Some one came forward; it was the girl of the blue dress who had smiled at Maggie in chapel. She held out her hand--"I hope you don"t think me too awful. My name"s Caroline Smith. How do you do?"
They shook hands. Maggie, still bewildered by sleep, said, stammering, "Won"t you sit down? I beg your pardon. My aunts--"
"Oh, it isn"t the aunts I wanted to see," replied Miss Smith, laughing so that a number of little bracelets jingled most tunefully together.
"I came to see you. We smiled at one another in chapel. It was your first time, wasn"t it? Didn"t you think it all awfully quaint?"
"Won"t you sit down?" said Maggie again, "and I"ll ring for the lamp."
"Oh! don"t ring for the lamp. I like the dusk. And we can make friends so much better without a lamp. I always say if you want to know anybody really well, don"t have a light."
She seated herself near the fire, arranging her dress very carefully, patting her hair beneath her hat, poking her shoes out from beneath her skirts, then withdrawing them again. "Well, what do you think of it all?"
Maggie stared. She did not know what to say. She had never met any one in the least like this before.
"I do hope," Miss Smith went on, "that you don"t think me forward. I daresay you do. But I can"t bear wasting time. Of course I heard that you were coming, so then I looked out for you in chapel to-day. I thought you looked so nice that I said to mother, "I"ll go and see her this very afternoon." Of course I"ve known your aunts for ages. I"m always in and out here so that it isn"t as bad as it seems. They"ll all be back for tea soon and I want to have a talk first."
"Thank you very much," was all that Maggie could think of to say.
"You"ve come to live here, haven"t you?" continued Miss Smith. "I"m so glad. I think you look so nice. You don"t mind my saying that, do you?
I always tell people what I think of them and then one knows where one is. Now, do tell me--I"m simply dying to know--what do you think of everything?"
"Well," said Maggie, smiling, "I only arrived here yesterday. It"s rather difficult to say."
"Oh! I know. I saw Mr. Magnus this morning and he told me that he met you. He said you were ill. You don"t look ill."
"It was very silly of me," said Maggie, "I don"t know what made me faint. I"ve never done such a thing before."
"I used to faint simply heaps of times when I was a kid," said Miss Smith, "I was always doing it. I had all sorts of doctors. They thought I"d never grow up. I"m not very strong now really. They say it"s heart, but I always say it can"t be that because I"ve given it all away." Here Miss Smith laughed immoderately.
"Weren"t they the most terrible set of frumps at chapel this morning?"
She did not wait for an answer, but went on: "Mr. Warlock"s all right, of course. I think he"s such a fine-looking man, don"t you? Of course he"s old now, but his beard"s rather attractive I think. He"s a duck, but isn"t that harmonium ghastly? I can"t think why they don"t buy an organ, they"re most awfully rich I know, and do simply nothing with their money."
"Why do you go," said Maggie, "if you think it all so dreadful?"
"Oh! I have to go," said Miss Smith, "to please mother. And one has to do something on Sunday, and besides one sees one"s friends. Did you notice Martin Warlock, Mr. Warlock"s son, you know. He was sitting quite close to me."
"He was here yesterday afternoon," said Maggie quietly.
"Oh, was he really? Now that is interesting. I wonder what he came for.
He scarcely ever comes here. Did you like him?"
"I didn"t speak to him," said Maggie.
"Of course he"s only been here a little time. He"s Mr. Warlock"s only son. He"s lived for years abroad and then the other day his aunt died and left him some money so he came home. His father simply adores him.
They say--but of course I don"t know. Don"t quote me--that he"s been most awfully wild. Drink, all sorts of things. But of course they"ll say anything of anybody. I think he"s got such an interesting face, don"t you?"
"I don"t think," said Maggie, "that you ought to say those things of any one if you don"t know they"re true."
"Oh! what a darling you are!" said Miss Smith. "You"re perfectly right--one oughtn"t. But every one does. When you"ve lived up here a little while you will too. And what does it matter? You"re sure to hear it sooner or later. But that"s right. You keep me straight. I know I talk far too much. I"m always being told about it. But what can one do?
Life"s so funny--one must talk about it. You haven"t seen Miss Avies and Mr. Thurston yet, have you?"
"No," said Maggie. "Not unless I saw them in Chapel this morning."
"Ah! they"re the ones," said Miss Smith. "No, they weren"t there to-day. They"re away on a mission. They make things hum. They quarrel with Mr. Warlock because they say he isn"t noisy enough. Mr. Thurston"s awful and Miss Avies isn"t much better. You"ll have them on to you soon enough. But of course I"m not one of the Inside Ones."
