Part 24

Your mother came to tea yesterday and brought Monica. Margaret is rather in seclusion at present on account of Richard's arrival, I fancy. She's obviously dreading other people's notice. It is a rather self-conscious business, this waiting for the arrival of some one whom everybody expects is going to play such an important part in her life. If we were separated now for two years, it would be different; but I can see that Margaret is dreadfully afraid that now, having at last made up her mind to marry Richard, she may not care for him as much as she did. He must be a fine fellow. I'm looking forward tremendously to his coming. Monica was perfectly delightful yesterday, and grew quite excited in her nunlike way over the ultimate decoration of Plashers Mead. Dear me, what taste you all have got, and what a very great deal you've taught me! You must most of all forget that I ever said a word against your sisters. They have really equipped me in a way with a point of view towards art. I tried to tell Monica so yesterday afternoon. In fact, we got on very well together. In a way, you know, she almost appreciates you more than Margaret does. You represent her hope, her ideal of the world. Worldly one, I must say good night. Tell Miss Verney with my love that all her cats send their best respects and compliments and that Bellerophon particularly requests that his mistress will bring back whatever fish is in season at Scarborough. Oh, the funniest thing I've forgotten to tell you! Miss Peasey was chased by some bullocks across the big field behind the orchard! She was too priceless about it when she got home.

Pauline began to think it was impossible for her ever to have had the least worry in the course of her engagement. This was the first time she had been parted from Guy for more than a week during the whole of a year, and there was something very reassuring in such an opportunity to regard him like this so disinterestedly, to find that the separation was having the traditional effect and to be positive that she was going to meet him again at the end of April more in love than ever. Nevertheless, she was always aware of being grateful for the repose from problems, and she did once or twice play with the idea of having perhaps made a mistake in objecting to his going abroad. It was on occasions of doubt like this that Pauline would try to impress Miss Verney with what existence had already meant to her.

"I'm feeling so old, Miss Verney."

"Old, my dear? Oh, that cannot be true," exclaimed her friend.

"Falling very much in love does make one feel old," Pauline declared.

"Let me see," Miss Verney went on, "let me try to remember how I felt. My impression is now that when I was in love I felt much younger than I do at present, but perhaps that is natural, for it is very nearly thirty years ago since William and I parted."

"Is he still alive?"

"Oh yes, he is still alive, but I have never seen him and he must be wonderfully altered. Sometimes I think of all the days that have gone by since we parted. It seems so strange to think of our lives being able to go on, when once it seemed to both of us that life could not go on at all if we were not together. It seems so strange to think of him eating his lunch somewhere at the same time that somewhere else I am eating my lunch. Who knows if he ever thinks of me, who knows indeed?"

"If anything happened to prevent our marriage," began Pauline, thoughtfully, and then was silent.

Miss Verney opened wide her pale-blue eyes.

"And what could happen?" she asked, grandly.

"I've no business to imagine such a thing, have I?"

"None whatever," said Miss Verney, decidedly.

But had Miss Verney's love-affair been complicated by anything more than merely natural difficulties? Guy's debts and unsuccess were nothing in comparison with other elements of disaccord ... and then Pauline pulled herself up from brooding and resolutely forced her mind to contemplate a happy Summer. Had she not just now been congratulating herself upon the disappearance of all worries in this sea air?

The time at Scarborough drew to a close, and about a week before her birthday came the news of Richard's arrival from India. She and Miss Verney packed up and were home in Wychford two days before they were expected.

"Richard, how lovely to see you again!" Pauline cried. "And, oh, Richard, I'm sure you've grown. Don't you think he has grown?" she demanded of everybody. "Richard, how clever of you to grow when you're twenty-seven."

It was really like old times to go babbling on like this, while Richard sat and smiled encouragingly and spoke never a word.

"Coming for a stroll?" he asked.

"Oh, but I ought to see Guy first," she said. "Richard, I hope you like Guy."

He nodded.

"Do you think he looks like a poet?"

