CHAPTER V
Cynthia Welwyn was giving an account of her evening at Beechmark to herelder sister, Lady Georgina. They had just met in the little drawing-roomof Beechmark Cottage, and tea was coming in. It would be difficult toimagine a greater contrast than the two sisters presented. They were thedaughters of a peer belonging to what a well-known frequenter of greathouses and great families before the war used to call "the inferioraristocracy"--with an inflection of voice caught no doubt from the greatfamilies themselves. Yet their father had been an Earl, the second of hisname, and was himself the son of a meteoric personage of mid-Victoriandays--parliamentary lawyer, peer, and Governor of an Indian Presidency,who had earned his final step in the peerage by the skilful management ofa little war, and had then incontinently died, leaving his family hisreputation, which was considerable, and his savings, which weredisappointingly small. Lady Cynthia and Lady Georgina were his onlysurviving children, and the earldom was extinct.
The sisters possessed a tiny house in Brompton Square, and rentedBeechmark Cottage from Lord Buntingford, of whom their mother, long sincedead, had been a cousin. The cottage stood within the enclosure of thepark, and to their connection with the big house the sisters owed anumber of amenities,--game in winter, flowers and vegetables insummer--which were of importance to their small income. Cynthia Welwyn,however, could never have passed as anybody's dependent. She thanked hercousin occasionally for the kindnesses of which his head gardener and hisgame-keeper knew much more than he did; and when he saidimpatiently--"Please never thank for that sort of thing!" she dropped thesubject as lightly as she had raised it. Secretly she felt that suchthings, and much more, were her due. She had not got from life all sheshould have got; and it was only natural that people should make it up toher a little.
For Cynthia, though she had wished to marry, was unmarried, and a secretand melancholy conviction now sometimes possessed her that she wouldremain Cynthia Welwyn to the end. She knew very well that in the opinionof her friends she had fallen between two stools. Her neighbour, SirRichard Watson, had proposed to her twice,--on the last occasion some twoyears before the war. She had not been able to make up her mind to accepthim, because on the whole she was more in love with her cousin, PhilipBuntingford, and still hoped that his old friendship for her might turnto something deeper. But the war had intervened, and during its fouryears she and Buntingford had very much lost sight of each other. She hadtaken her full share in the county war work; while he was absorbed bodyand soul by the Admiralty.
And now that they were meeting again as of old, she was very conscious,in some undefined way, that she had lost ground with him. Uneasily shefelt that her talk sometimes bored him; yet she could not help talking.In the pre-war days, when they met in a drawing-room full of people, hehad generally ended his evening beside her. Now his manner, for all itscourtesy, seemed to tell her that those times were done; that she wasfour years older; that she had lost the first brilliance of her looks;and that he himself had grown out of her ken. Helena's young unfriendlyeyes had read her rightly. She did wish fervently to recapture PhilipBuntingford; and saw no means of doing so. Meanwhile Sir Richard, nowdemobilized, had come back from the war bringing great glory with him, asone of the business men whom the Army had roped in to help in its vastlabour and transport organization behind the lines. He too had reappearedat Beechmark Cottage. But he too was four years older--and dreadfullypreoccupied, it seemed to her, with a thousand interests which hadmattered nothing to him in the old easy days.
Yet Cynthia Welwyn was still an extremely attractive and desirablewoman, and was quite aware of it, as was her elder sister, LadyGeorgina, who spent her silent life in alternately admiring anddespising the younger. Lady Georgina was short, thin, and nearlywhite-haired. She had a deep voice, which she used with a harshabruptness, startling to the newcomer. But she used it very little.Cynthia's friends, were used to see her sitting absolutely silent behindthe tea-urn at breakfast or tea, filling the cups while Cynthia handedthem and Cynthia talked; and they had learned that it was no use at allto show compassion and try to bring her into the conversation. A quietrather stony stare, a muttered "Ah" or "Oh," were all that such effortsproduced. Some of the frequenters of the cottage drawing-room wereconvinced that Lady Georgina was "not quite all there." Others had theimpression of something watchful and sinister; and were accustomed topity "dear Cynthia" for having to live with so strange a being.
But in truth the sisters suited each other very fairly, and Lady Georginafound a good deal more tongue when she was alone with Cynthia than atother times.
To the lively account that Cynthia had been giving her of the evening atBeechmark, and the behaviour of Helena Pitstone, Lady Georgina hadlistened in a sardonic silence; and at the end of it she said--
"What ever made the man such a fool?"
