Chapter 12

AT GROOMBRIDGE CASTLE

Mrs. Delaport Green counted it as a large asset in Molly's favour that Sir Edmund Grosse was so attentive. Adela did not seriously mind Sir Edmund's indifference to herself if he were only a constant visitor at her house, but she was far from understanding the motives that drew him there to see Molly. In fact, having decided, on the basis of his own theory of the conduct of Madame Danterre, that Molly had no right to any of the luxuries she enjoyed, he had been prepared to think of her as an unscrupulous and designing young woman. Somehow, from the moment he first saw her he felt all his prejudices to be confirmed. There was something in Molly which appeared to him to be a guilty consciousness that the wealth she enjoyed was ill-gotten. Miss Dexter, he thought, had by no means the bearing of a fresh ingenuous child who was innocently benefiting by the wickedness of another. The poor girl was, in fact, constantly wondering whether the people she met were hot partisans of Lady Rose Bright, or whether they knew of Madame Danterre's existence, and if so, whether they had the further knowledge that Miss Molly Dexter was that lady's daughter. They might, for either of these reasons, have some secret objection to herself. But she was skilful enough to hide the symptoms of these fears and suspicions from the men and women she usually came across in society, who only thought her reserve pride, and her occasional hesitations a little mysterious. From Sir Edmund she concealed less because she liked him much more, and he kindly interpreted her feelings of anxiety and discomfort to be those of guilt in a girl too young to be happy in criminal deceit. With his experience of life, and with his usually just perceptions, he ought to have known better; but there is some quality in a few men or women, intangible and yet unmistakable, which makes us instinctively suspect present, or foretell future, moral evil; and poor Molly was one of these. What it was, on the other hand, which made her trust Sir Edmund and drew her to him, it would need a subtle analysis of natural affinities to decide. No doubt it was greatly because he sought her that Molly liked him, but it was not only on that account. Nor was this only because Edmund was worldly wise, successful, and very gentle. There was a quality in the attraction that drew Molly to Edmund that cannot be put into words. It is the quality without which there has never been real tragedy in the relations of a woman to a man. In the first weeks in London this attraction hardly reached beyond the merest liking, and was a pleasant, sunny thing of innocent appearance.

Mrs. Delaport Green was, for a short time, of opinion that the problem of whether to prolong Molly's visit or not would be settled for her by a quite new development. Then she doubted, and watched, and was puzzled.

Why, she thought, should such a great person as Sir Edmund Grosse, who was certainly in no need of fortune-hunting, be so attentive to Molly if he did not really like her? At times she had a notion that he did not like her at all, but at other times surely he liked her more than he knew himself. He said that she was graceful, clever, and interesting; and the acute little onlooker had not the shadow of a doubt that he held these opinions, but why did she at moments think that he disliked Molly? Certainly the dislike, if dislike it were, did not prevent him from very constantly seeking her society. It was the only intimacy that Molly had formed since she had come up to London.

As Lent was drawing to a close, Mrs. Delaport Green became much occupied at the thought of how many services she wished to attend. "One does so wish one could be in several churches at once," she murmured to a devout lady at an evening party. But, finding one of these churches to be excessively crowded on Palm Sunday, she had gone for a turn in the country in her motor with a friend, "as, after all, green fields, and a few early primroses make one realise, more than anything else in the world, the things one wishes one could think about quietly at such seasons."

For Easter there were the happiest prospects, as she and Molly had been invited to stay at a delightful house "far from the madding crowd"--Groombridge Castle--with a group of dear friends.

Molly, knowing that "dear friends" with her hostess meant new and most desirable acquaintances, bought hats adorned with spring flowers and garments appropriate to the season with great satisfaction.

Their luggage, their bags, and their maid looked perfect on the day of departure, and Tim had gone off to Brighton in an excellent temper. Mrs. Delaport Green trod on air in pretty buckled shoes, and patted the toy terrier under her arm and felt as if all the society papers on the bookstall knew that they would soon have to tell whither she was going.

"I saw Sir Edmund Grosse's servant just now," she said to Molly with great satisfaction. "Very likely Sir Edmund is coming to Groombridge. Why does one always think that everybody going by the same train is coming with one? Did you tell him where we were going?"

