Missing, Mrs. Humphry Ward [free e books to read online .TXT] 📗

shall have it, and any other that would help you. I know you wouldn't let it be hurt, if you could help it--because you'd love it--as I do. You wouldn't let a Turner drawing like that fade and blister in the sun--as I've seen happen again and again in houses he painted them for. Brutes! Hanging's too good for people who maltreat Turners. Let me relieve you of it now. I must get you some tea. But the drawing will come to you next week. You won't be able to think of it till then.'

He looked at her with the ardent sympathy which sprang easily from his quick, emotional temperament, and made it possible for him to force his way rapidly into intimacy, where he desired to be intimate. But Nelly shrank into herself. She put the drawing away, and did not seem to care to look at any more. Farrell wished he had left his remark unspoken, and finding that he had somehow extinguished her smiles and her talk, he relieved her of his company, and went away to talk to Sarratt and Captain Marsworth. As soon as tea was over, Nelly beckoned to her husband.

'Are you going so soon?' said Hester Martin, who had been unobtrusively mothering her, since Farrell left her--'When may I come and see you?'

'To-morrow?' said Nelly vaguely, looking up. 'George hoped you would come, before he goes. There are--there are only three days.'

'I will come to-morrow,' said Miss Martin, touching Nelly's hand softly. The cold, small fingers moved, as though instinctively, towards her, and took refuge in her warm capacious hand. Then Nelly whispered to Bridget--appealingly--

'I want to go, Bridget.'

Bridget frowned with annoyance. Why should Nelly want to go so soon? The beauty and luxury of the cottage--the mere tea-table with all its perfect appointments of fine silver and china, the multitude of cakes, the hot-house fruit, the well-trained butler--all the signs of wealth that to Nelly were rather intimidating, and to Sarratt--in war-time--incongruous and repellent, were to Bridget the satisfaction of so many starved desires. This ease and lavishness; the best of everything and no trouble to get it; the 'cottage' as perfect as the palace;--it was so, she felt, that life should be lived, to be really worth living. She envied the Farrells with an intensity of envy. Why should some people have so much and others so little? And as she watched Sir William's attentions to Nelly, she said to herself, for the hundredth time, that but for Nelly's folly, she could easily have captured wealth like this. Why not Sir William himself? It would not have been at all unlikely that they should come across him on one of their Westmorland holidays. The thought of their dingy Manchester rooms, of the ceaseless care and economy that would be necessary for their joint menage when Sarratt was gone, filled her with disgust. Their poverty was wholly unnecessary--it was Nelly's silly fault. She felt at times as though she hated her brother-in-law, who had so selfishly crossed their path, and ruined the hopes and dreams which had been strengthening steadily in her mind during the last two years especially, since Nelly's beauty had become more pronounced.

'It's not at all late!' she said, angrily, in her sister's ear.

'Oh, but George wants to take me to Easedale,' said Nelly under her breath. 'It will be our last long walk.'

Bridget had to submit to be torn away. A little motor was waiting outside. It had brought the Sarratts and Bridget from Rydal, and was to take Bridget home, dropping the Sarratts at Grasmere for an evening walk. Sir William tried indeed to persuade them to stay longer, till a signal from his cousin Hester stopped him; 'Well, if you must go, you must,' he said, regretfully. 'Cicely, you must arrange with Mrs. Sarratt, when she will pay us a visit--and'--he looked uncertainly round him, as though he had only just remembered Bridget's existence--'of course your sister must come too.'

Cicely came forward, and with a little lisp, repeated her brother's invitation--rather perfunctorily.

Sir William took his guests to their car, and bade a cordial farewell to Sarratt.

'Good-bye--and good luck. What shall I wish you? The D.S.O., and a respectable leave before the summer's over? You will be in for great things.'

Sarratt shook his head.

'Not till we get more guns, and tons more shell!'

'Oh, the country's waking up!'

'It's about time!' said Sarratt, gravely, as he climbed into the car. Sir William bent towards him.

'Anything that we can do to help your wife and her sister, during their stay here, you may be sure we shall do.'

'It's very kind of you,' said the young officer gratefully, as he grasped Farrell's hand. And Nelly sent a shy glance of thanks towards the speaker, while Bridget sat erect and impassive.

Sir William watched them disappear, and then returned to the tea-room. He was received with a burst of laughter from his sister.

'Well, Willy, so you're caught--fairly caught! What am I to do? When am I to ask her? And the sister too?'

And lighting another cigarette, Cicely looked at her brother with mocking eyes.

Farrell reddened a little, but kept his temper.

'In a week or two I should think, you might ask her, when she's got over her husband's going away.'

'They get over it very soon--in general,' said Cicely coolly.

'Not that sort.'

The voice was Captain Marsworth's.

Cicely appeared to take no notice. But her eyelids flickered. Hester Martin interposed.

