"The novelist?"
"Yes, and you know Maria was beginning to feel a little hurt because he hadn"t called, as they are both writers. There is a sort of freemasonry in these things, and, of course, in a neighbourhood like this we naturally miss very much the extremely interesting literary society to which we were accustomed in London, and in which Maria especially shone.
But anyhow he came at last, and he was quite delightful. Not much to look at. Not Mr. Harvey"s presence, but most agreeable. And he seemed to know all about us. He said he went to Riff Church sometimes, and had seen our youngest sister in the choir. How I laughed after he was gone!
I often wish the comic side did not appeal to me quite so forcibly. To think of poor me, who have not been to church for years, boldly holding forth in the choir, or Maria, dear Maria, who only knows "G.o.d save the Queen" because every one gets up: as Canon Wetherby said in his funny way, "Does not know "Pop goes the Queen" from "G.o.d save the weasel.""
Maria said afterwards that probably he thought you were our younger sister, and that sent me off into fits again."
"I certainly sit in the choir."
"He was much interested in the house too, and said it was full of old-world memories."
"Did he really say that?" Annette"s face fell.
"No. Now I come to think of it, _I_ said that, and he agreed. And his visit, and his conversation about Mrs. Humphry Ward, comparing _David Grieve_ and _Robert Elsmere_, quite cured dear Maria"s headache, and we agreed that neither of us would tell you about it in the absence of the other, so that we might make you guess. So remember, Annette, when Maria comes in, you don"t know a word, a single word, of what I"ve told you."
Aunt Maria came in at that moment, and sat down on the other side of the fire.
Aunt Maria was a short, sacklike woman between fifty and sixty, who had long since given up any pretensions to middle age, and who wore her grey hair parted under a little cap. Many antagonistic qualities struggled for precedence in Aunt Maria"s stout, uneasy face: benevolence and irritability, self-consciousness and absent-mindedness, a suspicious pride and the self-depreciation which so often dogs it; and the fatigue of one who daily and hourly is trying to be "an influence for good,"
with little or no help from temperament. Annette had developed a compa.s.sionate affection for both her aunts, now that they were under her protection, but the greater degree of compa.s.sion was for Aunt Maria.
"Aunt Harriet will have told you who has been to see us," she said as a matter of course.
Aunt Harriet fixed an imploring glance on Annette, who explained that she had seen a dogcart in the courtyard, and how later she had seen Mr.
Stirling driving in it.
"I wished, Harriet," said Aunt Maria, without looking at her sister, "that you had not asked him if he had read my books."
"But he had, Maria. He was only doubtful the first minute, till I told him some of the names, and then----"
"Then the poor man perjured himself."
"And I thought that was so true how he said to you, "You and I, Miss Nevill, have no time in our hard-worked lives to read even the best modern fiction.""
"I found time to read _The Magnet_," said Aunt Maria in a hollow voice.
At this moment the door opened and Hodgkins the parlour-maid advanced into the room bearing a tray, which she put down in an aggressive manner on a small table beside Annette.
"I am certain Hodgkins is vexed about something," said Aunt Harriet solemnly, when that functionary had withdrawn. "I am as sensitive as a mental thermometer to what others are feeling, and I saw by the way she set the tray down that she was angry. She must have guessed that I"ve found out about the Alberts."
"Perhaps she guessed that Annette was starving," said Aunt Maria.
CHAPTER XVII
"Life is like a nest in the winter, The heart of man is always cold therein."
_Roumanian Folk Song._
The lawyer who was to have altered Lady Louisa"s will was sent away as soon as he arrived. No one knew why she had telegraphed for him. She had had a second stroke, and with it the last vestige of power dropped from her numb hands. She was unable to speak, unable to move, unable even to die.
