“Oh, Mrs. Welman, of course—of course! I wouldn’t leave you for the world. Not if you want me—”
“I do want you…” The voice was unusually deep and full. “You’re—you’re quite like a daughter to me, Mary. I’ve seen you grow up here at Hunterbury from a little toddling thing—seen you grow into a beautiful girl… I’m proud of you, child. I only hope I’ve done what was best for you.”
Mary said quickly:
“If you mean that your having been so good to me and having educated me above—well, above my station—if you think it’s made me dissatisfied or—or—given me what Father calls fine-lady ideas, indeed that isn’t true. I’m just ever so grateful, that’s all. And if I’m anxious to start earning my living, it’s only because I feel it’s right that I should, and not—and not—well, do nothing after all you’ve done for me. I—I shouldn’t like it to be thought that I was sponging on you.”
Laura Welman said, and her voice was suddenly sharp-edged:
“So that’s what Gerrard’s been putting into your head? Pay no attention to your father, Mary; there never has been and never will be any question of your sponging on me! I’m asking you to stay here a little longer solely on my account. Soon it will be over… If they went the proper way about things, my life could be ended here and now—none of this long-drawn-out tomfoolery with nurses and doctors.”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Welman, Dr. Lord says you may live for years.”
“I’m not at all anxious to, thank you! I told him the other day that in a decently civilized state, all there would be to do would be for me to intimate to him that I wished to end it, and he’d finish me off painlessly with some nice drug. ‘And if you’d any courage, Doctor,’ I said, ‘you’d do it, anyway!’”
Mary cried:
“Oh! What did he say?”
“The disrespectful young man merely grinned at me, my dear, and said he wasn’t going to risk being hanged. He said, ‘If you’d left me all your money, Mrs. Welman, that would be different, of course!’ Impudent young jackanapes! But I like him. His visits do me more good than his medicines.”
“Yes, he’s very nice,” said Mary. “Nurse O’Brien thinks a lot of him and so does Nurse Hopkins.”
Mrs. Welman said:
“Hopkins ought to have more sense at her age. As for O’Brien, she simpers and says, ‘Oh, doctor,’ and tosses those long streamers of hers whenever he comes near her.”
“Poor Nurse O’Brien.”
Mrs. Welman said indulgently:
“She’s not a bad sort, really, but all nurses annoy me; they always will think that you’d like a ‘nice cup of tea’ at five in the morning!” She paused. “What’s that? Is it the car?”
Mary looked out of the window.
“Yes, it’s the car. Miss Elinor and Mr. Roderick have arrived.”
II
Mrs. Welman said to her niece:
“I’m very glad, Elinor, about you and Roddy.”
Elinor smiled at her.
“I thought you would be, Aunt Laura.”
The older woman said, after a moment’s hesitation:
“You do—care about him, Elinor?”
Elinor’s delicate brows lifted.
“Of course.”
Laura Welman said quickly:
“You must forgive me, dear. You know, you’re very reserved. It’s very difficult to know what you’re thinking or feeling. When you were both much younger I thought you were perhaps beginning to care for Roddy—too much….”
Again Elinor’s delicate brows were raised.
“Too much?”
The older woman nodded.
“Yes. It’s not wise to care too much. Sometimes a very young girl does do just that… I was glad when you went abroad to Germany to finish. Then, when you came back, you seemed quite indifferent to him—and, well, I was sorry for that, too! I’m a tiresome old woman, difficult to satisfy! But I’ve always fancied that you had, perhaps, rather an intense nature—that kind of temperament runs in our family. It isn’t a very happy one for its possessors… But, as I say, when you came back from abroad so indifferent to Roddy, I was sorry about that, because I had always hoped you two would come together. And now you have, and so everything is all right! And you do really care for him?”
Elinor said gravely:
“I care for Roddy enough and not too much.”
Mrs. Welman nodded approval.