"No, I don't think so; I have hardly seen him for a week, and I thought he was going abroad for Easter."

When the three hours' journey was ended and the friends emerged on the platform, they were both glad to see Sir Edmund's servant again and the luggage with his master's name. There was a crowd of Easter holiday visitors, and Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly were some moments in making their way out of the station. When they were seated in the carriage that was to take them to the Castle, Mrs. Delaport Green turned expectantly to the footman.

"Are we to wait for any one else?"

"No, ma'am; Lady Rose Bright and the two gentlemen have started in the other carriage."

They drove off.

"I am so glad it is Lady Rose Bright." Molly hardly heard the words.

"I have so wished to know her," Adela went on joyfully, "and she has had such an interesting story and so extraordinary."

"Can I get away--can I go back?" thought Molly, and she leant forward and drew off her cloak as if she felt suffocated. "To meet her is just the one thing I can't do. Oh, it is hard, it is horrible!"

"You see," Adela continued, "she married Sir David Bright, who was three times her age, because he was very rich, and also, of course, because she loved him for having won the Victoria Cross, and then he died, and they found he had left all the money to some one he had liked better all the time. So there is a horrid woman with forty thousand a-year somewhere or other, and Rose Bright is almost starving and can't afford to buy decent boots, and every one is devoted to her. I am rather surprised that she should come to Groombridge for a party, she has shut herself up so much; but it must be a year and a half at least since that wicked old General was killed, and he certainly didn't deserve much mourning at _her_ hands."

As Adela's little staccato voice went on, Molly stiffened and straightened and starched herself morally, not unaided by this facile description of the story in which she was so much involved. She would fight it out here and now; nothing should make her flinch; she would come up to time as calm and cool as if she were quite happy. And, after all, Sir Edmund Grosse would be there to help her.

It was not until the first of the two heavy handsome old-fashioned carriages, drawn by fine, sleek horses, was beginning to crawl up a very steep hill that its occupants began to take an interest in those who were following.

"Who is in the carriage behind us?" asked Sir Edmund of the young man usually called Billy, who was sitting opposite him, and whom he was never glad to meet.

"Mrs. Delaport Green and a girl I don't know--very dark and thin."

Edmund growled and fidgeted.

"Horrid vulgar little woman," he muttered between his teeth, "pushes herself in everywhere, and I suppose she has got the heiress with her."

"Don't be so cross, Edmund," said Lady Rose. "Who is the heiress?"

"Oh! a Miss Dickson--not Dickson--what is it? The money was all made in beer"--which was really quite a futile little lie. "But that isn't the name: the name is Dexter. The girl is handsome and untruthful and clever; let her alone."

Rose perceived that he was seriously annoyed, and waited with a little curiosity to see the ladies in question.

As the two carriages crawled slowly up the zigzag road, climbing the long and steep hill, the occupants of both gazed at the towers of the Castle whenever they came in sight at a turn of the road, or at an opening in the mighty horse-chestnuts and beeches, but they spoke little about them. Those in the first carriage were too familiar with Groombridge and its history and the others were too ignorant of both to have much to say. Edmund Grosse gave expression to Rose's thought at the sight of the familiar towers when he said:

"Poor old Groombridge! it is hard not to have a son or even a nephew to leave it all to."

"He likes the cousin very much," said Rose.

"But isn't Mark Molyneux going to be a priest?" said the young man, Billy, to Lady Rose. "I heard the other day that he is in one of the Roman seminaries--went there soon after he left Oxford."

Edmund answered him.

"Groombridge told me he thought he would give that up. He said he believed it was a fancy that would not last."

"He did very well at Oxford," said Rose, "and the Groombridges are devoted to him. It is so good of them with all their old-world notions not to mind more his being a Roman Catholic."

The talk was interrupted by the two men getting out to ease the horses on a steep part of the drive.

Rose's own point of view that a young and earnest priest, even although, unfortunately, not an Anglican, might do much good in such a position as that of the master of Groombridge Castle, would certainly not have been understood by her two companions.