'A dear, little, appealing thing,' she said, warmly--'and her husband evidently a capital fellow. I didn't take to the sister--but who knows? She may be an excellent creature, all the same. I'm glad I shall be so near them. It will be a help to that poor child to find her something to do.'

Cicely laughed.

'You think she'll hunt sphagnum--and make bandages? I don't.'

'Why this "thusness?"' said Miss Martin raising her eyebrows. 'What has made you take a dislike to the poor little soul, Cicely? There never was anyone more plainly in love--'

'Or more to be pitied,' said the low voice in the background--low but emphatic.

It was now Cicely's turn to flush.

'Of course I know I'm a beast,' she said defiantly,--'but the fact is I didn't like either of them!--the sisters, I mean.'

'What oh earth is there to dislike in Mrs. Sarratt!' cried Farrell. 'You're quite mad, Cicely.'

'She's too pretty,' said Miss Farrell obstinately--and too--too simple. And nobody as pretty as that can be really simple. It's only pretence.'

As she spoke Cicely rose to her feet, and began to put on her veil in front of one of the old mirrors. 'But of course, Will, I shall behave nicely to your friends. Don't I always behave nicely to them?'

She turned lightly to her brother, who looked at her only half appeased.

'I shan't give you a testimonial to-day, Cicely.'

'Then I must do without it. Well, this day three weeks, a party at Carton, for Mrs. Sarratt. Will that give her time to settle down?'

'Unless her husband is killed by then,' said Captain Marsworth, quietly. 'His regiment is close to Loos. He'll be in the thick of it directly.'

'Oh no,' said Cicely, twisting the ends of her veil lightly between a finger and thumb. 'Just a "cushy" wound, that'll bring him home on a three months' leave, and give her the bore of nursing him.'

'Cicely, you are a hard-hearted wretch!' said her brother, angrily. 'I think Marsworth and I will go and stroll till the motor is ready.'

The two men disappeared, and Cicely let herself drop into an arm-chair. Her eyes, as far as could be seen through her veil, were blazing; the redness in her cheeks had improved upon the rouge with which they were already touched; and the gesture with which she pulled on her gloves was one of excitement.

'Cicely dear--what is the matter with you?' said Miss Martin in distress. She was fond of Cicely, in spite of that young lady's extravagances of dress and manner, and she divined something gone wrong.

'Nothing is the matter--nothing at all. It is only necessary, sometimes, to shock people,' said Cicely, calming down. She threw her head back against the chair and closed her eyes, while her lips still smiled triumphantly.

'Were you trying to shock Captain Marsworth?'

'It's so easy--it's hardly worth doing,' said Cicely, sleepily. Then after a pause--'Ah, isn't that the motor?'

* * * * *

Meanwhile the little hired motor from Ambleside had dropped the Sarratts on the Easedale road, and carried Bridget away in an opposite direction, to the silent but great relief of the newly-married pair. And soon the husband and wife had passed the last farm in the valley, and were walking up a rough climbing path towards Sour Milk Ghyll, and Easedale Tarn. The stream was full, and its many channels ran white and foaming down the steep rock face, where it makes its chief leap to the valley. The summer weather held, and every tree and fell-side stood bathed in a warm haze, suffused with the declining light. All round, encircling fells in a purple shadow; to the north and east, great slopes appearing--Helvellyn, Grisedale, Fairfield. They walked hand in hand where the path admitted--almost silent--passionately conscious of each other--and of the beauty round them. Sometimes they stopped to gather a flower, or notice a bird; and then there would be a few words, with a meaning only for themselves. And when they reached the tarn,--a magical shadowed mirror of brown and purple water,--they sat for long beside it, while the evening faded, and a breathless quiet came across the hills, stilling all their voices, even, one might have fancied, the voice of the hurrying stream itself. At the back of Nelly's mind there was always the same inexorable counting of the hours; and in his a profound and sometimes remorseful pity for this gentle creature who had given herself to him, together with an immense gratitude.

The stars came out, and a light easterly wind sprang up, sending ripples across the tarn, and stirring last year's leaves among the new grass. It had grown chilly, and Sarratt took Nelly's blue cloak from his arm and wrapped her in it--then in his arms, as she rested against him. Presently he felt her hand drop languidly from his, and he knew that--not the walk, but the rush of those half-spoken thoughts which held them both, had brought exhaustion.

'Darling--we must go home!' He bent over her.

She rose feebly.

'Why am I so tired? It's absurd.'

'Let me carry you a little.'

'You couldn't!' She smiled at him.

But he lifted her with ease--she was so small and slight, while in him a fresh wave of youth and strength had risen, with happiness, and the reaction of convalescence. She made no resistance, and he carried her down some way, through the broad mingled light. Her face was hidden on his breast, and felt the beating of his life. She said to herself more than once that to die so would be bliss. The marvel of love bewildered her. 'What was I like before it?--what shall I be, when he is gone?'

When she made him set her down, she said gaily that she was all right, and