“I think, then, you’ll be happy. Roddy needs love—but he doesn’t like violent emotion. He’d shy off from possessiveness.”
Elinor said with feeling:
“You know Roddy very well!”
Mrs. Welman said:
“If Roddy cares for you just a little more than you care for him—well, that’s all to the good.”
Elinor said sharply:
“Aunt Agatha’s Advice column. ‘Keep your boyfriend guessing! Don’t let him be too sure of you!’”
Laura Welman said sharply:
“Are you unhappy, child? Is anything wrong?”
“No, no, nothing.”
Laura Welman said:
“You just thought I was being rather—cheap? My dear, you’re young and sensitive. Life, I’m afraid, is rather cheap….”
Elinor said with some slight bitterness:
“I suppose it is.”
Laura Welman said:
“My child—you are unhappy? What is it?”
“Nothing—absolutely nothing.” She got up and went to the window. Half turning, she said:
“Aunt Laura, tell me, honestly, do you think love is ever a happy thing?”
Mrs. Welman’s face became grave.
“In the sense you mean, Elinor—no, probably not… To care passionately for another human creature brings always more sorrow than joy; but all the same, Elinor, one would not be without that experience. Anyone who has never really loved has never really lived….”
The girl nodded.
She said:
“Yes—you understand—you’ve known what it’s like—”
She turned suddenly, a questioning look in her eyes:
“Aunt Laura—”
The door opened and red-haired Nurse O’Brien came in.
She said in a sprightly manner:
“Mrs. Welman, here’s Doctor come to see you.”
III
Dr. Lord was a young man of thirty-two. He had sandy hair, a pleasantly ugly freckled face and a remarkably square jaw. His eyes were a keen, piercing light blue.
“Good morning, Mrs. Welman,” he said.
“Good morning, Dr. Lord. This is my niece, Miss Carlisle.”
A very obvious admiration sprang into Dr. Lord’s transparent face. He said, “How do you do?” The hand that Elinor extended to him he took rather gingerly as though he thought he might break it.
Mrs. Welman went on:
“Elinor and my nephew have come down to cheer me up.”
“Splendid!” said Dr. Lord. “Just what you need! It will do you a lot of good, I am sure, Mrs. Welman.”
He was still looking at Elinor with obvious admiration.
Elinor said, moving towards the door:
“Perhaps I shall see you before you go, Dr. Lord?”
“Oh—er—yes, of course.”
She went out, shutting the door behind her. Dr. Lord approached the bed, Nurse O’Brien fluttering behind him.
Mrs. Welman said with a twinkle:
“Going through the usual bag of tricks, Doctor: pulse, respiration, temperature? What humbugs you doctors are!”
Nurse O’Brien said with a sigh:
“Oh, Mrs. Welman. What a thing, now, to be saying to the doctor!”
Dr. Lord said with a twinkle:
“Mrs. Welman sees through me, Nurse! All the same, Mrs. Welman, I’ve got to do my stuff, you know. The trouble with me is I’ve never learnt the right bedside manner.”
“Your bedside manner’s all right. Actually you’re rather proud of it.”
Peter
Lord chuckled and remarked:
“That’s what you say.”
After a few routine questions had been asked and answered, Dr. Lord leant back in his chair and smiled at his patient.
“Well,” he said. “You’re going on splendidly.”
Laura Welman said: “So I shall be up and walking round the house in a few weeks’ time?”
“Not quite so quickly as that.”
“No, indeed. You humbug! What’s the good of living stretched out like this, and cared for like a baby?”
Dr. Lord said:
“What’s the good of life, anyway? That’s the real question. Ever read about that nice mediaeval invention, the Little Ease? You couldn’t stand, sit or lie in it. You’d think anyone condemned to that would die in a few weeks. Not at all. One man lived for sixteen years in an iron cage, was released and lived to a hearty old age.”
Laura Welman said:
“What’s the point of this story?”
