beautiful place, though the neighbourhood generally pronounced it damp and rheumatic. The cottage, sheltered under a grove of firs, looked straight out on the water, and over a bed of water-lilies. All round was a summer murmur of woods, the call of waterfowl, and the hum of bees; for, at the edges of the water, flowers and grasses pushed thickly out into the sunlight from the shadow of the woods.
By the waterside, with a book on her knee, sat a lady who rose as they came in sight.
Meynell approached her, hat in hand, his strong irregular face, which had always in it a touch of naiveté, of the child, expressing both timidity and pleasure. The memory of her husband was enshrined deep in the minds of all religious liberals; and it was known to many that while the husband and wife had differed widely in opinion, and the wife had suffered profoundly from the husband's action, yet the love between them had been, from first to last, a perfect and a sacred thing.
He saw a tall woman, very thin, in a black dress. Her brown hair, very lightly touched with gray and arranged with the utmost simplicity, framed a face in which the passage of years had emphasized and sharpened all the main features, replacing also the delicate smoothness of youth by a subtle network of small lines and shadows, which had turned the original whiteness of the skin into a brownish ivory, full of charm. The eyes looked steadily out from their deep hollows; the mouth, austere and finely cut, the characteristic hands, and the unconscious dignity of movement—these personal traits made of Elsmere's wife, even in late middle age, a striking and impressive figure.
Yet Meynell realized at once, as she just touched his offered hand, that the sympathy and the homage he would so gladly have brought her would be unwelcome; and that it was a trial to her to see him.
He sat down beside her, while Mary and Hester—who, on her introduction to Mrs. Elsmere, had dropped a little curtsey learnt at a German school, and full of grace—wandered off a little way along the water-side. Meynell, struggling with depression, tried to make conversation—on anything and everything that was not Upcote Minor, its parish, or its church. Mrs. Elsmere's gentle courtesy never failed; yet behind it he was conscious of a steely withdrawal of her real self from any contact with his. He talked of Oxford, of the great college where he had learnt from, the same men who had been Elsmere's teachers; of current books, of the wild flowers and birds of the Chase; he did his best; but never once was there any living response in her quiet replies, even when she smiled.
He said to himself that she had judged him, and that the judgments of such a personality once formed were probably irrevocable. Would she discourage any acquaintance with her daughter? It startled him to feel how much the unspoken question hurt.
Meanwhile the eyes of his hostess pursued the two girls, and she presently called to them, greeting their reappearance with an evident change and relaxation of manner. She made Hester sit near her, and it was not long before the child, throwing off her momentary awe, was chattering fast and freely, yet, as Mary perceived, with a tact, conscious or unconscious, that kept the chatter within bounds.