“Then you do mind? Oh, dear! And I thought you’d thrown poor John away for that horrid man who dined here last night!”
“Horrid man? Oh, you mean Peregrine Gilbert,” said Jane. “Why is he horrid, darling? Because he didn’t fall for you?”
“Ugh! I’d rather a slug or an earwig fell for me!” cried Kitty with a little too much vehemence. “But you don’t mind so terribly about John, do you, Jenny?” she was coaxing like a child for some forbidden sweet.
“I haven’t the right to mind any longer,” said Jane.
“Then you mean you’ve broken it off? It must be that horrible Gilbert, and he isn’t nearly so nice as John!”
“It isn’t Peregrine, or anyone. Did John tell you it was?” asked Jane sharply. “Because if he did—”
“No.” Kitty sounded almost resentful. “John went on and on about everything being his fault, and he didn’t wonder you were sick with him. Why are you, Jenny? Is it because—did he tell you about—about him and me?” she ended timidly now.
“Certainly not,” Jane said angrily. “John may be a fool about women, in fact, I know he is, but he isn’t a cad at least. No, I guessed about you, and then he seemed rather taken with Love when he first met her, and I decided that my views on marriage weren’t Turkish enough to suit him.”
“Turkish, darling?” repeated Kitty, her volatile mind roving to glutinous pink and white lumps, powdered with fine sugar, stiff with nuts. “Why Turkish?”
“Turks,” explained Jane in a kindly manner, “are—or were, I believe they’re changing nowadays—people who go in for keeping several wives in a harem so that when they’re bored with one they can always have a change handy.”
“Well, I’m most awfully relieved that you don’t care for John any more,” said Kitty, “because I’m simply crazy about him, and—”
“And now you think you can go ahead without a single qualm—if you ever had any? Oh, Kitty, Kitty, you are a terror!” said Jane. “And don’t run away with the idea that I don’t mind your making a fool of him. I do, both for his own sake and George’s. I intend to put so many spokes in your wheel that it will look like a disc by the time I’ve done.”
“Aren’t you being rather dog-in-the-manger?” ventured Kitty. “I mean, you don’t want him and I do. I’m in love with him—”
“What, in love again? Cheer up, you’ll fall out quite soon,” was Jane’s heartless answer. “And find someone else just as good for the purpose. I think you might leave John alone. You owe me that much, don’t you?”
“I’d leave him alone if it was for you, but I won’t for Love,” Kitty said firmly. “Why should I?”
“You didn’t leave him alone for my sake as far as I can judge,” Jane said. “And you know very well that you’re behaving abominably, but I won’t argue with you. You’ll only say that I’m being ‘cross’ again. In the meantime we must go and get ready for church. It will do you good.”
“I don’t think, Jenny darling, that I’ll go to church this morning. I have rather a headache after yesterday evening—”
“Well, don’t imagine that you’ll have John to hold your hand if you stay,” said Jane cheerfully. “Because I mean to take him to church if he has to be dragged there.”
Gunn sped them from the door an hour later smiling grim approval at the sight of five young people docilely setting out to the sound of the church-bell. She would have been appalled had she guessed at the un-churchly feelings which simmered in the hearts of that quiet-voiced, well-dressed, gently-mannered party. There was no attempt at pairing off this morning, they walked down the drive in a subdued group, almost silent, between the tall trees hanging their heavy leaves under dove-grey skies.
