Part 7

She sighed, and Guy wondered if the violoncello had been used with as little reference as a sonnet to the real cause of the mood.

"Why did you sigh just now?" he asked after another minute or two of silent progress.

"I wonder whether I'll tell you. No, I don't think I will. And yet...."

"And yet perhaps, after all, you will," said Guy, eagerly. "And if you do, I'll tell you something in turn."

"That's no bribe," said Margaret, laughing. "You foolish creature, don't you think I know what you'll tell me?"

Guy shook his head.

"I don't think you do. You may suspect. But for that matter, so may I. Isn't what you might have told me something that might most suitably be told on the way to Fairfield?"

"You've been talking about me to Pauline," said Margaret, angrily.

"Never," he declared. "But you don't suppose you can have all these mysterious allusions to Richard without my guessing that his father is Vicar of Fairfield. Dear Margaret, forgive me for guessing and tell me what you were going to tell."

"Have you heard I was engaged to Richard Ford?" she asked.

"I heard he was in love with you."

"Oh, he is, he is," she murmured, and Guy, thinking of Richard in India, wondered if he ever dreamed of Margaret walking like this in a snowy England. The clock in Fairfield church struck eleven with an icy tinkle that on the muted air sounded very thinly. "But the problem for me," Margaret went on, "is whether I'm in love with him, or if Richard is merely the nicest person who has been in love with me so far."

"Well, if you'd asked me that three months ago," Guy said, "I would have answered decidedly that you weren't in love with him if you had one doubt. But now ... well, you know really now I'm rather in the state of mind that wants everybody to be in love. And why do you think you're not in love with him?"

"I haven't really explained well," said Margaret. "What I'm sure of is that I'm not as much in love with him as I want to be in love."

"You're living opposite a looking-glass," said Guy. "That's what is the matter."

They had reached the stile leading over into the highroad, and Margaret gazed back wistfully at the footprints in the snow, before they crossed it and went on their way.

"Yes," she said. "I am conceited. But my conceit is really cowardice. I long for admiration, and when I am admired I despise it. I lie in bed thinking how well I play the 'cello, and when I have the instrument by me I don't believe I can play even moderately well. I am really fond of him, but the moment I think that anybody else is thinking about my being fond of him I almost hate his name. I can't bear the idea of going to live in India, and I detest bridges--you know he builds bridges--and yet I couldn't possibly write to him and say that he must think no more about me. I'm really a mixture of Monica and Pauline, and so I'm not as happy as either of them."

"Yes, I suppose Pauline is very happy," said Guy in a depressed voice.

"What am I to do?" Margaret asked.

"I'm sure you're much more in love than you think," he declared, quickly, for he had the ghost of a temptation to tell her she was foolish to think any more of a love so uncertain as hers. There was enough jealousy of his standing at the Rectory to give him the impulse to rob Richard of his foothold, but the meanness destroyed itself on this virginal morning almost before Guy realized it had tried to exist. "Yes, I'm sure you're really in love," he repeated. "I think I can understand what you feel."

"Do you?" said Margaret, shaking her head a little sadly. "I'm afraid it's only a very willing sympathy on your part, for I'm sure I don't understand myself. That's why I'm conceited, perhaps. I'm trying to build up a Margaret Grey for other people to look at, which I admire like any pretty thing one makes oneself, and perhaps why I can't fall really in love is because I'm afraid of some one's understanding me and showing me to myself."

"You'd have to be very clever to disappoint that person," said Guy. "And why shouldn't Richard Ford be the one?"

"Oh, he'll never discover me," said Margaret. "That's what's so dull."

"Aren't you a little unreasonable?" Guy asked.

"Of course I am. Now don't let's talk about me any more; I'm really not worth discussing--only just because my family is so exquisite and because I adore them, I never talk about Richard to them. Here's the old woman's cottage. I sha'n't be more than a few minutes."