"Inside Ones?" asked Maggie.
"Yes, the real ones. They"ll be at you after a time and ask you if you"ll join them. The congregation this morning was just anybody who likes to come. But the real brethren have to swear vows and be baptized and all sorts of things. But that"s only if you believe G.o.d"s really coming in a year or two. Of course I don"t, although sometimes it makes one quite creepy--all down one"s spine. In case, after all, He really should come, you know."
"Are my aunts inside?" asked Maggie.
"Of course they are. Miss Anne Cardinal"s one of the chief of them.
Miss Avies is jealous as anything of her, but your aunt"s so quiet that Miss Avies can"t do anything. I just love your aunts. I think they"re sweet. You will be a friend of mine, won"t you? I like you so much. I like your being quiet and telling me when I talk too much. I sound silly, I know, but it"s really mother"s fault, as I always tell her.
She never brought me up at all. She likes me to wear pretty things and doesn"t care about anything else. Poor mother! She"s had such a time with father; he"s one of the most serious of all the Brethren and never has time to think about any of us. Then he"s in a bank all the week, where he can"t think about G.o.d much because he makes mistakes about figures if he does, so he has to put it all into Sunday. We will be friends, won"t we?"
It came to Maggie with a strange ironic little pang that this was the first time that any one had asked for her friendship.
"Of course," she said.
Miss Smith"s further confidences were interrupted by the aunts and behind them, to Maggie"s great surprise, Mr. Warlock and his son. The sudden descent of these gentlemen upon the still lingering echoes of Miss Caroline Smith"s critical and explanatory remarks embarra.s.sed Maggie. Not so Miss Smith. She kissed both the aunts with an emphasis that they apparently appreciated for they smiled and Aunt Anne laid her hand affectionately upon the girl"s sleeve. Maggie, watching, felt the strangest little pang of jealousy. That was the way that she should have behaved, been warm and demonstrative from the beginning--but she could not.
Even now she stood back in the shadows of the room, watching them all with large grave eyes, hoping that they would not notice her.
With Mr. Warlock and his son also Miss Smith seemed perfectly at home, chattering, laughing up into young Warlock"s eyes, as though there were some especial understanding between them. Maggie, nevertheless, fancied that he, young Warlock, was not listening to her. His eyes wandered. He had that same restlessness of body that she had before noticed in him, swinging a little on his legs set apart, his hands clasped behind his thick broad back. He had some compelling interest for her. He had had that, she now realised, since the first moment that she had seen him.
It might be that the things that that girl had told her about him increased her interest and, perhaps her sympathy? But it was his strange detached air of observation that held her--as though he were a being from some other planet watching them all, liking them, but bearing no kind of relation to them except that of a cheerful observer--it was this that attracted her. She liked his thick, rough untidy hair, the healthy red brown of his cheeks, his light blue eyes, his air of vigour and bodily health.
As she waited she was startled into consciousness by a voice in her ear. She turned to find the elder Mr. Warlock beside her.
"You will forgive my speaking to you, Miss Cardinal. I saw you at our Chapel this morning."
His great height towered above her short clumsy figure; he seemed to peer down at her from above his snowy beard as though he were the inhabitant of some other world. His voice was of an extreme kindliness and his eyes, when she looked up at him, shone with friendliness. She found herself, to her own surprise, talking to him with great ease. He was perfectly simple, human and unaffected. He asked her about her country.
"I spend my days in longing to get back to my own place--and perhaps I shall never see it again. I was born in Wiltshire--Salisbury Plain. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, they all were ministers of our Chapel there before me. They had no thought in their day of London. I have always missed that s.p.a.ce, the quiet. I shall always miss it. Towns are not friendly to me."
She told him about St. Dreots, a little about her father.
"Ah, you"re lucky!" he said. "You"ll return many times before you die--and you"ll find no change there. Those places do not change as towns do."
They were standing apart from the others near the window. He suddenly put his hand on her arm, smiling at her.
"My dear," he said. "You don"t mind me saying "My dear," but an old man has his privileges--will you come and see us whenever you care to? My wife will be so glad. I know that at first one can be lonely in this great place. Just come in when you please."
He took her hand for a moment and then turned back to Aunt Anne, who was now pouring out tea at a little table by the fire.
Martin Warlock, as his father moved away, came across to her, She had known that he would do that as though something had been arranged between them. When he came to her, however, he stood there before her and had nothing to say. She also had nothing to say. His eyes searched her face, then he broke out abruptly.
"Are you better?"