"Yes, I am," said Maggie frankly. "And I"ll be very glad of anything you can tell me. But you mustn"t let me be Treasurer or Secretary of anything. I should never answer any of the letters, and I should probably spend all the money myself."
"My dear, you shouldn"t say such things even as a joke," said Mrs.
Constantine.
"But it isn"t a joke," said Maggie. "I"m terribly muddleheaded, and I"ve no idea of money at all. Paul"s going to teach me."
Paul smiled nervously.
"Maggie will soon fit into our ways," he said.
"I"m sure she will." said Mrs. Constantine very kindly, but as though she were speaking to a child of ten.
The bell rang and Mr. Flaunders the curate came in. He was very young, very earnest, and very enthusiastic. He adored Paul. He told Maggie that he thought that he was the very luckiest man in the world for having, so early in his career, so wonderful a man as Paul to work under. He had also adored Grace, but very quickly showed signs of transferring that adoration to Maggie.
"Miss Trenchard"s splendid," he said. "I do admire her so, but you"ll be a great help to us all. I"m so glad you"ve come."
"Why, how do you know?" asked Maggie. "You"ve only seen me for about two minutes."
"Ah, one can tell," said Mr. Flaunders, sighing.
Maggie liked his enthusiasm, but she couldn"t help wishing that his knees wouldn"t crack at unexpected moments, that he wasn"t quite so long and thin, and that he wouldn"t leave dried shaving-soap under his ears and in his nostrils. She was puzzled, too, that Paul should be so obviously pleased with the rather naif adoration. "Paul likes you to praise him," she thought a little regretfully.
So, for the moment, these people, the house and the Church, fitted in her World. For the rest of the fortnight she was so busy that she never went on to the beach nor into the woods. She shopped every morning, feeling very old and grown-up, she went to tea with Mrs. Constantine and Mrs. Maxse, and she sat on Paul"s knee whenever she thought that he would like her to. She sat on Paul"s knee, but that did not mean that, in real intimacy, they approached any nearer to one another. During those days they stared at one another like children on different sides of a fence. They were definitely postponing settlement, and with every day Maggie grew more restless and uneasy. She wanted back that old friendly comradeship that there had been before their marriage. He seemed now to have lost altogether that att.i.tude to her. Then on the very day of Grace"s return the storm broke. It was tea-time and they were having it, as usual, in his dusty study. They were sitting someway apart--Paul in the old leather armchair by the fire, his thick body stretched out, his cheerful good-humoured face puckered and peevish.
Maggie stood up, looking at him.
"Paul, what"s the matter?" she asked.
"Matter," he repeated. "Nothing."
"Oh yes, there is ... You"re cross with me."
"No, I"m not. What an absurd idea!" He moved restlessly, turning half away, not looking at her. She came close up to him.
"Look here, Paul. There is something the matter. We haven"t been married a fortnight yet and you"re unhappy. Whatever else we married for we married because we were going to be friends. So you"ve just got to tell me what the trouble is."
"I"ve got my sermon to prepare," he said, not looking at her, but half rising in his chair. "You"d better go, darling."
"I"m not going to," she answered, "until you"ve told me why you"re worrying."
He got up slowly and seemed then as though he were going to pa.s.s her.
Suddenly he turned, flung his arms round her, catching her, crushing her in his arms, kissing her wildly.
"Love ... love me ... love me," he whispered. "That"s what"s the matter. I didn"t know myself before I married you, Maggie. All these years I"ve lived like a fish and I didn"t know it. But I know it now.
And you"ve got to love me. You"re my wife and you"ve got to love me."
She would have given everything that she had then to respond. She felt an infinite tenderness and pity for him. But she could not. He felt that she could not. He let her go and turned away from her. She thought for a moment wondering what she ought to say, and then she came up to him and gently put her hand on his shoulder.
"Be patient, Paul," she said. "You know we agreed before we married that we"d be friends at any rate and let the rest come. Wait ..."
"Wait!" he turned round eagerly, clutching her arm. "Then there is a chance, Maggie? You can get to love me--you can forget that other man?"
