“What are you thinking of, Lesley?”
She knew what to say.
“I am thinking how selfish I am.”
“You!”
“Because I take happiness from you without giving any back.”
“Lesley!” A returning flicker of life brightened in his eye. “You mean—you mean it really does make you happy, my loving you?”
She nodded.
“It would make any woman happy, my dear. As I say, we’re selfish. But then when I see you being hurt like this, I feel I want to do anything on earth to stop it. Even to pretending love in return. Only that … that’s the one thing I can’t pretend, and I don’t think you’d have me try.”
Denis shook his head violently; and in this was unwise, for the tears, which he had hitherto managed to conceal, now ran free. But he was getting better, he was almost brave; he said gruffly,
“I’m not crying. Those have been there some time. I wish you’d tell me to die for you or something.”
“I’d much rather you learnt Turkish,” said Lesley.
“Well, I’d rather die,” said Denis. He paused as though to consider the matter. “I’ve been thinking about it so long,” he said.
Instinctively, as though she had seen him reach for a weapon, Lesley put out her hand and caught his arm.
“Denis!”
He stared at her with a sort of wonder.
“You look quite frightened.…”
“Of course I’m frightened!” cried Lesley. And it was frightening, it was terrifying, that this boy of twenty-one should for a month and more have walked and talked and played with the children, and always in his mind the familiar image of death. Terrifying in its incongruity, more terrifying still in all that it implied of the soul’s isolation.…
“It’s all right,” said Denis gruffly, “I won’t now, not now that I know you do care a little. I promise I won’t.” He soothed, he nursed, he comforted her! “And I’ll learn my God-awful Turkish and pass my exams, and get into the Consular and uphold British prestige—anything you want, darling, so long as you’ll just write to me sometimes.… You will, won’t you?”
And seeing her nod, with a sudden gesture he caught at her fingers and pressed them against his breast. Under her palm the heart knocked.
“Feel there,” he said, “it’s quite steady.”
And all at once, to her extreme surprise, she found that all she had been saying was quite true. He had made her happy. He had reminded her, with a sort of piercing sweetness, that man in his youth is a generous creature.
CHAPTER FIVE
There were several mornings, during that unusually fine September, when Leslie awoke to a feeling of ill-defined responsibility. She had to do something, but what was it? Wash Pat’s hair, or buy marmalade? And then as she sat up in bed, as her brain cleared, the forgotten duty would gradually return. She had to be good and beautiful and remind Denis Cotton to write to his mother.
She was also making him roll the grass rather a lot, and the patch nearest the house improved visibly. When the ground was too dry to roll he dug in a new flower-bed, which Lesley was planning to fill with roses as soon as she could afford them. The sight of so much gratis labour sometimes disturbed her a little; it seemed heartless, a trifle opportunist, even, so to harness his passion to the garden-roller. But a deeper instinct carried her safely past such refinements, and Mr. Cotton’s appetite began at last to improve. He slept better, too, and had once or twice to be called in the morning (but this Lesley heard of only from the Pomfrets; Denis himself never mentioned the fact, probably through fear of hurting her feelings). As for his mental activities, he was still completely incapable of playing bridge, but could just keep his mind on Turkish if the Vicar were there to help.
Thus, week by week, the delicate and important task went successfully forward: Denis openly adoring, but not without other occupation, Lesley conscientiously good and beautiful, but now with no greater anxiety than that he might be prevailed on by Mr. Povey to give her the bird-bath as a keepsake.
For in the Aberdeen bacchante Mr. Povey had at last met his match. She was going for thirty-five and six, and she was still unsold. He had even tried Florrie Walpole, who with her noted taste for the showy seemed at first blush a likely victim; but Florrie, though she would have been pleased enough to possess the object, drew the financial line (with her equally noted frankness) at ten shillings. She talked the matter over with Arnold Hasty, in one of their long-range conversations that Lesley used to hear every evening; and the policeman agreed with her. It was a handsome piece, no doubt, and had a lot of work in it; but to spend more than ten shillings on what was virtually a knick-knack! The reason rebelled.
