Читать книгу Lady Cassandra - Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey - Страница 12

Mrs Evans’s departure gave the start to what was virtually a general stampede. As one woman rose to make her adieux, another hastily joined her, offering a seat in a carriage, or companionship on the walk home. Mrs Mallison collected her daughters with the flutter of an agitated hen. Mrs Ritchards forgot even to refer to the kitchen-maid. Grizel beamed upon them with her most childlike smiles, but there was no staying the flight: feebly, obstinately, as a flock of sheep each one followed her leader. In three minutes Cassandra alone was left, and Martin having escorted the last sheep to the door, took the opportunity to escape to his study, and shut himself in with a sigh of relief.

Alone in the drawing-room the two women confronted each other in eloquent silence. Cassandra’s eyes were dancing, her cheeks were flushed to their brightest carmine; Grizel was pale, and a trifle perturbed. “Now I’ve been and gone and done it!”

“You have indeed!” Cassandra laughed. It was delightful to be able to laugh, to feel absolutely at home, and in sympathy with another woman. There was reproach in her words, but none in her tone. “How could you say it?”

“Because I thought she meant it,—honestly I did, for the first second, and I always act on the first second. And why need the silly things be shocked? They’ve all got dozens. What is the old Meeting, anyway?”

“I think it’s... Mothers!” volunteered Cassandra illuminatingly. “Poor ones. They have plain sewing and coal clubs. I subscribe. You were invited to join the Committee. In the parish room. They—I believe they cut out the plain clothes.”

“Fancy me cutting out plain clothes!” cried Grizel, and gave a complacent pat to her lace gown. “I’ll subscribe too, and stay at home, but I’ll apologise to the dear old thing. She meant to be kind, and I’m sorry I shocked her. I’m going to ring for fresh tea, and we can have a nice talk, and shock each other comfortably. Have you any children?”

“I have a son,” said Cassandra. The brilliance of her smile faded as she spoke. She was conscious of it herself and laboriously endeavoured to keep her voice unchanged. “He is nine years old. At a preparatory school. Quite a big person.”

Grizel also ceased to smile. There was an expression akin to reverence in the hazel eyes as they dwelt on the other’s face. The deep note was in her voice.

“You look so young, just a girl, and you have a son nearly ten! Old enough to be a companion,—to talk with you, and to understand. How wonderful it must be!”

There was a moment of silence during which Cassandra’s thoughts flew back to those never-to-be-forgotten days when a tiny form lay elapsed to a heart overflowing with the glory of motherhood, and then reproduced before her a stocky figure in an Eton suit, with a stolid, freckled face. She smiled with stiff lips.

“He is a dear thing, quite clever too, which is satisfactory. You must see him in the holidays, but unless you can talk cricket I’m afraid he may bore you. It is not, of course, a responsive age.”

“It will come! It will come! It’s storing up. These undemonstrative natures are the richest deep down,” Grizel said softly.

The maid came in with the tea at that moment, and she said no more, but it was enough. Cassandra felt an amazed conviction that if she had spoken for hours, the situation could not have been more accurately understood.

Grizel poured out tea, talking easily the while.

“Having a son must mean educating oneself all over again. Cricket now! It’s the deadliest game. One goes to Lord’s for the frocks, and to meet friends and have tea, and see all the dear little top hats waved in the air at the end. I dote on enthusiasm; it goes to my head like wine. Every Eton and Harrow I wave and enthuse as wildly as if I’d ten sons on the winning side. But how on earth they can enjoy that everlasting running about over the same few yards, between the same old posts, hour after hour, day after day!” She shrugged expressively. “Well! I never look.”

“It’s worse when they talk about it!” Cassandra said. “When my boy is at home, he and his father talk cricket steadily through every meal. I am hopelessly out in the cold. I suppose it will grow worse as time goes on, and more masculine tastes develop.”

Grizel paused, cup in hand, to stare reflectively at the fire.

“Do you know that’s a subject which is exercising me very much! All my life until now I’ve lived with women, and been conversationally on my own ground, and now there’s Martin! We’ve got to have meals together, and depend on each other for conversation until death doth us part, and it’s a big proposition. Suppose he gets bored? Suppose I get bored? At present it’s such delight just to be together, that it doesn’t matter what we say. I could talk hats by the hour, and he would be patient, and he could prose about golf, and I’d murmur sympathetically in the pauses, and be quite happy just watching him, and thinking what a dear he was, but”—she put down her cup—“I’m not a child; I know that that stage must pass! It may be just as sweet to be together—it may be sweeter, but the novelty will pass... Tell me!” she bent forward, gazing in Cassandra’s face. “How soon does it pass?”

