That night, at last, Dion drew from her an explanation of her Thrush cult. On the evening when Mr. Thrush had rescued her in the fog, as they walked slowly to Great Cumberland Place, he had told her something of his history. Rosamund had a great art in drawing from people the story of their troubles when she cared to do so. Her genial and warm-hearted sympathy was an almost irresistible lure. Mr. Thrush’s present fate had been brought about by a tragic circumstance, the death of his only child, a girl of twelve, who had been run over by an omnibus in Oxford Circus and killed on the spot. Left alone with a peevish, nagging wife who had never suited him, or, as he expressed it, “studied” him in any way, he had gone down the hill till he had landed near the bottom. All his love had been fastened on his child, and sorrow had not strengthened but had embittered him.
“But to me he seems a gentle old thing,” Dion said, when Rosamund told him this.
“He’s very bitter inside, poor old chap, but he looks upon us as friends. He’s taken sorrow the wrong way. That’s how it is. I’m trying to get him to look at things differently, and Robin’s helping me.”
“Already!” said Dion, smiling, yet touched by her serious face.
“Yes. He’s an unconscious agent. Poor old Mr. Thrush has never learnt the lesson of our dear Greek tombs: farewell! He hasn’t been able to say that simply and beautifully, leaving all in other hands. And so he’s the poor old wreck we know. I want to get him out of it if I can. He came into my life on a night of destiny too.”
But she explained nothing more. And she left Dion wondering just how she would receive a sorrow such as had overtaken Mr. Thrush. Would she be able to submit as those calm and simple figures on the tombs which she loved appeared to be submitting? Would she let what she loved pass away into the shades with a brave and noble, “Farewell”? Would she take the hand of Sorrow, that hand of steel and ice, as one takes the hand of a friend—stern, terrible, unfathomed, never to be fathomed in this world, but a friend? He wondered, but, loving her with that love which never ceased to grow within him, he prayed that he might never know. She seemed born to shed happiness and to be happy, and indeed he could scarcely imagine her wretched.
It was after the explanation of Mr. Thrush’s exact relation to Rosamund that the silent contest began in the waning summer when London was rather arid, and even the Thames looked hot between its sluggish banks of mud.
After the trial of her divorce case was over, Mrs. Clarke had left London and gone into the country for a little while, to rest in a small house possessed by Esme Darlington at Hook Green, a fashionable part of Surrey. At, and round about, Hook Green various well-known persons played occasionally at being rural; it suited Mrs. Clarke very well to stay for a time among them under Mr. Darlington’s ample and eminently respectable wing. She hated being careful, but even she, admonished by Mr. Darlington, realized that immediately after emerging from the shadow of a great scandal she had better play propriety for a time. It really must be “playing,” for, as had been proved at the trial, she was a thoroughly proper person who hadn’t troubled to play hitherto. So she rested at Hook Green, till the season was over, with Miss Bainbridge, an old cousin of Esme’s; and Esme “ran down” for Saturdays and Sundays, and “ran up” from Mondays to Saturdays, thus seeing something of the season and also doing his chivalrous devoir by “poor dear Cynthia who had had such a cruel time of it.”
The season died, and Mr. Darlington then settled down for a while at Pinkney’s Place, as his house was called, and persuaded Mrs. Clarke to lengthen her stay there till the end of August. He would invite a few of the people likely to “be of use” to her under the present circumstances, and by September things would be “dying down a little,” with all the shooting parties of the autumn beginning, and memories of the past season growing a bit gray and moldy. Then Mrs. Clarke could do what she liked “within reason, of course, and provided she gave Constantinople a wide berth.” This she had not promised to do, but she seldom made promises.
Rosamund had expressed to Daventry her pleasure in the result of the trial, but in the rather definitely detached manner which had always marked her personal aloofness from the whole business of the deciding of Mrs. Clarke’s innocence or guilt. She had only spoken once again of the case to Dion, when he had come to tell her the verdict. Then she had said how glad she was, and what a relief it must be to Mrs. Clarke, especially after the hesitation of the jury. Dion had touched on Mrs. Clarke’s great self-possession, and—Rosamund had begun to tell him how much better little Robin was. He had not repeated to Rosamund Mrs. Clarke’s final words to him. There was no necessity to do that just then.