“Myself,” added Arnold judicially, “I wouldn’t give more’n seven and six. And that’s as much as a dog licence.”
Florrie said he was probably right. Whatever her faults, she had nothing of the gold-digger, and the ten shillings in question had been scraped and saved out of her butter-and-egg money. For her career was not, after all, to be pursued behind a draper’s counter; she had tried it for a week and returned rejoicing. It was not the hardness of the work that repelled her, it was the formality; Florrie was strong as a horse, placid as a cow, and could stand all day long: but to see someone she knew, and not be able to shout to them—that was too much. She was always seeing someone she knew, and sometimes, naturally, forgot herself. So old Alfred, with very great kindness, had waived his right to a week’s notice and let her go at once. The story reached the cottage piecemeal, partly from Mrs. Sprigg, partly from Florrie herself, and partly from Mrs. Pomfret, who had been one of those shouted to while passing through the haberdashery; and Lesley never ceased to regret that no visit of her own had fallen during those remarkable six days.
The regret itself—had she not to a large extent lost the habit of introspection—might have struck her as remarkable also; she had not used to be disappointed by anything less than a Cochran first night. But so it was. And one thing at least could be relied on: that however successful the piece, however brilliant the stalls, in missing Florrie at the counter she had missed at least equal enjoyment.
2
At the beginning of October Denis returned to Oxford. The actual parting, which Lesley would have given a good deal to avoid, took place at the cottage. She did not avoid. Her delicate masterpiece was completed to the last stroke. But she did manoeuvre so that interview would be cut short after ten to fifteen minutes.
Immediately after lunch, then, on the last day, Lesley sent Pat up to the Pomfrets with a message that she herself would follow in an hour’s time. Twenty minutes later, exactly when she expected him, Denis Cotton appeared at the gate. He had not brought her the bird-bath. Traditional to the last, he bore the manuscript of a sonnet and a photograph of himself. The latter, indeed, he did not so much bring as happen to have about him: but when Lesley asked if she might keep it, the relief was so great that he forgot to look surprised. His lips worked, but without sound, he folded paste-board and paper together and held them dumbly towards her. Emotion, it was plain, would soon overcome him; so in equal silence Lesley took his head in her hands and kissed him once, very gently, on his still-moving lips. The next instant there was a clatter of pans as Mrs. Sprigg returned to the kitchen.
“Good-bye, my dear.”
He loked at her stupidly, his mind not yet recovered from its swoon: then perceiving that she meant him to go, he turned and went.
CHAPTER SIX
With the departure of Denis summer ended. The fact was purely objective: Lesley missed him, to be sure, but the rain on the Chilterns found no echo in her heart. The autumn had simply come early, and if she watched its progress with unusual interest the reason had nothing whatever to do with Denis.
The reason was this, that it was the last autumn she ever expected to spend in the country. Next year would see Pat at school, and though they might still quite possibly spend summers at the cottage, from September to June she could
live where she pleased. It was the end, in fact, of bondage.
‘I ought to celebrate,’ thought Lesley.
She thought it quite sincerely. The desirability of returning to Baker Street was an article of faith; she had always intended to go back, she would soon be able to go back, and back she would therefore go. So …
‘I ought to celebrate,’ thought Lesley again; and after a little rummaging through cupboards found out a dusty bottle of Cointreau. It was slightly corked, but more than half-full: she poured out a liqueur glass and with doll’s-tea-party solemnity drank to approaching freedom. The ritual over, she wiped her lips, washed the glass, and as an Indian might bury the hatchet, carefully reburied the bottle. The tomahawk is war, the bottle was Baker Street; it would be ready to hand when the time came, but the time was not just yet.
The season, indeed, had never passed more peacefully. The sun shone, apples ripened, week after week slipped calmly away; then the sun withdrew itself, trees were bare, and the placid autumn slid into a tranquil winter of which the only outstanding event—apart, of course, from Christmas Day—was the nobbling of Arnold by Florrie Walpole.