Guy felt honored by Margaret's confidence, but his heart was so full of Pauline that he transferred all the substance of what she had been saying to suit his own case. Would Pauline never know if she were in love? Would he be doomed to the position of Richard? Or worse, would Pauline fly from his love in terror of anything so disturbing to the perfection of her life at present? On the whole he was inclined to think that this was exactly what she would do; and he felt he would never have the courage to startle her with the question. When he thought of the girls to whom in the past of long vacations he had made protestations of devotion that were light as the thistle-down in the summery meadows where they were uttered, it was incredible that the asking of Pauline should speed his heart like this. With other girls he had always imagined them slightly in love with him, but for Pauline to be in love with him seemed hopeless, though he qualified his humility by assuring himself that she could be in love with nobody. Did Margaret really have a suspicion that he was in love with Pauline? If she had, why had she not drawn his confidence before she gave her own? She came out from the cottage as he propounded this, and he told her, when their faces were set towards Wychford and a chilly wind that was rising, how he had been thinking about her confidence all the while she was in the cottage. Moreover, he was under the impression this was the truth.

"But don't think about me any more," she commanded.

"Never?"

"Not until I speak first. Isn't it cold? You must have been frozen waiting for me."

They hurried along, talking mostly, though how the topic arose Guy never knew, about whether _Alice in Wonderland_ were better than _Alice Through the Looking-glass_ or not. The quotations that went to sustain the argument were so many that they arrived back very quickly, it seemed, at the stile leading into the snowy field.

"Will you go home the same way?" Guy suggested. "Look, nobody has spoiled our tracks. They're jollier than ever, and do you see those rooks farther down the field? It will snow again this afternoon and our footprints will vanish."

By the time they reached the Abbey wood Guy had made up his mind that as they walked up through the shrubbery, unless people were listening there, he would tell Margaret how deeply he was in love with Pauline. The resolution taken, his throat seemed to close up with nervousness, and, vaulting over the fence, he tripped and fell in a snow-drift.

"Why this violent activity all of a sudden?" Margaret asked.

He laughed gloomily and vowed it was the exhilarating weather. Up the broad walk they went slowly, and every yard was bringing them dreadfully nearer to Wychford High Street and the profanation of this snowy silence. Abruptly a robin began to sing from a bough almost overhead; and Guy, realizing half-unconsciously that unless he told Margaret now, his words would die upon that robin's rathe melody, said:

"Margaret, you'll probably be angry, but I must tell you that I'm in love with your sister."

He drove his stick deep into the snow to give his eyes the excuse of looking down.

"With Pauline?" she said, softly.

He congratulated himself upon the cunning with which he had at least thrown something on Margaret of the responsibility, as he almost called it. Had she said Monica it would have killed his hope at once.

"Of course I know it must sound ridiculous, but...."

"Is she in love with me?" asked Margaret, with tender mockery. "Well, I think she may be. Perhaps I'm almost sure she is."

"Margaret," said Guy, seizing her hand. "I hope you'll be the happiest person in the world always. You know, don't you, that I'm dying for you to be happy?"

There may have been tears in her eyes as she responded with faintest pressure of her hand to his affection.

"And you won't forget all about me and take no more interest in what will seem my maddening indecision, when you and Pauline are happy?"

"My dear, as if I could!" he exclaimed.

"Lovers can forget very easily," said Margaret. "You see I've thought such a lot about being in love that I've got every one else's conduct clearly mapped out in my mind."

Guy stopped dead; and, as he stopped, the robin now far behind them ceased his song, and even the flute of the wind sounding on distant hollows and horizons cracked in the frost so that the stillness was sharp as ice itself.

"Margaret, what makes you think Pauline cares for me? How dare I be so fortunate?"

"Because you know you are fortunate," said Margaret, nor could falling snow have touched his arm more lightly than she. "Why do you suppose I told you about Richard if it was not because I thought you appreciated Pauline?"

"Ah, how I shall always love the snow," Guy exclaimed, grinding the slippery ball upon his heel to powder.

"But now I've got a disappointment for you," said Margaret. "Pauline and Monica are going into Oxford to-day for a week."

"You won't tell anybody what I've told you?" he begged.

"Of course not. Secrets are much too fascinating not to be kept as long as possible."

He opened the wicket, and presently they parted in the High Street.