"Who?--Buntingford? My dear, what could he do? Rachel Pitstone was hisgreatest friend in the world, and when she asked him just the week beforeshe died, how could he say No?" Lady Georgina murmured that in that caseRachel Pitstone also had been a fool--
"Unless, of course, she wanted the girl to marry Buntingford. Why,Philip's only forty-four now. A nice age for a guardian! Of course it'snot proper. The neighbours will talk."
"Oh, no,--not with a chaperon. Besides nobody minds anything oddnowadays."
Cynthia meanwhile as she lay stretched in a deep arm-chair, playing withthe tea-spoon in her shapely fingers, was a pleasant vision. Since comingin from the village, she had changed her tweed coat and skirt for atea-frock of some soft silky stuff, hyacinth blue in colour; andGeorgina, for whom tea-frocks were a silly abomination, and who washerself sitting bolt upright in a shabby blue serge some five springsold, could not deny the delicate beauty of her sister's still freshcomplexion and pale gold hair, nor the effectiveness of the blue dress incombination with them. She did not really want Cynthia to look older, norto see her ill-dressed; but all the same there were many days whenCynthia's mature perfections roused a secret irritation in her sister--akind of secret triumph also in the thought that, in the end, Time wouldbe the master even of Cynthia. Perhaps after all she would marry. It didlook as though Sir Richard Watson, if properly encouraged, andindemnified for earlier rebuffs, might still mean business. As for PhilipBuntingford, it was only Cynthia's vanity that had ever made her imaginehim in love with her. Lady Georgina scoffed at the notion.
These fragmentary reflections, and others like them were passing rapidlyand disconnectedly through the mind of the elder sister, when her earcaught the sound of footsteps in the drive. Drawing aside a corner of themuslin curtain beside her, which draped one of the French windows of thelow room, she perceived the tall figure and scarcely perceptible limp ofLord Buntingford. Cynthia too saw him, and ceased to lounge. She quietlyre-lit the tea-kettle, and took a roll of knitting from a table near her.Then as the front bell rang through the small house, she threw a scarcelyperceptible look at her sister. Would Georgie "show tact," and leave herand Philip alone, or would she insist on her rights and spoil his visit?Georgina made no sign.
Buntingford entered, flushed with his walk, and carrying a bunch ofblue-bells which he presented to Lady Georgina.
"I gathered them in Cricket Wood. The whole wood is a sea of blue. Youand Cynthia must really go and see them."
He settled himself in a chair, and plunged into tea and small talk asthough to the manner born. But all the time Cynthia, while approving hisnaval uniform, and his general picturesqueness, was secretly wonderingwhat he had come about. For although he was enjoying a well-earned leave,the first for two years, and had every right to idle, the ordinaryafternoon call of country life, rarely, as she knew, came into the schemeof his day. The weather was beautiful and she had made sure that he wouldbe golfing on a well-known links some three miles off.
Presently the small talk flagged, and Buntingford began to fidget. SlowlyLady Georgina rose from her seat, and again extinguished the flame underthe silver kettle. Would she go, or would she not go? Cynt
hia droppedsome stitches in the tension of the moment. Then Buntingford got up toopen the door for Georgina, who, without deigning to make anyconventional excuse for her departure, nevertheless departed.
Buntingford returned to his seat, picked up Cynthia's ball of wool, andsat holding it, his eyes on the down-dropped head of his cousin, and onthe beautiful hands holding the knitting-needles. Yes, she was still verygood-looking, and had been sensible enough not to spoil herself by paintand powder, unlike that silly child, Helena, who was yet so muchyounger--twenty-two years younger, almost. It seemed incredible. But hecould reckon Cynthia's age to a day; for they had known each other verywell as children, and he had often given her a birthday present, till themoment when, in her third season, Cynthia had peremptorily put an end tothe custom. Then he had gone abroad, and there had been a wide gap ofyears when they had never seen each other at all. And now, it was true,she did often bore him, intellectually. But at this moment, he was notbored--quite the contrary. The sunny cottage room, with its flowers andbooks and needlework, and a charming woman as its centre, evidently veryglad to see him, and ready to welcome any confidences he might give her,produced a sudden sharp effect upon him. That hunger for something deniedhim--the "It" which he was always holding at bay--sprang upon him, andshook his self-control.
"We've known each other a long time, haven't we, Cynthia?" he said,smiling, and holding out her ball of wool.
Cynthia hardly concealed her start of pleasure. She looked up, shakingher hair from her white brow and temples with a graceful gesture, halfresponsive, half melancholy.
"So long!" she said--"it doesn't bear thinking of."
"Not at all. You haven't aged a bit. I want you to help me in something,Cynthia. You remember how you helped me out of one or two scrapes in theold days?"