Meanwhile, in the second carriage, Molly was becoming more and more distracted from painful thoughts by the glory of the summer's evening, and the historic interest of the Castle. She felt at first disinclined to disturb the unusual silence of the lady beside her. Certainly the principal tower of the Castle, in its dark red stone, looked uncommonly fine and commanding, and about it flew the martlets that "most breed and haunt" where the air is delicate.

The horse-chestnut leaves were breaking through their silver sheaths in points of delicate green, and daffodils and wild violets were thick in grass and ground ivy, while rabbits started away from within a few feet of the road.

But, although reluctant to break the silence, at last interest in the scene made Molly ask:

"Do you know the date?"

"Oh, Norman undoubtedly," said Mrs. Delaport Green; "the round towers, you know. Round towers go back to almost any date."

Molly was dissatisfied. "You don't know what reign it was built in?"

"Some time soon after the Conqueror; I think Tim did tell me all about it. He looked it up in some book last night."

As a matter of fact, the present Castle had been built under George III., and the towers would have betrayed the fact to more educated observers; while even Molly could see when they came close to the great mass of building that the windows and, indeed, all the decoration was of an inferior type of revived Gothic. But, however an architect might shake his head at Groombridge, it was really a striking building, massive and very well disposed, and in an astonishingly fine position, commanding an immense view of a great plain on nearly three sides, while to the east was stretched the rest of the range of splendidly-wooded hills on the westerly point of which it was situated. In the sweet, soft air many delicate trees and shrubs were developed as well as if they had been in quite a sheltered place.

Lady Groombridge was giving tea to the first arrivals when Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly were shown into the big hall of the Castle.

"Let us come for a walk; we can slip out through this window," murmured Sir Edmund, as he took her empty tea-cup from his cousin.

Rose began to move, but Lady Groombridge claimed her attention before she could escape.

"Do you know Mrs. Delaport Green and Miss Dexter?"

Rose, as she heard Molly's name, found herself looking quite directly into very unexpected and very remarkable grey eyes with dark lashes. Her gentle but reserved greeting would have been particularly negative after Edmund's warning as to both ladies, but she did not quite control a look of surprise and interest. There was a great light in Molly's face as she saw the young and beautiful woman whom she had dreaded intensely to meet.

Rose was evidently unconscious of a certain gentle pride of bearing, but was fully conscious of a wish to be kindly and loving. In neither of these aspects--and they were revealed in a glance to Molly--did Rose attract her. But Molly's look, which puzzled Rose, was as a flame of feeling, burning visibly through the features of the dark, healthy face, and finding its full expression in the eyes. The glory of the landscape she had just passed through, and the excitement of finding herself in such a building, added fuel to Molly's feelings, and seemed to give a historic background to her meeting with her enemy. Some subtle and curious sympathy lit Rose's face for a moment, and then she shrank a little as if she recoiled from a slight shock, and turning with a smile to Sir Edmund Grosse, she followed him down the great hall and out into a passage beyond. He had given Molly an intimate but rather careless nod before he turned away.

Edmund was quite silent as he walked out on the terrace, and seemed as absorbed as Rose in the view that lay below them. But it was with the scene he had just witnessed inside the Castle that his mind was filled. There had been something curiously dramatic in the meeting which he would have done a great deal to prevent. But, annoyed as he was, he could not help dwelling for a moment on the picture of the two with a certain artistic satisfaction. Rose, in her plain, almost poor, clinging black clothes was, as always, amazingly graceful; he felt, not for the first time, as if her every movement were music.

"But that girl is handsome. How she looked into Rose's face, the amazing little devil!--she is plucky."

Then he caught himself up abruptly; it was no use to talk nonsense to himself. The point was how to keep these two apart and how short Mrs. Delaport Green's visit might be made.

"Unluckily Monday is a Bank holiday, but they shall not be asked to stay one hour after the 10.30 train on Tuesday if I have to take them away myself," he murmured. Meanwhile, it was a beautiful evening; there was a wonderful view, and Rose was here, and, for the moment, alone with him. She ran her fingers into the fair hair that was falling over her forehead, and pushed it back and her hat with it, so that the fresh spring air "may get right into my brain," she said, "and turn out London blacks."