"I shall come in this afternoon," he called after her. "Unless you're bored with me."

She invited him with her muff, and seemed to float out of sight. Suddenly Guy remembered that sometime this morning (it seemed as long ago as when Wychford Abbey was alive) Bob had been with him. He was glad of an excuse to go back and look for the dog in those now consecrated arbors. There the robin still sang his rather pensive tune; and there from a high ash-bough a missel-thrush, wearing full ermine of the Spring, saluted the vestal day.

FEBRUARY

Pauline started to Oxford with Monica, feeling rather disappointed she had not seen Guy before she went; for Margaret had come home with news of having walked with him to Fairfield, and it was tantalizing, indeed a little disturbing, to leave him behind with Margaret.

"Nothing is said to Margaret," Pauline protested at lunch, "when _she_ goes out for a walk with Guy. Father, don't you think it's unfair?"

"Well, darling Pauline," interrupted Mrs. Grey, with an anxious glance towards her second daughter, "you see, Margaret is in a way engaged."

"I'm not engaged," Margaret declared.

"But I'm asking Father," Pauline persisted. "Father, don't you think it's unfair?"

The Rector was turning over the pages of a seed-catalogue and answered Pauline's question with that engaging irrelevancy to which his family and parish were accustomed.

"It's disgraceful for these people to offer seeds of _Incarvillea olgae_. My dears, you remember that anemic magenta brute, the color of a washed-out shirt? Ah," he sighed, "I wish they'd get that yellow _Incarvillea_ over. I am tempted to fancy it might be as good as _Tecoma Smithii_, and, of course, coming from that Yang-tse-kiang country, it would be hardy."

"Francis dear!" Pauline cried. "Don't you think it's unfair?"

"Pauline," said her mother, "you must not call your father Francis in the dining-room."

The Rector, oblivious of everything, continued to turn slowly the pages of his catalogue.

"Oh, bother going to Oxford!" said Monica, looking out of the window to where Janet with frozen breath listened for the omnibus under gathering snow-clouds.

"Now, really," Pauline exclaimed, diverted from her complaint of Margaret's behavior by another injustice, "isn't Monica too bad? She's grumbling, though it was she who made the plan to stay with the Strettons. And though they're her friends and not mine, I've been made to go, too."

"Well, I hate staying with people," Monica explained.

"So do I," said Pauline. "And you accepted the invitation for me that day you were in Oxford buying Christmas presents, when you forgot to buy the patience-cards I wanted to give poor Miss Verney, so that I had to give her a horrid little china dog, though she hates dogs."

"Now I'm sure it'll be charming, yes, charming, when you get there," Mrs. Grey affirmed, hopefully.

"Oh, how glad I am I'm not going!" said Margaret.

"I think you ought to go instead of me," Pauline told her.

"They're not my friends," Margaret replied, with a shrug.

"No, but they're more your friends than mine," Pauline argued. "Because you're nearer to Monica. They're four years off being my friends and only two from being yours."

"Miss Monica," said Janet, coming into the room, "the 'bus has come out from the King's Head yard, and you'll be late."

There was instantly a confusion of preparation by Mrs. Grey and Pauline, while Monica sighed at the trouble of departure, and Margaret with exasperating indifference sat warm and triumphant by the fire.

"Good gracious!" the Rector exclaimed, flinging the catalogue down and speaking loud enough to be heard over the feverish search for Pauline's left glove. "These people have the impudence to advertise _Penstemon Lobbii_ as a novelty when it's really our old friend _Breviflorus_. What on earth is to be done with these scoundrels?"

The horn of the omnibus sounded at the end of Rectory Lane; and the fat guard was marching through the snow with the girls' luggage. The good-bys were all said; and presently Pauline, with her muff held close to her cheeks against the north wind, was sitting on top of the omnibus that was toiling up the Shipcot road. As she caught sight of Plashers Mead, etched upon the white scene, she wished she had left a message with Margaret to say in what deep disgrace Guy was. On they labored across five miles of snow-stilled country with sparse flakes melting upon the horses' flanks, and never a wayfarer between Wychford and Shipcot to pause and stare at them.