"Never saw a poet before," said Richard.

"Oh, but like your idea of a poet?"

"Never thought much about poets," said Richard. "So you aren't coming for a stroll?"

"I will to-morrow, but I must spend the sunset with Guy."

Guy was waiting for her by the paddock, and they floated down-stream out of reach of people. In their own peninsula they kissed away the absence of twenty-two days.

"You look much better," said Guy, critically.

"I'm perfectly well."

"And happy?"

She answered him with her eyes.

"Why, Pauline, I believe you're quite shy of me!"

She blushed.

"I really am a little, you know," she whispered. "Did you like Richard? Oh, Guy, I hope you did."

"Of course I did."

"And, Guy, you don't mind if I go for a walk with him to-morrow morning? You see, I know he's longing to hear about Margaret and himself."

"But you'll come out with me in the afternoon?"

"Why, of course."

"Then Richard may have the morning," said Guy. "And I hope you'll arrange everything between him and Margaret so successfully that he won't steal any more hours from me."

When Pauline had left Guy that evening she thought how strangely it had been like meeting him for the first time all over again. Or rather it was as if they had walked a long way down the wrong road and were now beginning to walk somewhat tentatively along what she hoped was surely the right road at last. Her duty was above all to help Guy with the material burdens; she must never again let him think that his debts or his prospects had any power to worry her. Merely most tactfully must she try to keep him from extravagance, and, oh dear, how she hoped that he had not bought her an expensive birthday present. It was too late to say anything about it now, but if Guy had been wisely economical how happy she would be. How she hoped, too, that Richard had not brought home from India a present that would annoy Margaret. Really, it was a most oppressive business, this week before her coming of age, for between Guy's extravagance and Richard's ... well, it was really not so much bad taste as Indian taste. She would love anything he gave her, of course, but perhaps he would consult beforehand with Margaret. Dear Richard, he was so sweet and touching, and if only he had not brought her something _very_ elaborately carved. She met him next morning half-way to Fairfield, and two years were obliterated as she kept pace with his long stride when they turned aside from the highroad and tramped upward over the grassy wold.

"Richard, isn't it very hot in India?"

He nodded.

"And didn't you ever get used to walking a bit more slowly in India?"

He laughed.

"You lazy little thing. I thought you and Aunt Verney had been in training at Scarborough? Come on, let's sit down then."

They sat down, and Richard drew with his stick in the close turf.

"Is that your bridge?" Pauline asked, with all the interest she could put into her voice.

He laughed for a long time.

"Pauline, you villain, it's the beginning of Margaret's face!"

She clapped her hands.

"Oh, Richard, aren't I a villain? But, you know, it's not very frightfully like anything, is it?"

"Pauline," he said, suddenly, in that sharp voice in which two years ago he had intrusted his interests to her before he went away--"Pauline, is Margaret going to marry me?"

"Why, of course she is, Richard!"

"Has she spoken to you about me?"

"But you know she never speaks about her own affairs and that she can't bear anybody else to speak of them to her."

"Then how do you know?" he asked.

"Well, perhaps because I'm so much in love with Guy," Pauline whispered.

"I don't see how that quite works. I'm a very dull sort of chap after that Guy of yours."

"But you're not at all," Pauline declared. "And if you take my advice you won't think you're dull. You'll make Margaret marry you. Really, I'm sure that what she would like best is to be made to do something. You see, she's a darling, but she is just a very tiny little bit spoiled. You mustn't be so patient with her. But, Richard dear, I know she loves you, because she practically told Guy that she did."

"Guy?" he echoed, looking rather indignant.

"Well, you must understand how sweet Margaret was to him about me. She was so sympathetic, and really she practically brought about our engagement. Oh, I do love her so, Richard, and I do want her to be happy, and I do know so dreadfully well that you are the very person to make her happy."

"Pauline, you are a pink brick," he avowed.

And scarcely another word did he say for the rest of their walk.

Pauline went to Margaret's room that night and, after fidgeting all the while her sister was undressing, suddenly plunged down beside her bed and caught hold of her hand.