John, his handsome face pale after a restless night, was in a turmoil of inward anger against Jane, against Love, and increasing in intensity as his rage mounted the scale, against Kitty and himself. All he wanted was to be back at Rosyth, away from all of them, working as hard as he could in the hope of escaping the thought of that prime offender, himself. Kitty, giving him a sidelong glance as she walked, felt her heart, always impressionable, leap at sight of his haggard good looks; she longed to touch his hair, black as night, soft as silk, with the springing, wavy lock which no barber could conquer for any length of time. ‘I’m really in love with him!’ she thought complacently, no room for her husband except as a useful, enduring background to her changing affairs in her shifting mind. It would have astonished her, as it would everyone who knew and liked “good old George,” if she could have known what he was thinking as he trudged quietly and steadily beside her. “It’s a damned shame,” he said inwardly, “Kitty picking on John, she might have chosen someone else. . . . She’s spoilt him for Jenny—in the meantime, if not for good. I hope the child Love will take him away from Kit. Do her a lot of good. Pity she could never have a baby. . . . Pity it’s no good my talking to her about John—and all the boy friends, but if I did we’d be sunk at once, and I can’t do without her, nor she without me, whatever she may think. . . . Hope another likely boy friend will turn up soon to take her attention off John. He’s a good chap, but of course not proof against Kitty. . . . I won’t let her near Jenny again for a bit. . . . If I go foreign, as seems likely, she must come too, and damn the expense. We could always sell the car. . . . What a fool John’s made of himself. . . .”
Jane was feeling contrite. She had doomed both John and Love to a miserable week-end, and while John thoroughly deserved it she was not so sure about Love. As for her own feelings she could not get them disentangled. Did she still love John? Certainly she could not imagine feeling the same about any other man, but was it worth the wretchedness and constant fear of losing him? Was Peregrine getting fond of her and, if so, should she just solve the problem by marrying him and settle down to a peaceful life, sharing his interests as she did, liking him so well in a sober fashion? It was impossible to know what to do, and the best thing seemed to be to let everything slide, to wait on events and take them as they happened. Peregrine was one of those annoyingly inscrutable people anyhow, and one could not picture him allowing himself to suffer the pang of unrequited love.
She was not the only one who was wondering about Peregrine. Love, as her thoughts flitted with seeming inconsequence about the flowers of her brain like many-coloured butterflies, came back more than once to the remembrance of Peregrine’s ‘niceness’ the evening before. Mingling with irritation over John and Kitty, contempt for George, who was, apparently, quite incapable of looking after his wife, was puckish amusement: certainly the lovers had looked uncommonly silly in the garden! Then there was satisfaction because Peregrine had said that he liked Janey, which pointed to the fulfilment of one of her most important plans. How surprised they would be when she told them, once they were safely engaged—or no, better wait until they were married—that she had engineered their mutual happiness with such skill. “We owe it all to Love, the dear child.” She could hear them saying it with tears of gratitude in their eyes. Well, no, perhaps not tears, for even Love’s fertile imagination could not conjure tears of any sort into Peregrine’s frosty, keen eyes; but Janey might have them, and she would certainly hug her kind little sister. . . . Love’s sedate step broke into a skip of exultation, and she was brought back from the airy castles of her own building by John’s gloomy voice:
“Better look where you’re going. You nearly fell when you tripped just now.”
“Thank you,” she said haughtily. “I didn’t trip. I was merely thinking.”
And as this was quite true it was enraging as well as impolite of John to raise his eyebrows and look incredulous. Bother John. He would have fitted so nicely into her plans for her own future and now she had lost taste for him owing to his stupidity. Still, it was hardly his fault, for had not Peregrine said—wise, clever Peregrine, who saw things that other people missed and yet did not flaunt his knowledge! Had he not said that most men would And it impossible to resist Kitty if she really gave her mind to att
racting them? This put John into the position of unwilling victim, and Love, overcome by the beauty of her own character, murmured aloud: “I forgive you!” in melting tones.
“What the devil are you talking about?” asked the object of her pitying forgiveness crossly, and Love’s feelings underwent another lightning change.
“Please don’t talk to me if you can’t do so without being disgustingly rude,” she said freezingly. “Perhaps Mrs. Mariner appreciates it, but I don’t.”
‘Confound you both!’ was John’s heartfelt reply, but he did not say it aloud. Instead, he scowled at her in silence, and in silence they reached the church, dropped their offerings in the plate and filed upstairs to the pew in the gallery.
“Ask Peregrine back to lunch!” hissed Love in her sister’s ear when, the service over, they were coming out of the cool stuffiness into sunshine that momentarily blinded them. “Do, Janey, it will make the numbers even.”