On the second night of their stay with the Strettons, Monica, when she and Pauline were going to bed, suddenly turned round from the dressing-table and demanded in rhetorical dismay why they had come.

"Never mind," said Pauline; "we've only got five more evenings."

"Well, that's nearly a week," Monica sighed. "And I'm tired to death of Olive already."

"But I'm much worse off," Pauline declared, dolefully. "Because I have to sit next to the Professor, who does frighten me so. You see, he will include me in the conversation. Last night at dinner, after he'd been talking to that don from Balliol who knew Guy and whom I was dying to ask ... to talk to myself, I mean, he turned round to me and said, 'I am afraid, Miss Pauline, that Aramaic roots are not very interesting to you.' Well, of course I got muddled between Aramaic and aromatic, and said that Father had just been given a lot which were very poisonous."

Monica laughed that sedate laugh of hers, which always seemed to Pauline like a clock striking, so independent was it of anybody's feelings.

"Monica darling, I don't want to be critical," said Pauline. "But you know sometimes your laugh sounds just a little--a very little self-satisfied."

"I think I am rather self-satisfied," Monica agreed, combing her golden hair away from her high, pale forehead. "And Margaret is conceited, and you're twice as sweet as both of us put together."

"Oh no, I'm not! Oh no, no, Monica dearest, I'm not!" Pauline contradicted, hurriedly. "No, really I'm very horrid. And, you know, when I'm bored I'm sure I show it. Oh, dear, I hope the Strettons didn't notice I was bored. Mrs. Stretton was so touching with the things they had brought back from Madeira, and I do hate things people bring back from places like Madeira."

"And when you're not bored with anybody," said Monica, "you're rather apt to make that too obvious also."

"Monica, why are you saying that?" Pauline asked, with wide-open eyes.

"Even supposing Guy is in love with you," said Monica, slowly blowing out the candles on the dressing-table as she spoke, so that nothing was left but the rosy gas, "I don't think it's necessary to show him quite so clearly that you're in love with _him_."

"Monica!"

"Darling little sister, I do so want you ... oh, how can I put it? Well, you know, when you break the time in a trio, as you sometimes do...."

"But I'm not in love with Guy," Pauline interrupted. "At least, oh, Monica, why do you choose a house like this to tell me such things?" she asked, with tears and blushes fighting in her countenance.

"Pauline, it's only that I want you to keep in time."

"I can't possibly stay with the Strettons another five days," declared Pauline in deepest gloom. "You ought not to say things like that here."

She was looking round this strange bedroom for the comfort of familiar pictures, but there was nothing on these pink walls except a view of the Matterhorn. Monica was kneeling to say her prayers, and in the stillness the frost outside seemed to be pressing against the window-panes. Pauline thought it was rather unfair of Monica to fade like this into unearthly communications; and she knelt down to pray somewhat vagrant prayers into the quilted eider-down that symbolized the guest-room's luxurious chill. She longed to look up in aspiration and behold Saint Ursula in that tall bed of hers, or cheerful Tobit walking with his dog in the angel's company, and in the corner her own desk that was full of childish things. She rose from her knees at the same moment as Monica, who at once began to talk lightly of the tiresome people at dinner and seemed utterly unconscious of having wounded Pauline's thoughts. Yet when the room was dark, for a long while these wounded thoughts danced upon the wintry air that breathed of Wychford. "_Even supposing Guy is in love with you._" It was curious that she could not feel very angry with Monica. "_Even supposing Guy is in love with you._" It really seemed a pity to fall asleep; it was like falling asleep when music was being played.

The subject of Guy was not mentioned again, but during the days that remained of the visit Pauline scarcely felt that she was living in the Strettons' house, and was so absent in her demeanor that Monica was disturbed into what was for her a positive sociableness to counteract Pauline's appearance of inattention. To consummate the vexation of the visit there came a sudden thaw two days before they left, and Oxford was ankle-deep in slush. Finally Pauline and Monica were dragged through the very nadir of depression when on their last night they were taken out to dinner in trams and goloshes through such abominable conditions of weather.