Peter Lord said:
“The point is that one’s got an instinct to live. One doesn’t live because one’s reason assents to living. People who, as we say, ‘would be better dead,’ don’t want to die! People who apparently have got everything to live for just let themselves fade out of life because they haven’t got the energy to fight.”
“Go on.”
“There’s nothing more. You’re one of the people who really want to live, whatever you say about it! And if your body wants to live, it’s no good your brain dishing out the other stuff.”
Mrs. Welman said with an abrupt change of subject:
“How do you like it down here?”
Peter Lord said, smiling:
“It suits me fine.”
“Isn’t it a bit irksome for a young man like you? Don’t you want to specialize? Don’t you find a country GP practice rather boring?”
Lord shook his sandy head.
“No, I like my job. I like people, you know, and I like ordinary everyday diseases. I don’t really want to pin down the rare bacillus of an obscure disease. I like measles and chicken pox and all the rest of it. I like seeing how different bodies react to them. I like seeing if I can’t improve on recognized treatment. The trouble with me is I’ve got absolutely no ambition. I shall stay here till I grow side-whiskers and people begin saying, ‘Of course, we’ve always had Dr. Lord, and he’s a nice old man: but he is very old-fashioned in his methods and perhaps we’d better call in young so-and-so, who’s so very up to date….’”
“H’m,” said Mrs. Welman. “You seem to have got it all taped out!”
Peter Lord got up.
“Well,” he said. “I must be off.”
Mrs. Welman said:
“My niece will want to speak to you, I expect. By the way, what do you think of her? You haven’t seen her before.”
Dr. Lord went suddenly scarlet. His very eyebrows blushed. He said:
“I—oh! she’s very good-looking, isn’t she? And—eh—clever and all that, I should think.”
Mrs. Welman was diverted. She thought to herself:
“How very young he is, really….”
Aloud she said:
“You ought to get married.”
IV
Roddy had wandered into the garden. He had crossed the broad sweep of lawn and along a paved walk and had then entered the walled kitchen garden. It was well-kept and well-stocked. He wondered if he and Elinor would live at Hunterbury one day. He supposed that they would. He himself would like that. He preferred country life. He was a little doubtful about Elinor. Perhaps she’d like living in London better….
A little difficult to know where you were with Elinor. She didn’t reveal much of what she thought and felt about things. He liked that about her… He hated people who reeled off their thoughts and feelings to you, who took it for granted that you wanted to know all their inner mechanism. Reserve was always more interesting.
Elinor, he thought judicially, was really quite perfect. Nothing about her ever jarred or offended. She was delightful to look at, witty to talk to—altogether the most charming of companions.
He thought complacently to himself:
“I’m damned lucky to have got her. Can’t think what she sees in a chap like me.”
For Roderick Welman, in spite of his fastidiousness, was not conceited. It did honestly strike him as strange that Elinor should have consented to marry him.
Life stretched ahead of him pleasantly enough. One knew pretty well where one was; that was always a blessing. He supposed that Elinor and he would be married quite soon—that is, if Elinor wanted to; perhaps she’d rather put it off for a bit. He mustn’t rush her. They’d be a bit hard up at first. Nothing to worry about, though. He hoped sincerely that Aunt Laura wouldn’t die for a long time to come. She was a dear and had always been nice to him, having him there for holidays, always interested in what he was doing.
His mind shied away from the thought of her actual death (his mind usually did shy away from any concrete unpleasantness). He didn’t like to visualize anything unpleasant too clearly… But—er—afterwards—well, it would be very pleasant to live here, especially as there would be plenty of money to keep it up. He wondered exactly how his aunt had left it. Not that it really mattered. With some women it would matter a good deal whether husband or wife had the money. But not with Elinor. She had plenty of tact and she didn’t care enough about money to make too much of it.
He thought: “No, there’s nothing to worry about—whatever happens!”
He went out of the walled garden by the gate at the far end. From there he wandered into the little wood where the daffodils were in spring. They were over now, of course. But the green light was very lovely where the sunlight came filtering through the trees.