It was not Lesley who put it like that, it was Mrs. Sprigg. Lesley and Mrs. Pomfret sent over notes of congratulation—Florrie loved getting notes—bought wedding presents at Walpoles in Aylesbury, and gave their promise to attend, all in a spirit of complete sincerity. But the village as a whole—though it too bought gifts, and though nothing on earth (save perhaps a machine-gun in the porch) could have kept it from the ceremony—the village as a whole agreed with Mrs. Sprigg. For Arnold Hasty was a catch: he earned money all the year round, he had pigs and a pension and a neat brick cottage. And he had Powers as well. He could have people up, anyone, even Mr. Povey; he could ask to see your wireless licence. (“Just about what ’e’s fit for,” Mrs. Sprigg used to say scornfully. “The last chap we ’ad used to lie out all night after poachers, Miss Frewen, but Arnold, it’s all wireless with him. ’E likes to look at the sets.”) This was no doubt true and Mr. Hasty himself would have been the last to deny it; but there are other qualities at least as dear to a prospective bride as the tendency to lie out, and these Arnold had in abundance. He was steady: an extreme shyness kept him off the women, as a squeamish stomach kept him off the drink. The village of High Westover was not notably abstemious—no village could be, with Mr. Povey in its midst; but whatever the celebration, whoever the host, alone in his virtue its policeman drank shandygaff.
In fact, anyone who married Arnold would have been said to have nobbled him; and a little becoming humility, therefore, would probably have done much to soften the tongue of public opinion; but such was not Florrie’s way. She had borne herself gallantly in a variety of circumstances, and it was hardly to be expected that with the banns safely past their third calling her exuberance should have failed her. Nor did it. If anything, it increased; and when the time came she marched up the aisle with veil a-flowing and on her beautiful face a look of happy surprise. Old Horace was there too, of course, and theoretically leading her; but for all the notice people took of him he might just as well have stayed at home. Florrie filled the bill. She had a white frock and veil, both with a great many yards of stuff in them, a white bouquet containing a great many chrysanthemums, and on her head a great deal of orange-blossom. When she made her responses it was in a loud, optimistic voice—far louder than Arnold’s; but he was not to be outdone, he spoke up manfully, so that at the last the happy couple appeared to be hallooing cheerfully to each other, as Lesley had so often heard them on summer evenings.
“And if you ask me, he might have done a lot worse,” said Mrs. Pomfret, as they emerged after the ceremony. “Florrie’s got heaps of good qualities, with all her bounce. By the way, where was Gerald?”
Lesley laughed.
“Locked in the washhouse, to keep his face clean for the breakfast.” It was quite true, and not nearly so brutal as it sounded, for the parlour, where he would have been locked normally, was full of wedding presents. These were handsome, useful, but above all numerous—so remarkably numerous, indeed, as almost to suggest that Florrie had artlessly mingled amongst them a good many trifles she had bought for herself. There were objects of art and objects of virtu, cut-glass vases and fireproof crockery; in the first of which categories, however, one expected masterpiece was conspicuous by its absence. (Many of the guests went and looked for it in the garden; and it was very generally whispered that old Povey was losing his grip.) There was a tea-set from Mrs. Povey (she disliked Florrie intensely, but Arnold was in the Force) and an inkstand from Sir Philip; while prominent amongst them all—indeed in the place of honour—blazed the outsize nightdress-case presented by Lesley herself. The word is chosen with care, as Lesley chose the case; covered all over with pink satin petals, plastered (at its rose’s heart) with a plaque of gold sequins, the awful object loudly blazed. Even Arnold had noticed it, said Florrie, and it was the only one of the presents she was bothering to pack. For there was to be a honeymoon as well—there was everything one could think of—and at half-past three that afternoon the happy couple departed for Southend. They went flushed, triumphant (Arnold at least with no more than shandygaff) and taking Gerald with them; for, as the bride pointed out, he had never seen the sea.
