"May I come and fetch you?" he asked.
"No, I"d rather you didn"t do that--if you don"t mind," and then, seeing his look of deep disappointment, she added, "Perhaps you will walk back with me after dinner?"
"Of course I will, but I"m afraid Radmore or one of the girls will want to come too."
As he gazed down into her face there was a look of infinite longing in his eyes, and even she felt a certain touch of genuine emotion sweep over her. It is so very, very delicious to be loved.
"Good-bye, darling," he whispered huskily; and, before she had time to stop him, he had taken her in his arms and kissed her, pa.s.sionately, lingeringly. Then, with no other word, he released her and went off quickly down the road.
After Enid Crofton had shut the heavy door in the wall behind her, she did not go straight along the path which led to her front door. Instead, she turned in the gathering darkness to the left, and started walking round the garden which in daylight looked so different, now that Jack Tosswill had put in so many hard mornings" work at it.
She felt more surprised and moved by what had happened this afternoon than she would have thought possible. Poor Jack! Poor, foolish, adoring, priggish boy!
When he had come in this morning, bringing the note of invitation from his step-mother, he had seemed excited and ill at ease. She had felt vexed at his coming so early, as she was anxious to superintend the jam-making herself. Enid Crofton had a very practical side to her character, and she was the last person to risk the wasting of good sugar and good fruit through the stupidity of an inexperienced cook.
While Jack was still there one of her new acquaintances had come in for a moment, for she had already made herself well liked in the neighbourhood, and after the visitor had gone, Jack, exclaiming angrily that they were never left in peace together, had begged her to go for a walk with him that afternoon. This she had consented to do, after discovering that G.o.dfrey Radmore had gone up to London for the day.
And then, during their walk, Jack had suddenly made her a pompous offer of marriage!
No wonder she smiled mischievously to herself, when pacing slowly up and down the path between a row of espaliered apple trees.
She told herself that in a sense it had been her fault. They were sitting on a fallen tree trunk, in a lonely little wood, Jack, as he seldom was, tongue-tied and dull. Piqued, she had twitted him on his silence. And then, all at once, he had turned and, seizing her roughly, had kissed her with the pent-up pa.s.sion of a man in love who till now has never kissed a woman.
Pacing slowly in her dark garden, Enid Crofton"s pulse quickened at the recollection of those maladroit, hungry kisses. Something--a mere glancing streak of the great shaft of ecstasy which enveloped Jack Tosswill"s whole being had touched her senses into what had seemed to him marvellous response.
When at last he had released her, and in words of at once triumphant and humble adoration, had made her an offer of marriage, she had felt it an absurd anti-climax to a very delicious and, even in her well-stored memory, a unique experience.
And now she remembered the last time a man had kissed her. It was quite a little while ago, on the day she had taken possession of The Trellis House. Of course Captain Tremaine had tipped the guard so that they should have a carriage to themselves. But she had been uncomfortably aware that he was half-ashamed of himself--that he remembered, all the time, that she was a newly-made widow.
Somehow Jack Tosswill hadn"t remembered that. Jack hadn"t thought of it.
But oh! how absurd he had been when his first rapture was over. Without even waiting for an answer to his proposal, he had coolly suggested they should wait till he had made a start at the Bar! At last she had managed to make him listen to her plea that, till a year had elapsed, she could not think of re-marriage. And he had believed her!
All at once she told herself, a little ruefully, that she had perhaps been foolish; that this affair, slight and altogether unimportant as it was, might become a tiresome complication. Of course she could keep him in order, but she was well aware that when a man had kissed her once, he generally wanted to kiss her again, and very soon.
In principle, she had no objection to Jack Tosswill"s kisses. There was something fresh, alluring, wholly delightful, even to so hardened a flirt as was Enid Crofton, in being the object of a youth"s first love. But she told herself, almost fiercely, that she must make him understand very, very clearly that, though they might sometimes kiss, they must never be caught. Fortunately Jack was curiously cautious for so young a man. That had been one of the reasons why she had been tempted to--well--to make him lose his head.
And then another figure, one of far greater importance and moment to herself than poor Jack Tosswill, came and challenged Enid Crofton to anxious attention. How did she stand with regard to G.o.dfrey Radmore?
She stopped in her pacing, and stared straight before her. For the first time in her life she was quite at a loss as to what a man, of whom she was seeing a great deal, really felt about her.
Rosamund Tosswill was very young, and Enid secretly thought her very stupid, but there could be no doubt as to her essential truthfulness.
Now, a day or two ago, Rosamund had said: "Isn"t it funny of G.o.dfrey? He told Janet when he first came here that he had made up his mind to remain a bachelor!"
And yet they two, she, Enid, and G.o.dfrey, had had something tantamount to an emotional little scene the first time he had come to see her at The Trellis House. True, it had only lasted two or three seconds, but while it lasted it had been intense. Had Timmy Tosswill not burst into the room in that stupid, inopportune way, Radmore would have certainly taken her in his arms. Though Radmore was no innocent, high-principled boy, even one kiss between them would have altered their whole att.i.tude, the one to the other. She would have seen to that. In her heart she had cursed Timmy for his idiotic intrusion, and now she cursed him again.
Lately she had thought Radmore was becoming aware of Jack Tosswill"s growing absorption in her, and she had suspected, as well as hoped, that he was a trifle jealous. Now jealousy, as Enid knew well, is a potent quickener of feeling between a man and a woman. It was unfortunate that Radmore seemed to regard Jack Tosswill as a mere boy--a rather tiresome, priggish boy. Still, that had its good side. Jack was only a very slight complication after all!