She drew back. "No, you know I told you that I should never do that.
But he"ll never come back nor want me again and I"m very fond of you, Paul--fonder than I thought. Don"t spoil it all now by going too fast--"
"Going too fast!" he laughed. "Why, I haven"t gone any way at all. I haven"t got you anywhere. I can hardly touch you. You"re away from me all the time. You"re strange--different from every one ..."
"I don"t know anything about women. I"ve learnt a lot about myself this week. It isn"t going to be as easy as I thought."
She went up to him, close to him, and said almost desperately: "We MUST make this all right, Paul. We can if we try. I know we can."
He kissed her gently with his old kindness. "What a baby you are. You didn"t know what you were in for ... Oh, we"ll make it all right."
They sat close together then and drank their tea. After all, Grace would be here in an hour! They both felt a kind of relief that they would no longer be alone.
Grace would be here in an hour! Strange how throughout all these last days Maggie had been looking forward to that event with dread. There was no definite reason for fear; in London Grace had been kindness itself and had shown real affection for Maggie. Within the last week she had written two very affectionate letters. What was this, then, that hung and hovered? It was in the very air of the house and the garden and the place. Grace had left her mark upon everything and every one, even upon the meagre person of Mitch the dog. Especially upon Mitch, a miserable creeping fox-terrier with no spirits and a tendency to tremble all over when you called him. He had attached himself to Maggie, which was strange, because animals were not, as a rule, interested in her. Mitch followed her about, looking up at her with a yellow supplicating eye. She didn"t like him and she would be glad when Grace collected him again--but why did he tremble?
She realised, in the way that she had of seeing further than her nose, that Grace was going to affect the whole of her relations with Paul, and, indeed, all her future life. She had not realised that in London.
Grace had seemed harmless there and unimportant. Already here in Skeaton she seemed to stand for a whole scheme of life.
Maggie had moved and altered a good many of the things in the house.
She had discovered a small attic, and into this she had piled pell-mell a number of photographs, cheap reproductions, cushions, worsted mats, and china ornaments. She had done it gaily and with a sense of clearing the air.
Now as Grace"s hour approached she was not so sure.
"Well, I"m not afraid," she rea.s.sured herself with her favourite defiance. "She can"t eat me. And it"s my house."
Paul had not noticed the alterations. He was always blind to his surroundings unless they were what he called "queer."
There was the rattle of the cab-wheels on the drive and a moment later Grace was in the hall.
"Dear Paul--Maggie, dear ..."
She stood there, a very solid and a.s.sured figure. She was square and thick and reminded Maggie to-day of Mrs. Noah; her clothes stood cut out around her as though they had been cut in wood. She had her large amiable smile, and the kiss that she gave Maggie was a wet, soft, and very friendly one.
"Now I think I"ll have tea at once without taking my hat off. In Paul"s study? That"s nice ... Maggie, dear, how are you? Such a journey! But astonishing! Just fancy! I got into Charing Cross and then--! Why!
Here"s the study! Fancy! ... Maggie, dear, how are you? Well? That"s right. Why, there"s tea! That"s right. Everything just as it was.
Fancy! ..." She took off her gloves, smiled, seated herself more comfortably, then began to look about the room. Suddenly there came: "Why, Paul, where"s the Emmanuel football group?"
There was a moment"s silence. Maggie felt her heart give a little b.u.mp, as it seemed to her, right against the roof of her mouth. Paul (so like him) had not noticed that the football group had vanished. He stared at the blank place on the wall where it had once been.
"Why, Grace ... I don"t know. I never noticed it wasn"t there."
"I took it down," said Maggie. "I thought there were too many photographs. It"s in the attic."
"In the attic? ... Fancy! You put it away, did you, Maggie? Well, fancy! Shan"t I make the tea, Maggie, dear? That tea-pot, it"s an old friend of mine. I know how to manage it."
They changed seats. Grace was as amiable as ever, but now her eyes flashed about from place to place all around the room.