Читать книгу The Heart of Penelope - Marie Belloc Lowndes - Страница 22

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The large panelled hall sitting-room to which the outside doors of the Settlement gave almost direct access, and of which the sole ornament, if such it could be called, consisted of a fine half-length portrait of a young man whose auburn hair and pale, luminous eyes were those of the typical enthusiast and dreamer, was soon filled with an eager little crowd of men and women, who, as if drawn by a magic wand, hastened from every part of the large building to welcome Mrs. Robinson.

One slight and very pretty girl, whose short curly hair made her look somewhat like a charming boy, struck Cecily as very oddly dressed, for she wore a long straight, snuff-coloured gown, and a string of yellow beads in guise of sash. Cecily much preferred the look of an older and quieter-mannered woman, who, after having shaken hands with Mrs. Robinson, disappeared for some moments, coming back ladened with a large tea-tray.

'You see,' said the girl in the snuff-coloured gown—'you see, we wait on ourselves.'

'Then there are no servants here?' Cecily spoke rather shyly. She thought the Settlement quite strangely like a convent.

'Of yes, of course there are; but tea is such an easy meal to get ready. Anyone can make tea.'

Mrs. Robinson had sat down close to the wide fireplace; her face, resting on her two clasped hands, shone whitely against the grey, flickering background formed by the flame and smoke of the log fire, while her fur cape, thrown back, revealed the velvet gown which formed a patch of soft, pure colour in the twilit room.

She listened silently to what first one, and then another, of those round her came forward to say, and Cecily noticed that again and again came the words, 'We asked Mr. Winfrith,' 'Mr. Winfrith considered,' 'Mr. Winfrith says.' Suddenly Mrs. Robinson turned, and, addressing the curly-headed girl, said quickly: 'Daphne, will you show Miss Wake round the Settlement? I think it would interest her, and I have to discuss a little business with Mr. Hammond and Mrs. Pomfret.'

Cecily was disappointed. She would so much rather have stayed on in the hall, listening, in the deepening twilight, to talk and discussions which vaguely interested her. But she realized that the girl called Daphne (what a pretty, curious name!—none of the girls at the convent had been called Daphne) felt also disappointed at this banishment from Mrs. Robinson's presence, and she admired the readiness with which the other turned and led the way into the broad stone cloister out of which many of the rooms of the Settlement opened.

As Daphne walked she talked. Sometimes her explanations of the use to which the various rooms through which she led her companion were put might have been addressed to a little child or to a blind person. Such, for instance, her remark in the refectory: 'This is where we eat our breakfast, lunch, and supper—everything but tea, which we take in the hall.'

Now and again she would give Cecily her views on the graver social problems of the moment. Once while standing in the very pretty and charmingly arranged sitting-room, which was, she proudly said, her very own, she suddenly asked her first question: 'Does not this remind you of a convent cell?' But she did not wait for an answer. 'We aim,' she went on, 'and I think we succeed, in preserving all that was best in the old monastic system, while doing away with all that was corrupt and absurd. Personally, I much regret that we do not wear a distinctive dress; in fact, before I made up my mind to join the Settlement, I designed what I thought to be an appropriate costume.' She looked down complacently. 'This is it. Does it not remind you of the Franciscan habit? You see the idea? The yellow beads round my waist recall the rosary which the monks always wore, and which I suppose they wear now,' she added doubtfully.

'Oh yes,' said Cecily, 'but not round their waists.'

'I hesitated rather as to which dress would be the most appropriate, and which would look best. But brown, if a trying colour to most people, has always suited me very well, and, though perhaps you do not know it, the Franciscans had at one time quite a close connection with England. I mean of course before the Reformation. Monks had such charming taste. One of my uncles has a delightful country-house which was once a monastery. Now you have seen, I think, almost everything worth seeing about the Settlement. I wonder, though, whether you would care to look into our Founder's room? It is only used by Mr. Hammond when he is doing the accounts, or seeing someone on particular business. I am sure Melancthon Robinson would have liked him to use it always, but he hardly ever goes into it. I can't understand that feeling, can you? I should think it such a privilege to have been the friend of such a man!'