Again Cassandra was conscious of stiffened lips, of making a pretence at the answering smile.

“The time varies, but even in exceptional cases it is horribly soon. I was very young when I married. We were a big family at home, and very hard up. It was a revolutionary change to come almost straight from the schoolroom, and an allowance of a few shillings a week, to be mistress of the Court. I was wild with excitement, it seemed impossible that I could ever get blasé.”

“But you did?”

“Oh, yes.”

“How soon?”

“Very soon, I’m afraid. Incredibly soon.”

Grizel tossed her head.

“I am never blasé. It’s impossible that I ever could be. Life interests me too much. The more difficult it is, the more absorbing it becomes. But I’m sorry for the poor little ignorant brides who believe so implicitly in the ‘happy-ever-after’ theory, that they take no trouble to make it come true. I’m twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine, and I’ve no illusions on the point. My husband and I are gloriously happy, but I know we shan’t go on at the same level, unless I work hard to keep it up.”

“I! Why not we? Surely it’s a mutual affair?”

“Yes, but bless ’em! men are not adaptive, and most of them are so busy making the bread and butter, and too tired when that’s over, to bother about anything more! It’s the women who have to do the fitting in. That brings us back to where we started. I’m trying to think ahead, and prepare myself for the horrible moment when Martin wants to talk sense!”

They both laughed, but Cassandra was conscious of a pricking of conscience. It had never occurred to her to “work hard” to preserve her husband’s love. Like many another woman she had taken for granted that once secured, it would automatically remain her own; she had grieved over a divergence of interest, as a calamity beyond her control. How could one “prepare” against such a contingency?

“I’m not at all sure that I agree with you,” she said restlessly. “The ‘happy-ever-after’ theory has its drawbacks, but it’s very sweet while it lasts, and your other seems prosaic from the start. To have to work hard, to ‘struggle’ for one’s husband’s love!”

“Well, why not? Is there any big thing in life which one gains, or keeps without a fight? And this is the biggest of all, and the most fragile and easily lost. Think! among all your friends how many could come to stay in your house for one month, that you wouldn’t be thankful to part from at the end? I don’t say you stop caring for them, but you’ve had enough! You say to yourself: ‘Emmeline is an angel, but that giggle of hers drives me daft. Thank the gods she’s leaving to-day!’ or ‘Emmeline’s a perfect dear, I’m devoted to her, but have you noticed the way she wriggles her nose? It’s got on my nerves to such an extent that I can’t bear it an hour longer.’ And you stand on the platform and wave your hand, and draw a great big sigh of relief as the train puffs away, and within the railway carriage Emmeline is sighing too, and feeling unutterably relieved to be rid of you! ... You know it’s true!”

“Oh!” laughed Cassandra, “don’t talk of a month. A week is enough for me. Less than a week!”

“Then why wonder at the difficulties of marriage? There’s no magic in a few words spoken at the altar, to make two people impervious to each other’s faults. It’s the most wonderful and beautiful of miracles when they manage to live tied together for twenty, thirty, even fifty years, and to be decently civil until the end. It’s worth any amount of effort to accomplish. I adore my husband, I adore myself, but we are mortal... we have failings; and as we grow older they’ll grow worse. At present we are both blind, but there will come a time when our eyes are opened. I know. I’ve seen. I’ve watched. I’ve taken warning. I’m going to prepare myself in advance.”

“What, par exemple, are you going to do?”

“Study the brute! Study his fads. Join the golf club, for one thing, and learn to listen intelligently, at the cost of a few miserable afternoons. I detest sports, and sporting clothes, and strong boots, and a red face, and tramping about mile after mile over rough ground. If we’d been intended to walk we should have had four legs; but I shall very soon pick up all that is necessary!”

“Why not go a little further, while you are about it, and play with your husband? You might take lessons from the pro. to get up your game, and then you could go to the links together in the afternoons. If you are determined to sacrifice yourself, you may as well do it thoroughly. He’d be so pleased!”

“I’m not so sure,” Grizel said shrewdly. “I’m his wife and he adores me, but he’d rather play golf with a boring man with a good handicap, and come home to find me sitting on a sofa looking pretty and fluffy, ready to acclaim his exploits, and listen to volumes about every hole, and the marvellous way in which he cleeked his tee off the bogie. Well! what is it? Don’t you call it a bogie?” She laughed herself, in sympathy with the other’s merriment, and ended with an involuntary: “Lady Cassandra! I’m so glad you came. Do let us often laugh together! I have such a comfortable feeling that you won’t be shocked at anything I say.”