"Margaret, you're not to snub me, because I absolutely must speak. I must beg you not to keep Richard waiting any longer. Do, my darling, darling Margaret, do be kind to him and not so cold. He simply adores you, and.... Why, Margaret, you're crying!... Oh, let me kiss you, my Margaret, because you were so wonderful about Guy, and I've been a beast to you and you must, you must be happy."

"If I could only love him as you love Guy," Margaret sighed between her tears.

"You do really ... at least perhaps not _quite_ as much. Oh, Margaret, don't be angry with me if I whisper something to you; think how much you would love him if you and he had ... Margaret, you know what I mean."

Pauline blew out the candle and rushed from the dark room; and lying awake in her own bed, she fancied among the flowers of the Rectory such fairy children for Margaret and herself, such fairy children dancing by the margin of the river.

MAY

On the morning before Pauline's birthday Guy received a letter from Michael Fane announcing abruptly his engagement and adding that on account of worldly opposition he had been persuaded into a postponement of his marriage for two months. Guy was rather ironically amused by the serious manner in which Michael took so brief a delay, and he could not help thinking how unreasonably impatient of trifles people with ample private means often showed themselves. Michael wrote that he would like to spend some of his probation at Plashers Mead, and alluded to the "luck" of his friend in being so near his Pauline.

Guy wrote a letter of congratulation, and then he put Michael's news out of his mind in order to examine the two complete sets of the proofs on his poems which had also arrived that morning. He was engaged in the task of making a rather clumsy binding for them out of a piece of stained vellum when Richard Ford came round to Plashers Mead. Guy welcomed him gladly, for besides the personal attraction he felt towards this lean and silent engineer, he perceived in the likelihood of Richard's speedy marriage an earnest of his own. Somehow that marriage was going to break the spell of inactivity to which at the Rectory all seemed to be subject, and from which Guy was determined to keep Richard free, even if it were necessary to shake him as continuously as tired wanderers in the snow are shaken out of a dangerous sleep.

"I came round to consult with you about my present to Pauline to-morrow," said Richard, very solemnly. "I've brought round one or two little things, so that you could give me your advice."

"Why, of course I will," said Guy.

"They're down-stairs in the hall. I had some difficulty in explaining to your housekeeper that I wasn't a peddler."

In the hall was stacked a pile completely representative of the bazar: half a dozen shawls, the model of a temple, a carved table, some inlaid stools, every sort of typical Oriental gewgaw; in fact, an agglomeration that seemed to invite the smell of cheap incense for its effective display.

"Godbold drove them over," Richard explained, as he saw Guy's astonishment. "Now look here, what's the best present for Pauline? You see, I'm not at all an artistic sort of chap, and I don't want to hoick forward something that's going to be more of a nuisance than anything else."

"It's really awfully difficult to choose," said Guy, rather ambiguously.

Then he discovered a simple ivory paper-knife which he declared was just the thing, having the happy thought that he would not cut the set of proofs he was binding for Pauline, so that to-morrow Richard could have the pleasure of beholding his gift put to immediate use.

"You've chosen the smallest thing of the lot," said the disappointed donor. "You don't think a shawl as well?" he asked, holding up yards of gaudy material.

"Well, candidly, I think Pauline's too fair for that color scheme, don't you?"

"All right, the paper-knife. You don't mind if I leave these things here till Godbold can fetch them away, and ... er.... I wish you'd choose something for yourself. I've always taken a kind of interest in this house, don't you know, and I've often thought about it in India."

"I'd like a gong," said Guy at once, and Richard was obviously gratified by his quick choice, and still further gratified when Guy suggested they should sound it immediately outside the kitchen door. Solemnly Richard held it up in the passage, while Guy crashed forth a glorious clamor, at the summons of which Miss Peasey came rushing out.

"Good gracious!" she gasped. "I thought that dog Bob had jumped through the window."

"This is a present for us from India," Guy shouted.