“Ask him yourself, then. Why are you so modest all of a sudden?” said Jane suspiciously.
“No, it’s your job. You’re the mistress of the house when mother’s away,” answered Love.
“Good heavens!” murmured Jane, but when Peregrine, hat in hand, came up to speak to them and to hope, with a grave face, that Mrs. Mariner was none the worse for her trying experience with the dog, she did ask him to luncheon.
“Thank you, I’d like to come,” he said, his thin face creasing into one of his occasional smiles. “On one condition: that you’ll all come and have tea with me? I seem to spend a good deal of time at Craigrois, and neither you nor Love have ever been to Allander since I bought the place. Mrs. Mariner,” he added for Jane’s ears alone, “can chaperone you. I particularly noticed her efficiency in that line yesterday evening.”
Jane tried to frown at him but had to smile instead. “Very well,” she said. “It’s really very kind of you to ask an army of us, and, to be honest, I was rather wondering what I could do with everyone this afternoon. You know that father and mother don’t like us to play tennis on Sundays.”
“Yes, isn’t it ridiculous in these days!” chimed in Love. “Everyone else does except us.”
“A few restrictions like that will do you no harm,” he told her, “and, in any case, you wouldn’t be able to play tennis this afternoon because I’m going to take you for a long walk to keep you out of mischief. You might lock some more people into the garden.”
Love made a face at him. “I’m not very keen on walking,” she objected.
“All the better for you,” he said. “And, in any case, I’m taking you for Jane’s sake. She may feel a little less care-worn if she knows that you’re safely out of the house and off her hands for a bit.”
“Oh, I see,” Love said rather blankly. “It’s for Janey’s sake, is it?”
“Of course,” he said coolly. “You didn’t suppose it was for yours, did you? And it certainly isn’t for mine. I’d be just as happy alone.”
“Or with Janey?” she suggested.
“Or with Jane,” he agreed. “She and I like so many of the same things.”
Well, Love told herself, it was exactly what she wished, that he should be so anxious to please Janey; but at the same time it was just a little galling to be taken out for a long tramp for someone else’s sake. Luncheon was a much less trying meal than breakfast. General Scott and his sister added the necessary leavening of amiable politeness, and the General charmed by Kitty’s sprightly gaiety, was at his courtly best, while she, who had been afraid that her powers of attracting men must be waning, since John remained surly and Peregrine aloofly unimpressed, was delighted to find a new world to conquer. Miss Scott watched the by-play with an indulgent but quizzical eye, and the others, in their great relief, babbled so freely that the family portraits in their gilt frames on the dark, panelled walls looked down in astonishment at this noisy party.
Gunn, under the fond impression that their light-heartedness was the innocent reward of a morning spent profitably in church, padded round the table, a benignant presiding genius, and forbore to admonish Mary by even so much as a sour look when she allowed a spoon to clatter too loudly against a vegetable-dish. Young people, her looked seemed to say, needed laughter and talk, and so long as they had heard an edifying sermon and several long eloquent prayers might be permitted this licence, even on the Sabbath. So she filled glasses with more alacrity than usual, turning a blind eye to the rapidity with which John emptied his . . . poor young gentleman, no doubt the salt air which he habitually breathed made him thirsty, she thought, in happy ignorance that his present job kept him in an office all day . . . and when Love demanded a third helping of raspberries and cream she carried the great cut-glass bowl with a smile round the table to everyone.
“Well, Love, you certainly need a walk after the meal you’ve eaten,” said Peregrine as he set his empty coffee-cup back on the table in the hall. “All those raspberries and about a pint of cream! Come on. Change those silly shoes for a pair of sensible brogues and let’s be off.” To Jane he said: “Will you bring the others across to Allander about four, and we’ll meet you there?”
“I hope you’re coming too,” cooed Kitty to the General. “And your sister, of course”—with a particularly charming smile at that astute lady who, upright as a wand, sat in a straight-backed chair near by where she need not miss a word or glance, for she was highly amused by William’s gallantry.