“No one ever shocks me, except myself. You don’t know how glad I shall be. I’m really rather a lonely person, though I’ve lived here so long. It seems extraordinary to have had this intimate conversation with you on our very first meeting. I wouldn’t dream of discussing such matters with any other woman in the neighbourhood.”

“Of course not. You don’t know anyone else so well. We are intimates, so what’s the use of hedging?”

“I don’t want to hedge. I’m only too thankful to know it. It’s not healthy to live so much alone. One grows introspective. These last years I’ve been growing more and more absorbed in Cassandra Raynor.”

“Well! she is attractive, isn’t she? I’m going to do exactly the same. I felt it in my bones the moment you entered the room. You felt it too! I saw the little spark leap to your eyes.”

“It did. It’s quite true, but I ought to warn you that being associated with me, won’t make you any more popular in Chumley. Chumley doesn’t—approve of me! I expect you are sensitive enough to atmospheres to have grasped that fact for yourself?”

“I did. Yes. But why?”

“Oh, many reasons. I dress fashionably. I hate parish work. I don’t go to ‘teas,’ or give them in return. I’m lazy about calls. I’m not interested in the people, and I can’t pretend.”

“Oh, but I shall be interested. I always am. I love all those dear old things in their dolmans and black silks. They are types of the old-fashioned women, whom I’ve read about, but never known. I shall love studying them, and hearing their views, and shocking them by telling them mine in return. They’ll love being shocked—all prim old ladies love it. They’re all walking home now, buzzing over my faux pas, and feeling as perked up as if they’d been to the theatre. They think they are grieved, but they have really enjoyed themselves immensely. I lived with a very old great-aunt before my marriage, so I’m an expert in old ladies.”

Cassandra assented absently. She was not interested in old ladies, but she was interested in watching Grizel as she talked. Her practised eye took in every detail of her appearance, and every detail was right. She studied her features, her expression, the waves of her soft fair hair, the swiftly moving hands, and sat smiling, appearing to listen, while her thoughts raced ahead, planning future meetings, seeing herself blessed with a friend who would fill the empty gap.

“I shall be jealous of the old ladies if you give them too much of your company!” she said, with a charming smile which accentuated the flattery of the remark. Grizel smiled back with a little nod of acknowledgment, and Cassandra lifted her muff as if preparing to depart, asking casually the while:

“Have you good news of your sister-in-law, Miss Beverley? I knew her slightly, and admired her a great deal. She went to India, I think?”

Grizel’s eyes danced with animation.

“She did. Yes. To visit a friend. We saw her off at Marseilles, my husband and I, and a fortnight later we were sitting in a café, drinking coffee, and flirting outrageously, when we suddenly saw the name of the ship on a poster! It had been in a collision in the Indian Ocean; and the passengers had to take to the boats. If another ship had not come to the rescue, they might all have been drowned.”

“What a terrible experience! How sad for the poor girl, just when she was starting for such a delightful visit!”

“Not at all sad. Not at all. A very good thing,” said Grizel unexpectedly. “Katrine had been wading through trivialities all her life; a big experience was just what she needed. Besides—as a matter of fact... there was a Man!”

“Aha!” cried Cassandra, immediately fired with feminine interest. “On the ship?”

“Pre-cisely! Fastening her into life-belts, bidding her a tragic adieu, waving a gallant hand from the sinking prow.”

“Just so. I understand! And when is the wedding to be?”

Grizel’s face lengthened in dismay.

“Goodness me—I haven’t told you, have I? No one is to know for a couple of months. How on earth did you guess? Please don’t speak of it to a soul. You see, it’s a trifle awkward, because as a matter of fact the real man,—it wasn’t the real man,—I mean it was the real man really, only he pretended—”

Cassandra held up a protesting hand.

“I think you’d better leave it alone! You didn’t tell me anything; I guessed, but I’ll promise to forget forthwith, and be agreeably surprised when I hear the news a few months hence. Don’t tell me any names!”

Before Grizel could reply the whizz of an electric bell sounded through the house, and both women involuntarily groaned, foreseeing an end to their tête-à-tête, but the next moment Grizel’s eyes brightened.

“It’s a man!” she whispered ecstatically. “It’s a man. I can hear his dear boots! My first man caller! Oh joy! Oh rapture!”

“Captain Peignton.”