"Oh, that's extremely handsome, isn't it? Well now, I shall expect you to be punctual in future for your meals. Dear me, yes, quite a variety, I'm sure, after that measly bell."

The gong was given a prominent position in the bare hall, and Guy invited Richard up to his own room. After the question of the presents had been solved Richard was shy and silent again, and Guy found it very hard to make conversation. Several times his visitor seemed on the point of getting something off his mind, but when he was given an opportunity for speech he never accepted it. Desperate for a topic, Guy showed him the proofs of the poems, and explained that he was binding them roughly as his present to Pauline to-morrow.

"That's something I can't understand," said Richard, intensely. "Writing! It beats me!"

"Bridges would beat me," said Guy.

Richard looked quite cheerful at this notion and under the influence of the encouragement he had received seemed at last on the point of getting out what he wanted to say, but he could manage nothing more confidential than a tug at his bristled fair mustache.

"When are you and Margaret going to be married?" Guy asked, abruptly, for, of course, he had guessed that it was Margaret's name which was continually on the tip of his tongue.

"By Jove! there you are! I'm rather stumped," said Richard, gloomily. "You see, the thing is ... well ... I suppose you know that when I started off to India last June year, Margaret and I were sort of engaged ... at least I was certainly engaged to her, only she hadn't absolutely made up her mind about me ... and, of course, that's just what you'd expect would happen to a chap like me ... dash it all! Hazlewood, I'm afraid to ask her again!"

"I don't think you need be," said Guy. "Of course we haven't discussed you, except very indirectly," he hastily added, "but I'm positive that Margaret is only waiting for you to ask her to marry her on some definite day; on some definite day, Ford, that's the great thing to remember."

"You mean I ought to say, 'Margaret, will you marry me on the twelfth of August, or the first of September? That's your notion, is it?"

Guy nodded.

"By gad! I'll ask her to-day," said Richard.

"And you'll be engaged to-morrow," Guy prophesied.

"When are you and Pauline going to be married?"

Guy looked up quickly to see if the solid Richard were laughing at him, but there was nothing in those steel-blue eyes except the most benevolent inquiry.

"That's the question," said Guy. "Writing is not quite such a certainty as bridge-building."

"You mean there's the difficulty of money? By Jove! that's bad luck, isn't it? Still, you know, I expect that having the good fortune to have Pauline in love with you.... Well, I expect, you've got to expect a bit of difficulty somewhere, you know. You know, Pauline was...." he stopped and blinked at the window.

"Pauline's awfully fond of you," Guy said, encouragingly.

"Hazlewood, that kid's been.... Well, I can't express myself, you know, but I'd.... Well, I really can't talk about her."

"I understand, though," said Guy. "Look here, you'll stay and have lunch with me, and then we can go across to the Rectory afterwards."

Emotional subjects were tacitly put on one side to talk of the birds and butterflies that one might expect to find round Wychford, of Miss Verney and Godbold and other local characters, or of the prospects of the cricket team that year. After lunch Guy put the unbound set of proofs in his pocket and, launching the canoe, they floated down to the Rectory paddock. Mrs. Grey and the girls were all in the garden picking purple tulips, and Guy, taking Pauline aside, told her on what momentous quest Richard was come, suggesting that he should occupy the Rector's attention, while Pauline lured away her mother and Monica.

The Rector was sitting in the library, hard at work rubbing the fluff from the anemone seeds with sand.

"And what can I do for you, sir?" he asked.

"I thought you'd like to see the proofs of my poems," said Guy.

He laid the duplicates on the dusty table, and tried to thank his patron for what he had done. The Rector waved a clay pipe deprecatingly.

"You must thank Constance ... you must thank my wife, if you thank anybody. But if I were you I shouldn't thank anybody till you find out for certain that she's done you a service," he recommended, with a twinkle.

Guy laughed.

"Worrall doesn't want to publish until the Autumn."

The Rector made a face.

"All that time to wait for the verdict?"