"Fancy not ordering a cab," whispered Monica, with cold disapproval.

"Perhaps they can't afford it," Pauline suggested.

"They can afford to go to Madeira," answered Monica, "and buy all those stupid knickknacks."

"Well, Monica, they are your friends, you know," said Pauline.

However, the 1st of February arrived next morning, and Oxford was left behind. Pauline sighed with relief when they were seated in the train, and the twenty miles of country to Shipcot that generally seemed so dull were as green and welcome as if they were returning from a Siberian exile.

"You know, Monica, I really don't think we ought to stay with people. I don't think it's honest to spend such a hateful week as that in being pleasant," she declared.

"I didn't notice that you were taking much trouble to hide your boredom," said Monica. "It seems to me that I was always in a state of trying to steer people round your behavior."

"Oh, but Professor Stretton loves me," said Pauline.

She was trying not to appear excited as the omnibus swished and slapped through the mud towards Wychford. She was determined that in future she would lead that inclosed and so serene life which she admired in her eldest sister. Nobody could criticize Monica except for her coldness, and Pauline knew that herself would never be able to be really as cold as that, however much she might assume the effect.

"Grand weather after the snow," said the driver.

The roofs of Wychford were sparkling on the hillside, and earth seemed to be turning restlessly in the slow Winter sleep.

"This mud'll all be gone with a week of fine days like to-day," said the driver.

Plashers Mead was in sight now, but it was Monica who pointed to where Guy and his dog were wandering across the meadows that were so vividly emerald after the snow.

"I think it is," agreed Pauline, indifferently.

In the Rectory garden a year might have passed, so great was the contrast between now and a week ago. Now the snowdrops were all that was left of the snow, and a treasure of aconites as bright as new guineas were scattered along the borders. Hatless and entranced, the Rector was roaming from one cohort of green spears to another, each one of which would soon be flying the pennons of Spring. Pauline rushed to embrace him, and he, without a word, led her to see where on a sunny bank Greek anemones had opened their deep-blue stars.

"_Blanda_," he whispered. "And I've never known her so deep in color. Dear me, poor old Ford tells me he hasn't got one left. I warned him she must have sun and drainage, but he would mix her with _Nemorosa_ just to please his wife, which is ridiculous--particularly as they are never in bloom together."

He bent over and with two long fingers held up a flower full in the sun's eye, as he might have stooped to chuck under the chin a little girl of his parish.

Monica had brought back a new quartet, which they practised all that Candlemas Eve. When it was time to go to bed Mrs. Grey observed in a satisfied voice that, after all, it must have been charming at the Strettons'.

"Oh no, Mother; it was terribly dull," Pauline protested.

"Now, dear Pauline, how could it have been dull, when you've brought back this exquisite Schumann quartet?"

Margaret came to Pauline's room to say good night, sat with her while she undressed, and tucked her up so lovingly that Pauline was more than ever delighted to be back at home.

"Oh, Margaret, how sweet you are to me! Why? Is it because you really do miss me when I go away?"

"Partly," said Margaret.

"Why are you smiling so wisely? Have you put something under my pillow?" Pauline began to search.

"There's nothing under your pillow except all the thoughts I have to-night for you."

Once more Margaret leaned over and kissed her, and Pauline faded into sleep upon the happiness of being at home again.

Next day after lunch her mother and sisters went to pay a long-postponed call upon a new family in the neighborhood, because Margaret insisted they must take advantage of this glorious weather which would surely not last very long.

Pauline spent the early afternoon with the Rector and Birdwood, writing labels while they sowed a lot of new sweet-peas which had been sent to the Rector for an opinion upon their merits. The clock was striking four when Guy strolled into the garden. Somehow Pauline's labels were not so carefully written after his arrival, and at last the Rector advised her to take Hazlewood and show him _Anemone blanda_. They left the big wall-garden and went across the lawn in front of the house to the second wall-garden, where most of the Rector's favorites grew as it pleased them best.

"Oh, they've all gone to bed," said Pauline.

Guy knelt down and opened the petals of one.

"They're exactly the color of your eyes," he said, looking up at her.