"Ah, don"t tell me," said Daisy. "Let me think."
She plucked a long gra.s.s stem and drew it through her teeth.
"The people one really likes and loves are nicer in the country," she said at length. "The people who just amuse you are nicer in town."
"Hurrah!" said he. "That"s first-rate! It"s what I said myself. Mrs.
Halton wouldn"t have any of that. She says that she herself is so much nicer in town that she refused to accept such a cla.s.sification. Else it would mean that none of us liked her. But she stuck to the fact that none of us would like her so much down here."
Daisy considered this.
"How funny of Aunt Jeannie," she said. "I wonder----"
Then a whole collection of the things that poor Daisy had tried to put away from her mind flashed into it again, giving her a feeling of sickness and insecurity. What did it all mean?
"I wonder what she meant?" she added, truthfully enough.
"Don"t know. Here she comes. By Jove! Miss Daisy, how splendid she looks."
Aunt Jeannie certainly was looking her very best this morning. She was walking hatless in the blaze of the sun, and somehow the sunlight seemed not so much to shine on her as to shine from her. Flowers, garden, river, sky, sun, were all so much less splendid than she.
"I love this heat," she said, "and it saps my moral nature and leaves me a happy animal with no sense of responsibility. Daisy dear, you needn"t answer. I won"t invade you for long. But I sat down at my table with all the unanswered letters, I looked them through, and determined not to answer one. I"m going to have a holiday from being good. I"ve been good too long, I think. The joy of virtue palls. But there ought to be wind; there is sun and sky and water and all nice things, except wind. Can"t you--what"s the phrase?--can"t you raise the wind, Lord Lindfield?"
Tom Lindfield clicked his finger and thumb together.
"Jove! Mrs. Halton," he said, "you always think of the right thing, or make me do so." He jumped up. "I"ll order the motor at once," he said.
"You and Miss Daisy and I, let"s all go out for a run. Old Puffing Billy always goes well up to speed limit the day after he"s broken down."
Daisy"s effort with herself that morning on the river suddenly came to the limits of its energy. Once again she saw everything in that light which she had tried so hard to extinguish. And now there was more added, there were further features in the scene. Aunt Jeannie was too clever for her; with how natural an air she had come out and said that only wind was necessary to make the morning perfect; and how naturally and how unconsciously had he responded to that subtly conveyed suggestion, the very subtlety of which made him believe that he had thought of the plan himself. But outwardly Daisy still was mistress of herself; it was from the inside, not the outside, that her control was beginning to give way. She put up the red umbrella again.
"Thanks awfully, Lord Lindfield," she said, "but I can"t think of the grilling roads and the dust without putting up my neat little parasol again. But you are too ingenious for words! Aunt Jeannie comes out here and demands wind, and you instantly think of the only plan of giving it her. No, for me the book of verses, or, rather, the newspaper, underneath the bough will last till lunch-time. Has anything happened?"
Daisy spoke in the lightest possible tone; it required a woman to hear that beneath the light words a troubled spirit spoke. And Jeannie was sick at heart at the success of her scheme. She had heard at breakfast how these two meant to spend their morning; she was aware that others knew of the situation which existed between them, and would surely avoid the elm-tree by the rose-garden like a plague-stricken spot, and so she had come out here on her hateful mission, interrupting and breaking up their dangerous companionship.
She had been prepared to go further than this--to ask, if necessary, point blank, for the use of his car, and hint at the pleasure of his company. Part of that had been spared her; he probably had no inkling of her design in coming out and demanding wind; indeed he thought he had thought of it himself. But Daisy knew.
The tragic farce had to preserve the tone required of public performances.
"Daisy dear, won"t you come?" she asked. "Three is the best company of all, I think."
Daisy turned over a leaf of the paper rather too smartly for a public performance.
"Indeed, I think I won"t, Aunt Jeannie," she said. "I had such a long row before breakfast. I feel frightfully disinclined to move."
And she waited to hear Lord Lindfield urge her to come. But he was already half-way towards the house. Daisy just raised her eyes, and saw him already distant, and she felt that which she had often heard of before, but pa.s.sed over as unintelligible. Now she understood it, for her heart swelled.
Aunt Jeannie followed after a general remark or two, to which Daisy could scarcely reply. And after that more trials were in store, for Willie Carton brought his patient presence out under the elm-tree which had promised so well and performed so badly, and lay on the gra.s.s and pretended to read a book.
It was very stupid of him to come, so Daisy thought, and rather selfish.
She had given him so firm an answer, and if he reopened the question again she was determined to speak even more plainly. But he did nothing of the kind, and Daisy, quieting down a little from the tumult of her private thoughts, began to feel a little compa.s.sionate.
She knew now, in some kind of way, what was going on inside him. She realized the nature of that which brought him out here, to pretend to read a book. He wanted to be near her. And there was something of the pathetic faithfulness of a dog about him--a dog that is beaten and repulsed but never falters, or can falter, in devotion to his master.
She had begun to know what that unreasoning devotion meant.
"I know the compact of the elm-tree is not to talk or expect answers,"
said Willie quietly. "Don"t let me disturb you."
Daisy looked up at him swiftly.
"But if I said that you do disturb me?" she said.
"Then I should go away," he said.
"Oh, Willie, you don"t," she said.
"Right. Tell me when I do."
And then poor Daisy began to have a headache. It got worse, and before long she rose.
"What a beastly day," she said.
"It is rather," said he. "But it"s all right here."
"It isn"t all right anywhere," said Daisy. "I shall go indoors. I"ve got a headache."
"Wish I could take it," said he.
"Oh, don"t be foolish. Thanks awfully; I know you mean it. But one can"t take other people"s burdens, you know. We are all saddled separately, and--and all we can do is to pretend we aren"t saddled at all, and make grimaces and pretend to enjoy ourselves. Do pretend--we all pretend."
"Oh, I"ve been pretending a long time," said he.
Daisy"s headache gave her a stab that was quite unsettling.
"Men always think about themselves," she remarked. "Don"t answer. It is the elm-tree rule."
"I shall answer. Was your remark that men always think about themselves meant to apply to me? I only want to know."
Daisy had some little sense of justice left.
"No," she said. "I don"t think it was."
The motorists came back very late for lunch, just as the evening before they had come back late for dinner.
Such was Daisy"s morning; and she felt she had a perfect right to a headache. And with her headache she lay in the window-seat of her bedroom and watched the punt, with its crimson spots of cushions, unwaveringly reflected in the surface of the Thames. Above the sky grew darker with the approach of storm, and the light grew more coppery with the rising of that curious cloud out of the south. But still this dreadful clearness of air continued in spite of the growing darkness.
Maidenhead was still close and distinct, and closer and more distinct was the punt, where Aunt Jeannie handed Lindfield two crimson cushions.