They both laughed. Cynthia remembered very well. That scrape, forinstance, with the seductive little granddaughter of the retired villageschool-master--a veritable Ancient of Days, who had been the witness ofan unlucky kiss behind a hedge, and had marched up instanter, in hiswrath, to complain to Lord Buntingford _grand-pere._ Or that much worsescrape, when a lad of nineteen, with not enough to do in his Oxfordvacation, had imagined himself in love with a married lady of theneighbourhood, twenty years older than himself, and had had to be packedoff in disgrace to Switzerland with a coach:--an angry grandfatherbreathing fire and slaughter. Certainly in those days Philip had beenunusually--remarkably susceptible. Cynthia remembered him as always in orout of a love-affair, while she to whom he never made love wasalternately champion and mentor. In those days, he had no expectation ofthe estates or the title. He was plain Philip Bliss, with an artistic andliterary turn, great personal charm, and a temperament that invitedcatastrophes. That was before he went to Paris and Rome for serious workat painting. Seven years he had been away from England, and she had neverseen him. He had announced his marriage to her in a short note containinghardly any particulars--except that his wife was a student like himself,and that he intended to live abroad and work. Some four years later, the_Times_ contained the bare news, in the obituary column, of his wife'sdeath, and about a year afterwards he returned to England, an enormouslychanged man, with that slight lameness, which seemed somehow to draw asharp, dividing line between the splendid, impulsive youth who had goneabroad, and the reserved, and self-contained man of thirty-two--pessimistand dilettante--who had returned. His lameness he ascribed to an accidentin the Alps, but would never say anything more about it; and his friendspresently learned to avoid the subject, and to forget the slight signs ofsomething unexplained which had made them curious at first.
In the intervening years before the war, Cynthia felt tolerably sure thatshe had been his only intimate woman friend. His former susceptibilityseemed to have vanished. On the whole he avoided women's society. Someyears after his return he had inherited the title and the estates, andmight have been one of the most invited men in London had he wished tobe; while Cynthia could remember at least three women, all desirable, whowould have liked to marry him. The war had swept him more decidedly thanever out of the ordinary current of society. He had made it both anexcuse and a shield. His work was paramount; and even his old friends hadlost sight of him. He lived and breathed for an important Committee ofthe Admiralty, on which as time went on he took a more and more importantplace. In the four years Cynthia had scarcely seen him more than half adozen times.
And now the war was over. It was May again, and glorious May with theworld all colour and song, the garden a wealth of blossom, and the nightsclear and fragrant under moon or stars. And here was Philip again--muchmore like the old Philip than he had been for years--looking at her withthose enchanting blue eyes of his, and asking her to do something forhim. No wonder Cynthia's pulses were stirred. The night before, she hadcome home depressed--very conscious that she had had no particularsuccess with him at dinner, or afterwards. This unexpected _tete-a-tete_,with its sudden touch of intimacy, made up for it all.
What could she do but assure him--trying hard not to be tooforthcoming--that she would be delighted to help him, if she could? Whatwas wrong?
"Nothing but my own idiocy," he said, smiling. "I find myself guardian toan extremely headstrong young woman, and I don't know how to manage her.I want your advice."
Cynthia lay back in her chair, and prepared to give him all her mind. Buther eyes showed a certain mockery.
"I wonder why you undertook it!"
"So do I. But--well, I couldn't help it. We won't discuss that. But whatI had very little idea of--was the modern girl!" Cynthia laughed out.
"And now you have discovered her--in one day?" He laughed too, butrather dismally.
"Oh, I am only on the first step. What I shall come to presently, I don'tknow. But the immediate problem is that Helena bombed me last night bythe unexpected announcement that she had asked Donald--Lord Donald--forthe week-end. Do you know him?" Cynthia's eyebrows had gone up.
"Very slightly."
"You know his reputation?"
"I begin to remember a good deal about him. Go on."
"Well, Helena had asked that man, without consulting me, to stay at myhouse, and she sprang the announcement on me, on Thursday, theinvitation being for Saturday. I had to tell her then and there--that hecouldn't come."
"Naturally. How did she take it?"
"Very ill. You see, in a rash moment, I had told her to invite herfriends for week-ends as she pleased. So she holds that I have brokenfaith, and this morning she told me she had arranged to go up and lunchwith Donald at the Ritz next week--alone! So again I had to stop it. ButI don't play the jailer even decently. I feel the greatest fool increation." Cynthia smiled.
"I quite believe you! And this all happened in the first twenty-fourhours? Poor Philip!"