“Won’t it be rather cold?” asked Lesley, whom their exact destination had hitherto escaped. She had left the festivities early, a good two hours at least before Florrie started kissing people; but Mrs. Sprigg was there to the end.
“Cold?” repeated Mrs. Sprigg jovially. “They won’t notice the cold. A good bracing up’ll be just what they could do with. I ’ad my wedding in July, and the ’eat was something ’orrible.” The bright shrew-mouse eye—brighter even than usual—turned suddenly on her employer. “Just you remember that, Miss Frewen, and don’t be led away. They talk about ‘June the month of roses,’ but what I say is, let’s ’ave a bit of mistletoe. If you ask me, Miss Frewen—”
“Speaking of mistletoe,” observed Lesley swiftly, “isn’t it time we made the puddings?”
2
It was indeed, it was the fourteenth of December; the reason Mrs. Sprigg had forgotten them being that she herself simply took a ’bus into Aylesbury and bought one at a shop. So did the other women; and probably in all High Westover that Christmas there were not more than three batches of puddings—at the Vicarage, at the Hall, and at the White Cottage—made ritually at home. Mrs. Pomfret and Sir Philip’s cook, ineed, were almost equal experts, the one in the plain, the other in the rich; while Lesley the amateur obeyed all Mrs. Beeton’s instructions, let Pat suck candied peel, and thoroughly enjoyed herself with the dark and odorous mess. The thought that it must be extremely fattening did just occur to her; but only fleetingly, and for the second year in succession, with a good appetite and a quiet mind, she ate three Christmas dinners.
There was one at the Pomfrets, on Christmas Day itself, one at the cottage the day after, and one at the Hall on New Year’s Eve; the last of these functions being distinguished by a Haut Briton 1900 and the presence of Denis Cotton. He had flown over specially from somewhere in Switzerland, arriving (as Lesley was glad to observe) as innocently and justifiably pleased with himself as a cat with two tails. For he was to sleep at the Pomfrets’ and fly back the next morning, so that all the danger—there was fog over the Channel—all that expense, had been incurred for no more than a brief three hours or so of his lady’s company. It was a gesture indeed, and an eminently successful one: Mrs. Pomfret held up her hands, the Vicar shook his head, even the experienced Sir Philip—though his own more rococo taste would no doubt have added a snow-shower of camellias on the cottage roof—even the experienced Sir Philip was visibly impressed. As for Lesley, she displayed and felt almost as much pleasure as even Denis could have wished; for every circumstance of the visit seemed to her one more proof that his summer’s passion would soon have crystallised into a romantic legend of early youth. Indeed, he was enjoying it already—his own dev
otion, the Christmas scene; she had a strong suspicion that he could really have stayed at least till to-morrow’s luncheon, and was only refusing to do so because lunch would have spoiled the picture. To fly over for one evening—that was romance: to fly over for nearly a day, eat three square meals and hang about the house—that was merely a trip. The legend was in being, and with a clear conscience Lesley lent herself to its embellishment. From the first startled greeting to the last and solitary kiss, she was all an exquisite kindness that anointed his soul; and when at last they parted (as it might well be for ever) the legend had been rounded and enriched with a worthy epilogue.
‘And—and I’ve got it too,’ thought Lesley suddenly. She had opened her window, in spite of the cold, and was leaning still cloaked to admire a frosty sky: would that be in the legend too—New Year’s morning and the smell of the fallow earth? She leaned farther, saw the puddles skinned with ice, and on the perfectly still air breath made visible.…
‘I believe it’s going to freeze!’ thought Lesley, and mindful of Pat, pulled-to the window.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Her prophecy was fulfilled, though not for another month. At the beginning of February, there was ice not only on the puddles, but also skinning the canal; and three days later, just after breakfast, the under-gardener arrived with a message from the Hall.
“Sir Philip’s compliments, there’s skating on the lake, so will you and Master Patrick come up at once and not stay to potter?”
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