Janey sat by her for days together in a great compa.s.sion, not unmixed with shame. Every one, Roger included, thought she was overwhelmed by the catastrophe which had befallen her mother, and he made shy, clumsy attempts at consolation, little pattings on the back, invitations to "come out and have a look at the hay harvest." But Janey was stunned by the thought that she was in danger of losing not her mother but her Roger, had perhaps already lost him; and that her one friend Annette was unconsciously taking him from her. Her mother"s bedside had become a refuge for the first time. As she sat hour after hour with Lady Louisa"s cold hand in hers, it was in vain that she told herself that it was foolish, ridiculous, to attach importance to such a trivial incident as the fact that when Roger was actually at her door he should have made himself late by walking home with Annette. But she realized now that she had been vaguely anxious before that happened, that it had been a formless dread at the back of her mind which had nothing to do with her mother, which had made her feel that night of the choir practice as if she had reached the end of her strength. Is there any exhaustion like that which guards the steep, endless steps up to the shrine of love?
Which of us has struggled as far as the altar and laid our offering upon it? Which of us faint-hearted pilgrims has not given up the attempt half-way? But Janey was not of these, not even to be daunted by a fear that had taken shape at last.
We all know that jealousy fabricates its own "confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ." But with Janey it was not so much suspicion as observation, that close observation born of love, which if it is once dislinked from love not even Sir Galahad could endure scathless. With steady eyes she dumbly watched her happiness grow dim and dimmer. Roger was her all, and he was leaving her. His very kindness might have warned her as to his real feeling for her, and it seemed to Janey as if for months she had been shutting her eyes forcibly against the truth.
There is a great deal of talk nowadays about losing the one we love, and that attractive personality generally turns out to be some sagacious stranger who has the agility to elude us in the crowd. But Roger was as much an integral part of Janey"s life as Hulver was part of his. Janey"s life had grown round Roger. Roger"s had grown round Hulver.
Small incidents spread over the last two months, since Annette had come to Riff, rose to her memory; things too small to count by themselves hooked themselves like links one after another into a chain. For instance, the Ipswich Agricultural Show.
Janey had always gone to that annual event with Roger and Harry. And since the Blacks had come to Riff, they had accompanied them. It seemed pleasant to Janey to go in a little bunch together, and Mr. Black was good-natured to Harry and took him to the side shows, and Janey always had a new gown for the occasion. She had a new one this year, a pink one, and a white straw hat covered with pink roses. And Roger had said approvingly, "My word, Janey, you _have_ done it this time!" They had taken Annette with them, in a flowing pale amber muslin which made her hair and eyes seem darker than ever, and which Miss Black, in her navy-blue silk, p.r.o.nounced at once in a loud aside to be theatrical.
When they all arrived they divided, Annette owning she did not like the pigs and sheep. Janey at once said she preferred them, because she knew Roger did. If there was one thing more than another that Roger loved, it was to stand among the cattle pens, with his hat a little at the back of his head, exchanging oracular remarks with other agents and stock-breeders, who gathered with gratifying respect the pearls of wisdom which he let drop. For there was no sounder opinion in Lowshire on a brood mare or a two-year-old "vanner" than Roger.
It was always stiflingly hot among the cattle pens, and the pigs in their domestic life had no bouquet more penetrating than that which they brought with them to these public functions. Janey did not love that animal, of which it might with truth be said that its "best is yet to be," but she always accompanied Roger on these occasions, standing beside him, a neat, dainty little figure, by the hour together, giving her full attention to the various points of the animals as he indicated them to her. They did the same again this year. Roger said, "Come on, Janey," as usual, and hurried in the direction of the cattle pens, while Annette and Harry and Mr. Black wandered towards the flower tents. But when they had reached the pandemonium of the "live stock," Roger appeared dissatisfied. The animals, it seemed, were a poor lot this year. The flower of the Lowshire land agentry was absent. He didn"t see Smith anywhere. And Blower was not about. He expressed the opinion frequently that they must be "getting on," and they were soon getting on to such an extent that they had got past the reaping-machines, and even the dogcarts, and were back near the band-stand, Roger continually wondering what had become of the others. Janey, suddenly hot and tired, suggested that they should look for them. And they set out immediately, and elbowed their way through the crowded flower tents, and past side shows innumerable, till they finally came upon Mr. Black and Annette and Harry at an "Aunt Sally"; Harry in a seventh heaven of enjoyment, Mr.