But Cecily hardly heard the words, for she was looking about her with eager interest, trying to reconstitute the personality of the man who had dwelt where she now stood, and who had been Mrs. Robinson's beloved—her husband, her master. Severely simple in all its appointments, two of the walls of the plain square room were lined with oak bookcases, filled to overflowing, one long line of curiously-bound volumes specially attracting the eye.

'Do you know what those are?' asked Daphne; and Cecily, surprised, realized that her companion awaited her answer with some eagerness.

'Do you mean those books?' she said.

The other girl smiled triumphantly. 'Yes. Well, they are Blue-Books. When people talk to me of the Settlement, and criticize the work that is done here, I merely ask them one question. I say, "Have you ever read a Blue-Book?" Of course they nearly always have to answer "No," and then I know that their opinion is worth nothing. I must confess,' she added honestly enough, 'that I myself had never even seen a Blue-Book till I came here. Mr. Winfrith made me read one, and I was so surprised. I thought it would be such tremendously hard work, but really it was very easy, for I found it was made up of the remarks of quite commonplace people.'

'And have you read all these right through?' asked Cecily, looking with awe at the long line of tall volumes.

'Oh no! how could I have found time? After I had read the one I did read, I talked it well over with Mr. Winfrith, and he said he didn't think it would be worth while for me ever to read another. Of course I asked him if he thought I ought just to glance through a few more—for I was most anxious to fit myself for the work of the Settlement—but he said, No, it would only be waste of time.'

'It must be very interesting, working among poor people and teaching them things,' said Cecily wistfully. 'I suppose you show them how to sew and mend, and darn and cook?'

Daphne looked at her, surprised. 'Oh no,' she said in her gentle, rather drawling voice; 'I can't sew myself, so how could I teach others to do so? Besides, all poor people know how to do that sort of work. We want to encourage them to think of higher things. They already give up far too much time to their clothes and to their food. I have a singing class and a wood-carving class. Then I make friends with them, and encourage them to tell me about themselves. Mrs. Pomfret thinks that a mistake, but I'm sure I know best. They have such extraordinary ideas about things, especially about love. They seem to flirt quite as much as do the girls of our sort. I was most awfully surprised when I realized that!'

Cecily and Daphne found Mrs. Robinson in the hall, saying good-bye to those about her. 'Will you come and lunch with me to-morrow?' she said to Daphne. And as the other joyfully accepted, she added: 'We have not had a talk for a long time.'

When they were once more in the carriage, driving through the brilliantly-lighted streets, Mrs. Robinson turned to Cecily, and said: 'Little cousin, I wonder who is your favourite character in history? Joan of Arc? Mary Queen of Scots? I'll tell you mine: it was the woman—I forget her name—who first said, in answer to a friend's remark, "I hate a fool!" She had plenty of courage of the kind I should like to borrow. The thought of to-morrow's execution makes me sick.' And as Cecily looked at her, bewildered, she added: 'I wonder what you thought of Daphne Purdon? They said very little—I mean Philip Hammond and Mrs. Pomfret—but they simply won't keep her there any longer! She corrupts her class of match-girls, and, what of course is much worse, they are corrupting her.' Mrs. Robinson's lips curved into delighted laughter at the recollection of a whispered word which had been uttered, with bated breath, by Mrs. Pomfret.

'How long has Miss Purdon been at the Settlement?' Perhaps Cecily, childish though she was, entered more into her new friend's worries than the other realized.

'Not far from a year, broken, however, by frequent holidays in friends' country-houses, and by a month spent last summer on a yacht. Poor Daphne is a fool, but she's not a bad fool, and above all, she's a very pretty fool!'

'Oh yes,' said the girl eagerly, 'she is very pretty, and I should think very good, even if she is not very sensible.'