Again she cast a fleeting thought to Tremaine. In a sense he was her real mate, her real soul, and, yes, body mate. If only he wasn"t so poor! She felt for a moment tempted to throw up everything--to do what he had so urged her to do, what he was always writing and begging her to do. That was to marry him quickly just before the end of his leave, and go out to India with him. He wrote to her every day, and his last letter was in the little silk bag now hanging on her arm.
It was the kind of love-letter that Enid understood, and enjoyed receiving: full of ardent, if rather commonplace, expressions, and of comparisons, very pleasant to her vanity, between her pretty self and the stupid, ugly women he said he was now meeting. He had been with his people in Cornwall--but for that he would of course have come down to see how she was getting on. In this particular letter he announced that he was going to be in London very soon, and might he run down for a day? He had added a question, chaffingly worded, and yet, as she well knew, seriously intended. Did she think it would be improper for him to come and spend two or three days with her? And now she told herself, very decidedly, that of course she couldn"t have him here--in stupid, old-fashioned Beechfield. It would be a tiresome, useless complication.
But why shouldn"t she go up to London for three or four days and have a good time with him there?
Enid was well aware that absence frequently makes the heart grow fonder, and that distance does lend enchantment to the view. But she would not have put it in those exact words.
At last she began walking towards the house, telling herself that she felt oddly tired, and that it would be very pleasant, for once, to have a solitary cup of tea. Her house-parlourmaid was shaping very nicely. Thus the girl had evidently brought the lamps into the sitting-room, though she had forgotten to draw the curtains.
Enid knocked and rang. She had a theory that the possession of a latchkey by their mistress makes servants slow to answer the door.
"There"s a person waiting for you in the drawing-room, ma"am. She says she"s come down on purpose from London to see you. She came just after you went out first."
There swept over Enid Crofton a strong, sudden premonition of evil. She realised that for the last ten days she had been secretly dreading that this would happen to her. She blamed herself sharply, now that it was too late, for having done nothing further to help the Pipers; but she had hoped the five pounds would have kept them quiet.
"I"ll go upstairs and take off my things," she said wearily. "Bring me a cup of tea in my bedroom--I don"t want anything to eat--and then I"ll come down and see this person." She forced herself to add, "I suppose it"s a Mrs. Piper?"
The girl answered at once, "She didn"t give her name, ma"am. She just said that she wanted to see you, and that it was urgent. She"s not got very long; she wants to catch the six o"clock train from Telford. She wouldn"t believe at first that you wasn"t in."
Enid found some comfort in those words, and she made up her mind that she would linger upstairs as long as she possibly could, so as to cut short her coming interview with the tiresome young woman. After all there was very little to say. She had behaved in a kind and generous manner to her late husband"s servant, and she had already said she would do her best to help him again.
When she got upstairs she lit the two high bra.s.s candlesticks on the dressing-table, and then, after she had taken off her hat and long black woollen coat, she sat down in her easy-chair by the wood fire. Soon there came a familiar rap and a welcome cup of tea.
She was sipping it, luxuriously, when there suddenly came a very different kind of rap on the door. It was a sharp, insistent knock, and before she could call out "Come in," the door opened, and a singular-looking figure advanced into the luxurious-looking, low-ceilinged bedroom.
"Excuse me coming up like this, Modam. But I"m afraid of losing my train."
The speaker was small and stout, with a sallow face which might once have held a certain gipsy-like charm, for, in the candlelight, the luminous dark eyes were by far its most arresting feature. She wore a small, old-fashioned-looking, red velvet bonnet perched on her elaborately dressed hair.
Enid Crofton looked at her odd-looking visitor with astonishment. Who on earth could this be? Certainly not Piper"s wife. A feeling of intense relief came over her when the strange-looking woman came towards her with a soft, gliding step, and handed her a card on which was written:
Madame Flora
Ladies" wardrobes, gold teeth, and old jewellery purchased at the highest prices known in the trade
"I do "ope you will excuse me coming up like this," she said again, and her queer c.o.c.kney voice sounded quite pleasantly in Enid Crofton"s ears.
"I"ve not got very long, and I"ve been "ere since four o"clock."
As she spoke she did not look at the pretty young lady sitting by the fire. Her dark eyes were glancing furtively round the attractively furnished bedroom, as if appraising everything that was there, from the uncommon-looking high bra.s.s candlesticks on the dressing-table to the pink silk covered eiderdown and drawn linen coverlid on the bed.
Perhaps because she was so extraordinarily relieved, Enid Crofton spoke to this somewhat impudent old-clothes woman very graciously.
"I"m sorry," she began, "but I"ve nothing in the least suitable for you, Madame Flora. It"s a pity you wasted your time waiting for me. There are several other people in Beechfield with whom I expect you might have done business." She smiled as she spoke.
"I wish I"d thought of that, Modam." The woman spoke with a touch of regret. "But your maids expected you might be back any minute, and I did want to meet you, for Piper"s that down on "is luck, I sometimes don"t know what to do with "im! Instead of wanting to employ ex-soldiers, as in course they ought ter, people seem just to avoid them--"
"Piper?" repeated Enid Crofton in a low, hesitating voice. "Then are you Mrs. Piper?"
Was it conceivable that this strange-looking old thing was Piper"s wife?