"I do hope you won"t mind, dear," said Katherine. "My cousin Paul--the clergyman you met once--is staying with us. He and his sister. No one else."
"Oh, I shan"t mind," said Maggie. Her fingers, inside her blouse, tightly clutched the little pearl ring.
CHAPTER II
PLUNGE INTO THE OTHER HALF
For a week Maggie was so comfortable that she could think of nothing but that. It must be remembered that she had never before known what comfort was, never at St. Dreot"s, never at Aunt Anne"s, and these two places had been the background of all her life.
She had never conceived of the kind of way that she now lived. Her bedroom was so pretty that it made her almost cry to look at it: the wall-paper scattered with little rosy trees, the soft pink cretonne on the chairs, the old bureau with a sheet of gla.s.s covering its surface that was her dressing-table, the old gold mirror--all these things were wonders indeed. She was ordered to have breakfast in bed; servants looked after her with a kindliness and ease and readiness to help that she had never dreamed of as possible. The food was wonderful; there was the motor ready to take her for a drive in the afternoon, and there was the whole house at her service, soft and cosy and ordered so that it seemed to roll along upon its own impulse without any human agency.
"I believe if every one went away and left it," she thought, "it would go on in exactly the same way."
Figures gradually took their places in front of this background. The princ.i.p.als at first were Katherine and Philip, Henry and Millicent, Katherine"s brother and sister, Mr. Trenchard senior, Katherine"s father, Lady Rachel Seddon, Katherine"s best friend, and Mr. Faunder, Katherine"s uncle. She saw at once that they all revolved around Katherine; if Katherine were not there they would not hold together at all. They were all so different--so different and yet so strangely alike. There was, for instance, Millicent Trenchard, whom Maggie liked best of them all after Katherine. Millie was a young woman of twenty-one, pretty, gay, ferociously independent, enthusiastic about one thing after another, with hosts of friends, male and female, none of whom she took very seriously. The love of her life, she told Maggie almost at once, was Katherine. She would never love any one, man or woman, so much again. She lived with her mother and father in an old house in Westminster, and Maggie understood that there had been some trouble about Katherine"s marriage, so that, although it happened three years ago, Mrs. Trenchard would not come to see Katherine and would not allow Katherine to come and see her.
Then there was Henry, a very strange young man. He was at Cambridge and said to be very clever. He did indeed seem to lead a mysterious life of his own and paid very little attention to Maggie, asking her once whether she did not think The Golden a.s.s wonderful, and what did she think of Petronius; and when Maggie laughed and said that she was glad to say she never read anything, he left her in an agitated horror. Lady Rachel Seddon was very grand and splendid, and frightened Katherine.
She was related to every kind of duke and marquis, and although that fact did not impress Maggie in the least, it did seem to remove Lady Rachel into quite another world.
But they were all in another world--Maggie discovered that at once.
They had, of course, every sort of catch-word and allusion and joke that no one but themselves and the people whom they brought into the house understood; Katherine was kindness itself. Philip too (he seemed to Maggie a weak, amiable young man) took a lot of trouble about her, but they did not belong to her nor she to them.
"And why should they?" said Maggie to herself. "I must look on it as though I were staying at a delightful hotel and were going on with my journey very soon."
There was somebody, however, who did not belong any more than Maggie did, and very soon he became Maggie"s constant companion--this was the Rev. Paul Trenchard, Katherine"s cousin.
From the very moment months ago, when Maggie and he had first met in Katherine"s drawing-room, they had been friends. He had liked her, Maggie felt, at once. She on her side was attracted by a certain childlike simplicity and innocence. This very quality, she soon saw, moved the others, Philip and Henry and Mr. Trenchard senior, to derision. They did not like the Rev. Paul. They chaffed him, and he was very easily teased, because he was not clever and did not see their jokes. This put Maggie up in arms in his defence at once. But they had all the layman"s distrust of a parson. They were all polite to him, of course, and Maggie discovered that in this world politeness was of the very first importance, so that you really never said what you thought nor did what you wanted to. They frankly could not understand why Katherine asked the parson to stay, but because they loved Katherine they were as nice to him as their natures would allow them to be. Paul did not apparently notice that they put him outside their life. He was always genial, laughed a great deal when there WAS no reason to laugh at all, and told simple little stories in whose effect he profoundly believed. He was supported in his confidence by his sister Grace, who obviously adored him. She too was "outside" the family, but she seemed to be quite happy telling endless stories of Paul"s courage and cleverness and popularity. She did indeed believe that Skeaton-on-Sea, where Paul had his living, was the hub of the universe, and this amused all the Trenchard family very much indeed. It must not be supposed that Paul and his sister were treated unkindly. They were shown the greatest courtesy and hospitality, but Maggie knew that that was only because it was the Trenchard tradition to do so, and not from motives of affection or warmth of heart.