"The blacks don't penetrate in your case," said Edmund.

"I'm afraid they do," she murmured, "but now I won't think of them. Easter Eve and this place are enough to banish worries."

"Our hostess contrives to have some worries here."

"Ah! dear Mary, I know; she can't help it; she has always been so very prosperous."

"Oh, it's prosperity, is it?" asked Edmund. He had turned from the view to look more directly at Rose.

"Yes, I know it does not have that effect on you, because you have a happier temperament."

"But am I so very prosperous?" The tone was sad and slightly sarcastic.

"It is quite glorious: one seems to breathe in everything, don't you know, and the smell of primroses; and it is so sweet to think that it is Easter Eve."

Mrs. Delaport Green was coming forth on the terrace, preceded by these words in her clear staccato voice.

"Do you think," said Rose very gently to Edmund, "that we might go down into the wood?"

Presently Molly fell behind Lady Groombridge and Mrs. Delaport Green as they walked along the terrace, and leant on the wall and looked at the view by herself.

The Castle stood on the last spur of a range of hills, and there was an abrupt descent between it and the next rounded hill-top. Covered with trees, the sharp little valley was full of shadow and mystery; and then beyond the great billowy tree-tops rose and fell for miles, until the brilliant early green of the larches and the dark hues of the many leafless branches, already ruddy with buds, became blue and at length purple in the distance.

This joy and glory of her mother earth nobody could grudge Molly, surely? But the very beauty of it all made her more weak; and tears rose in her eyes as she looked at the healing green.

"I am tired," she thought; "and, after all, what harm can it do me to meet Lady Rose Bright? And if Sir Edmund Grosse was annoyed to see me here, what does it matter?"

Presently Lady Groombridge and her admiring guest came back to where Molly was standing. In the excitement of arrival and of meeting Lady Rose, and the little shock of Sir Edmund's greeting, Molly had hardly taken stock of the mistress of the Castle. Lady Groombridge was verging on old age, but ruddy and vigorous. She wore short skirts and thick boots, and tapped the gravel noisily with her stick. She had almost forgotten that she had ever been young and a beauty, and her conversation was usually in the tone of a harassed housekeeper, only that the range of subjects that worried her extended beyond servants and linen and jam into politics and the Church and the souls of men within a certain number of miles of Groombridge Castle.

She stood talking between Molly and Mrs. Delaport Green in a voice of some impatience as she scanned the landscape in search of Rose.

"Dear me, where has Rose gone to? and she knew how much I wanted to have a talk with her before dinner. And I wanted to tell her not to let our clergyman speak about incense and candles. He was more tiresome than usual after Rose was here last time."

Mrs. Delaport Green tried to interject some civil remarks, but Lady Groombridge paid not the slightest attention. The only visitors who interested her in the least were Rose and Edmund Grosse. She could hardly remember why she had invited Mrs. Delaport Green and Molly when she met them in London, and Billy was always Lord Groombridge's guest.

"Well, if Rose won't come out of the wood, I suppose we may as well come in, and perhaps you would like to see your room;" and, with an air of resignation, she led the way.

She stood in the middle of a gorgeously-upholstered room of the date of George IV., and looked fretfully round.

"Of course it is hideous, but I think if you have a good thing even of the worst date it is best to leave it alone;" and then, with a gleam of humour in her eye, she turned to Molly, "and whenever you feel your taste vitiated (or whatever they call it nowadays) in your room next door, you can always look out of the window, you know." And then, speaking to Mrs. Delaport Green:

"We have no light of any sort or kind, and no bathrooms, but there are plenty of candles, and I can't see why, with large hip baths and plenty of water, people can't keep clean. Yes, dinner is at 8.15 sharp; I hope you have everything you want; there is no bell into your maid's room, but the housemaid can always fetch your maid."

Then she ushered Molly into the next room and, after briefly pointing out its principal defects, she left her to rest her body and tire her mind on a hard but gorgeously-upholstered couch until it should be time to dress for dinner.