Black blissfully content, and Annette under her lace parasol as cool as a water-lily. Janey never forgot the throb of envy and despair to which the sudden sight of Annette gave rise, as she smiled at her and made room for her on the bench beside her, while Roger, suddenly peaceful and inclined to giggle, tried his luck at the "Aunt Sally." They all stayed together in a tight bunch for the remainder of the day, the endless weary day which every one seemed to enjoy except herself. And at tea-time they were joined by Miss Black and her friend, an entirely deaf Miss Conder, secretary of the Lowshire Plain Needlework Guild, who had adhered to Miss Black since morning greetings had been exchanged at the station, and who at this, the first opportunity, deserted her for Janey.
And when they all came back late in the evening, Roger had driven Annette home in his dogcart, while she and the Blacks and Harry, who could hardly be kept awake, squeezed into the wagonnette. And when Janey got home she tore off the pink gown and the gay hat, and wondered why she was tired out. She knew now, but she had not realized it at the time. She had somehow got it into her head, and if Janey once got an idea into her little head it was apt to remain there some time, that Annette and Mr. Black were attracted to each other. In these days, as she sat by her mother, Janey saw that that idea had led her astray. Mr.
Black"s hapless condition was sufficiently obvious. But perhaps Annette did not care for Mr. Black? Perhaps she preferred Roger? And if she did----
The reed on which Janey"s maimed life had leaned showed for the first time that heartbreaking tendency inherent in every reed, to pierce the hand of the leaner. Strange, how slow we are to learn that everything in this pretty world is fragile as spun gla.s.s, and nothing in it is strong enough to bear our weight, least of all that reed shaken in the wind--human love. We may draw near, we may hearken to its ghostly music, we may worship, but we must not lean.
Janey was not a leaner by nature. She was one on whom others leaned.
Nevertheless, she had counted on Roger.
CHAPTER XVIII
"So fast does a little leaven spread within us--so incalculable is the effect of one personality on another."--GEORGE ELIOT.
Janey"s set face distressed Roger.
Presently he had a brilliant idea. Miss Georges was the person to cheer her, to tempt her out of her mother"s sick-room. So the next time he was going to Red Riff to inspect some repairs in the roof--the next time was the same afternoon--he expounded this view at considerable length to Annette, whom he found thinning the annuals in a lilac pinafore and sunbonnet in the walled garden.
She sat down on the circular bench round the apple tree while he talked, and as he sat by her it seemed to him, not for the first time, that in some mysterious way it was a very particular occasion. There was a delightful tremor in the air. It suggested the remark which he at once made that it was a remarkably fine afternoon. Annette agreed, rather too fine for thinning annuals, though just the weather for her aunts to drive over to Noyes to call on Mr. Stirling Now that Roger came to look at Annette he perceived that she herself was part of the delicious trouble in the air. It lurked in her hair, and the pure oval of her cheek, and her eyes--most of all in her eyes. He was so taken aback by this discovery that he could only stare at the sky. And yet if the silly man had been able to put two and two together, if he had known as much about human nature as he did about reaping-machines, he would not have been in the dark as to why he was sitting under the apple tree at this moment, why he had ordered those new riding-breeches, why he had them on at this instant, why he had begun to dislike Mr. Black, and why he had been so expeditious in retiling the _laiterie_ after the tree fell on it. If he had had a grain of self-knowledge, he would have realized that there must indeed be a grave reason for these prompt repairs which the Miss Nevills had taken as a matter of course.
For in the ordinary course of things tiles could hardly be wrested out of Roger, and drainpipes and sections of lead guttering were as his life-blood, never to be parted with except as a last resort after a desperate struggle. The estate was understaffed, underfinanced, and the repairs were always in arrear. Even the estate bricklayer, ruthlessly torn from a neighbouring farm to spread himself on the Miss Nevills"
roof, opined to his nephew with the hod, that "Mr. Roger must be uncommon sweet on Miss Georges to be in such a mortial hurry with them tiles."
Annette"s voice recalled Roger from the contemplation of the heavens.
"I will go down to-day, after tea," she was saying, "and I will persuade Janey to come and sit in the hay-field. It is such a pretty thing a hay-field. I"ve never seen hay in--in what do you call it?"
"In c.o.c.k."
"Yes. Such a funny word! I"ve never seen hay in c.o.c.k before."