They could be warm-hearted; it was wonderful to see the way that they all adored Katherine, and they had many friends for whom they would do anything, but the Rev. Paul seemed to them frankly an a.s.s, and they would be glad when he went away.
He did not seem to Maggie an a.s.s. She thought him the kindest person she had ever known, kinder even than Katherine, because with Katherine there was the faintest suspicion of patronage; no, not of patronage--that was unfair ... but of an effort to put herself in exactly Maggie"s place so that she might understand perfectly what were Maggie"s motives. With Paul Trenchard there was no effort, no deliberate slipping out of one world into another one. He was frankly delighted to tell Maggie everything--all about Skeaton-on-Sea and its delights, about the church and its marvellous east window, about the choir and the difficulties with the choir-boys and the necessity for repairing the organ, about the troubles with the churchwardens, especially one Mr. Bellows, who, in his cantankerous and dyspeptic objections to everything that any one proposed, became quite a lively figure to Maggie"s imagination, about the St. John"s Brotherhood which had been formed to keep the "lads" out of the public-houses and was doing so well, about the Shakespeare Reading Society and a Mrs. Tempest (who also became a live figure in Maggie"s brain), "a born tragedian"
and wonderful as Lady Macbeth and Katherine of Aragon. Skeaton slowly revealed itself to Maggie as a sunny sparkling place, with glittering sea, shining sand, and dark cool woods, full of kindliness, too, and friendship and good-humour. Paul and Grace Trenchard seemed to be the centre of this sunshine. How heartily Paul laughed as he recounted some of the tricks and escapades of his "young scamps." "Dear fellows," he would say, "I love them all ..." and Grace sat by smiling and nodding her head and beaming upon her beloved brother.
To Maggie, fresh from the dark and confused terrors of the Chapel, it was all marvellous. Here was rest indeed, here, with Martin cherished warmly in her heart, she might occupy herself with duties and interests. Here surely she would be useful to "somebody." She heard a good deal of an old Mr. Toms, "a little queer in his head, poor man,"
who seemed to figure in the outskirts of Skeaton society as a warning and a rea.s.surance. ("No one in Skeaton thinks of him in any way but tenderly.") Maggie wondered whether he might not want looking after ...
The thought gradually occurred to her that this kindly genial clergyman might perhaps find her some work in Skeaton. He even himself hinted at something ... She might be some one"s secretary or housekeeper.
About Grace Trenchard Maggie was not quite so sure. She was kindness itself and liked to hold Maggie"s hand and pat it--but there was no doubt at all that she was just a little bit tiresome. Maggie rebuked herself for thinking this, but again and again the thought arose. Grace was in a state of perpetual wonder, everything amazed her. You would not think to look at her flat broad placidity that she was a creature of excitement, and it might be that her excitement was rather superficial. She would say: "Why! Just fancy, Maggie! ... To-day"s Tuesday!" Then you wondered what was coming next and nothing came at all. She had endless stories about her adventures in the streets of London, and these stories were endless because of all the details that must be fitted in, and then the details slipped out of her grasp and winked at her maliciously as they disappeared. The fact was perhaps that she was not very clever, but then Maggie wasn"t very clever either, so she had no right to criticise Miss Trenchard, who was really as amiable as she could be. Henry Trenchard said once to Maggie in his usual scornful way:
"Oh, Grace! ... She"s the stupidest woman in Skeaton, which means the stupidest woman in the world."
The Trenchards, Maggie thought, were rather given to scorning every one save themselves. Even Philip, who was not a Trenchard, had caught the habit. Katherine, of course, despised no one and liked every one, but that was rather tiresome too.