"And I have also been informed that Helena's 'views' will not allowher--in the future--to take my advice on any such questions--thatshe prefers her liberty to her reputation--and 'wants to understanda bad man.' She said so. It's all very well to laugh, Cynthia! Butwhat am I to do?"
Cynthia, however, continued to laugh unrestrainedly. And he joined in.
"And now you want advice?" she said at last, checking her mirth. "I'mawfully sorry for you, Philip. What about the little chaperon?"
"As nice a woman as ever was--but I don't see her preventing Helena fromdoing anything she wants to do. Helena will jolly well take care of that.Besides she is too new to the job."
"She may get on better with Helena, perhaps, than a stronger woman,"mused Cynthia. "But I am afraid you have got your work cut out. Wasn't itvery rash of you?"
"I couldn't help it," he repeated briefly. "And I must just do my best.But I'd be awfully grateful if you'd take a hand, Cynthia. Won't you comeup and really make friends with her? She might take things from you thatshe wouldn't from me."
Cynthia looked extremely doubtful.
"I am sure last night she detested me."
"How could you tell? And why should she?"
"I'm twenty y
ears older. That's quite enough."
"You scarcely look a day older, Cynthia."
She sighed, and lightly touched his hand, with a caressing gesture heremembered of old.
"Very nice of you to say it--but of course it isn't true. Well, Philip,I'll do what I can. I'll wander up some time--on Sunday perhaps. Withyour coaching, I could at least give her a biography of Jim Donald. Oneneedn't be afraid of shocking her?"
His eyebrows lifted.
"Who's shocked at anything nowadays? Look at the things girls read anddiscuss! I'm old-fashioned, I suppose. But I really couldn't talk aboutDonald to her this morning. The fellow is such a worm! It would comebetter from you."
"Tell me a few more facts, then, about him, than I know at present."
He gave her rapidly a sketch of the life and antecedents of Lord Donaldof Dunoon--gambler, wastrel, _divorce_, et cetera, speaking quitefrankly, almost as he would have spoken to a man. For there was nothingat all distasteful to him in Cynthia's knowledge of life. In a woman offorty it was natural and even attractive. The notion of a discussion ofDonald's love-affairs with Helena had revolted him. It was on thecontrary something of a relief--especially with a practical object inview--to discuss them with Cynthia.
They sat chatting till the shadows lengthened, then wandered into thegarden, still talking. Lady Georgina, watching from her window upstairs,had to admit that Buntingford seemed to like her sister's society. But ifshe had been within earshot at the last five minutes of theirconversation, she would perhaps have seen no reason, finally, to changeher opinion. Very agreeable that discursive talk had been to bothparticipants. Buntingford had talked with great frankness of his ownplans. In three months or so, his Admiralty work would be over. Hethought very likely that the Government would then give him a modestplace in the Administration. He might begin by representing the Admiraltyin the Lords, and as soon as he got a foot on the political ladderprospects would open. On the whole, he thought, politics would be hisline. He had no personal axes to grind; was afraid of nothing; wouldn'tcare if the Lords were done away with to-morrow, and could live on afraction of his income if the Socialists insisted on grabbing the rest.But the new world which the war had opened was a desperately interestingone. He hadn't enough at stake in it to spoil his nerve. Whateverhappened, he implied, he was steeled--politically and intellectually.Nothing could deprive him either of the joy of the fight, or theamusement of the spectacle.
And Cynthia, her honey-gold hair blown back from her white temples by thesummer wind, her blue parasol throwing a summer shade about her, showedherself, as they strolled backwards and forwards over the shady lawn ofthe cottage, a mistress of the listening art; and there is no art morewinning, either to men or women.
Then, in a moment, what broke the spell? Some hint or question from her,of a more intimate kind?--something that touched a secret place, whollyunsuspected by her? She racked her brains afterwards to think what itcould have been; but in vain. All she knew was that the man beside herhad suddenly stiffened. His easy talk had ceased to flow; while stillwalking beside her, he seemed to be miles away. So that by a quick commonimpulse both stood still.
"I must go back to the village," said Cynthia. She smiled, but her facehad grown a little tired and faded.
He looked at his watch.
"And I told the car to fetch me half an hour ago. You'll be up some timeperhaps--luncheon to-morrow?--or Sunday?"
"If I can. I'll do my best."
"Kind Cynthia!" But his tone was perfunctory, and his eyes avoided her.When he had gone, she could only wonder what she had done to offend him;and a certain dreariness crept into the evening light. She was not theleast in love with Philip--that she assured herself. But his suddenchanges of mood were very trying to one who would like to be his friend.