'Well, her father, who was an old friend of my father's, died two years ago, leaving practically nothing. At the time Daphne was engaged, and the man threw her over; it was quite a little tragedy, and, as she took it into her head she would like to do some kind of work, I persuaded my people at the Settlement to take her and see what they could do with her. Like most of my "goody" plans, it has failed utterly.'

Cecily's kind, firm little hand, still wearing the cotton gloves of convent days, crept over the carriage rug, and closed for a moment over her new cousin's fingers. Mrs. Robinson went on: 'Philip Hammond is the salt of the earth, and Mrs. Pomfret is an angel, but I never see them without being told something I would rather not hear. Now, David Winfrith, who has so much to do with the many responsibilities connected with the Settlement, never worries me in that way. Perhaps if he did,' she concluded in a lower tone, 'I should see him as seldom as I do the others.'

'And who,' asked Cecily with some eagerness—'who is David Winfrith?'

'Like Daphne's,' answered Mrs. Robinson, 'his is an inherited friendship. His father, who is a clergyman, was one of my father's oldest friends.' Then quickly she added: 'I should not have said that, for David Winfrith is one of my own best friends, the one person to whom I feel I can always turn when I want anything done. What will perhaps interest you more is the fact that he is becoming a really distinguished man. If you read the Morning Post as regularly as I know your aunt reads it——'

'She has left off taking in a daily paper,' said Cecily quickly. 'She says it tries her eyes to read too much.'

But Penelope went on, unheeding: 'You would know a great deal more about Mr. Winfrith and his doings than you seem to do now. Seriously, he is the kind of honest, plodding, earnest fellow whom the British public like to feel is looking after them, and each day he looks after them more than he did the day before. And he will go plodding on till in time—who knows?—he may become the Grand Panjandrum, the Prime Minister himself!'

'Then, he does not live at the Settlement?'

'Oh no! He has sometimes thought of spending a holiday there, but he very properly feels that he owes his free time to his father; but even when resting he works hard, for he is, and always has been, provokingly healthy. As for his connection with the Settlement, it has become his hobby. To please himself'—Mrs. Robinson spoke quickly, as if in self-defence—'no one ever asked him to do so—he looks after the business side of everything connected with the place. I am the Queen, and he is the Prime Minister; that is, he listens very civilly to all I have to say, and then he does exactly what he himself thinks proper! Of course, I get my way sometimes; for instance, he disapproved of Daphne Purdon.'

'I thought they were great friends,' said Cecily, surprised. 'He gave her the first Blue-Book she ever read.'

'Ah!' said Mrs. Robinson, 'did he? That was just like him, trying to make a pig's ear out of a silk purse! Still, even so, he will certainly be delighted to hear of her execution; for he saw from the very first that she was quite unsuited for the life, and, of course, like all of us, he likes to be proved right.'

As she spoke, Mrs. Robinson was watching the girl by her side. Now and again a gleam of bright light cast a glow on the serious childish face, showed the curves of the sensible firm mouth, lit up the hazel eyes, so empty of youthful laughter. During the drive to the Settlement Cecily had talked eagerly, had poured out her heart to her new friend, telling far more than she knew she told, both of her past and present life. And Mrs. Robinson's active, intelligent brain was busy evolving a scheme of release for the young creature to whom she had taken one of her unreasoning instinctive likings.

When at last, it seemed all too soon to Cecily, the carriage stopped before old Miss Wake's dingy Mayfair lodging, Mrs. Robinson held the other's hand a moment before saying good-bye. She did not offer to kiss the girl, for Penelope was not given to kissing; but she said very kindly: 'We must meet again soon. I am going to Brighton for a few days next week. Suppose I were to come in to-morrow morning and ask Miss Wake to let you go there with me? We would go out to your convent, and I should make friends with the old French nun of whom you are so fond. She and I might think of something which would make your life here a little less dull, a little more cheerful.' And that night no happier girl lay down to sleep in London than Cecily Wake.