In fact at the end of her first week Maggie thought that as soon as possible she would find a room for herself somewhere and start to earn her living. She discovered that she was developing a new sensitiveness.
When she was living with the aunts she had not minded very seriously the criticisms made upon her; she had indeed been disappointed when Aunt Anne had not admired her new dress, and she had hated Amy Warlock"s rudeness, but that was because Martin had been involved. This new sensitiveness worried her; she hated to care whether people laughed at the way she came into a room or whether she expressed foolish opinions about books and pictures. She had always said just what she thought, but now, before Philip"s kindly attention and Mr. Trenchard senior"s indulgence (he wrote books and articles in the papers), she hated her ignorance. Paul Trenchard knew frankly nothing about Art. "I know what I like," he said, "and that"s enough for me." He liked Watts"s pictures and In Memoriam and d.i.c.kens, and he heard The Messiah once a year in London if he could leave his parish work. He laughed about it all. "The souls of men! The souls of men!" he would say. "That is what I"m after, Miss Cardinal. You"re not going to catch them with the latest neurotic novel, however well it"s written."
Oh, he was kind to her! He was kinder and kinder and kinder. She told him everything--except about Martin. She told him all about her life at St. Dreot"s and her father and Uncle Mathew, the aunts and the Chapel.
He was frankly shocked by the Chapel. "That"s not the way to get into heaven," he said. "We must be more patient than that. The daily round, the daily task, that"s the kind."
His physical presence began to pervade all her doings. He was not handsome, but so clean, so rosy, and so strong. No mystery about him, no terrors, no invasions from the devil. Everything was clear and certain. He knew just where he was and exactly whither he was going.
One afternoon, when they were out in the motor together, he took Maggie"s hand under the rug and he held it so calmly, so firmly, with so kindly a benevolence that she could not be frightened or uncomfortable. He was like a large friendly brother ...
One day he called her Maggie. He blushed and laughed. "I"m so sorry,"
he said. "It slipped out. I caught it from Katherine."
"Oh, please, ... never mind," she answered. "Miss Cardinal"s so stiff."
"Then you must call me Paul," he said.
A little conversation that Maggie had after this with Millicent showed her in sharp relief exactly where she stood in relation to the Trenchard family. They had been out in the motor together. Millie had been shopping and now they were rolling back through the Park.
"Are you happy with us, Maggie?" Millicent suddenly asked.
"Very happy," Maggie answered.
"Well, I hope you are," said Millicent. "I don"t think that as a family we"re very good at making any one happy except ourselves. I think we"re very selfish."
"No, I don"t think you"re selfish," said Maggie, "but I think you"re sufficient for yourselves. I don"t fancy you really want any one from outside."
"No, I don"t think the others do. I do though. You don"t suppose I"m going to stay in the Trenchard bosom for ever, do you? I"m not, I a.s.sure you. But what you"ve said means that you don"t really feel at home with us."
"I don"t think I want to feel at home with you," Maggie answered. "I don"t belong to any of you. Contrast us, for instance. You"ve got everything--good looks, money, cleverness, position. You can get what you like out of life. I"ve got nothing. I"m plain, poor, awkward, uneducated--and yet you know I wouldn"t change places with any one. I"d rather be myself than any one alive."
"Yes, you would," said Millicent, nodding her head. "That"s you all over. I felt it the moment you came into the house. You"re adventurous.
We"re not. Katherine was adventurous for a moment when she married Philip, but she soon slipped back again. But you"ll do just what you want to always."
"I shall have to," said Maggie, laughing. "There"s no one else to do it for me. It isn"t only that I don"t belong to you--I"ve never belonged to any one, only one person--and he"s gone now. I belong to him--and he"ll never come back."
"Were you frightfully in love?" asked Millie, deeply interested.
"Yes," said Maggie.
"He oughtn"t to have gone away like that," said Millicent.
"Yes, he ought," said Maggie. "He was quite right. But don"t let"s bother about that. I"ve got to find some place now where I can work.
The worst of it is I"m so ignorant. But there must be something that I ran do."
"There"s Paul," said Millie.
"What do you mean?" asked Maggie.
"Oh, he cares like anything for you. You must have noticed. It began after the first time he met you. He was always asking about you. Of course every one"s noticed it."