“Of course they’re coming, the darlings!” cried Love from the stairs, pausing on her way to change her despised shoes. “Aren’t they, Perry—Peregrine, I mean.”
“I’ve asked them, and hope very much that they are going to honour me,” he answered with a bow to Miss Scott which almost achieved the General’s courtliness. “I am hoping that Miss Scott will pour out tea for me.”
“But, Peregrine,” said Love in a worried voice as they walked across the lawn a few minutes later, “I thought you’d want Janey to pour out tea for you?”
“Miss Scott is considerably senior to Jane,” he said gravely. “I could hardly pass her over, could I? If the eldest lady present didn’t act as hostess the only alternative, to save heart-burnings, would have been to ask the youngest. And I have very little faith in your powers of tea-pouring, Love.”
“You don’t think much of me, do you?” said Love.
“It doesn’t really matter what my humble opinion of you may be,” he said. “You think a good deal of yourself, which is more important, isn’t it?”
Love stopped dead under the cedar. “I won’t come with you if you’re going to be horrid,” she said, her voice shaking.
“Oh, yes, you will. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face,” said Peregrine, taking her by the arm and walking her briskly on in spite of her obstinate hanging back. “I promise I won’t say anything more to offend you, however truthful it may be. I’ll be as sweet as sugar.”
“No, don’t try, for you could never manage it,” said Love, recovering with her usual speed. “And, anyhow, it would remind me of Kitty Mariner, and I came out to try to forget her.”
“By all means let us forget her,” Peregrine agreed. “The open moor is no place for her.”
He led the way up the glen at a good pace, but Love, long-legged and lightly built, kept up with him without effort. “Where are we going?” she asked as they left the last scattered oaks, stunted by wind and weather to small, gnarled dwarfs, behind them.
“To the top of the Greenriggs,” he said. “To the Queen’s View.”
“There won’t be any view this afternoon,” Love objected. “It’s too misty, and if we’re lost up on the high tops what fools we shall feel.”
“The mist’s lifting,” he said, pointing to the distant hills now appearing from among thinning wreaths of smoke-like vapour. “By the time we’re up there the Queen, whoever she was, couldn’t wish for a better view.”
“It can’t have been Victoria because I don’t believe she was ever in this part of the country,” said Love sp
eculatively as they stepped, lifting their feet high, through the knee-deep heather, its pink buds just deepening to a rose which in a fortnight would have turned dark, winey purple. “Unless it was named as a compliment?”
“I think it must be older than that,” said Peregrine. “But we could look it up in a history of the parish. Your father’s sure to have one.”
“If he has, it was written by a minister, whose chief concern was with the church and all the ministers from the Reformation onwards,” said Love. “But I have an idea that father’s hush-hush work that he writes when he’s boxed up in the library for hours on end, is that same history. He can’t be sleeping all the time he’s there.”
“Why don’t you offer to act as his secretary?”
Love laughed at what she supposed was intended for a joke, then, seeing that he was serious, stared at him perplexedly. “You don’t really mean that, do you?” she said.
“Of course I mean it. If that’s what he is undertaking, a job of that sort which means a lot of research. I should think he’d be thankful for a little help in arranging his notes or typing the finished stuff. Can you type, by the way? I suppose not.”
“Yes, I can. I did it for a couple of terms at school because it got me out of mathematics.” Love was still puzzled, deeply pondering this entirely new thought which had just been presented to her, and finding it not altogether unattractive. “If I hadn’t made quite different plans,” she said slowly at last, “I’d offer to do it, Peregrine. But I don’t think I’d have time, and it’s no good starting a thing like that and then leaving off in the middle.”
Peregrine only nodded. “Bear it in mind,” he said cheerfully, “in case these wonderful plans of yours fall through. Remember what Burns had to say about mice as well as men.”
“I’ve never read any Burns,” said Love. “And I’m not going to begin. So you needn’t bother to tell me that I’m unpatriotic and my education is incomplete, because I know it already.”
Love Comes Home Page 19