Dane entered, his eyes narrowed in his usual, short-sighted fashion. Cassandra noticed that he threw a quick glance round the room and guessed, what was indeed the truth, that he had hoped to meet Teresa Mallison, and have an opportunity of escorting her home. When he caught sight of herself, his face showed a ripple of feeling that came and went before she could decipher its meaning. Then he sat down, and made conversation to Grizel, and was smiled at in return with a display of dimples which seemed to have sprung into existence for his benefit. Certainly the old ladies had not been treated to them; even Cassandra herself had come off second best, for Grizel was essentially a man’s woman, who awoke to her highest self in the presence of the opposite sex. It was easy to see that the present visitor was making a favourable impression, and that Grizel was alive to the charm which Cassandra had found it so difficult to define.

Looking on in silence during the first moments of conversation, Cassandra was not so sure that Peignton reciprocated his hostess’s approval. Her light flow of conversation seemed to disconcert rather than put him at his ease, his answers came with difficulty, his eyes had none of their usual brightness. Well! the man who could fall in love with Teresa Mallison would hardly be likely to appreciate Grizel Beverley. Cassandra made up her mind to take her departure, but some minutes elapsed before she really rose, and then to her surprise Peignton also made his farewells, and accompanied her to the door. Outside, the car stood waiting, and as he helped her into it and held out his hand in farewell, his face in the fading light looked pale and tired, and Cassandra spoke on a quick impulse:

“Can I give you a lift? It will be just as quick to go round by the cross roads. Unless you prefer to walk...”

“Thank you, I’d be grateful. I’ve had a heavy day!”

He seated himself beside her, and the car sped smoothly down the narrow road. For some moments neither spoke, but Cassandra was conscious of a pleasurable tingling of excitement. She had had so many lonely drives seated in solitary state among the luxurious fitments of her Rolls Royce, that the presence of a companion was in itself an agreeable novelty. Besides, as she reminded herself, she had a double reason in being interested in Dane Peignton, since both for Bernard’s sake and Teresa’s it was her duty to cultivate the friendship. She turned towards him, met the brown eyes, and smiled involuntarily. They were nice eyes!

“Well! what do you think of the bride?”

“Just what I was going to ask you!”

“I agree with Teresa. She is adorable!”

The mention of Teresa aroused no flicker in his face. His brows contracted in consideration.

“Is she? I’m not so sure. She does not strike me as a woman of very deep feeling.”

“You would not say that, if you had heard her talking before you came in!”

“Wouldn’t I? That’s interesting. What was she talking about?”

“Oh!” The blood mounted into Cassandra’s cheeks, she felt a sudden unaccountable shyness. “Marriage! The relationship of husband and wives—that sort of thing.”

Peignton laughed: a breezy laugh without a touch of self-consciousness.

“Naturally! I might have known it. What else could you expect? She is a bride, and head over heels in love,—must have been, to give up all she did—naturally she’d want to prattle to another woman. Boring for you, though, as you know so much more of the game.”

Cassandra looked at him thoughtfully. The electric light overhead showed the small oval face, with the rose flush on the cheek, the soft greys of the furs round her throat. The words came slowly.

“Do you know—it’s a strange thing to confess,—but I don’t! She is a bride of two months, and I’ve been married ten years—but she realises things now, that I’ve passed by. She sees deeper into the difficulties. She feels more, not less.”

“You are too modest,” Dane said quickly, his brown eyes softening in involuntary admiration of the beautiful sad face. “Nothing is easier than to talk big, before the event. We can all theorise, and lay down the law; the tug comes when we begin to act. Mrs Beverley is living in Utopia at present, and talks the language thereof. Very exalted and charming, no doubt, but—it isn’t real! You should not take her too seriously.”

Cassandra did not reply. It was not for her to betray another woman’s confidence, and for the moment she was occupied with the side-light which Peignton’s words had given her concerning his own sentiments.—Grizel Beverley believed in the reality of her Utopia, and intended to preserve it at the point of the sword; Peignton proclaimed it a delusion before he had even come into possession. Such an attitude was not natural, was not right. He was not temperamentally a cold-blooded man, the latent strength of his nature made itself felt, despite the indifference of his pose, and Teresa was young and pretty and fresh. Once more the older woman felt a stirring of pity for the younger. It was as the champion of Teresa’s youth that she spoke at last.

“You seem to have no illusions! Isn’t it rather a pity, at your...”