Just for a moment an odd restlessness came to him—a rippling of his previous placidity. He felt: “There’s something—something I haven’t got—something I want—I want—I want….”
The golden green light, the softness in the air—with them came a quickened pulse, a stirring of the blood, a sudden impatience.
A girl came through the trees towards him—a girl with pale, gleaming hair and a rose-flushed skin.
He thought, “How beautiful—how unutterably beautiful.”
Something gripped him; he stood quite still, as though frozen into immobility. The world, he felt, was spinning, was topsy-turvy, was suddenly and impossibly and gloriously crazy!
The girl stopped suddenly, then she came on. She came up to him where he stood, dumb and absurdly fishlike, his mouth open.
She said with a little hesitation:
“Don’t you remember me, Mr. Roderick? It’s a long time of course. I’m Mary Gerrard, from the lodge.”
Roddy said:
“Oh—oh—you’re Mary Gerrard?”
She said: “Yes.”
Then she went on rather shyly:
“I’ve changed, of course, since you saw me.”
He said: “Yes, you’ve changed. I—I wouldn’t have recognized you.”
He stood staring at her. He did not hear footsteps behind him. Mary did and turned.
Elinor stood motionless a minute. Then she said:
“Hello, Mary.”
Mary said:
“How do you do, Miss Elinor? It’s nice to see you. Mrs. Welman has been looking forward to you coming down.”
Elinor said:
“Yes—it’s a long time. I—Nurse O’Brien sent me to look for you. She wants to lift Mrs. Welman up, and she says you usually do it with her.”
Mary said: “I’ll go at once.”
She moved off, breaking into a run. Elinor stood looking after her. Mary ran well, grace in every movement.
Roddy said softly: “Atalanta…”
Elinor did not answer. She stood quite still for a minute or two. Then she said:
“It’s nearly lunchtime. We’d better go back.”
They walked side by side towards the house.
V
“Oh! Come on, Mary. It’s Garbo, and a grand film—all about Paris. And a story by a tiptop author. There was an opera of it once.”
“It’s frightfully nice of you, Ted, but I really won’t.”
Ted Bigland said angrily:
“I can’t make you out nowadays, Mary. You’re different—altogether different.”
“No, I’m not, Ted.”
“You are! I suppose because you’ve been away to that grand school and to Germany. You’re too good for us now.”
“It’s not true, Ted. I’m not like that.”
She spoke vehemently.
The young man, a fine sturdy specimen, looked at her appraisingly in spite of his anger.
“Yes, you are. You’re almost a lady, Mary.”
Mary said with sudden bitterness:
“Almost isn’t much good, is it?”
He said with sudden understanding:
“No, I reckon it isn’t.”
Mary said quickly:
“Anyway, who cares about that sort of thing nowadays? Ladies and gentlemen, and all that!”
“It doesn’t matter like it did—no,” Ted assented, but thoughtfully. “All the same, there’s a feeling. Lord, Mary, you look like a duchess or a countess or something.”
Mary said:
“That’s not saying much. I’ve seen countesses looking like old-clothes women!”
“Well, you know what I mean.”
A stately figure of ample proportions, handsomely dressed in black, bore down upon them. Her eyes gave them a sharp glance. Ted moved aside a step or two. He said:
“Afternoon, Mrs. Bishop.”
Mrs. Bishop inclined her head graciously.
“Good afternoon, Ted Bigland. Good afternoon, Mary.”
She passed on, a ship in full sail.
Ted looked respectfully after her.
Mary murmured.
“Now, she really is like a duchess!”
“Yes—she’s got a manner. Always makes me feel hot inside my collar.”
Mary said slowly:
“She doesn’t like me.”
“Nonsense, my girl.”
“It’s true. She doesn’t. She’s always saying sharp things to me.”
“Jealous,” said Ted, nodding his head sapiently. “That’s all it is.”