Buntingford walked rapidly home. His way lay through an oak wood, thatwas now a revel of spring; overhead, a shimmering roof of golden leaf andwild cherry-blossom, and underfoot a sea of blue-bells. A winding pathled through it, and through the lovely open and grassy spaces which fromtime to time broke up the density of the wood--like so many green floorscleared for the wood nymphs' dancing. From the west a level sun struckthrough the trees, breaking through storm-clouds which had been rapidlyfilling the horizon, and kindling the tall trees, with their ribbed greybark, till they shone for a brief moment like the polished pillars in thehouse of Odysseus. Then a nightingale sang. Nightingales were rare atBeechmark; and Buntingford would normally have hailed the enchantedflute-notes with a boyish delight. But this evening they fell on deafears, and when the garish sunlight gave place to gloom, and drops of rainbegan to patter on the new leaf, the gathering storm, and the darksilence of the wood, after the nightingale had given her last trill, werewelcome to a man struggling with a recurrent and desperate oppression.
Must he always tamely submit to the fetters which bound him? Could he donothing to free himself? Could the law do nothing? Enquiry--violentaction of some sort--rebellion against the conditions which had grown sorigid about him:--for the hundredth time, he canvassed all ways ofescape, and for the hundredth time, found none.
He knew very well what was wrong with him. It was simply the imperiousneed for a woman's companionship in his life--for _love_. Physically andmorally, the longing which had lately taken possession of him, wasbecoming a gnawing and perpetual distress. There was the plain fact. Thishour with Cynthia Welwyn had stirred in him the depths of old pain. Buthe was not really in love with Cynthia. During the war, amid theabsorption of his work, and the fierce pressure of the national need, hehad been quite content to forget her. His work--and England's strait--hadfilled his mind and his time. Except for certain dull resentments andregrets, present at all times in the background of consciousness, thefour years of the war had been to him a period of relief, almost ofdeliverance. He had been able to lose himself; and in that inner historyof the soul which is the real history of each one of us, that had beenfor long years impossible.
But now all that protection and help was gone; the floodgates wereloosened again. His work still went on; but it was no longer absorbing;it no longer mattered enough to hold in check the vague impulses andpassions that were beating against his will.
And meanwhile the years were running on. He was forty-four, HelenaPitstone's guardian, and clearly relegated already by that unmanageablechild to the ranks of the middle-aged. He had read her thought in hergreat scornful eyes. "What has your generation to do with mine? Yourday is over!"
And all the while the ugly truth was that he had never had his "day"--andwas likely now to miss it for good. Or at least such "day" as had shoneupon him had been so short, so chequered, so tragically wiped out, itmight as well never have dawned. Yet the one dear woman friend to whom inthese latter years he had spoken freely, who knew him through andthrough--Helena Pitstone's mother--had taken for granted, in her quietascetic way, that he had indeed had his chance, and must accept for goodand all what had come of it. It was because she thought of him as setapart, as debarred by what had happened to him, from honest love-making,and protected by his own nature from anything less, that she had askedhim to take charge of Helena. He realized it now. It had been the notionof a fanciful idealist, springing from certain sickroom ideas ofsacrifice--renunciation--submission to the will of God--and so forth.
It was _not_ the will of God!--that he should live forsaken and dieforlorn! He hurled defiance, even at Rachel, his dear dead friend, whohad been so full of pity for him, and for whom he had felt the purest andmost unselfish affection he had ever known--since his mother's death.
And now the presence of her child in his house seemed to represent averdict, a sentence--of hers upon him, which he simply refused to acceptas just or final. If Rachel had only lived a little longer he would havehad it out with her. But in those last terrible days, how could he eitherargue--or refuse?
All the same, he would utterly do his duty by Helena. If she chose toregard him as an old fogy, well and good--it was perhaps better so. Notthat--if ci
rcumstances had been other than they were---he would have beenthe least inclined to make love to her. Her beauty was astonishing. Butthe wonderful energy and vitality of her crude youth rather repelled thanattracted him.
The thought of the wrestles ahead of him was a weariness to an alreadytired man. Debate with her, on all the huge insoluble questions sheseemed to be determined to raise, was of all things in the world mostdistasteful to him. He would certainly cut a sorry figure in it; nothingwas more probable.
The rain began to plash down upon his face and bared head, cooling aninner fever. The damp wood, the soft continuous dripping of thecherry-blossoms, the scent of the blue-bells,--there was in them acertain shelter and healing. He would have liked to linger there. Butalready, at Beechmark, guests must have arrived; he was being missed.
The trees thinned, and the broad lawns of Beechmark came in sight.Ah!--there was Geoffrey, walking up and down with Helena. _Suppose_ thatreally came off? What a comfortable way out! He and Cynthia must back itall they could.