“Stage of the game?” He finished the sentence for her with unruffled composure. “I think not, Lady Cassandra. To expect too much, is to invite disappointment. I’m not very young, and my experience has shown me that for most people, life resolves itself into making the most of a second best. Things don’t turn out as they expect. They set out to gain a certain prize, and they don’t gain it, or if they do, something unexpected creeps in to rub off the bloom. Don’t think I’m morbid. I’m not; I’ve no reason to be. There’s a lot of good, steady-going happiness open to all of us, if we are sensible enough to take it, and not lose our chance by expecting too much.”

“You are very philosophical. Generally speaking, I suppose you are right, but we were talking of marriage, when even the most matter-of-fact people are supposed to have illusions. There are not many girls who would accept a lover who did not believe, for the time, at least, that he would be happy ever after if he could secure her as a companion.”

“Oh, well!” he said, laughing. “Oh, well!”

Cassandra was left to infer that there were occasions when exaggeration was legitimate; occasions even when a man might succeed in blindfolding himself, but the concession did not alter the inward conviction. Once more she relapsed into silence, considering his words. Peignton was one of the rare people with whom it was not necessary to carry on a continuous flow of conversation. One could be silent, pursuing one’s own thoughts with a comfortable assurance that he was mentally keeping touch, and that when speech came it would be to pronounce a mutual decision.

“A second best!” Those were the words which had burned themselves on Cassandra’s brain. Life for the majority of people resolved itself into making the most of a second best. There was plenty of good, steady-going happiness in store for those who were sensible enough to take it, and not waste their time straining after the unattainable. The doctrine was distinctly bracing for those who had fallen into the trough of disappointment. Cassandra made a mental note to think over its axioms at her leisure. She had come to the stage when philosophy might have its turn, but, oh, it was good to remember that there had been a day when she had not philosophised, had not reasoned, had not made the best of anything, because youth and hope had already placed that best in her hands! What if it had been a delusion,—she had had her hour, and nothing that life could bring could take away its memory!

There stabbed through her heart a passion of pity for the man who was so calmly ignoring the glory of life. She turned towards him, her eyes dark with earnestness.

“Ah, no, it’s a mistake. Why be satisfied with makeshifts, when there’s a chance of the best? To be too easily satisfied is as foolish as to expect too much; more foolish, for you miss the dream! If the reality fails, one can always look backward and remember the dream.”

Peignton’s air of absorption had no personal reference. The words had passed over his head in so far as they applied to himself. He was looking at Cassandra and saying deep in his heart: “That woman! To grow tired of her! And Raynor! he can never have been worthy to black her boots.” Peignton had a hatred of waste, and it was waste of the worst sort to find this adorable woman thrown away on a man who was quite obtrusively unappreciative. There was such unconscious commiseration in his glance, that Cassandra drew back sharply.

“Goodness, how serious we are growing! It’s the rarest thing in the world for me to theorise. It must be the pernicious effect of paying calls. I’m not responsible for anything I say after being cooped up with rows of women discussing cooks, and Mothers’ Meetings. Forgive me if I’ve bored you!”

“I’m not bored. I’ll think over what you say. I expect you are right, and I’m wrong. When one is obliged to slack physically, as I’ve done these last years, the mind is apt to slack in sympathy. It is a sort of slacking to be content with makeshifts. I must brace up, and aim at the sky, or if a makeshift is inevitable, at least one can use a little deception and pretend that it is the best.”

“Could you do that?”

Cassandra’s eyes were incredulous, but Peignton smiled with easy assurance.

“Oh, yes, certainly. If I chose. It’s a question of temperament. It is always easier to me to be happy, than the other thing. One adapts oneself—”

The car stopped at the cross roads and Cassandra held out her hand in farewell. The melancholy air had disappeared, an elf of mischief danced in her eyes.

“Captain Peignton, you are hopelessly prosaic. It must be a second best after all, for the dream would be wasted upon you. The second best, and—shall I help you to it?”

“Do!” he cried, and they parted with a mutual laugh. It was only after the car had whizzed ahead and he was left alone upon the road, that it occurred to him to connect Teresa Mallison with the offer.

“Poor little girl. Too bad!” he said to himself then, and there was tenderness in his eyes, tenderness in his heart. With every conscious thought he was loyal to Teresa, yet one thing puzzled him,—when apart from her, he found it impossible to visualise the girl’s face. As often as he tried to summon it, it eluded him; he could see nothing but the sweep of dark hair across a white brow, the oval of delicately flushed cheeks, a little chin nestled deep into grey furs. And Raynor was indifferent to her,—indifferent to that woman!