"Time seems particularly hostile to me," Guy said.

"You'll have to tweak his forelock pretty hard."

"That's what I've come to consult you about. Do you think I ought to go to Persia with Sir George Gascony? Mrs. Grey thought I oughtn't to take so drastic a step until I had first tested my poems in public. But I've been reading them through, and they don't somehow look quite as important in print as they did in manuscript. I can't help feeling that I ought to have a regular occupation. What do you really advise me to do, Mr. Grey?"

The Rector held up his arms in mock dismay.

"Gracious goodness me, don't implicate a poor country parson in such affairs! I can give you advice about flowers and I can pretend to give you advice about your soul, but about the world, no, no."

"I think perhaps I'll get some journalistic work in town," Guy suggested.

"Persia or journalism!" commented the Rector. "Well, well, they're both famous for fairy tales. I recommend journalism as being nearer at hand."

"Then I'll take your advice."

"Oh, dear me, you must not involve me in such a responsibility. Now, if you were a nice rational iris I would talk to you, but for a talented young man with his life before him I shouldn't even be a good quack. Come along, let's go out and look at the tulips."

"You _will_ glance through my poems?" Guy asked, diffidently.

The Rector stood up and put his hand on the poet's shoulder.

"Of course I will, my dear boy, and you mustn't be deceived by the manner of that shy old boor, the Rector of Wychford. Do what you think you ought to do, and make my youngest daughter happy. We shall be having her birthday before we know where we are."

"It's to-morrow!"

"Is it indeed? May Day. Of course. I remember last year I managed to bloom _Iris lorteti_. But this year, no! That wet May destroyed _Iris lorteti_. A delicate creature. Rose and brown. A delicate, lovely creature."

Guy and the Rector pored over the tulips awhile, where in serried borders they displayed their somber sheen of amaranth and amethyst; then Guy strolled off to hear what was the news of Margaret and Richard. Pauline came flying to meet him down one of the long, straight garden paths.

"Darling, they are to be married early in August," she cried.

He caught her to him and kissed her, lest in the first poignant realization of other people's joy she might seem to be escaping from him utterly.

Guy had a few minutes with Margaret before he went home that evening, and they walked beside the tulip borders, she tall and dark and self-contained in the fading light, being strangely suited by association with such flowers.

"Dear Margaret," he said, "I want to tell you how tremendously I like Richard. Now that sounds patronizing. But I'm speaking quite humbly. These sort of Englishmen have been celebrated enough, perhaps, and lately there's been a tendency to laugh at them, but, my God! what is there on earth like the Richards of England? Margaret, you once very rightly reproved me for putting Pauline in a silver frame, do let me risk your anger and beg you never to put yourself in a silver frame from which to look out at Richard."

"You do rather understand me, don't you?" she said, offering him her hand.

"Help Pauline and me," he begged.

"Haven't I always helped you?"

"Not always, but you will now that you yourself are no longer uncertain about your future. The moment you find yourself perfectly happy you'll be longing for every one else to be the same."

"But how haven't I helped you?" she persisted.

"It would be difficult to explain in definite words. But I don't think my idea of your attitude towards us could have been entirely invented by my fancy."

"What attitude? What do you mean, Guy?"

He shook his head.

"My dear, if you aren't conscious of it, I'm certainly not going to attempt to put it into words and involve myself in such a net."

"How tantalizing you are!"

"No, I'm not. If you have the least inclination to think I may be right, then you know what I mean and you can do what I ask. If you haven't the least notion of what I mean, then it was all my fancy, and I'm certainly not going to give my baseless fancies away."

"This is all too cryptic," she murmured.

"Then let it remain undeciphered," he said, smiling; and he led the conversation more directly towards their marriage and the strangeness of the Rectory without Margaret.

Richard spent the night at Plashers Mead, and Guy heard the halting account of two years' uncertainty, of the bungalow that had been taken and embowered against Margaret's coming, and of the way in which his bridge had spanned not merely the river, but the very ocean, and even time itself.